[ SECRET POST #2650 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2650 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #379.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[insanenoodlyguy]

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

I'm not sure what is edgy about saying that murder, rape, and extreme homophobia are bad things and that a book that promotes them is bad.

I don't even have a problem with Judaism&any branches of Christianity that favour the Old Testament over the New. But I think it's hypocritical to say that you know and accept the Old Testament only to assert that your religion is peaceful. It may well be peaceful, but it sure as hell not due to the things written in your holy book.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

I know the context. I read this book a couple of times and I'm aware that parts of it are statements of historical facts rather than ideological statements.

But there are pars of it that DO promote murder and rape, and I personally am not okay with these parts. Period.

Discussion as to what? Again, maybe I have not made myself sufficiently clear, but I am not saying that any particular religion or branch of a religion is bad/non-peaceful because it's based on the Old Testament. Religions do not function like other ideologies. What I am saying is that there's a problem with consistency here (rather than an actual ethical problem).

Plus, nowhere have I indicated that I cannot be persuaded to change my views?? If somebody has good arguments and is willing to talk to me about it, I'm happy to listen and be civil about it.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

...I know that, though? I assumed you were trying to defend Judaism (which I am not attacking, either) and some of the branches of Christianity that for whatever weird reason rely more on the Old Testament. As to mainstream Christianity, I simply wish it didn't associate itself with the book.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[(Anonymous)]

and some of the branches of Christianity that for whatever weird reason rely more on the Old Testament

Okay. I would conceivably fall under your definition listed above. If you want an explanation, I can give you one.

With one caveat: I am not about to try and persuade you, btw, even though this is what you seem to be asking for; in my beliefs, ONLY God can persuade you/open your mind/write His law on your heart..and you still have the choice to turn away from that, even if He does.

We don't rely "more" on "the Old Testament" we rely on the Bible as a whole, in the light of how the First Century Church behaved/what they believed. Before Constantine and the Romanization of the modern world, before it all hit the fan. The early Church had NO "New Testament" because they were still writing it down.* The only scripture they HAD were the scrolls of "The Old Testament" none of which were collected together and/or canonized nor any of the other theological nonsense that gets the "scholars" backs up these days/causes divisions and denominationalism. ("A house divided cannot stand against itself.") They read the same scrolls Jesus and the disciples did. They read letters to and from the apostles. To and from other congregations. They sang hymns, which were almost 100% based on the Psalms.

*A part of me still thinks John would look at his third letter, scratch his beard, and go, "This? This is what you included to be preserved for the ages? A letter to the wife and kids? Are you joking with me right now?"

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

Thank you for your explanation, anon! This makes sense.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[feotakahari]

I don't think you're gonna talk your way out of this, and in a way, that sucks. I approach the Bible as literature (as I think it was meant to be--some parts of it can't be taken literally), and there are parts of it that make me go "Wow, that's vile." I've had a "Wow, that's vile" reaction to multiple other literary works, and some people would inevitably disagree with all of those reactions (if only the folks who wrote the works.) IF (and that's a giant glaring IF) the Old Testament is approached solely as a work of literature, then it can be criticized in the same manner someone might criticize any other literary text, with no more inherent difficulty, and hopefully no more hurt feelings.

But no one read, I dunno, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm and thought "I am going to live my life according to the ideas within this book!" People will inevitably take criticism of the Old Testament as a personal attack, because it IS a personal attack--it's an insult to beliefs and values they've integrated into their selfhood to the point they would feel hollow without them.

In other words, you have the right to your belief, but you need to be prepared to make people angry.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

I'm not afraid of making others angry. Though I would really prefer not to make anyone hurt.

And in a way, I'm not avoiding sounding offensive. But it is, as you said, "an insult to beliefs and values", not an insult to individuals.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[feotakahari]

Wow. Forget religion--do you have ANYTHING that you value enough that you'd take it as an insult to yourself if someone degraded it? A nation? A hero? Your mother?

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

Oh, ok, maybe I was too hasty with "values". I rather thought you meant it in the context of the discussion, as in "religious values".

Certain people and/or traits, yes. If somebody insulted my best friend. If somebody insulted my nation(s), though, I'd just assume they're a violent idiot.

I was mostly talking ideologies and belief systems there. And I don't mind these getting insulted.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[feotakahari]

"Oh, ok, maybe I was too hasty with "values". I rather thought you meant it in the context of the discussion, as in "religious values"."

I did, actually. That's what I was trying to get at--that religion can be that personal and that intimate. (There's a reason it's described as your relationship with God.)

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

Yes, I think I see it now. Tbf the point was to attack intellectual beliefs rather than the emotional ones (I am not against emotional religious beliefs at all), but it's true that the line is pretty flimsy.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

AFAIR I said like three times that getting offended about it is a perfectly reasonable reaction.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[insanenoodlyguy]

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[dreemyweird]

okay, I admit to having laughed :D

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[(Anonymous)]

The Old Testament doesn't promote rape. You could say it "promotes" murder in certain cases (as does the New Testament?), but not rape. Just because it mentions a rape happened doesn't mean that it promotes it. That's like saying a history book promotes the things that actually happened in history.

Also, there's plenty of homophobia in the New Testament. Have you actually read it?

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[(Anonymous)]

I recall both instances mentioned having very bad ends for the people who committed rape....all the men of one city murdered for one rape, and another city sacked by an act of God for the second. If that's "promoting rape" you have a strange definition of "promoting."

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, not quite. There are passages in the OT that say that if a man rapes a woman, then he must marry her. I'm imagining that's the sort of thing that dreemy is referencing.

original anon

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, I get what you're saying, but it's important to pay attention to the historical context there. Back then, women were only seen as valuable/good potential for a wife if they were virgins. Whether you consented to losing your virginity or not didn't matter to the people. So, if a woman was no longer a virgin, she had little to no chance of a man wanting to marry her. (This applied to widows as well.) Because not a virgin = tainted in their eyes.

This was also a time when women could not work and take care of themselves or their families. But their husband would be able to provide for them and keep them safe. Things have changed since then, obviously, but at the time, all God was doing was ensuring that the woman would be taken care of. Marrying your rapist must not have been a very happy fate, but some of the women most likely preferred it to never being married, because of what that meant in their society.

God couldn't just say "Don't rape" and end it with that, because there are some people who know it's wrong and are just going to do it anyway. But he could give many men an incentive not to even consider it, and make sure that the women had someone to take care of them in case it happened.

Re: Questions there's never a good time to ask.

[(Anonymous)]

That might be true of history books, but the Bible isn't just about reporting historical events, it's a book that purports to contain laws and guidelines for how people should live their lives. If there are cases of rape in the Bible committed by so-called heroic Biblical figures or rape that goes unpunished by men OR God... well, that's an implicit statement about rape and the attitudes one should have about it.