A defense of marriage

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Angelrho are you being obtuse.

The Isrealites went into Caanan and wiped the people out. Only those like the Gibeonites survived because they agreed to change.

I'm intrigued that you didn't argue that there was a reason. The worship of Baal involved burning their firstborn alive and prostitution. People who did that weren't allowed to remain in the land (I'm tired I can't think of words, just lets go with the land, but I think there was some special significance to them having their own land. I can't think what that is off the top of my head, if I even know the reason).

There are only 3 rape victims I can think of who were directly referenced in the bible. Dina, the Levite's concubine (which is an horrific tale) and Tamar. In each case the families of those women took revenge and wiped out the families of the culprits, not just the culprits.

I have a devils advocate card to play on that subject too, but I'm tired and I need to go to bed.

Last edited by sly279 on 17 May 2019, 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

For the record the Israelites haven’t wiped the canaanites, genetic evidence:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... chaeology/

“More than 90 percent of the genetic ancestry of modern Lebanese is derived from ancient Canaanites, according to a paper published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics.”

Boo! Fear me Bible followers! As I may be a descendant of Ba’al Worshippers.

Btw a large town in Lebanon is still called Baʿalbek, an area known for drug lords, the legacy of Ba’al still lives on!

Please read the scriptures I typed in my earlier post. I don’t want to type them out again. I’ve spent too much time in this thread already.

As far as genocide goes, read Numbers 31:1-18. It’s a good start. This is a huge topic and very far beyond the initial intention of this thread.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 17 May 2019, 5:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Oh no! "The Land" isn't biblical, it's from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Those who recognise my username will know what that is.

I am tired. How embarrassing

Those Ba’al worshippers have all the fun...

If people made as many excuses for people as they do for God, prisons would be absolutely empty.

Deuteronomy 22:23, 24 demonstrates what will happen if a victim doesn’t scream.

Rape is a very underreported crime. It’s a humiliating thing to experience and report. Having a law that fails to protect women who may be too afraid to scream is...awful. One would expect much more from a loving deity. It’s almost like this was thought up and written by men of the time period.

I'm being no such thing. Go back and read. Where is it written that the Israelites wiped out the Canaanites? Did God instruct the Israelites to wipe out ALL Canaanites? Because if He had, that would indeed be genocide. And yes, it IS logically possible to justify genocide. But rather than go through presenting premises to that effect, it might be useful to explore whether God actually did instruct them to commit genocide and whether the Israelites actually DID commit genocide in God's name. I'm not going to do your homework for you, and I'm not writing any spoilers (this time). But DEFO rethink that, read the Bible, and draw your own conclusions.


I used to be a lot deeper in to apologetics. At this stage of my life I don't see the point. People are too blinded by their own biases to handle the topic objectively. Note that Twilight does not deny that her rejection of religion is emotional, not rational. We have to be honest if we're going to have a rational discussion. Believers MUST resolve their own wishful thinking, while skeptics are usually blind to their own. For me, it boils down to experiences I cannot rationally explain as pointing to anything else. Empiricists will scream that "experience is not evidence," but then what do you call scientific observation if it's not experience? Those particular skeptics and others hold as axiomatic that there is no supernatural world. To have our faith, there's only one assumption anybody has to make, and that's that there's even a God to believe in at all. So if we can hold as axiomatic that God exists, then no argument to the contrary can possibly make any logical sense.

So if you make the choice to engage the anti-theist, you have to begin with that knowledge. Nothing they can possibly say makes any sense. Their usual tactic comes from the assumption that YOU are wrong and that YOU must prove your case for God. Now, think about that...if God is sovereign, does He depend on our defense? No. Based on that alone, we owe skeptics NOTHING. We are NOT required to change our views. But if the skeptics wish for us to change our views, then it's on them to prove their point, which you should already know by now isn't possible. Once you get trapped into having to explain yourself divide your attention across too many topics, you're already lost the argument. Skeptics win by forcing believers to start from a position that God doesn't exist and then proceed to prove that He does. If we already know God exists, why is it logical to assume that He doesn't? If you start with skeptics' assumptions, you only get skeptics' conclusions. It's for that same reason skeptics don't engage in arguments that assume God exists and then try to prove the opposite. They will frantically try to shift the burden of proof and then resort to personal attacks once they realize they're beaten. Or if not personal attacks, they'll hit you with some non-sequitur or a red herring. It's so predictable that it doesn't really hold my interest very long.

So when you get into these discussions, you really want to take the shortest route you can. Hold them to the same standard they would hold you if you were to challenge them directly. Question EVERYTHING. See, you already know where you stand and what you believe. You don't have anything to prove to God or to yourself. And on top of that you want to be a good Christian witness. They may not convert in the very near future, but the least you can do is force them to start honestly thinking. If nothing else, you plant a seed that MIGHT take root and bring these people to a point that they recognize their need for salvation,

When someone says "God said wipe them out," you ask, "Where? When? How? Evidence, please." When someone cries "homophobia," you ask "Where is it written in the gospels that Christ taught to hate gays?" Quick example, and remember how I said this isn't something that can be discussed in full. There is only just so much I can say on the subject and remain a member of WP, but they will try to get you on that. Refusing to discuss it is not inconsistent with Biblical teaching. Caving to pressure while in public, though, IS inconsistent. All you can do is point out the unfairness of the question and refuse to answer. People will draw their own conclusions. If they attack you, say, on WP, then you go to the mods so they can put a stop to others bullying you.

What you have to do is hold them accountable for making false claims. Genocide? Where did you hear that? Who told you that? Where in the Bible does it say "genocide"? They'll be forced to rethink their position.

My past tactics assumed a Biblical interpretation that accepted those events as historical fact. But as believers, we can't ever just stop learning. So if I read someone else who calls those into question and demonstrates, scripturally, that it "never happened" and statements that genocide happened actually do conflict with the text, then I think that's worth looking into and revising my own position. The last thing we Christians want to be guilty of is twisting scripture and getting it wrong. If I go around admitting God committed genocide when that's not true at all, then I'm a false teacher. So calling such rash assumptions into question accomplishes two functions: keeping opponents accountable and honest, and holding yourself accountable for your own search for truth. I don't mind admitting, either, that I've had to revise my own beliefs because I discovered a skeptic happened to be right about something.

Keeping it simple and accurate and questioning EVERYTHING, too, is a path of least resistance. I could conceivably make a case for genocide or stoning gays, but what would that actually accomplish? At best with the former, I might expose a naive skepticism that can't really think for itself and falls back on the biases someone else fed it with. At best with the latter I get reprimanded by mods on behalf of some folks on WP who I supposedly "threatened," more lucky I'll get banned It's much easier just to demand evidence from the skeptic that those things are even in the Bible at all so, if you're lucky, your opponent will try to hit you with evidence that you'll casually dismiss as out-of-order and out-of-context. Now, you're actually going to LOOK at the evidence. But the skeptical tactic predictably follows that pattern. If it doesn't follow the pattern, they're still wrong, and you'll have to tweak your responses accordingly.


You mean Amnon and Tamar? Hmmm...that's a bit too complex than I want to get into here. I think there's a lot about the Davidic court we can't possibly understand, especially since the royal family appears to be immune to most of Mosaic Law. Note that the rape of Tamar is...difficult to classify as rape as we understand it because Tamar indicates a willingness to be intimate with Amnon, never mind that little thing about incest. The Bible doesn't indicate that it was something that would be acceptable, and it probably indicates rampant idolatry right under David's nose. So for the sake of time I'm going to overlook that one for now.

Dinah is an easier topic to deal with. The word for "rape" has other meanings, which can be as simple as "took her virginity," euphemistically rendered as "defiled" or "humbled." But it probably does mean what we think it means. It's clearly wrong and is treated as injustice. Given the political nature of the crime, I'd say that destroying a village was appropriate. It's not that you destroy a village over one man's crime. That's a little excessive, to say the least. You punish the guy who committed the crime. In this situation, it's more likely that the Shechemites refused to enact a criminal justice system. There's also the difficult question of why Dinah was even there in the first place. No, I'm not victim-blaming. I'm calling into question why Dinah wanted to see the Shechemite women in the first place. I think it shows the danger of falling into temptation where idolatry is concerned; violation is what you can expect from THOSE people. The Israelite response was a flimsy one. Jacob was caught in a diplomatic crisis; his sons were justifying their behavior with a lie. Was either response a Godly one? I don't think so. In the end, Dinah didn't receive justice and the Israelites made enemies. I think if you read the story and think about it, it really has nothing to do with rape. It's an ancient Israelite analog to Helen of Troy, assuming Helen was a real person. Just like WWI had nothing to do with Archduke Ferdinand. Those were merely actions that set off a larger conflict and exposed a number of hidden ones. When you look at diplomacy on a large scale like that, the rape of a single woman appears innocent and insignificant. There's always more to the story. The consequences of their actions were far reaching and severely negatively impacted their growth as a nation post-exodus.

I'm reading through the scriptures you provided and trying to understand how those are examples of the "sins" you're whining about. How is the passage from Numbers genocide?

I'm not into your fascinating Bible discussion - at the time of its creation the Bible was quite progressive - but I just wanted to highlight two sentences I relate to a lot:

Actually, my parents and my maternal grandparents did live in this settings: the roles were traditional, men working outside (on quite high positions btw), women doing housework and raising countless children but in both the marriages the wives were definitely dominating.
Think of Mrs. Rachel Lynde from Anne of Green Glabes.

Can anyone tells me in what way the Bible’s bloody campaign against the Canaanites is better than the Islamic Jihad?

Oh btw, here’s a bomb:

Angelrho. I was asking questions to see what you would say. I already know what I think. I was just curious about what your response would be.

Oh, never mind. I see what you're doing.

This shows how your communication skills have developed. When I first joined you used to write monologues so long I couldn't read them

Questions are good, but maybe a little irksome.

I think you both need to define what you think genocide is otherwise you'll not progress the conversation.

Actually, in my RC religion course in high school, I was told monotheism most likely evolved from worship of only one god of a pantheon (monolatry) - El, the god of wisdom, was indicated as the one.
In Introduction to christianity by Joseph Ratzinger (later known as Benedict XVI) the author claims monotheism evolved from polytheism by sort of realizing that all the holiness is connected and ultimately the same.
So, at least to an educated roman catholic, the lecture is not surprising at all.

Muslims justify the jihad campaigns in exactly the same way how Christians here justify the massacre of Canaanites: They say that pagan Arabs were wicked, sexually promiscuous, poly marriages in both genders were common... etc, and therefore God sent Mohammad to fix them.

Well...yes, questions are irksome. This is true. They keep the opponent on the defensive. People generally dislike having to defend a position. Over time I began to see Christianity as something that doesn't require a defense. So if you're apologizing, you need to ask yourself WHY. Is it because you feel God is threatened? Because you feel deep down your faith is inadequate? Or is an apology an opportunity to witness to unbelievers? Like I said, skeptics are not trained to think for themselves.

We often get accused of not thinking for ourselves, too, and it's largely true I'm sure for a majority of people. Jehovah's Witnesses in particular hold a non-Trinitarian view handed down from Watchtower. If they question their faith the way we do sometimes, they get disowned by their families. They lose their entire support system. All their friends, too. So when they encounter a Christian who actually CAN think, they don't know what to do. And if they ever once start to think you're trying to teach them, they'll bolt for the door and you'll never see them again. So you ask them the hard questions, get them thinking, and MAYBE one of them will take courage and leave. I can't imagine the cognitive dissonance that goes on with that group.

So-called skeptics have to deal with the same cognitive dissonance, and they have a lot of novel ways of dealing with it. I've always thought I needed to answer to these people, but then I realized that was untrue. They should answer to me. I don't need them. Jesus had a pattern of INVITING people who wanted what He offered. He performed miracles to demonstrate who He is, grab attention, affirm, and then lay the whole truth on them. At that point Jesus lost a lot of followers. Those who were left could say they KNEW who Jesus is and could put their lives on the line for Him. The Christian's job isn't to "convert" anybody and everybody. It's simply to get the message out, to invite unbelievers in. You have to see that something is missing in your life, that Jesus fills that void, and be willing to commit. Skeptics are seeking something, hence why they challenge us so much. Most of them are not honestly seeking Christ, nor want Christ. They know they need to be saved. They just don't want to be saved. I don't go on and on about this stuff for their sake, but rather for those who are ready to convert. I owe nothing to those who are just here to waste my time, and I'm sure you've noticed my posts have been sparse as of late.