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I'm not the one making a big deal about it. Personally, I'm fine with what the Bible says about it. What IS a big deal is the suggestion that the Bible promotes abusive behavior towards children, and that's not the case. If beating a child with a rod is done at a humanly acceptable level, then we have nothing to discuss. Someone else brought it up, after all, and I merely responded.



The problem would be if the Bible actually provided a scriptural mandate--basically saying "if you are a Christian, you MUST beat your child for every wrongdoing." It puts Christians in a compromising position (no pun intended). Basically, you have two opposing issues. On the one hand, you have a government treading on religious freedoms, in this case saying "it's against my religion NOT to beat my child." On the other hand, Christians are supposed to be peaceful and conform to governments insofar as government does not require Christians to violate their basic principles. This would force Christians to protest.

But since there is no Biblical mandate, there is no problem.




What I'm saying is that those verses ARE meant to be understood that way, i.e. no mandated corporal punishment, corporal punishment to be used as a last resort to preserve a child's life. The Law in ancient times spelled out very clearly that a child who struck a parent was to be put to death. That particular law was not something to be messed with--it was very serious and to be avoided if at all possible with whatever means were necessary. Look at it another way: Performing CPR on someone risks breaking the sternum and/or one or more ribs. Even though you might save that person's life, you might injure them in the process. But which would you rather have for yourself--needlessly dying to save some broken bones, or living with broken bones that will actually heal? Same thing applies in ancient times with regard to discipline.

A child in the present day and age living in a different country might not run the same risk with misbehavior. Severe physical punishment is much less necessary because of that. What the proverbs do is basically establish an upper limit that being that children shouldn't be abused to the point of death. My personal opinion is that parents should discipline their children as they see fit without government interference. Parents shouldn't be punished for using "the rod" as a deterrent. But even in ancient times these proverbs would not have been read is a mandate.

The Book of Proverbs is not a book of poetry, but no proverb is all-encompassing. You have to understand that while these are, in a way, rules, THESE rules have many exceptions. That's what a proverb IS. They are meant to be meditated on, debated and discussed. Not very much of the Bible really affords you that luxury. Poetic texts, sure. The parables of Jesus, sure. Kings and Chronicles? Not so much due to the dry, factual nature of those books.

Honey, I read the entire chapter of everything I cited. None of it was out of context.

And it's not just a matter of corporal punishment; it's the death penalty for disrespecting one's parents.

OK. To understand the death penalty for disrespecting one's parents, you have to understand the cultural and historical context of that law to understand why it's justified. If you get that, you'll understand why this is NOT appropriate or even meant for modern-day Christians. Attitudes towards what is right and what is wrong have never changed, i.e. what sin is and what sin isn't, what we should do and what we shouldn't.

If you study the ancient laws carefully, you'll notice that the penalty for ALL sin is death. It just comes down to who or what has to die to satisfy the sin-debt.

The laws were first given during the Exodus. There are a lot of things you have to take into account. Wandering around in the wilderness basically put the entire nation of Israelites at a constant state of alert not unlike going to war. Each tribe was broken down and organized like battle formation, especially after the Tabernacle was built and the military divisions encamped around the Tabernacle. Disobedience in the military, any military, is grounds for severe penalties since failure to follow orders on the part of a single soldier has the potential to cost an entire unit. There was no room for Israel's leaders to disobey God, not even a little bit, no room for tribal or clan leaders to disobey their chief religious leaders (prophets and priests, or Moses and Aaron), and no room for sons to disobey their fathers.

The ancient Israelites of the Exodus period had a sense of corporate solidarity that we rarely see in modern-day society. My opinion is that maybe only Islam and some Asian cultures still insist on the strength of the family unit, but this is definitely something we lack in American society. The Israelites had a strong sense of corporate solidarity during these early years which they partly inherited from the patriarchs and partly which was instilled in them by God along the Exodus route. The people often complained about Moses' leadership and decisions, rebellions broke out, and Israelite soldiers failed to obey orders perfectly. God demonstrated His will for His people by executing His vengeance on them for these infractions. God showed His people that the actions of even ONE person in disobedience affects the whole and that His people are to act swiftly and decisively against those who sabotage His plans. It's better to kill one person than for the entire nation to suffer for his disobedience. The effect of this was that the whole nation of Israel was united in its cause. To keep this unity, they had to maintain the strength of the family unit. Children, presumably teenagers if they're doing something worthy of death, represent the future of the nation and must be brought up to understand the importance of national unity and absolute obedience to God. If one person is allowed to rebel, that has a negative impact on the rest of the group. The family is the FIRST ceremonial, political, and military unit of the nation, and it is here that instruction takes place. If a child misbehaves, the parents must do everything in their power to bring that child in line or risk the entire family of the Israelite nation suffering the consequences. Of course, Israel as a whole is instructed not to allow this to happen. If a child is guilty of chronic, unrepentant, gross disobedience and rebellion; if a child poses a physical or spiritual threat to his parents; if a child demonstrates that lawless behavior is a pattern of life and refuses to change, then the nation of Israel has no other choice than to put that child to death. We're not talking about 5-year-olds, here. And we're not talking about disobeying a city ordinance that prohibits spitting on sidewalk. "Disrespect," "disobedience," and "striking a parent" is MUCH more severe than a petty misdemeanor. We're talking about an extreme pattern of behavior that cannot be rehabilitated.

I've already pointed out that this is an extreme option that no parent desires to take. It just means that if a child continually behaves in a manner that shows he cannot be reformed or show himself fit to live in the promised land, or if a child is demonstrated to pose a spiritual or physical threat to his family and others, death is the proper recourse. It does NOT mean that the parents and community aren't responsible for doing all they can to help that child and prevent death from happening.

Finally, the Israelites believed that God was to be consulted in all matters. For example, if someone you knew murdered a member of your family, you could hunt that person down and kill him. The problem, though, is that you and maybe one other person are all that are aware of who committed the crime. So if you hunt a murderer down to avenge your loved one and no one understands why, they can't just take your word for it. That makes YOU look like a murderer and gives someone else a right to hunt you down and kill you. What you would need to do is assemble your witnesses before judges and get authorization to hunt down the murderer and bring him to justice. These laws also provided for cases of negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter. No one had the right to just go around killing people, least of all his own children. In order to carry this out, it had to be determined whether it was God's will to do so. In order to get such a judgment, you didn't just run out and chop your kid's head off. You had to go before the Levite priests to determine whether it was God's will to put a child to death. To do that, you had to be consistent with the Law, and you had to do certain things along the way to make sure that what you did was both legal and consistent with God's instruction.

So if a child (teenager) posed a threat to his family and the community, there was a procedure you had to follow to establish guilt on the part of the child. The elders HAD to know about what was going on and why such action was necessary, and then THEY could authorize the killing of a child. They would have to determine that the child could not be "fixed" and that there was nothing left to be done. Parents who love their children would NOT want things to go that far, which just made it that more important that they take care of things in the home.

Even though killing a child is an OPTION, that doesn't mean you could just kill your son just because you felt like it. In the world we live in, we have a deeper understanding of child development and more options for behavior modification. If behavior is related to some kind of brain disorder, there are medications available to bring brain functions back into proper balance, such as with ADHD medications, anti-depressives and anti-anxiety medication. Most mental conditions can be shown to be physical conditions rather than the influence of demonic activity, and there are treatments available to help alleviate paranoid schizophrenia or, in worst-case scenarios, a person who cannot function at all in society can be made a ward of the state and cared for in a mental hospital. Death doesn't HAVE to be an option and, in fact, very rarely IS an option. In fact, even in a family situation in which death might be justified, most parents can solve dire problems without killing their kids. I'm talking about the same kind of situation as if someone walked onto my property one night, and appeared to vandalize my house or my car, I'd have every reason to shoot-to-kill that person and their companions because I have no way of knowing what their intentions were, whether it was to stop at property damage or whether I myself or my family was in danger. The deputy sheriff would write down "self-defense" and I probably wouldn't even stand trial, probably wouldn't even be arrested. Oh, and that's in the Bible, too. If my son was going to kill his sister or his mother, I'd be within my rights to do whatever it took to prevent that from happening, with full understanding that COULD mean killing my son if the situation were desperate enough--meaning he has a knife at his sister's throat and WILL kill her if I don't do SOMETHING.

As a former classroom teacher in public and private schools, I've broken up more than my fair share of fights. In education, we have a saying: "Use of reasonable force." Teachers are not obligated to put themselves at risk. But we don't get to be innocent bystanders either. We have to determine whether it is our place to get involved and the weight of the risk itself to us. Frankly, I never considered the risk and considered the safety of students as more important than my own well-being. But if I got in the middle of an intense fight that I couldn't possibly stop without injury to at least one student, the school board (and probably law enforcement) would rule that I did only what HAD to be done and the situation warranted my intervention. I only used "reasonable force" and the student only has himself to blame for the injury. But if a couple of elementary kids are arguing over a piece of candy and I throw one of them against a wall, then I've gone beyond reasonable force and risk legal consequences for my actions. Did I have a right to intervene as the teacher? Yes. Did I intervene in the right way? No. Similarly, handling emergencies involving intruders or my own violent children demand that I act reasonably. Death is always a risk, but it is often a risk that can be averted.

Just to be clear, I am in no way LOOKING for a reason to harm my own children, and my children do NOT act like that. I was just using them as an example of what WOULD cause me to harm them, and I'm talking about EXTREME behavior. My son is 3 and my daughter is 2, so there is no need for me to act violently in any way beyond raising my voice on occasion, and they already have a good concept of what "time-out" means. For us, "time-out" is just a brief period during a tantrum (5 minutes max) of separation from the rest of the family to work out some anger issues. We just say, "you may go to your room and come back when you're feeling better." We don't close/lock doors, and if 5 minutes pass without improvement one of us will try to communicate with the child or ask the child to rejoin us in the living room. Works every time, and our son is getting a lot better at vocalizing exactly what it is that's bothering him.

Back to legal child-killing in the OT--This is exactly what it's talking about. The Bible is referring only to situations in which killing a child would become necessary. The hope, as it should be for all parents in any culture in any historical time and the present day, is that it doesn't have to come to that. It just means that if a child leaves a parent no other choice--and I mean NO other choice--it is the child who is guilty for his death, not the parents. Being put in a position in which you, as a parent, would have to kill your child I imagine would be a traumatic experience. One aspect of the law is the assurance to the parent that particular guilt, which would have to be haunting, is not a guilt that the parent has to bear. Understanding that doing what is necessary is not cause for guilt is a good first step in emotional healing.

Therefore, taken in context, the Bible does NOT promote child-beating as a first-line of discipline method, nor does it promote killing children for being stubborn or throwing tantrums.

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Sweety, would you like me to point out ONE thing you took out of context?

I don't care why the law was written by the ancient Israelites the way that it was. What I care about is that, if the validity of the law is contextual, then it is NOT immortal, and the Bible is NOT the word of an infalliable god. If you're willing to admit that, then fine - but that means that you no longer get to cite the Bible as justification for your morality. Or, at least, that you can't quote it as being more valid than, say, the Epic of Gilgamesh.



sure.

This assumes god didn't realize how it would be interpreted at different times.

Given that the Bible also says that humans were created in their present forms 6000 years ago, and that we were closer to God then than we are now, it assumes nothing of the sort; if humans were the same and God was the same, and human morals came from God, then the Morality should have been the same.

Where does it say that? Also your argument assumes that morals are based completely upon physical forms(extending to the brain as mental form) and not primarily on perspective and outside influences.(aka it assumes we have the (physical)tools to acquire the same moral system as an omni-prescient and omni-potent being, it also assumes that the common man is capable of this.(or even that it occurs at birth) A very weak argument I would say.) Your interpretation of whatever passages your using is a bit too twisted to be solid or accepted by anyone. After all if we had gods morality and the ability to implement it already why would we make 'mistakes' as we see them?

@LKL

No date is given in Genesis for the creation of mankind.

Well, I would agree with you that the Bible does not condone child abuse when it comes to pure parental discipline. However, it is condoned when it comes to judicial punishment. After all, putting a child to death for cursing his parents sure sounds like child abuse to me.



Yes, that would've made sense to the Jews in those days.

Today, we have better ways to deal with such issues that I wonder why God didn't think of implementing them back then.



Ok ... nothing much to disagree on ...

It's just that it's amazing how you could still believe that Jehovah is God with your explanations. But then again, I'm not that surprised. I've been there myself.

There's something called concluding from the context. No date, but we can know what the Bible suggests about when mankind was created.

(Disclaimer: Grab a cup of coffee/tea and get comfy... This is going to take a while...)

Which is largely the problem you have in understanding it. Religious/legal texts, which the Torah is both, and wisdom writings such as Proverbs are written to have a timeless relevance. If you don't care about why it was written the way it was, you won't understand the intended meaning and how those laws/instructions are applicable. We live in a point of time in which we are aware of more options than resorting immediately to beatings and death. The Bible does not prohibit extreme measures. The Bible would remain silent if we lived in a culture and society that granted parents the freedom to kill their children for chronic bad behavior. But it doesn't say we HAVE to resort to severe beatings and killing. All it means is that parents who love their children and are concerned with their standing with God are allowed to use any means NECESSARY to correct behavior. There is NO law whatsoever against mercy and forgiveness.




The validity of the law doesn't end with historical context. You could, for instance, argue that laws guaranteeing civil rights to former slaves are no longer valid because slavery no longer exists as an institution. You could argue that the entirety of the US Constitution is no longer valid because we no longer live in the 18th century. I say entirety because amendments to the Constitution are founded on what was signed into law (the original, unamended constitution) and therefore are in error.

As a text defining and explaining the basis for religious beliefs and practices, the Biblical law IS immortal, just as the Law Giver is immortal. It establishes what is conditional for righteous living before God and what is to be avoided. You CAN live by the moral lessons of the OT, even as a non-Jewish Christian. If you want to, that is. The most important lesson, in my experience, that the OT teaches is that perfect, righteous living is a futile exercise because such an existence is out of reach for a creature possessing a fallen nature. The sacrificial system was supposed to be an open acknowledgment of this on the part of the repentant worshipper, admitting before God and His appointed priests that the sacrifice given was done so in place of his own life as a sinner. The corruption of the law in actual practice happened because too much emphasis was placed on the ceremony of sacrifice and other aspects of daily living rather than worship and adoration of the God who instituted that system in the first place. God prefers obedience to sacrifice and is more interested in the total faith and devotion on the part of the believer over any "religion."

That fact does not cancel out the law. It merely keeps observance of the Law in proper perspective.

A proper Christian understanding of the Law also recognize the original purpose of it. Ruveyn once pointed out to me that the Tanahk was written by the Jews for the Jews. It took me a while to understand what that meant, but it is true. What's interesting to me, though, is what Rabbi Meir said: "Whence do we know that even a heathen who studies the torah is as a High Priest? From the verse, 'Keep My statutes and ordinances; a person will live if he does them...' (Leviticus 18:5). Priests, Levites, and Israelites are not mentioned, but MEN: hence you may learn that even a heathen who studies the Torah is as a High Priest! That refers to their own seven laws." Therefore the ancient Hebrew Law that DOES apply to us still applies to us as sons of Noah. For example, the God commanded Adam and Eve that they may eat of every tree of the Garden. God did not say they were allowed to eat flesh cut from a living animal. The Bible equates blood with life, so likewise when men were allowed to eat meat, it could not have blood in it. Murder is likewise forbidden to all sons of Noah including non-Abrahamic descendants for it is written "Whoever sheds man's blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in His image" (Genesis 9:6).

What pertains to us is in Genesis 9: "Be fruitful and multiply" (vs. 1). "Every living creature will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything. However, you must not eat meat with its lifeblood in it" (vs. 3-4). These are laws about diet, procreation, and capital punishment. But these laws are not absolute, demonstrated by dietary laws in Leviticus 11. Not every command or prohibition applies to everyone, like Jeremiah who was told not to marry (Jeremiah 16:2). Isaiah was told to go naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:2-4). Acts 15:28-29 describes a temporary measure designed to appease the ritual practices of the Jews for the sake of the unity of the church. Even if you take those as commands that does apply to us today, it just simply means do not consume blood, no strangled animals, no food offered to idols, no sexual immorality. Those aren't difficult commands and further clarify what, if anything, from ancient Hebrew ceremonial practices DO apply to Christians. That does NOT mean, though, that a Christian shouldn't familiarize himself with his spiritual heritage or consider how ancient wisdom is relevant to contemporary living. Wisdom and law from inspired scripture breathed by an infallible God transcends time and culture. There is no need to read fallibility into a God who allows His creation to grow in understanding of Him, nor is it a failing on God's part that "the rules" apply differently in situations for which God reveals His specific purpose for singular persons or groups of people. The OT as a whole reveals God's purpose for the Israelites and the Jews as His representative people on Earth. Their failure to bring others to God and continually represent God is a human failure, not a divine failure. Jesus' activity was an action that restored the spirit of the Law, granting access to God to the Gentiles and establishing a new covenant through God's mercy and forgiveness. We must listen to our conscience, understanding moral precedents from scripture--both Old and New covenants. These things give us a glimpse into the mind of God. Thus the ancient law is still valid, but we have gained understanding in avoiding the sins that lead to dire consequences in the first place.

The Law is not for us, but it still teaches important lessons that we as Christians cannot ignore and establishes the prophetic basis for the coming Messiah. Without the Law and the Prophets, there is no establishment of the nature of humankind as inherently sinful. If humankind isn't inherently sinful, then there is no need for atonement. If there is no need for atonement, there need not be any sacrifice. If there are no sacrifices, there is no lesson to be learned that sacrificial blood only covers the sin and does not remove it. If there is no need to remove the sin, there is no need for a Savior. If there was no need for Christ, Jesus wouldn't have been born. And if He hadn't been born, there would have been no ministry or sacrificial death uniting God and man. If that had never happened, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Even though the Law does not give Christians their identity as it does for the Jews, it is important for us to study these ancient texts in order to understand why it is we're even here. Because the Bible is inerrant in truth and is inspired by God, we need these ancient Laws and Writings to better understand our relationship with God. These things worked for an entire nation wandering around in the wilderness and helped establish the nation and kingdoms of Israel and Judah. There is no reason to think that the truth of these Laws and Writings don't still hold relevance today even for already well-established nations far removed from the ancient world.




OK... But understand that in general, it is a personal rule of mine not to reference other threads. Doing so risks "poisoning the well," which is not conducive to a constructive discussion. I'm posting the following quote in hopes that this will not be seen as such and understood that poisoning the well is not my intention. (This is NOT poisoning the well, but posting from other threads CAN be viewed as a way of discrediting someone based on something they've said before but is not relevant to the discussion at hand nor was ever intended to being a part of the discussion).



If I understand you correctly, you're using this to say that Jesus is opposed to peace and favors war. You seem to list (in the rest of that post) verses that are contradictory, at once saying Jesus emphasizes peace and family unity and then opposing peace and family unity. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to me what you're trying to say.

Assuming that is correct, then you're citing those verses out of context. You mentioned that you read every chapter from whence you cited. I'm not trying to be contentious here. I'm just pointing out that if you really did read those chapters, it appears to me that you're ignoring them to make a point.

Matthew 10 begins with Jesus commissioning the 12: "Summoning His 12 disciples, He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness" (vs. 1).

Vs. 5-6: Jesus sent out these 12 after giving them instructions: "Don't take the road leading to other nations, and don't enter any Samaritan town. Instead, go to the lost sheep of Israel."

This establishes the context. Jesus is sending the 12 out to preach and work among Israel.

Vs. 14: "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town."

Jesus recognizes that His message will not be welcome everywhere.

Vs. 16-18: "Look, I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations."

This is what happens to those who teach Jesus' message, and in spite of a Christian's best intentions and even best behavior, persecution is to be expected. What follows is a description of just how deep persecution of Christians can run.

Vs. 21-22: "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will even rise up against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of My name. But the one who endures to the end will be delivered."

Someone "coming out" to their families risks being betrayed by their unbelieving families. Even many Jews today (remember, the context of this passage specifically refers to the Jewish people) tend to react towards the conversion of one their friends or family as though that person died. Being a Christian in many situations back then was not acceptable. It was enough to convince family members to give up one of their own for leaving their faith and becoming a Christian.

Merely professing faith in Jesus was a divisive issue. And that sets up the context for the passage you cited.

Vs. 32: "Therefore,"

The context is that professing faith in Jesus was a divisive issue, especially within families. Jesus advised His followers to not be afraid of division and the persecution that follows. Believers were not to fear other people or the consequences, but rather God.

Vs. 32-33: "...everyone who will acknowledge Me before men, I will also acknowledge him before My father in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father in heaven. Don't assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

Self-professed believers do not get to hide their beliefs. If they truly fear (read worship) God through faith in His Son Jesus, they don't get the luxury of being closet believers among other believers, but must live out their faith openly. Early Christians struggled with this. Anyone suspected of being a Christian had not choice according to this passage but to confess their faith if they were confronted with it. Early Christians got around this by meeting secretly and avoiding confrontation in the first place. Confrontation for some would be inevitable, but all they could do was their best.

Because Christians faced persecution and even betrayal by their own families, these Christians would not experience temporal peace in any kind of lasting way. The "sword" Jesus brings refers to the penalty of death for believers. It is not Jesus' purpose that anyone SHOULD die for their faith. It was not Jesus Himself who would wield the sword. It just means that faith has consequences, something the disciples needed to understand before they went out preaching in front of hostile audiences. It helped them understand what to expect.

Jesus went on to quote the OT in vs. 35-36, so rather than quoting that passage as from Matthew, I'll use the reference.

Micah 7:6--For a son considers his father a fool, a daughter opposes her mother, and a daughter-in-law is against her mother-in-law; a person's enemies are the people in his own home.

The way Jesus used this passage starts with the words "For I came to turn..." This is not a statement of intention of splitting up families when He says "...a man against his father..." It's the reality of the consequences of faith.

Jesus goes on to say (Matthew 10:37-39): "The person who loves father in mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; the person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn't take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it."

In other words, the true believer is one who loves Jesus above all else--above family, and above his own life. "...whoever doesn't take up his cross..." refers to someone who is sentenced to death for his faith. By denying one's own cross (death), one denies his faith in Jesus. Reread vs. 32-33.

This is not a command to leave your own family. It is a warning that your family may abandon you. Believers have to be prepared for that.

It doesn't mean in absolute terms that you WILL be abandoned and betrayed by your family. It doesn't mean that you should cause harm to come to your family. If your family aligns itself with you and your faith, you have nothing to worry about. In our present day and age, we have more religious tolerance and are more open-minded regarding faith. I once dated a Unitarian with strikingly different notions from my own. I supported her in her personal journey of seeking, she didn't judge me because I'd found what I was looking for and shared it with her. My wife was raised Methodist, while I'm a Southern Baptist. I avoided debates about it by saying that I had no objections to attending a Methodist church and that we could work out a way to do both. God would lead one or both of us to the best decision. Before we even got married, she came to the conclusion that my church had something she'd never had in her own upbringing and that it brought her great joy to worship in that congregation. Problem solved. The lesson here is that what we experienced (my wife and I) was not the same thing as Jesus' warning to His disciples. For us, Jesus brought unity.

The consequences of faith will not bring that to everyone. There are, for example, a small number of believers in Afghanistan. Converting to Christianity in Afghanistan CAN be punished by death (not sure if that's law, but it is true in practice). A Christian convert in an Islamic society of that or similar nature is a divisive issue, a good case-in-point for the truth of Christ's teachings to His disciples.

Therefore the verse you cited is not to be taken as proper relations of Christians with their family and friends, nor is it in conflict with the struggle for world peace. It has nothing to do with those ideals, actually. Elsewhere, Jesus DOES instruct how family members are to relate to each other. Since references to family relations and THIS verse (and similar ones) are not even referring to the same thing, the point that they are contradictions of each other fails. They can only be contradictions if they are taken out of context.

Oh good, we agree on SOMETHING! lol

Death for cursing parents just shows the severity of how uttering curses was perceived. Making a curse against anyone is generally a bad idea wholesale. Also, the instruction to respect your parents is modeled after how human beings are to relate to God. Job was urged to curse God and die, I'm assuming that would be some kind of suicide-by-police. In my view, parents on earth stand in the place of God in heaven. Cursing parents, in that respect, is cursing God. Also, calling that child abuse assumes that the child is to young to understand his actions. I imagine the child in question refers to ANY child without regard to age, possibly only applicable to older teenagers and even adults. It sets a horrible example that children/grandchildren will eventually pick up, and such disregard for parental authority (and thus divine authority) would have proven destructive in the formative years of the nation of Israel. I imagine this was something more taken for granted in peacetime, and if you review the history of Israel and Judah according to the Bible, you'll note that those societies eventually imploded. I mean, not just because of "child abuse" laws, but for a number of things the Israelites took for granted.



I prefer the spelling "Yahweh." I'm not sure what you mean, though. Obviously I don't have a strongly negative opinion of other Christians. But one criticism I do have to offer is the overwhelming immaturity of many of them and the absolute refusal to actually study the text they base their faith on. I grew to hate Sunday School in part because most classes I've ever been in simply amounted to straight reading of the literature and commentary of Bible verses in question. I also dislike the fact that week after week, year after year, the same things kept coming up. How about learning how to pronounce Hebrew names (the ones that couldn't be anglicized) and showing WHY Biblical genealogies are relevant? Yes, theological/doctrinal points are important, but members of any given congregation generally have a good handle on theology and doctrine relevant to that congregation. But that just means you know theology or religious practices, possibly the justifications for those practices. Maybe that's good for the average pew occupier, but I find it severely lacking.

Which is why I do try to carefully read the Bible.

But I can't think why my interpretation would lead me away from believing Yahweh is God. I think MAYBE that understanding that reality can be cruel and that God acts according to His own will and not ours is what prevents me from reading unnecessary cruelty on God's part into the text. If I make a wrong decision and God allows bad things to happen to me, I've only got myself to blame for that. Blaming God for my own stupidity or thoughtlessness solves nothing. Even if I've done nothing wrong and I'm made to suffer, I have to recognize my connection to the fallen world I live in and understand that I'm not an exception to any rule. I suffer because people suffer. Until all people are unified in seeking God's will and acting accordingly to each other as a brotherhood of believers, I have no reason to think God is going to magically solve all our problems. I think God gave us the responsibility to act decently towards each other. If we act otherwise, there is no reason to believe that condition will ever end. Much of the problem people have with believing the God of the OT, in my opinion, has to do with how God responded to disobedience. It's not really our place to disagree with God. I see disagreement in two different ways: Either a person doesn't understand God's purpose for bringing about certain things (which the person finds objectionable), or the person thinks his own way is somehow superior. I don't think God will really punish someone for not understanding something he can't possibly understand. In that case, a person CAN acknowledge that his misunderstanding is part of the human condition remedied only by absolute faith. The alternative view is that assuming one's view is superior to God's is symptomatic of arrogance, no matter how subtle. I think it takes a lot of courage and humility to recognize that within oneself. It's only if someone is so hardened against God they will allow no other view than their own or at least allow for the possibility that they really have little hope at all.

Why wouldn't I agree with you if you say something that makes sense? I do have some bias against Christianity and religion, but I'm also willing to be as honest as I can be while questioning and challenging your Christian views.



But why didn't God think of giving them the current disciplinary laws and regulations that we currently abide by? They are much more effective in dealing with brats and disrespectful teenagers than just having them executed. I think putting a child (regardless of age) to death for just uttering a few disrespectful words out of anger and frustration is very cruel especially that it is quite easy for a child in distress to slip up and say something bad to his parents out of anger or something. I mean, what if the child is being abused by his parents and he, thus, curses them? We kill him?

I guess empathy was not taught much by God to the Jews back then.



First of all, what I meant is that if you believe God adapts His laws according to the moral capabilities of the people that He is leading, then it just tells me that God's standards depend on our standards instead of the other way around. This is why I find it hard to believe that Yahweh is a real God instead of a fictional god made up the way men in power want Him to be according to their own standards and principles.

Why couldn't God just simply teach the Jews effective disciplinary methods to deal with brats and the like instead of having them die? And to make it worse, not only would they die physically, but many of them would also be completely abandoned by God by being put in an eternal hell.

As I said in the other thread, God could've easily just made a much more relaxing reality than this twisted reality that we are in. And you don't need free moral will to be happy with God. At least, no one would go to hell by choosing to go against Him. If I were God, I'd rather have every sentient being I create be peacefully safe and secure in my hands than to play test games with them and see who goes to suffer in hell and who doesn't. Man, just think of yourself as a parent. You said said that parents and their children reflect God and His people or something. Well, wouldn't you make sure your children live happy and peacefully secure lives and have them choose the choices that you believe are right for them ... instead of leaving them to do whatever they want (like do drugs and/or prostitute) all because you want to test their level of respect towards you or something? I know I'd go with the former option. That's what my loving mother does. Shame that I see her more loving than the being that supposedly created us all.

qft

I don't give a damn what social order a policy may be conceived under. Killing a child that misbehaves is simply not justified under any circumstances and attempting to justify it, whatever authority is evoked, is a horrifyingly nauseating attitude and cannot be condoned under any civilized traditions.

Is it a sin to disobey your parents? Yes. The wages of all sin is death, but we live under the covenant of grace.