John VanSickle <evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
> He gave them in order to accomplish a number of purposes which He 
> regards as good and just.  However, now that those purposes have been 
> served, the commandments are no longer good and just; therefore they are 
> no longer in effect.

"They are no longer in effect" if you pick&choose verses as you like,
and ignore others that indicate that they are very much still in effect.
Of course other branches of Christianity pick&choose in a different
manner and think that they *are* still in effect (but come up with
excuses as to why they cannot be enacted.) And I'm not making this up
because I know of such denominations.

Anyway, from that, and from this:

> I am glad that the commandments were not given to me, but whether 
> something is right or wrong does not depend on how I feel about it.

it's relatively clear that you do not think that many of those
commandments are good and moral because they clash with your own
concept of morality.

>  > The very fact that you would never
>  > stone someone to death in any circumstance (much less for such a
>  > "heinous" crime as breaking the sabbath or being rude to your parents)
>  > shows that you do not think it's just punishment. If you are honest
>  > to yourself, you will agree with this.

> "Any circumstance"?  Sir, you do not know me.  There are some crimes for 
> which I regard stoning as too merciful a punishment.

You would honestly kill someone by stoning? You will have to excuse me
but I don't believe you. You don't sound like the kind of person that
would ever do that, no matter what that someone did.

>  But in this era 
> God has reserved those things for the secular authorities.

I suppose you could find a really contrived interpretation of some
passages to support that. Or perhaps not.

>  > In other words, you disagree with your God.

> I certainly do disagree with God (and as a result have wronged Him on 
> numerous occasions).  There are a number of commandments, which apply to 
> me, that I would have left out if I had written the Bible, and it is 
> only with careful consideration that I recognize that they really are 
> better than what I would have come up with on my own.  And thus I 
> recognize that my disagreement with God is proof of a flaw in me and not 
> in God.

No. You disagree with your god because you are more moral than your god.
You *know* that many of those commandments are immoral, inhumane and
unjust. You are glad that you don't have to enact them or see them
enacted, and you come up with some rationalizations as to why they
do not apply today, but were somehow good in the past. You try to
convince yourself that "surely God had a good reason for these, even
if I don't understand them."

If you were completely honest to yourself, you would admit this.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 2014-01-06 23:26, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> I posted that site because its the one I could remember how to find an
> article on. Its not the **only** place I have read the same things from.
> And.. you are seriously suggesting that only a certain "sort" of women
> post there, or in the comment threads, and that somehow their experience
> is therefore atypical of what goes on? Based on what exactly?

Well, it's a site that caters specifically to people that are skeptics, 
and shows preference for female-identifying individuals.  That, I'm 
afraid, is in fact a certain 'sort', not representative of the overall 
population.

Others likely post there, but /the most common/ (as entirely distinct 
from 'only', but with the net effect of carrying more weight) are by 
those for whom the site is built.  Their experience may or may not be 
atypical of what goes on, but it *is* a subset, and therefore has the 
*ability* to be skewed relative to the global set.

--
T. Cook

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On 1/8/2014 8:33 PM, Tim Cook wrote:
> On 2014-01-06 23:26, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> I posted that site because its the one I could remember how to find an
>> article on. Its not the **only** place I have read the same things from.
>> And.. you are seriously suggesting that only a certain "sort" of women
>> post there, or in the comment threads, and that somehow their experience
>> is therefore atypical of what goes on? Based on what exactly?
>
> Well, it's a site that caters specifically to people that are skeptics,
> and shows preference for female-identifying individuals.  That, I'm
> afraid, is in fact a certain 'sort', not representative of the overall
> population.
>
Well... The problems I have with that as an argument for questioning 
their views on the subject is.. 1) While it does certainly cater to 
such, not everyone on it started out as a skeptic, or had their 
experiences "while" skeptics, 2) Skeptics would, one would think, be 
better people to ask about biases based on the sort of false positives 
and presumptions of causality that, frankly, even people doing studies 
fall into (which is one major reason why you want replication of 
results, not jumping on a study, or even more than one, from the same 
environment), as a basis of reaching a conclusion, 3) it presumes, 
without good reason, that their experience in this matter "is" different 
somehow, and finally, not everyone that posts there "are" women.

Well, that and, one of the major points I am trying to get across is 
that the "male centric" view that sits over top of our culture already 
biases *everything*, including, historically, the interpretations of 
data, and/or even the collection of it, in such studies. That view as 
what kept bird experts from even seeing the evidence that most birds are 
non-monogamous, instead of just asserting they where. Its the same bias 
that caused Masters and Johnson so many headaches when the real data 
about human sexuality kept failing to match their expectations of what 
constituted "normal". Its the same bias that has called into question, 
recently, conclusions about behavior, especially involving sex, 
relationships, and even violence, among primitive tribes. Its a bias 
that is so pervasive that the *automatic* reaction of nearly everyone, 
male and female, when an assault happens, is to either joke about what 
"she" might have done, or question it, but not what the guy did. There 
is a built in bias, where you are almost not even taken seriously at 
all, if you report something, regardless of whether you are, presumably, 
some sort of science geek, which seems to be the assumption about people 
on that network, or the stereotypical blond bimbo. In fact, they might 
even take the later "less" seriously, because they are all body, and not 
so much brains, and the "script" says that such woman are easier, less 
likely to say no, and thus, more likely to be lying, just out of spite.

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On 1/7/2014 11:29 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
> He gave them in order to accomplish a number of purposes which He
> regards as good and just.  However, now that those purposes have been
> served, the commandments are no longer good and just; therefore they are
> no longer in effect.
>
No, people created them, for specific purposes, most of which involved 
trying to control other people. The irony being, they never seemed to 
grasp that, sometimes, trying to forbid something stupid, created an 
even worse evil as a consequence. There is a comment in one of the Disc 
world novels, to the effect, "Its too bad that gods only ever seem to 
come across shepherds, instead of goat herders, because sheep have to be 
driven, while goats can only be *led*."

>  > And if you are completely honest (as you should be, if you
>  > are a Christian), then you would agree that you do *not* think those
>  > commandments are good and just.
>
> I am glad that the commandments were not given to me, but whether
> something is right or wrong does not depend on how I feel about it.
>
It has everything to do with how you feel about it. Heck, if I was going 
to rewrite one of the silly "the devils greatest trick" statements, it 
would be either, "The devils greatest trick was convincing man that he 
wasn't also god.", or maybe, "The devils greatest trick was teaching man 
to believe in sin." Good is what causes the least pain, to the most 
people, or, preferably, any. But, its also a dream. A thing to be 
striven towards, to be believed in, and when necessary, revised, not 
because its *real* but because its what makes all of us feel better, in 
the long run, and you can't create a thing that doesn't exist, until you 
believe in it enough to try to make it real. The mistake religion makes 
is in not just claiming that it is real, but that they know what it is, 
refusing to abandon it, until forced (and there has never been a time 
that the church has not changed "because" the world did, instead of 
changing the world, where the outcome has not been terror and pain, for 
someone). Or, as someone else put it, religion claims to know the 
unknowable.

If you didn't "feel" that the things you believe where good, or had 
value, or could achieve something worth the effort, you wouldn't believe 
in what you do, any more than the list of things that, as Warp points 
out, other similar people have opted to believe in, but you now reject. 
That both you and them hold on to things that... I, and others, find 
absurd, irrational, and/or even dangerous, and are horrified that people 
still believe them... well, we are trying to build a better world. You.. 
are trying to crib together a dead one, so you can justify keeping the 
carpets.

> "Any circumstance"?  Sir, you do not know me.  There are some crimes for
> which I regard stoning as too merciful a punishment.  But in this era
> God has reserved those things for the secular authorities.
>
>  > In other words, you disagree with your God.
>
> I certainly do disagree with God (and as a result have wronged Him on
> numerous occasions).  There are a number of commandments, which apply to
> me, that I would have left out if I had written the Bible, and it is
> only with careful consideration that I recognize that they really are
> better than what I would have come up with on my own.  And thus I
> recognize that my disagreement with God is proof of a flaw in me and not
> in God.
>
Not to mention a whole lot that, I somehow predict, you "think" can be 
somehow justified by the Bible, or are in there, if you quint just 
right, or should be, yet, somehow never quite got written into it, in 
nice clear, hard to confuse of misinterpret, language. You, I suspect, 
would find the silly, "A fetus is a bit like a wad of chewing gum, so 
the god of the Koran told us about embryology!", nonsense, as, well... 
nonsense, yet, there is so much that is claimed, by Christians, who 
reject all the old, "no longer applicable" bits of the Bible, which are 
just as absurdly justified, by stretching the language of what is in the 
Bible so badly you can read whole libraries through it (i.e., nothing of 
the original meaning being retained in the process).

This doesn't impress people who look at the way people actually lived 
when it was written, the conflicts they had with their neighbors, the 
way religions actually worked back then, or note funny little 
absurdities, like how Jehovah was, at one time, one of three brothers, 
under the God El, and a war monger (The other two where Chemosh and 
Baal, one a god of farming, and the other one of commerce, and slave 
trading. Did Jehovah, later one, decide to bang his own sword into a 
hammer, and take up carpentry? lol), and the Jewish version fairly 
explicitly hinted at there being more than one god.

You don't get around those annoying little inconsistencies with the 
"core" idea behind a religion, any more than you can ignore 20 lines out 
of a passage listing everything from what sort of socks you should wear, 
to how many stone to throw at your son, if he calls you names, just so 
you can, for example, do what the right wing self-claimed "literalists" 
do, and insist that gays are evil, because of one single line in the 
same bunch of idiocies. (And, yeah, I know there is nothing about socks 
in the Bible, but.. are some of the other things in that passage any 
less silly?)

Your god is a variation on Terry Pratchett's Nuggan - an endless list of 
new things declared abominations, by one priest or the other, until, at 
some point, even children, rocks, and the color blue, get declared, 
"Evil in the sight of god." But, at least Nuggan filled in the pages of 
absurd declarations himself (until he died, and it kept filling itself 
with, instead, all the fears and anxieties of people that he once godded 
over), a page at a time, magically, instead of relying on something as 
unreliable as people to decide which new things to claim are bad, which 
ones suddenly became OK, and to tell everyone, "But, this isn't just my 
*opinion*. Its not like I say these things are true because I merely 
feel they are!", just like the other 20,000 contradictory versions, all 
of them disagreeing with each other, on almost every single thing that 
is, or isn't, bad, or is or isn't still in effect, or is, or isn't 
merely allegorical.

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On 2014-01-08 23:10, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Well... The problems I have with that as an argument for questioning
> their views on the subject is..

Hmm.  I'm not sure I'm questioning the views on the subject as outlining 
that the views presented in that context aren't necessarily a pure 
random sampling that can be extrapolated to the whole population.  There 
are, without a doubt, a large number (far larger than there should be) 
of females whose experiences are as bad as presented.  However, I posit 
that the whole point of the site is to bring attention to those things 
/happening/ vs. all the times where it doesn't happen, so there's 
notable skew in that direction.

> Well, that and, one of the major points I am trying to get across is
> that the "male centric" view that sits over top of our culture already
> biases *everything*, including, historically, the interpretations of
> data, and/or even the collection of it, in such studies.

How much, I wonder, of Patriarchy is actively constructed by females? 
Not just as a 'if you're not fighting to destroy it, you're supporting 
it' thing, but directly working towards reinforcing its features?  Women 
aren't just a passive element that are only there to be victims of The 
System; much as some like to insist that women have no real agency 
because their voices aren't heard, throughout history there is a *major* 
impact from their actions, and they are just as complicit in 'how things 
are' as men.  Is it so important to have your name in headlines or the 
history books?

> Its a bias that is so pervasive that the *automatic* reaction of nearly everyone,
> male and female, when an assault happens, is to either joke about what
> "she" might have done, or question it, but not what the guy did.

That's the big point that Patriarchy is harmful to men, too; the reason 
it's not questioned what the guy did is because it's taken for granted 
in modern, Western society that males only think about sex and are 
mindless monsters that have no rationality (while women are able to 
magically control how men behave simply by what they wear and how they 
present themselves).  Such a mindset is harmful to /everyone/, really.

--
T. Cook

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Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> That's the big point that Patriarchy is harmful to men, too; the reason
> it's not questioned what the guy did is because it's taken for granted
> in modern, Western society that males only think about sex and are
> mindless monsters that have no rationality (while women are able to
> magically control how men behave simply by what they wear and how they
> present themselves).  Such a mindset is harmful to /everyone/, really.
>


<Rantwarning!>

It is that mindset that really offends me. Whenever I see someone wearing a
burka or even a niqab. I feel offended at the implied insult. Chadors and below
don't provoke this reaction in me and the shayla is quite attractive. No! It can
be very attractive.

Phew! I am glad to get that off my chest.

My wife's view is that they should be banned on safety grounds. Moving around
outside, crossing busy streets... should not be done with impaired vision. And
that comes from someone who is partially sighted.

</Rant>

You can read on. ;-)

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On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 13:14:59 +0200, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

> John VanSickle <evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
>> He gave them in order to accomplish a number of purposes which He
>> regards as good and just.  However, now that those purposes have been
>> served, the commandments are no longer good and just; therefore they are
>> no longer in effect.
>
> "They are no longer in effect" if you pick&choose verses as you like,
> and ignore others that indicate that they are very much still in effect.
> Of course other branches of Christianity pick&choose in a different
> manner and think that they *are* still in effect (but come up with
> excuses as to why they cannot be enacted.) And I'm not making this up
> because I know of such denominations.
>
If a denomination contradicts the Bible, then they are wrong.
In the Old Testament it was foretold that there would come a time that God  
would write his laws in their minds. This came into fulfillment when they  
were filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you read the Bible you will notice that Jesus never stoned anyone - no  
Christian stoned anyone and no Christian told anyone to stone anyone. In  
fact the opposite happened - Christians were stoned because of their  
belief. Today Christians are jailed and tortured for their belief in  
Muslim countries and China.

> Anyway, from that, and from this:
>
>> I am glad that the commandments were not given to me, but whether
>> something is right or wrong does not depend on how I feel about it.
>
> it's relatively clear that you do not think that many of those
> commandments are good and moral because they clash with your own
> concept of morality.

You are confusing punishment with morality. Sin deserves punishment - if  
you disagree, then you are condoning sin.

God had His plan from the beginning - He didn't simply change His mind  
about what is right or wrong. If you read the law you should realize that  
it is not about stoning, but about knowledge of good and evil and the  
punishment of sin.

God knew that it would be too difficult for us mere humans to bear which  
is why He sent His Son to die in our place so that those who accept His  
sacrifice will not have to suffer Hell.




-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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Nekar Xenos <nek### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> If a denomination contradicts the Bible, then they are wrong.

And that's what all denominations say about other denominations that
disagree with them. And the vast majority can out-argue you with
Bible passages all day long.

> In the Old Testament it was foretold that there would come a time that God  
> would write his laws in their minds. This came into fulfillment when they  
> were filled with the Holy Spirit.

That has zero to do whether the commandments given by God are still
in effect or not.

(Besides, the passage of Jeremiah you are referring to talks about the
people of Israel, not the gentiles. But of course you can interpret that
as liberally as you want, like all Christian denominations do with most
passages to suit their needs.)

> If you read the Bible you will notice that Jesus never stoned anyone - no  
> Christian stoned anyone and no Christian told anyone to stone anyone.

Neither did he say that the law was forfeit or ended. On the contrary,
he says: "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the
least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law."

> In fact the opposite happened - Christians were stoned because of their  
> belief. Today Christians are jailed and tortured for their belief in  
> Muslim countries and China.

And Christians have jailed and tortured others (and even themselves)
for their beliefs during the entirety of history. And in fact, in some
places are still doing it (given how witches and homosexuals are being
killed by Christians in many parts of the world, especially Africa.)

(I wait for your "no true scotsman" fallacy...)

> You are confusing punishment with morality.

No, I'm not. Morality has a lot to say about crime punishment. For
instance, the severity of the punishment should be correlated to the
severity of the crime, and no criminal should be treated or punished
in an inhumane manner.

Death penalty by stoning is a barbaric and inhumane punishment regardless
of the crime. It's egregiously inhumane for such "crimes" as working
on the sabbath or not respecting your parents.

The fact that he is (and probably you are) glad that we do not enact
such punishment anymore is clear indication that he *knows* how inhumane
and disproportionate, and therefore how immoral, the punishment is.

> God had His plan from the beginning - He didn't simply change His mind  
> about what is right or wrong. If you read the law you should realize that  
> it is not about stoning, but about knowledge of good and evil and the  
> punishment of sin.

The penalty is still there, no matter how you try to twist its message.

> God knew that it would be too difficult for us mere humans to bear which  
> is why He sent His Son to die in our place so that those who accept His  
> sacrifice will not have to suffer Hell.

That doesn't make any kind of sense. Even if it did make any sense, it's
still bollocks. God did not sacrifice anything according to your theology.
Sacrificing is voluntarily losing something. So what exactly did God lose?
Nothing, that's what.

This isn't even going into the question of what kind of sick god would
create a hell where he sends his own creation to suffer indescribable
torment for all eternity because they didn't love him the right way,
while he just watches by, doing nothing.

Do you know what it's called when someone can watch someone else's suffering
and do nothing about it, even though it's fully in their power to end it?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 10/01/2014 8:23 PM, Warp wrote:
> (I wait for your "no true scotsman" fallacy...)

Well, he wasn't a true Scotsman. ;-)

BTW IMHO There is no point, Warp. When you see that level of "faith". 
The only thing you can do is /make your excuses and leave/.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 10/01/2014 19:45, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 13:14:59 +0200, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>
>> John VanSickle <evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
>>> He gave them in order to accomplish a number of purposes which He
>>> regards as good and just.  However, now that those purposes have been
>>> served, the commandments are no longer good and just; therefore they are
>>> no longer in effect.
>>
>> "They are no longer in effect" if you pick&choose verses as you like,
>> and ignore others that indicate that they are very much still in effect.
>> Of course other branches of Christianity pick&choose in a different
>> manner and think that they *are* still in effect (but come up with
>> excuses as to why they cannot be enacted.) And I'm not making this up
>> because I know of such denominations.
>>
> If a denomination contradicts the Bible, then they are wrong.
> In the Old Testament it was foretold that there would come a time that
> God would write his laws in their minds. This came into fulfillment when
> they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
>
> If you read the Bible you will notice that Jesus never stoned anyone -
> no Christian stoned anyone and no Christian told anyone to stone anyone.
> In fact the opposite happened - Christians were stoned because of their
> belief. Today Christians are jailed and tortured for their belief in
> Muslim countries and China.
>
>> Anyway, from that, and from this:
>>
>>> I am glad that the commandments were not given to me, but whether
>>> something is right or wrong does not depend on how I feel about it.
>>
>> it's relatively clear that you do not think that many of those
>> commandments are good and moral because they clash with your own
>> concept of morality.
>
> You are confusing punishment with morality. Sin deserves punishment - if
> you disagree, then you are condoning sin.
>
> God had His plan from the beginning - He didn't simply change His mind
> about what is right or wrong. If you read the law you should realize
> that it is not about stoning, but about knowledge of good and evil and
> the punishment of sin.
>
> God knew that it would be too difficult for us mere humans to bear which
> is why He sent His Son to die in our place so that those who accept His
> sacrifice will not have to suffer Hell.
>

I think I have already mentioned 'begging the question'

John <shaking his head in exasperation at a particularly obtuse student>

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