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No it is a copout to NOT examine ALL the verses in the Bible regarding slavery as well as overlap modern societal standards onto an ancient culture that we don't know everything about. God dictated laws to accomplish a specific goal and accomplish the greater good. I suppose you think it would be more moral to spare the lives of evil men and let them rape and destroy His chosen people or the earth itself. If you created something like a robot, and it went amok murdering your family, would you just sit back and watch or destroy it? There is a drastic difference between God the creator taking a life vs man taking a life.
God did not take life in this case, Moses and the Israelites did. If God simply struck people down, you might have a case, but if genocide, infanticide, rape, slavery, and polygamy were acceptable and in some cases commanded by God, then you cannot say that these things are objectively wrong. they are only wrong in a certain context, or in a certian time, or for certain people, making your morality situational and relative.
Let's assume that the Midianites were about to slaughter the Israelites, and enslave their daughters as sex slaves (which is not supported in Scripture, but let's assume...) making them evil people who deserve God's wrath. Why in the world is God's solution to make his people into the very monsters He was ostensibly punishing the Midanites for being? If God's morality were objective, he should have punished the Israelites for obeying him!
In reality (and I use that word loosely when speaking about the Bible), the Midianites were being punished because their sexy, sexy women lured Israelite men into disobeying God. God had given the Midanites no commandments, no laws for them to break. They were slaughtered becasue Israelite men could not control their own desire and keep it in their pants. And what did the Israelites get for their disobedience? Lots of virgins to rape! It doesn't make any sense that this is moral! How can you defend this? What objective principle can you appeal to to defend this?
I would have more sympathy for your position if God did the punishing himself, although even that spells doom for objective morality, because for it to be objective, God must be constrained by it as well as man...
I used to give regularly to the. Salvation Army before I discovered they wouldn't feed or clothe hungry/homeless people until those suffering individuals sat through a sermon. In other words, they had to take an ACTION to get a blessing.
If I'm going to do good, I'm going to be good for nothing--like that Jesus fella. No strings attached.
there IS NO FREE LUNCH.
Don't want the sermon.................don't take the food.
Actually there are more gay evangelical churches than you might think. And more that are at least accepting of the GLBT community.
You might try reading some of Mel White's writings. He was the ghost writer for Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and a host of other fundamentalist religious leaders. Raised in an evangelical home, knowing he was gay and fighting it for half his life time, he was in the closet when those leaders called him "friend," and had him write mostly biographies. He came out in the late 80's or early 90's. He led The Cathedral of Hope, in Dallas, Texas, at that time the largest gay friendly church in America.
A real good book of his is entitled, "Lies the Religious Right Tell Us."
I don't deny that some evangelicals have become markedly less intolerant of LGBTs or that some evangelicals who quit fighting their sexuality want to continue to cling to evangelicalism. It's just that to me life is hard enough being straight, much less gay, and if I found that I was gay, I would not exacerbate the attendant life challenges by embracing evangelical concepts too. But of course ... that's a path one can take if they wish to.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Quote:
Originally Posted by justtitans
It's no different than assuming we as people rule ourselves. Both have nothing factual to back it. They are both dependent on faith. The point is, neither point of view proves anything.
What? "than assuming we as people rule ourselves."
I used to give regularly to the. Salvation Army before I discovered they wouldn't feed or clothe hungry/homeless people until those suffering individuals sat through a sermon. In other words, they had to take an ACTION to get a blessing.
If I'm going to do good, I'm going to be good for nothing--like that Jesus fella. No strings attached.
In my community the S.A. church runs one of the local food pantries and does not attach strings. In this town I doubt they would be allowed to get away with that. The problem is likely that there's not (or was not) a specific policy against proselytization being tied to charity, at the S.A. national level.
I would just not donate to them on general principle that they put religion into the mix and that always makes it toxic IMO, or at least has the potential to muddy the waters. If you want to preach and advance a doctrine, start a church. If you want to do good works, keep them separate or even start a separate organization for that.
Don't want the sermon.................don't take the food.
Simple !
In a sense, I suppose that if proselytization is the price of the food, a person can choose not to "buy". But the problem is that food is a necessity and so the pressure is great for people to debase themselves in order to survive, particularly in those situations where there are no other practical options.
Besides, helping / having compassion on the poor and disadvantaged is supposed to be genuine, not contrived or conditional or forced. Why would a church, rationally, want to disrespect people in that way and select inherently for recruits who go along with the teaching for less than genuine reasons?
It would be far, far better to just give them the food and the love and acceptance, set an example, and let them come to you to ask questions. If your morality and lifestyle and beliefs are so wonderful, they will sell themselves without the need for arm twisting.
Oh an by the way, there IS such a thing as a free lunch, if you're willing and generous enough to provide it, and respectful enough not to assume that everyone will just take advantage of you because of how evil they inherently are.
I used to give regularly to the. Salvation Army before I discovered they wouldn't feed or clothe hungry/homeless people until those suffering individuals sat through a sermon. In other words, they had to take an ACTION to get a blessing.
If I'm going to do good, I'm going to be good for nothing--like that Jesus fella. No strings attached.
I know a lot of people who share your feelings, but I've witnessed their disaster response teams respond quickly and without a sermon. They're often first on-scene in the L.A. area during brush fires and after earthquakes and they pass out food, clothing and housing vouchers. They're worker bees who are tremendously well organized in the So Cal area. They also do a great job of working with the media to keep people informed about where they've set up. Which helps people know where to go for immediate help. I'm not a fan of everything they do and say.... but I gladly pop something into their kettles whenever I see one.
Last edited by DewDropInn; 03-30-2015 at 12:28 PM..
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