> (This would be where I start a rant on 'freedom of religion' vs 
> 'freedom of culture' but I won't, this post is already too long).

Thanks for knowing when to stop. I think "tl;dr" about most of Patrick's 
posts; no offense intended...

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> If your God or Gods tells you to slay people, that's what you do. Go 
>> read the Old Testament, where the Jews torched entire cities and 
>> committed genocide at the bequest of JHVH.
> 
>   It also says in another part that God said to someone to chop some wood
> to make a fire. Does this mean that everyone who believes the Bible must
> go and chop wood to make a fire? No, it just means that God said to someone
> to chop some wood for a fire, nothing more, nothing less. Creating a doctrine
> from this would be adding something to the Bible that isn't there, which is
> explicitly prohibited.

I'm not sure whether you're trying to disagree with me or not. My 
statement was that "religion doesn't lead to good, it leads to 
obedience". Your statement seems to be "what you're supposed to obey 
isn't always clear."

If your religion is a justification for your actions, then picking out 
only the parts of your religion that say to do good things is kind of 
silly. If you do that, you've already made up your mind about what's 
good, and you're using religion to justify it, which isn't any better or 
worse than those doing bad and using religion to justify it.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

>> (This would be where I start a rant on 'freedom of religion' vs 
>> 'freedom of culture' but I won't, this post is already too long).
> 
> Thanks for knowing when to stop. 
no no, this is where you should ask to fill in the gap ;)
> I think "tl;dr" 
Had to look that one up. Not a common expression here.
> about most of Patrick's posts; no offense intended...
none taken

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andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Take for instance the 6th commandment: "Thou shalt not 
> murder/kill". That does not leave open anything you would say.

  Putting aside the morality of death penalty for a moment, in the
states of the US where there is death penalty killing people is still
against the law. Is this a contradiction? No. In the penal system of
these states it's not a contradiction. It's perfectly valid to write
a law saying that killing is illegal, yet still have death penalty.

  Let's approach it from yet another angle: Another commandment says
that you must respect your parents. Yet if your father commits a horrible
crime should you respect him or should you report it to the authorities?
Even though the answer is the latter, that doesn't make the commandment
any less relevant.

  You can have your opinion on whether death penalty is acceptable,
but that doesn't mean that the penal system described in the old testament
would not be understandable. Killing can be unlawful even if there exists
death penalty.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> I think "tl;dr" about most of Patrick's posts; no offense intended...
> none taken

I meant no offense to Patrick...

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Warp wrote:
> andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> Take for instance the 6th commandment: "Thou shalt not 
>> murder/kill". That does not leave open anything you would say.
> 
>   Putting aside the morality of death penalty for a moment, in the
> states of the US where there is death penalty killing people is still
> against the law. Is this a contradiction? No. In the penal system of
> these states it's not a contradiction. It's perfectly valid to write
> a law saying that killing is illegal, yet still have death penalty.
> 
>   Let's approach it from yet another angle: Another commandment says
> that you must respect your parents. Yet if your father commits a horrible
> crime should you respect him or should you report it to the authorities?
> Even though the answer is the latter, that doesn't make the commandment
> any less relevant.
> 
>   You can have your opinion on whether death penalty is acceptable,
> but that doesn't mean that the penal system described in the old testament
> would not be understandable. Killing can be unlawful even if there exists
> death penalty.
> 
Is there anything in my post that suggests that I disagree with that?

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Warp wrote:
>   Let's approach it from yet another angle: Another commandment says
> that you must respect your parents. Yet if your father commits a horrible
> crime should you respect him or should you report it to the authorities?
> Even though the answer is the latter, that doesn't make the commandment
> any less relevant.

You're presuming that the answer is the latter, tho. How does one know? 
Is it because one's religion told you so? Or is it because one has been 
taught it's really the right thing, and then one adds non-existent 
exceptions to the rule to adjust the religion to match the existent 
morality?

If the latter, it's nonsensical to say that religious people are more 
moral or kinder or whatever than areligious people.

If you're going to take something as clear as most of the comandments 
are, and add interpretations and exceptions, then the religion stops 
having anything to do with it.

Just like if you're going to make excuses for God punishing the serpent 
and start up with things like "the serpent was really Satan"[*] then 
again the actual Bible has stopped having anything to do with the religion.


[*] That whole tree-of-knowledge bit was really one giant cock-up, 
showing just how evil JHVH really is, when you get down to it. 
Obedience, even if it means agreeing with the boss' lies, and eternal 
punishment on you and every one of your species for disobedience even 
when you didn't know better and the boss knows you didn't know better 
because he kept that from you. North Korea would be proud.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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> 
> Just like if you're going to make excuses for God punishing the serpent 
> and start up with things like "the serpent was really Satan"[*] then 
> again the actual Bible has stopped having anything to do with the religion.
> 
> 
> [*] That whole tree-of-knowledge bit was really one giant cock-up, 
> showing just how evil JHVH really is, when you get down to it. 
> Obedience, even if it means agreeing with the boss' lies, and eternal 
> punishment on you and every one of your species for disobedience even 
> when you didn't know better and the boss knows you didn't know better 
> because he kept that from you. North Korea would be proud.
> 
I think the key passage is 3.14 It is just a fable why the snake lost 
its legs.












;)

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If the latter, it's nonsensical to say that religious people are more 
> moral or kinder or whatever than areligious people.

  That depends on the definition of morality. Who says your definition is
better than someone else's?

> If you're going to take something as clear as most of the comandments 
> are, and add interpretations and exceptions, then the religion stops 
> having anything to do with it.

  In your opinion religion cannot have generic rules with exceptions,
in the exact same way as for example constitutions and penal laws have?
Religion can only have absolutes?

> Just like if you're going to make excuses for God punishing the serpent 

  Excuses? I don't understand. Someone made something evil and he was
punished. Why does that need some excuse?

> [*] That whole tree-of-knowledge bit was really one giant cock-up, 
> showing just how evil JHVH really is

  Just because you don't understand what it means doesn't necessarily
mean that it's not logical or fair in the original context. The text
is not even intended to be a scientifically accurate description of
anything.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel wrote:
> I think the key passage is 3.14 It is just a fable why the snake lost 
> its legs.

A fable about how evil JHVH is. My point exactly. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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