A nonbeliever's SECOND reading of the Bible

A nonbeliever's SECOND reading of the Bible
Hunc tu caveto.
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Thursday, April 01, 2010



Here are some more rules as laid out in Deuteronomy, Chapter 22.  Notice how they get more morbid as they progress.

  1. Look out for your brother's animals and keep them harm.
  2. Transvestites are an abomination.
  3. If you come across a birds nest, you can take the eggs and the chicks, but not the mother.
  4. When you build a house, make sure the roof is strong.
  5. Don't wear garments of mixed fabrics (i.e. cotton and linen).
  6. Don't plow with an ox and a donkey together.
  7. You should put fringes on your clothes.
  8. If your wife isn't a virgin on her wedding day, take her to her father's doorstep and kill her.
  9. Adulterers should be executed.
  10. If a woman is raped in the city, and doesn't cry for help loud enough, she should be executed.
I wonder, what events happened in order for the author to even come up with these rules?  Whoever it was, he had to be really uptight, and a little eccentric.  Kill women who don't scream loud enough, don't plow with an ox and a donkey together, but do wear fringes on your outfit!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Andrew, you have done a nice job of summarizing these laws. The problem is, it is difficult to know why those laws exist, since we do not live in their culture. On some of these laws, the best we can do is guess. I will offer my opinion after your summary.

1. Look out for your brother's animals and keep them harm.

This law makes common sense from a humanitarian and financial basis.

2. Transvestites are an abomination.

This law makes no sense in our society. Perhaps in their harsh environment, they could not survive if they had too many girly men. Men were much more essential for a society, to do the heavy farm work and to serve as soldiers.

3. If you come across a birds nest, you can take the eggs and the chicks, but not the mother.

If they were concerned about conservation of their wildlife and natural resources, this law is completely rational. A mother bird can produce more eggs. If you kill her, you are destroying a natural resource.

4. When you build a house, make sure the roof is strong.

No comment necessary.

5. Don't wear garments of mixed fabrics (i.e. cotton and linen).

Today this rule doesn’t make sense. Since we don't know why they had this law, why guess?

6. Don't plow with an ox and a donkey together.

Although I have never plowed with animals in a yoke, I believe that this was a humanitarian law. Because of the physical differences between a donkey and an ox, when they were both in a yoke, the animals would probably suffer.

7. You should put fringes on your clothes.

I don't know the cultural context which led to this rule.

8. If your wife isn't a virgin on her wedding day, take her to her father's doorstep and kill her.
Adulterers should be executed.

Sadly, this rule makes perfect sense from the standpoint of evolution. When a woman commits adultery, she has killed her husbands chance to reproduce. In evolution, that has the same effect as murder. In the ancient world, a man sought immortality through his children. By killing her husband's chances to reproduce, the adultery by a wife was equivalent to murder.

9. If a woman is raped in the city, and doesn't cry for help loud enough, she should be executed.

On this one, I don't have to guess. A Jewish man explained it to me. This law was meant to distinguish rape from adultery. Because of the tight quarters in the cities, a woman's cry would be heard by someone. If a woman was caught having sex, and if she had not cried out, they assumed that the sex was consensual.

As brutal as the laws against adultery were, they were probably more effective, to preserve their society for the long haul, than our modern promiscuity. The law, survival of the fittest, has not been repealed. Any society which ignores this law of evolution will itself fall into extinction. The welfare state is a temporary aberration which will soon die. Its replacement, Islam, is already actively absorbing the rotten corps.

Yes, Islam still stones women who are caught in adultery. I'm not advocating either, stoning women, or Islam, I'm simply stating a fact. Islam is more fit than the Western, post Christian, welfare state.

Dennis

Anonymous said...

To the above poster, actually seeing as women are also human beings and deserving of the same rights as any other human being, no actually these laws make no sense and NEVER have. Unlike other species, we have very big brains and the same rules that apply to other monkeys do not apply to us.
There were actually primitive societies that understood this (before the introduction to Christianity). These societies views men and women as closer to equals, and view the children of the community as being the responsibility of everyone. The selfishness of one man is not put above the welfare of the community. Adultery did not exist in these societies because adults did not control each other's sexual lives.

And as soon as we find another source for our energy needs, unfortunately much of the Islamic world will find itself in even more of a terrible state of poverty then is currently being experienced. Progressive values are the future of the human race. The hateful, war-like state of our past will only destroy us.

Anonymous said...

Previous Poster said:
"To the above poster, actually seeing as women are also human beings and deserving of the same rights as any other human being, no actually these laws make no sense and NEVER have..."

If you want to disprove my argument, you have to support your answer with the theory of evolution. You have not done that. Do you understand the theory of evolution? The law, survival of the fittest is not optional. It doesn't care one whit about your "rights" or "what people "deserve." Your beliefs are powerless to suspend natural selection.

In natural selection, the only thing that matters is whether a man has progeny and how many survive to reproduce. If a man supports a wife, and if she commits adultery and bears another man's children instead of his, she has killed his chances to reproduce, just as verily as if she had murdered him.

Previous poster said:
"There were actually primitive societies that understood this (before the introduction to Christianity). These societies views men and women as closer to equals, and view the children of the community as being the responsibility of everyone. The selfishness of one man is not put above the welfare of the community. Adultery did not exist in these societies because adults did not control each other's sexual lives."

I'm curious, which society are you talking about? Please don't quote Margaret Mead, since her "research" is based on a fraud.

In reference to the Muslims, the previous poster said:
"And as soon as we find another source for our energy needs, unfortunately much of the Islamic world will find itself in even more of a terrible state of poverty then is currently being experienced. Progressive values are the future of the human race. The hateful, war-like state of our past will only destroy us."

You obviously don't understand Islam. Whether the Muslim countries are rich or poor is irrelevant. Pakistan already has the atom bomb, and soon Iran will join the nuclear club. Nuclear bombs work just as well for poor countries as they do for wealthy countries. All a Muslim group has to do is to threaten to use those bombs against civilian populations and the progressive liberals will be eager to embrace Islam. Although I'm not sure of the reference, I read a while back that there is already a fatwa which justifies the murder of 60 million Americans if that is what it takes to transform the US into an Islamic society.

The previous poster said:
"The hateful, war-like state of our past will only destroy us."

The reason people are "hateful" and "warlike" is because natural selection rewards successful, hateful, and warlike men with the opportunity to reproduce at the expense of their victims. This has not changed. Unless you can defend your "progressive values" scientifically, they aren't worth much.

Dennis