To our atheist friends

Originally posted by FMF
I find whole swathes of the Mosaic Law morally repugnant, including its "well documented" mandates with regard to homosexuality. It is irrelevant that the Israelites - or you, for that matter - believed it to contain 'God's instructions' for humans.

Your opinion about "God [being] reasonable" is noted but, as for me, I personally welcome the lifting of the d

It's happening gradually here in [mostly] Muslim Indonesia, I am happy to report.

You find it morally repugnant but you cannot say why other than, because i think it is.
Islam is a tough cookie to crack and i suspect, like Ireland with its deviant clergy and
clandestine cover ups, it will take many years for the real truth to come to
light until people finally say, enough is enough. I still think it is reasonable for God to
ask persons to remain faithful to their marital partners and to desist from unnatural
practices like homosexuality and bestiality.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
You find it morally repugnant but you cannot say why other than, because i think it is.

I have said so repeatedly. As you well know. But we have had fifteen pages of you saying 'the bible says so' and you attacking your own caricature of what others believe.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Like the Pakistani laws for blasphemy i find that these are often used to settle petty
regional arguments or family conflicts, or as a means of getting vengeance. In the
Mosaic Law, both parties were to be put to death, this is something quite different from
the Islamic practice, which is severely biased against women in both principle and
p ...[text shortened]... reasonable request for God to ask the Israelites to remain faithful to their marital
partners.

But God didn't 'ask'!! We've done this already 4 pages ago. You even stated it was coercion. Do you have a memory?!

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Dear friends, I have often wondered at your attitude towards the morality of the mosaic
law and its moral ordinances. You have cited such terms as barbaric and to be sure,
the penalties for transgression were severe, for example homosexuality, adultery,
bestiality, were capital crimes and carried the punishment of death by stoning.

Howeve ...[text shortened]... ble to ask persons to refrain from adultery,
homosexuality and bestiality? What do you think?

Wow has this post got a lot of responses fast.

Ok, This is going to be my response to the OP without going through several hundred posts of argument first.
I may well go through those arguments and pick out some points I want to comment on, but this is my response
going in to this debate.


Your question has several elements (stated or implied) that I want to tease out and deal with individually.


First, as I have stated before, capital punishment is immoral and unacceptable for any crime, let alone those as
petty (or non-existent) as those you site.

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Second, I will deal with the surface question in it's simplest and most general form.

"Is it unreasonable to ask persons to refrain from adultery, homosexuality and bestiality?"

I want to say that these three things are not the same as each other, and thus require separate answers.

Bestiality is having sex with animals, who can't be reasonably be expected to consent, and thus has to be a form
of rape by definition, and an animal cruelty issue as well.
I don't therefore believe that this can be morally justified, as the person committing the act is taking advantage of
another (albeit less intelligent) being for their own selfish reasons.
As such I have no issue with a society declaring this to be unlawful as well (legality and morality being separate issues)
as immoral, but I would suggest that psychological help is probably more the order of the day than prison.

Adultery, (as I define it, more on this later) is also usually immoral, as it implies a breach of trust and a breaking of promises, which
I have no issue regarding as an immoral act (although I will accept special circumstances when it's amoral and not immoral).
Note: I won't class things like 'swinging' as adultery as they are mutually agreed and consensual acts. If you define adultery to be
any sex or romantic liaison committed by a married person with someone not their partner then I will say that it's sometimes immoral.
However, I won't allow that this should be illegal, people should be [legally] free to have relationships with anyone they like at
any time they like as long as that person is of a reasonable and legal age of consent to engage in that act, and is willing to do so.
Simply being immoral is not a good enough justification for being illegal.

Homosexuality, Is neither immoral or illegal and nor should it be.
As I said before, consenting adults should be free to have relationships of any kind with anyone they like and it's nobody else's
business.

As for whether it's reasonable to 'ask people to refrain from' these activities, that depends on who is trying to do the asking.

Societies make rules (laws) for themselves for the purposes of maintaining and safeguarding that community and some or all of those in it.
The quality of the community and it's legal system can be judged based on who these rules benefit, how effective they are, how equal they are,
and how moral they are.

Societies are entitled to make rules (laws) against such acts, however they may find themselves being classed as immoral for doing so
if they get it wrong. And the people of such a community may find such laws to be to morally egregious and either rebel or leave.
Or if those laws are bad enough some other society might intervene and impose changes externally.

Individuals, may ASK someone not to do these things, but the person being asked may also ignore them and do it anyway.

God/s, if existent, can get stuffed because it's none if his/her/it's/they're business what we do, whether they made us or not.

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Third, A system of laws is to be judged not just by what it deems criminal but what punishments it awards for those crimes,
thus the prevalence of harsh and cruel sentences in mosaic law would render it barbaric even if the sentences were for genuinely immoral
or justifiably criminal acts of the worst nature. The fact that mosaic law dishes these punishments out for the equivalent of a parking ticket
makes it extremely barbaric and abhorrent.

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Fourth, As you have stated what is contained in the bible is mosaic Law and not morality, some of the laws do have a moral element
to them, but they are laws and not moral guides. Laws are about telling people what they are permitted to do, not what it is right or wrong.

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Fifth, It is implicit in your question that you believe that god should be able to make laws and define morals to us.
And that without god we can't define an objective moral standard or judge anyone else's moral system.

I couldn't disagree more.

For all those familiar with the Euthyphro dilemma the problems are obvious, however for any that aren't I will go over them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

"Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?"

I would argue categorically that any reasonable definition of morality (and any I will agree to) would preclude an act from being moral or immoral
simply because someone said it was so, even if that someone was god.
Thus morality MUST be independent of what god says or thinks (hence sin, that which offends god, not being a concept that atheist recognise and
rightly view as being independent from morality. Also totally irrelevant in the face of gods non-existence) and thus can't be defined by god.
This also means that if a god does exist then their actions can be judged against an independent moral system, and objectively rated as good
or bad. God's actions are necessarily not good simply because it's god doing them.

Thus god has no ability to define what is moral and what isn't, and thus has no place or business in telling us what we should consider morally right
or wrong for ourselves.

As for how we can create an objective secular moral system without reference to god I would point you to these videos, ( have done so before so
don't be surprised if you have seen them, however this issue still keeps coming up)

YouTube&feature=channel_video_title

http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/10/matts-superiority-of-secular-morality.html

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Sixth, It is interesting that out of the 600+ commandments of mosaic law you pick only those three.
When atheists (or anyone) criticizes mosaic law as being barbaric they are talking about the whole, which includes a lot more that just these three 'crimes'.
Acts permitted by mosaic law include slavery and genocide, execution by stoning for more crimes than I care to count, and 'punishments' for rape that
in certain circumstances include forcing the rape victim to marry her rapist.

I am not going to list all the abominations of mosaic law here, but if you want to claim that a moral and loving god made those laws and that
they shouldn't be considered barbaric you will have to rationally and morally justify every single one of those laws AND the respective punishments.

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Finally and "What do you think?"....

I think mosaic law is barbaric, immoral, unconscionable, unjustifiable, abominable, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, backwards, totalitarian, tyrannical
claptrap which bears a remarkable semblance to sharia law and can't understand how anyone can be so blind as to not be able to see that.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I still think it is reasonable for God to ask persons to remain faithful to their marital partners and to desist from unnatural practices like homosexuality and bestiality.

I think deception and betrayal can be considered immoral. Adultery has victims. It often does considerable harm. I think sex with animals and children is immoral because there can be no informed consent. Bestiality and paedophilia have victims. It does harm. I don't think adult, consensual homosexuality is immoral. Homosexuality doesn't have any victims and doesn't harm anyone.

As for your superstition about God "asking" people to "ask" people not to do stuff and/or "asking" them to condemn stuff and punish stuff by executing them and so on and so forth - whether you personally declare it "reasonable" or "unreasonable" is only relevant to you and to others who seek to use religionist doctrine to bolster their claims to have some kind of veto over what others do, even when their behaviour cannot objectively be described as deceiving, exploiting, coercing or harming others. Morality does not and cannot boil down to people saying 'my religion's literature says so, so there'.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I believe it has more to do with the act of inserting ones penis into
a place in another man that God did not intend, rather than the
fact that people may have homosexual feelings.

I keep trying to point out that homosexuality is not a choice, it is genetically determined and therefore if your god made us, it also made gays. So it is illogical for someone to say gays can't have gay sex when they know god made gays also. There are 3 year old boys who consistently play with dolls, dress in girl's clothes and continue throughout their lives. Are you going to tell me a 3 year old is capable of sin?

Originally posted by sonhouse
I keep trying to point out that homosexuality is not a choice, it is genetically determined and therefore if your god made us, it also made gays. So it is illogical for someone to say gays can't have gay sex when they know god made gays also. There are 3 year old boys who consistently play with dolls, dress in girl's clothes and continue throughout their lives. Are you going to tell me a 3 year old is capable of sin?

I would agree with this, but...

I don't care if homosexuality is genetically (or otherwise) predetermined or not, people are and should be free to choose
who they have a relationship with, and be free to love whomever they like.

If you do argue that sexuality is predetermined (and sexuality is too complicated to say that definitively at the moment) then
you may well be right, but you will land up in a big debate over whether the science is good enough with people who don't
believe in science. I mean look at the evolution debate...

I would go with making arguments that work irrespective of whether peoples sexuality and or gender is innate, a choice,
or a mixture of both.


Also, sin is a concept that I would just throw out altogether.
Sin is that which displeases god, it is independent of morality, and many things considered a sin are not immoral, plus
who cares what god thinks, particularly given god doesn't exist.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Wow has this post got a lot of responses fast.

Ok, This is going to be my response to the OP without going through several hundred posts of argument first.
I may well go through those arguments and pick out some points I want to comment on, but this is my response
going in to this debate.


Your question has several elements (stated or implied) how anyone can be so blind as to not be able to see that.

I am sorry my attention span does not permit me to take anything in over one or
two paragraphs at a time, i rarely if ever read Jawills texts as a consequence, can
you reiterate it in a concise manner as to why it was unreasonable for God to expect
the Israelites to desist from adultery, homosexuality and bestiality, for your text
makes many points, most of them merely opinion, that you consider homosexuality
not to be immoral is not a reason, its a statement of opinion, attempting to justify in
terms of, its consensual, is not a valid reason at all, otherwise anything that might
be deemed consensual takes on a legitimacy, consent to being murdered (it has
happened you know)

the fact that the three listed are distinct, another irrelevancy, they are all practices
of a sexual nature, would it help you any if i simply lumped them altogether? under
the heading, sexual immorality?

that society can make laws which may be deemed moral or immoral, well , ok so
what? we are not talking of society in general.

again the privacy argument is particularly weak, for it matters not whether
immorality is practised in public nor in private.

yes i understand you consider it barbaric, yet you have failed to state why its
unreasonable other than, because i say it is, the severity of punishment is not the
issue, its whether its reasonable for God to ask the Israelites to comply with these
mandates.

The Mosaic Law as a whole was not under discussion, merely these specific aspect of
sexual immorality, another irrelevancy.

whether God has the right of sovereignty or not is an entirely different issue,
another irrelevancy.

the rest is like wise irrelevant, mostly containing mere opinion and caustic diatribe.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I would agree with this, but...

I don't care if homosexuality is genetically (or otherwise) predetermined or not, people are and should be free to choose
who they have a relationship with, and be free to love whomever they like.

If you do argue that sexuality is predetermined (and sexuality is too complicated to say that definitively at the momen ...[text shortened]... sin are not immoral, plus
who cares what god thinks, particularly given god doesn't exist.

again , you have no reason other than 'i think that it limits our sexual freedom', there
are many laws which limit your freedom, yet you do not object to those, simply
because these laws pertain to a particular morality they then take on a special
significance for you, why is that, what an interesting and strange phenomena.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
ok thanks, its 5:30 am, i am to tired to reply at present,tomorrow, hopefully.

Here we are. I thought you would like to hear the rest of a typical non-theistic (and non-hostile) story; then you and I are done here and you can continue the hostile stuff with the others.

I said:

Why do I think it is reasonable to ask me to refrain from doing something? Because a reasonable way for them to let me know that they do not want me to do it, is to ask me not to do it. Of course they could also just say "I want you to refrain from doing that." That would be reasonable too, telling me what they want.

I don't understand why this is such a big deal. Are you using "ask" to mean something besides "to request"?

And you said you might get back to me.

But a bit later, to FMF, you refer, in the “bomber jacket’ exchange, to whether “the simple request, by God, as written in the Mosiac Law [sic] and practised by the Israelites was in any shape of form, an unreasonable request.”

This has underpinned your position form the start: the idea of giving God's "request" over to the human, tribal leaders to enforce, which they apparently did, when given the chance.

This subverts the notion of God "requesting" anything. God's request became the leaders' command. Perhaps they were dissatisfied with God's lack of follow-up on how faithfully his request was agreed to.

Of course an anthropologist could explain why a tribe that is beset by natural and human enemies could enact laws against anything that would slow down population growth. But in a society in which population growth is a net negative, practices which have the intentional or even unintentional effect of limiting population growth will come to be sanctioned by the leadership, and the population, and eventually, by the gods.

It just so happens that the rise of civilization depended on the enthronement of tribal-based, survivalist morality in religion, at a time when a high procreation rate was important for tribal survival. This seems like a natural phase of cultural evolution. Reasonable, even. 😉

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
again , you have no reason other than 'i think that it limits our sexual freedom', there
are many laws which limit your freedom, yet you do not object to those, simply
because these laws pertain to a particular morality they then take on a special
significance for you, why is that, what an interesting and strange phenomena.

I answered all these questions in my response, if you can't be bothered to take the trivial
amount of time to read it then I am not going to bother repeating them for you.

I have argued many times as to how and why secular objective morality is both possible and
superior to theistic morality, and posted links to lectures explaining the arguments in detail.

These are complex questions, which require complex answers, if you can't be bothered to
read what I write then i have no interest debating you.

However I will happily continue to debate the issue with everyone else.



EDIT: I would also point out that I went to some considerable trouble to make my post clear,
easy to read, broken into small easy to digest chunks, and digestible by anything other than a goldfish.
Coming back and telling me you can't be bothered to read it because it's long (how you can possibly
claim to have read anything of any substance at all if you think that's long...) is bad mannered.

I went to the time and trouble of writing a detailed and thought out reply to your question, and also
to make that reply easy on the eye and easy to read. For you to respond with a simple, 'I can't be bothered'
to read that is insulting and rude.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I answered all these questions in my response, if you can't be bothered to take the trivial
amount of time to read it then I am not going to bother repeating them for you.

I have argued many times as to how and why secular objective morality is both possible and
superior to theistic morality, and posted links to lectures explaining the arguments i ...[text shortened]... erest debating you.

However I will happily continue to debate the issue with everyone else.

i not only took the time to read them, i basically had to filter out the irrelevant details,
for you seem to be to be a man given to many words to express rather simple
concepts the result being a rather pretentious attempt to produce irrelevancies, the
question is and was very simple, is it reasonable for God to ask the Israelites to refrain
from sexual immorality , to which you replied, yes in the case of adultery, yes in the
case of bestiality and no in the case of homosexuality , simply because you think that
its not immoral, that is the gist of what you have said.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
i not only took the time to read them, i basically had to filter out the irrelevant details,
for you seem to be to be a man given to many words to express rather simple
concepts the result being a rather pretentious attempt to produce irrelevancies, the
question is and was very simple, is it reasonable for God to ask the Israelites to refrain ...[text shortened]... ality , simply because you think that
its not immoral, that is the gist of what you have said.

Well you evidently didn't read it because I specifically and clearly said it
was none of god's f***ing business.

So my answer was clearly NO it is not reasonable.

Read it again and this time DON'T filter out what I actually say.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Dear friends, i have often wondered at your attitude towards the morality of the mosaic
law and its moral ordinances. You have cited such terms as barbaric and to be sure,
the penalties for transgression were severe, for example homosexuality, adultery,
bestiality, were capital crimes and carried the punishment of death by stoning.

Howeve ...[text shortened]... ble to ask persons to refrain from adultery,
homosexuality and bestiality? What do you think?

They were one step on the road to civilization. Primitive humans were working out Natural Law and came to the best conclusions they could given the realities of the time. Consider that many Westerners think that Sharia Law might be better than the chaos in Somalia. Harsh law is necessary under harsh conditions of anarchy.

Adultery causes strife in the community which weakens it. The ban on homosexuality and masturbation encourages fertility in the community which was very important back when the Jews were on the brink of extinction. Bestiality is similar. Both sodomy and bestiality can also lead to increased diseases in the community.

We no longer live in that world. We are not as ignorant as people were back then and our lives are often much safer, more stable and full of food and resources the ancient Jews could only dream of. We have medicine and science to better understand these things.

That law is obsolete.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
is it reasonable for God to ask the Israelites to refrain from sexual immorality , to which you replied, yes in the case of adultery, yes in the case of bestiality and no in the case of homosexuality , simply because you think that
its not immoral, that is the gist of what you have said.

robbie, please stop this clumsy attempted sleight of word. googlefudge has never , ever suggested in any shape or form that he believes "God" has communicated with the Israelites. googlefudge did not reply "yes... [...] it [is] reasonable for God to ask the Israelites to refrain from sexual immorality."

I pulled you up for this deceitful nonsense before and you retracted. And here you are at it again.