Health and Religion

[CoinCube]

You could argue that with any other religious book or just philosophy in general. A lot of philosophers already presented arguments for the creation of the universe, life and many other problems. That doesn't mean anything. And badecker says that god allows all science to happen. The god from the bible? Or the one from islam? Or maybe is the one from the other thousands of religions, which one is it?

This topic is indeed deeply related to philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysics are fundamental assumptions. One must choose ones metaphysics.

Philosophy is the formal study of such choices and their logical outcomes. Dismissing metaphysics as not meaning anything or having any revelance because individuals can choose competing or even self contradictory metaphysics is similar error to dismissing science because some scientific theories compete or are false.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator leads to the conclusion that there is only one God. The fact that there are different beliefs regarding God (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc) tells us that human understanding of our infinite creator is unsurprisingly limited.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator also leads to the conclusion that all of reality flows ultimately from the will of said creator including the order upon which we build science.

Metaphysics are chosen but they are not arbitrary. The following quotes highlight this well.

Fix your life? Fix your metaphysics
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/fix-your-life-fix-your-metaphysics.html?m=1

Metaphysics are your fundamental assumptions. These are chosen: they were chosen by you (although you probably weren't aware of choosing them, but just passively accepted them).

Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.

The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).

Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.

There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.

Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.

Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!

Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...

Why fix your metaphysics - negative and positive reasons
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-fix-your-metaphysics-negative-and.html?m=1

The thing we must recognize about metaphysics, is that the metaphysical framework is neither validated nor contradicted by experience. That modern metaphysical assumptions are not the consequence of knowledge, or science, or logic. That traditional or religious metaphysics have never been refuted nor disproved.

We can choose to change are metaphysics, and (by repetition and self-monitoring) work to make the new metaphysics a spontaneous habit.

Is metaphysics then all just a matter of arbitrary opinion?  Well, it can be  but it need not be.

1. We can examine our metaphysical assumptions to see whether they are internally consistent and coherent.

2. We can trace the provenance, i.e. the origin, of the metaphysics we currently hold-to and see whether we regard that source as good, reliable, trustworthy (for example, if the metaphysics comes from people whose motives or character we regard as bad, then there is a good reason not to accept their metaphysics).

3. We can explore and compare the consequences of different metaphysical systems and evaluate which we think is the most Good: that is, the most true, beautiful and virtuous.

In other words, we can approach metaphysics with the conviction that some systems are better than others, and deploy our deepest and most fundamental mode of evaluation to compare systems and choose that which is best; and choose to try and live by it.

[Astargath]

You could argue that with any other religious book or just philosophy in general. A lot of philosophers already presented arguments for the creation of the universe, life and many other problems. That doesn't mean anything. And badecker says that god allows all science to happen. The god from the bible? Or the one from islam? Or maybe is the one from the other thousands of religions, which one is it?

This topic is indeed deeply related to philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysics are fundamental assumptions. One must choose ones metaphysics.

Philosophy is the formal study of such choices and their logical outcomes. Dismissing metaphysics as not meaning anything or having any revelance because individuals can choose competing or even self contradictory metaphysics is similar error to dismissing science because some scientific theories compete or are false.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator leads to the conclusion that there is only one God. The fact that there are different beliefs regarding God (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc) tells us that human understanding of our infinite creator is unsurprisingly limited.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator also leads to the conclusion that all of reality flows ultimately from the will of said creator including the order upon which we build science.

Metaphysics are chosen but they are not arbitrary. The following quotes highlight this well.

Fix your life? Fix your metaphysics
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/fix-your-life-fix-your-metaphysics.html?m=1

Metaphysics are your fundamental assumptions. These are chosen: they were chosen by you (although you probably weren't aware of choosing them, but just passively accepted them).

Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.

The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).

Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.

There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.

Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.

Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!

Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...

Why fix your metaphysics - negative and positive reasons
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-fix-your-metaphysics-negative-and.html?m=1

The thing we must recognize about metaphysics, is that the metaphysical framework is neither validated nor contradicted by experience. That modern metaphysical assumptions are not the consequence of knowledge, or science, or logic. That traditional or religious metaphysics have never been refuted nor disproved.

We can choose to change are metaphysics, and (by repetition and self-monitoring) work to make the new metaphysics a spontaneous habit.

Is metaphysics then all just a matter of arbitrary opinion?  Well, it can be  but it need not be.

1. We can examine our metaphysical assumptions to see whether they are internally consistent and coherent.

2. We can trace the provenance, i.e. the origin, of the metaphysics we currently hold-to and see whether we regard that source as good, reliable, trustworthy (for example, if the metaphysics comes from people whose motives or character we regard as bad, then there is a good reason not to accept their metaphysics).

3. We can explore and compare the consequences of different metaphysical systems and evaluate which we think is the most Good: that is, the most true, beautiful and virtuous.

In other words, we can approach metaphysics with the conviction that some systems are better than others, and deploy our deepest and most fundamental mode of evaluation to compare systems and choose that which is best; and choose to try and live by it.

This doesn't really contradict my point, which is that religion itself is useless. Philosophy is not religion. The teachings from the bible are mostly ok but there are also a few atrocious ones. Like rape and slavery. Humans know those things are bad because we are able to determine whether something is morally good or not thanks to logic. We do not need the bible to teach us about morals.

[BADecker]

You could argue that with any other religious book or just philosophy in general. A lot of philosophers already presented arguments for the creation of the universe, life and many other problems. That doesn't mean anything. And badecker says that god allows all science to happen. The god from the bible? Or the one from islam? Or maybe is the one from the other thousands of religions, which one is it?

This topic is indeed deeply related to philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysics are fundamental assumptions. One must choose ones metaphysics.

Philosophy is the formal study of such choices and their logical outcomes. Dismissing metaphysics as not meaning anything or having any revelance because individuals can choose competing or even self contradictory metaphysics is similar error to dismissing science because some scientific theories compete or are false.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator leads to the conclusion that there is only one God. The fact that there are different beliefs regarding God (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc) tells us that human understanding of our infinite creator is unsurprisingly limited.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator also leads to the conclusion that all of reality flows ultimately from the will of said creator including the order upon which we build science.

Metaphysics are chosen but they are not arbitrary. The following quotes highlight this well.

Fix your life? Fix your metaphysics
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/fix-your-life-fix-your-metaphysics.html?m=1

Metaphysics are your fundamental assumptions. These are chosen: they were chosen by you (although you probably weren't aware of choosing them, but just passively accepted them).

Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.

The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).

Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.

There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.

Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.

Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!

Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...

Why fix your metaphysics - negative and positive reasons
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-fix-your-metaphysics-negative-and.html?m=1

The thing we must recognize about metaphysics, is that the metaphysical framework is neither validated nor contradicted by experience. That modern metaphysical assumptions are not the consequence of knowledge, or science, or logic. That traditional or religious metaphysics have never been refuted nor disproved.

We can choose to change are metaphysics, and (by repetition and self-monitoring) work to make the new metaphysics a spontaneous habit.

Is metaphysics then all just a matter of arbitrary opinion?  Well, it can be  but it need not be.

1. We can examine our metaphysical assumptions to see whether they are internally consistent and coherent.

2. We can trace the provenance, i.e. the origin, of the metaphysics we currently hold-to and see whether we regard that source as good, reliable, trustworthy (for example, if the metaphysics comes from people whose motives or character we regard as bad, then there is a good reason not to accept their metaphysics).

3. We can explore and compare the consequences of different metaphysical systems and evaluate which we think is the most Good: that is, the most true, beautiful and virtuous.

In other words, we can approach metaphysics with the conviction that some systems are better than others, and deploy our deepest and most fundamental mode of evaluation to compare systems and choose that which is best; and choose to try and live by it.

This doesn't really contradict my point, which is that religion itself is useless. Philosophy is not religion. The teachings from the bible are mostly ok but there are also a few atrocious ones. Like rape and slavery. Humans know those things are bad because we are able to determine whether something is morally good or not thanks to logic. We do not need the bible to teach us about morals.

The commandment from the Ten that says, "Thou shalt not kill," means murder. The old English is a bad interpretation for us. If you harm someone in almost any way, you cause some of his cells to die. You murder them. That includes rape and slavery. The Bible is against both.


God is against killing a baby, even an unborn one. Exodus 21:22...:

“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Regarding rape. If a man rapes a woman not promised to another man, he has to marry the woman to save the child produced by the rape. Why? To give the child a proper home between one man and one woman. The man is fined, however, the fine being kept as protection money for the woman and child if the man fails to do his duty.

If a man rapes a woman who is pledged to another man (essentially married though they have not come together), the man is to be executed. The woman's "husband" will bring up the child if there is one.


Slavery is a protection for the one enslaved. In the 7th year of enslavement, if not sooner, the slave is to be set free. If we had the form of slavery as listed in the book of Exodus, the poverty stricken people of our nation could find a job, even if it paid very little. At least they and their families would have food and shelter.

However, making slaves is punishable by death. Exodus 21:16:

Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper's possession.

In addition to the above, we need to understand that the whole mentality of the peoples of that day and age were different than ours. As is happening right now throughout the Middle East, a woman is far lower than a man in value. Rape is a fight between men. The woman doesn't have enough standing to be part of the fight except as the property. It might not seem fair, but it is their way of life. Even the women know it no other way.

Slavery is similar. Slavery is a contest between owners. The slave has little or no say. And, the slaves are totally in agreement with it this way. It is their way of life. Even though their formal Governments have laws against slavery, they do so only to look good in the eyes of us Westerners who loathe such things.


You are totally wrong about your understanding of rape and slavery in the Bible.

[Astargath]

You could argue that with any other religious book or just philosophy in general. A lot of philosophers already presented arguments for the creation of the universe, life and many other problems. That doesn't mean anything. And badecker says that god allows all science to happen. The god from the bible? Or the one from islam? Or maybe is the one from the other thousands of religions, which one is it?

This topic is indeed deeply related to philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysics are fundamental assumptions. One must choose ones metaphysics.

Philosophy is the formal study of such choices and their logical outcomes. Dismissing metaphysics as not meaning anything or having any revelance because individuals can choose competing or even self contradictory metaphysics is similar error to dismissing science because some scientific theories compete or are false.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator leads to the conclusion that there is only one God. The fact that there are different beliefs regarding God (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc) tells us that human understanding of our infinite creator is unsurprisingly limited.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator also leads to the conclusion that all of reality flows ultimately from the will of said creator including the order upon which we build science.

Metaphysics are chosen but they are not arbitrary. The following quotes highlight this well.

Fix your life? Fix your metaphysics
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/fix-your-life-fix-your-metaphysics.html?m=1

Metaphysics are your fundamental assumptions. These are chosen: they were chosen by you (although you probably weren't aware of choosing them, but just passively accepted them).

Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.

The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).

Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.

There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.

Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.

Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!

Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...

Why fix your metaphysics - negative and positive reasons
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-fix-your-metaphysics-negative-and.html?m=1

The thing we must recognize about metaphysics, is that the metaphysical framework is neither validated nor contradicted by experience. That modern metaphysical assumptions are not the consequence of knowledge, or science, or logic. That traditional or religious metaphysics have never been refuted nor disproved.

We can choose to change are metaphysics, and (by repetition and self-monitoring) work to make the new metaphysics a spontaneous habit.

Is metaphysics then all just a matter of arbitrary opinion?  Well, it can be  but it need not be.

1. We can examine our metaphysical assumptions to see whether they are internally consistent and coherent.

2. We can trace the provenance, i.e. the origin, of the metaphysics we currently hold-to and see whether we regard that source as good, reliable, trustworthy (for example, if the metaphysics comes from people whose motives or character we regard as bad, then there is a good reason not to accept their metaphysics).

3. We can explore and compare the consequences of different metaphysical systems and evaluate which we think is the most Good: that is, the most true, beautiful and virtuous.

In other words, we can approach metaphysics with the conviction that some systems are better than others, and deploy our deepest and most fundamental mode of evaluation to compare systems and choose that which is best; and choose to try and live by it.

This doesn't really contradict my point, which is that religion itself is useless. Philosophy is not religion. The teachings from the bible are mostly ok but there are also a few atrocious ones. Like rape and slavery. Humans know those things are bad because we are able to determine whether something is morally good or not thanks to logic. We do not need the bible to teach us about morals.

The commandment from the Ten that says, "Thou shalt not kill," means murder. The old English is a bad interpretation for us. If you harm someone in almost any way, you cause some of his cells to die. You murder them. That includes rape and slavery. The Bible is against both.


God is against killing a baby, even an unborn one. Exodus 21:22...:

“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Regarding rape. If a man rapes a woman not promised to another man, he has to marry the woman to save the child produced by the rape. Why? To give the child a proper home between one man and one woman. The man is fined, however, the fine being kept as protection money for the woman and child if the man fails to do his duty.

If a man rapes a woman who is pledged to another man (essentially married though they have not come together), the man is to be executed. The woman's "husband" will bring up the child if there is one.


Slavery is a protection for the one enslaved. In the 7th year of enslavement, if not sooner, the slave is to be set free. If we had the form of slavery as listed in the book of Exodus, the poverty stricken people of our nation could find a job, even if it paid very little. At least they and their families would have food and shelter.

However, making slaves is punishable by death. Exodus 21:16:

Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper's possession.

In addition to the above, we need to understand that the whole mentality of the peoples of that day and age were different than ours. As is happening right now throughout the Middle East, a woman is far lower than a man in value. Rape is a fight between men. The woman doesn't have enough standing to be part of the fight except as the property. It might not seem fair, but it is their way of life. Even the women know it no other way.

Slavery is similar. Slavery is a contest between owners. The slave has little or no say. And, the slaves are totally in agreement with it this way. It is their way of life. Even though their formal Governments have laws against slavery, they do so only to look good in the eyes of us Westerners who loathe such things.


You are totally wrong about your understanding of rape and slavery in the Bible.

'' If a man rapes a woman not promised to another man, he has to marry the woman to save the child produced by the rape.'' So you can rape a woman freely and your only ''punishment'' is that you have to marry her.

''Slavery is a protection for the one enslaved. In the 7th year of enslavement, if not sooner, the slave is to be set free. '' Oh thanks god, he can be set free after 7 years, thankfully god took care of the slave needs.

Surely the mentality of people were different but God which does not change should have gave them moral absolute rules.

These are the rules God imposed:
 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave,[a] he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

So basically if you give your slave a woman, you can enslave them forever. God just created a loophole to be able to enslave people forever, what a great mind this god has.

''Whoever curses[c] his father or his mother shall be put to death'' So now if you curse your parents you have to die but it's totally fine to have slaves. Seems perfectly logical.

''When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.'' ()

Do people take this shit seriously?

[CoinCube]

Do people take this shit seriously?

Yes

Torah, Slavery and the Jews

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm

Let's start simple:

Take an agrarian society surrounded by hostile nations. Go in there and forcefully abolish slavery. The result? War, bloodshed, hatred, prejudice, poverty and eventually, a return to slavery until the underlying conditions change. Which is pretty much what happened in the American South when the semi-industrialized North imposed their laws upon the agrarian South. And in Texas when Mexico attempted to abolish slavery among the Anglophones there.

Not a good idea. Better idea: Place humane restrictions upon the institution of indentured servitude. Yes, it's still ugly, but in the meantime, you'll teach people compassion and kindness. Educate. Make workshops... Eventually, things change and slavery becomes an anachronism for such a society.

Which is pretty much what happened to Jewish society. Note this: At a time when Romans had literally thousands of slaves per citizen, even the wealthiest Jews held very modest numbers of servants. And those servants, the Talmud tells us, were treated better by their masters than foreign kings would treat their own subjects.

Torah teaches us how to run a libertarian society--through education and participation. Elsewhere in the world, emperors and aristocracy knew only how to govern a mass of people through oppression.
...
So the "conservative-radical" approach of Torah is this: Work with the status quo to get beyond it. Torah is more about process than about content.
...
Climbing Deeper

Are you satisfied with this answer? I'm not. I'm convinced there's a deeper effect that Torah is looking for. Call it "the participatory effect." A.k.a. nurture.

The Participatory Effect tells us that if you want people to follow rules, you put guns to their heads. But if you want them to learn, grow, internalize those rules and be able to teach them to others, you're going to have to involve them in the process of forming those rules.

School teachers do this when they work with their class on the first day to design rules that everyone will see as reasonable and useful. Parents do this when they allow their child to makes mistakes so that s/he will learn from them. A skilled wife is doing this when she gets her husband to believe that he came up with the idea of re-tiling the kitchen floor.

In general, this strategy comes more naturally to women than to men. Men find it much easier to shove their opinions down other people's throats and, if need be, argue the other into the ground until he surrenders. All variations of the old gun-to-the-head technique. Women are designed to nurture, physically and emotionally, so they take naturally to the participatory technique. To quote Gluckel of Hameln, "She was a true woman of valor. She knew how to control her husband's heart."
...
Getting Real Change

If G‑d would simply and explicitly declare all the rules, precisely as He wants His world to look and what we need to do about it, the Torah would never become real to us. No matter how much we would do and how good we would be, we would remain aliens to the process.

So, too, with slavery (and there are many other examples): In the beginning, the world starts off as a place where oppressing others is a no-qualms, perfectly acceptable practice. It's not just the practice Torah needs to deal with, it's the attitude. So Torah involves us in arriving at that attitude. To the point that we will say, "Even though the Torah lets us, we don't do things that way."

Which means that we've really learnt something. And now, we can teach it to others. Because those things you're just told, those you cannot teach. You can only teach that which you have discovered on your own.
...
The greatest force in the emancipation of slavery in colonial times were the "Society of Friends," also known as the "Quakers."

[BADecker]

You could argue that with any other religious book or just philosophy in general. A lot of philosophers already presented arguments for the creation of the universe, life and many other problems. That doesn't mean anything. And badecker says that god allows all science to happen. The god from the bible? Or the one from islam? Or maybe is the one from the other thousands of religions, which one is it?

This topic is indeed deeply related to philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysics are fundamental assumptions. One must choose ones metaphysics.

Philosophy is the formal study of such choices and their logical outcomes. Dismissing metaphysics as not meaning anything or having any revelance because individuals can choose competing or even self contradictory metaphysics is similar error to dismissing science because some scientific theories compete or are false.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator leads to the conclusion that there is only one God. The fact that there are different beliefs regarding God (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc) tells us that human understanding of our infinite creator is unsurprisingly limited.

Grounding reality in an infinite creator also leads to the conclusion that all of reality flows ultimately from the will of said creator including the order upon which we build science.

Metaphysics are chosen but they are not arbitrary. The following quotes highlight this well.

Fix your life? Fix your metaphysics
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/fix-your-life-fix-your-metaphysics.html?m=1

Metaphysics are your fundamental assumptions. These are chosen: they were chosen by you (although you probably weren't aware of choosing them, but just passively accepted them).

Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.

The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).

Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.

There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.

Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.

Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!

Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...

Why fix your metaphysics - negative and positive reasons
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-fix-your-metaphysics-negative-and.html?m=1

The thing we must recognize about metaphysics, is that the metaphysical framework is neither validated nor contradicted by experience. That modern metaphysical assumptions are not the consequence of knowledge, or science, or logic. That traditional or religious metaphysics have never been refuted nor disproved.

We can choose to change are metaphysics, and (by repetition and self-monitoring) work to make the new metaphysics a spontaneous habit.

Is metaphysics then all just a matter of arbitrary opinion?  Well, it can be  but it need not be.

1. We can examine our metaphysical assumptions to see whether they are internally consistent and coherent.

2. We can trace the provenance, i.e. the origin, of the metaphysics we currently hold-to and see whether we regard that source as good, reliable, trustworthy (for example, if the metaphysics comes from people whose motives or character we regard as bad, then there is a good reason not to accept their metaphysics).

3. We can explore and compare the consequences of different metaphysical systems and evaluate which we think is the most Good: that is, the most true, beautiful and virtuous.

In other words, we can approach metaphysics with the conviction that some systems are better than others, and deploy our deepest and most fundamental mode of evaluation to compare systems and choose that which is best; and choose to try and live by it.

This doesn't really contradict my point, which is that religion itself is useless. Philosophy is not religion. The teachings from the bible are mostly ok but there are also a few atrocious ones. Like rape and slavery. Humans know those things are bad because we are able to determine whether something is morally good or not thanks to logic. We do not need the bible to teach us about morals.

The commandment from the Ten that says, "Thou shalt not kill," means murder. The old English is a bad interpretation for us. If you harm someone in almost any way, you cause some of his cells to die. You murder them. That includes rape and slavery. The Bible is against both.


God is against killing a baby, even an unborn one. Exodus 21:22...:

“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Regarding rape. If a man rapes a woman not promised to another man, he has to marry the woman to save the child produced by the rape. Why? To give the child a proper home between one man and one woman. The man is fined, however, the fine being kept as protection money for the woman and child if the man fails to do his duty.

If a man rapes a woman who is pledged to another man (essentially married though they have not come together), the man is to be executed. The woman's "husband" will bring up the child if there is one.


Slavery is a protection for the one enslaved. In the 7th year of enslavement, if not sooner, the slave is to be set free. If we had the form of slavery as listed in the book of Exodus, the poverty stricken people of our nation could find a job, even if it paid very little. At least they and their families would have food and shelter.

However, making slaves is punishable by death. Exodus 21:16:

Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper's possession.

In addition to the above, we need to understand that the whole mentality of the peoples of that day and age were different than ours. As is happening right now throughout the Middle East, a woman is far lower than a man in value. Rape is a fight between men. The woman doesn't have enough standing to be part of the fight except as the property. It might not seem fair, but it is their way of life. Even the women know it no other way.

Slavery is similar. Slavery is a contest between owners. The slave has little or no say. And, the slaves are totally in agreement with it this way. It is their way of life. Even though their formal Governments have laws against slavery, they do so only to look good in the eyes of us Westerners who loathe such things.


You are totally wrong about your understanding of rape and slavery in the Bible.

'' If a man rapes a woman not promised to another man, he has to marry the woman to save the child produced by the rape.'' So you can rape a woman freely and your only ''punishment'' is that you have to marry her.

''Slavery is a protection for the one enslaved. In the 7th year of enslavement, if not sooner, the slave is to be set free. '' Oh thanks god, he can be set free after 7 years, thankfully god took care of the slave needs.

Surely the mentality of people were different but God which does not change should have gave them moral absolute rules.

These are the rules God imposed:
 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave,[a] he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

So basically if you give your slave a woman, you can enslave them forever. God just created a loophole to be able to enslave people forever, what a great mind this god has.

''Whoever curses[c] his father or his mother shall be put to death'' So now if you curse your parents you have to die but it's totally fine to have slaves. Seems perfectly logical.

''When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.'' ()

Do people take this shit seriously?

As long as you are not going to look at the good sense in the biblical laws, you are always going to be grumpy. You are like Scrooge regarding Christmas. You would rather find a particle of bad than look at the great good. You are like the Pharisees, who strained out the gnat, but swallowed the camel.

The laws of the OT were built for a people that lived like this, and worse. These laws brought those people up out of a form of life-bondage into freedom. They aren't for us in our lives today. And, as I said, the living rules are still like this in the ME today.

Are you trying to adapt your rules and laws to the ME peoples? Are you trying to take their freedom away so you can enslave them with the thing that you think is freedom?

Buddy, you have a long way to go in life, to even understand yourself when you think and talk like this.

[Astargath]

It gets to show how deluded religious people are that they will defend rape and slavery and just bad laws made by god.

[Astargath]

Do people take this shit seriously?

Yes

Torah, Slavery and the Jews

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm

Let's start simple:

Take an agrarian society surrounded by hostile nations. Go in there and forcefully abolish slavery. The result? War, bloodshed, hatred, prejudice, poverty and eventually, a return to slavery until the underlying conditions change. Which is pretty much what happened in the American South when the semi-industrialized North imposed their laws upon the agrarian South. And in Texas when Mexico attempted to abolish slavery among the Anglophones there.

Not a good idea. Better idea: Place humane restrictions upon the institution of indentured servitude. Yes, it's still ugly, but in the meantime, you'll teach people compassion and kindness. Educate. Make workshops... Eventually, things change and slavery becomes an anachronism for such a society.

Which is pretty much what happened to Jewish society. Note this: At a time when Romans had literally thousands of slaves per citizen, even the wealthiest Jews held very modest numbers of servants. And those servants, the Talmud tells us, were treated better by their masters than foreign kings would treat their own subjects.

Torah teaches us how to run a libertarian society--through education and participation. Elsewhere in the world, emperors and aristocracy knew only how to govern a mass of people through oppression.
...
So the "conservative-radical" approach of Torah is this: Work with the status quo to get beyond it. Torah is more about process than about content.
...
Climbing Deeper

Are you satisfied with this answer? I'm not. I'm convinced there's a deeper effect that Torah is looking for. Call it "the participatory effect." A.k.a. nurture.

The Participatory Effect tells us that if you want people to follow rules, you put guns to their heads. But if you want them to learn, grow, internalize those rules and be able to teach them to others, you're going to have to involve them in the process of forming those rules.

School teachers do this when they work with their class on the first day to design rules that everyone will see as reasonable and useful. Parents do this when they allow their child to makes mistakes so that s/he will learn from them. A skilled wife is doing this when she gets her husband to believe that he came up with the idea of re-tiling the kitchen floor.

In general, this strategy comes more naturally to women than to men. Men find it much easier to shove their opinions down other people's throats and, if need be, argue the other into the ground until he surrenders. All variations of the old gun-to-the-head technique. Women are designed to nurture, physically and emotionally, so they take naturally to the participatory technique. To quote Gluckel of Hameln, "She was a true woman of valor. She knew how to control her husband's heart."
...
Getting Real Change

If G‑d would simply and explicitly declare all the rules, precisely as He wants His world to look and what we need to do about it, the Torah would never become real to us. No matter how much we would do and how good we would be, we would remain aliens to the process.

So, too, with slavery (and there are many other examples): In the beginning, the world starts off as a place where oppressing others is a no-qualms, perfectly acceptable practice. It's not just the practice Torah needs to deal with, it's the attitude. So Torah involves us in arriving at that attitude. To the point that we will say, "Even though the Torah lets us, we don't do things that way."

Which means that we've really learnt something. And now, we can teach it to others. Because those things you're just told, those you cannot teach. You can only teach that which you have discovered on your own.
...
The greatest force in the emancipation of slavery in colonial times were the "Society of Friends," also known as the "Quakers."

You see god could have stopped them from having slaves in the first place. Of course he didn't because he is stupid. Instead he let them have slaves and then actually gave them rules on how to treat and own slaves. I don't know what you are trying to defend here.

[BADecker]

Do people take this shit seriously?

Yes

Torah, Slavery and the Jews

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/305549/jewish/Torah-Slavery-and-the-Jews.htm

Let's start simple:

Take an agrarian society surrounded by hostile nations. Go in there and forcefully abolish slavery. The result? War, bloodshed, hatred, prejudice, poverty and eventually, a return to slavery until the underlying conditions change. Which is pretty much what happened in the American South when the semi-industrialized North imposed their laws upon the agrarian South. And in Texas when Mexico attempted to abolish slavery among the Anglophones there.

Not a good idea. Better idea: Place humane restrictions upon the institution of indentured servitude. Yes, it's still ugly, but in the meantime, you'll teach people compassion and kindness. Educate. Make workshops... Eventually, things change and slavery becomes an anachronism for such a society.

Which is pretty much what happened to Jewish society. Note this: At a time when Romans had literally thousands of slaves per citizen, even the wealthiest Jews held very modest numbers of servants. And those servants, the Talmud tells us, were treated better by their masters than foreign kings would treat their own subjects.

Torah teaches us how to run a libertarian society--through education and participation. Elsewhere in the world, emperors and aristocracy knew only how to govern a mass of people through oppression.
...
So the "conservative-radical" approach of Torah is this: Work with the status quo to get beyond it. Torah is more about process than about content.
...
Climbing Deeper

Are you satisfied with this answer? I'm not. I'm convinced there's a deeper effect that Torah is looking for. Call it "the participatory effect." A.k.a. nurture.

The Participatory Effect tells us that if you want people to follow rules, you put guns to their heads. But if you want them to learn, grow, internalize those rules and be able to teach them to others, you're going to have to involve them in the process of forming those rules.

School teachers do this when they work with their class on the first day to design rules that everyone will see as reasonable and useful. Parents do this when they allow their child to makes mistakes so that s/he will learn from them. A skilled wife is doing this when she gets her husband to believe that he came up with the idea of re-tiling the kitchen floor.

In general, this strategy comes more naturally to women than to men. Men find it much easier to shove their opinions down other people's throats and, if need be, argue the other into the ground until he surrenders. All variations of the old gun-to-the-head technique. Women are designed to nurture, physically and emotionally, so they take naturally to the participatory technique. To quote Gluckel of Hameln, "She was a true woman of valor. She knew how to control her husband's heart."
...
Getting Real Change

If G‑d would simply and explicitly declare all the rules, precisely as He wants His world to look and what we need to do about it, the Torah would never become real to us. No matter how much we would do and how good we would be, we would remain aliens to the process.

So, too, with slavery (and there are many other examples): In the beginning, the world starts off as a place where oppressing others is a no-qualms, perfectly acceptable practice. It's not just the practice Torah needs to deal with, it's the attitude. So Torah involves us in arriving at that attitude. To the point that we will say, "Even though the Torah lets us, we don't do things that way."

Which means that we've really learnt something. And now, we can teach it to others. Because those things you're just told, those you cannot teach. You can only teach that which you have discovered on your own.
...
The greatest force in the emancipation of slavery in colonial times were the "Society of Friends," also known as the "Quakers."

You see god could have stopped them from having slaves in the first place. Of course he didn't because he is stupid. Instead he let them have slaves and then actually gave them rules on how to treat and own slaves. I don't know what you are trying to defend here.

Now that you understand that God exists, understand, also, that God could have done it any way, like you said. The way that He did it was the honorable way, giving people their freedom.

Consider the goals of God:
1. Gain glory for Himself;
2. Do it by making Children who willingly praise Him for His greatness;
3. Give them freedom to praise Him so that the praise is not simply programming;
4. Give them great goodness so that they see the reason to praise Him;
5. If they fail, and send themselves on a road to destruction in their freedom, bring them back, give them the opportunity and enough time to think it through and remake their choice if they want;
6. Maintain the freedom for them so that those who want to praise Him can still do it;
7. Ultimately remove those who don't want to praise Him, because they are unwilling to move themselves into the position that God made them for;
8. Give those who praise Him a new land with far better things (at least double good things) in it than this land - the New Heavens and the New Earth;
9. Destroy those who did not want Him, just to get His power back that He placed in them, but that they rejected.


Think about one little thing. You are what you are. You haven't been built to spread your wings and fly aloft with the birds. You haven't been built with gills to dive to the depths of the ocean with the fish. You haven't been built to be able to change shape like the amoeba. You are what you are. Things are what they are. It is what it is. And we just can't do it any different than God allows.

Yet, God allows us freedom and joy amidst the pain we get ourselves into. You talk like you want a way out. Then accept the way out that God provides, just like you accept the operation of you body and mind like He allows. Your choice. Accept, now, while He holds the choice open for you.

It is what it is.

[Astargath]

You are defending a lost cause. God gave them orders on how to enslave people. That's not a moral god. God also commanded to kill someone because he was working on the Sabbath, that's not a moral and logical god, that's a barbaric god and just shows the mentality of the people who wrote the book.

[BADecker]

You are defending a lost cause. God gave them orders on how to enslave people. That's not a moral god. God also commanded to kill someone because he was working on the Sabbath, that's not a moral and logical god, that's a barbaric god and just shows the mentality of the people who wrote the book.

You simply have your religion. Since you are unwilling to look at what the Bible says in its entirety, you have made a different kind of religion for yourself.

You will come to find out how majestic God is. I hope it is before your death, in ways that cause you to turn and accept Him. Because it won't be fun for you if you find out after your death.

[Astargath]

You are defending a lost cause. God gave them orders on how to enslave people. That's not a moral god. God also commanded to kill someone because he was working on the Sabbath, that's not a moral and logical god, that's a barbaric god and just shows the mentality of the people who wrote the book.

You simply have your religion. Since you are unwilling to look at what the Bible says in its entirety, you have made a different kind of religion for yourself.

You will come to find out how majestic God is. I hope it is before your death, in ways that cause you to turn and accept Him. Because it won't be fun for you if you find out after your death.

The bible has literally pages of god commanding to kill people, what do you mean to look at its entirety? If it's truly the book of a god, you would expect it to have no mistakes. Or that people won't be able to misinterpret it.
You see, all that matters to god is for me to accept that he exists, he doesn't care whether I am a good person or not, it just shows how stupid he is lol

[CoinCube]

The bible has literally pages of god commanding to kill people, what do you mean to look at its entirety? If it's truly the book of a god, you would expect it to have no mistakes. Or that people won't be able to misinterpret it.
You see, all that matters to god is for me to accept that he exists, he doesn't care whether I am a good person or not, it just shows how stupid he is lol

God does not make mistakes but humans do. You don't have to believe that the Bible is entirely free of mistakes.

We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that there is approximately a 95% word-for-word identity for documents copied 1,000 years apart. Considering the number of generations and the technology of the time this is amazing but 95% is not 100% so it is possible that some error has entered not to mention translator biases when going from the original language to multiple others.

See:
The Greatest Archaeological Find of the 20th Century
https://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible/is-the-bible-true/proof-2-dead-sea-scrolls/

Given the high rate of fidelity we can, however, be confident the core message is intact. No matter how clear a text is people will always misinterpret it. This is an inevitability of human nature.

[Astargath]

The bible has literally pages of god commanding to kill people, what do you mean to look at its entirety? If it's truly the book of a god, you would expect it to have no mistakes. Or that people won't be able to misinterpret it.
You see, all that matters to god is for me to accept that he exists, he doesn't care whether I am a good person or not, it just shows how stupid he is lol

God does not make mistakes but humans do. You don't have to believe that the Bible is entirely free of mistakes.

We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that there is approximately a 95% word-for-word identity for documents copied 1,000 years apart. Considering the number of generations and the technology of the time this is amazing but 95% is not 100% so it is possible that some error has entered not to mention translator biases when going from the original language to multiple others.

See:
The Greatest Archaeological Find of the 20th Century
https://lifehopeandtruth.com/bible/is-the-bible-true/proof-2-dead-sea-scrolls/

Given the high rate of fidelity we can, however, be confident the core message is intact. No matter how clear a text is people will always misinterpret it. This is an inevitability of human nature.

In the bible it says clearly that god has failed. That's why the flood happened because he failed. A god cannot fail yet it says he failed, it shows again, the stupidity of people who wrote the book.

[CoinCube]

In the bible it says clearly that god has failed. That's why the flood happened because he failed. A god cannot fail yet it says he failed, it shows again, the stupidity of people who wrote the book.

It does not say God has failed it does however repeatedly discuss the failures of mankind.

Did G-d change His mind with the Flood?
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/756601/jewish/Did-G-d-change-His-mind-with-the-Flood.htm

Question:

The following text from just before the flood seems to imply that G‑d did something wrong, was sorry for it, and surprised by its happening:

"And the L-rd repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart. And the L-rd said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for I repent that I have made them."

How could that be when He knows the end before the beginning?

Answer:

Here's what the ancient Midrash has to say on these verses:

A heretic asked R. Joshua ben Korchah: "Don't you Jews say that G‑d knows the future?"

Rabbi Joshua answered, "Yes."

"Why then," continued the heretic, "is it written that 'grieved Him in His heart'?"

Responded R. Joshua, "Was a son ever born to you?"

"Yes," said the heretic.

"What did you do?"

"I rejoiced."

"But didn't you know that one day he will die?"

Replied the man, "One rejoices when it is a time for rejoicing, and one mourns when it is a time for mourning."

Said R. Joshua, "So it is with G‑d."

Rashi, the classic commentator, cites this Midrash and adds a few words to explain further. He adds, "Although it was known to Him that they will sin and be destroyed, He nevertheless created them for the sake of the righteous who will descend from them."

Meaning that G‑d created humankind because He wanted righteous human beings. So when He created them, He rejoiced. He knew there would be wicked people, for there cannot be righteousness without wickedness, good without bad. But now was a time to rejoice. Later, when the wicked would arise, that would be the time to mourn.

If you wish to go a little deeper, ponder this: Is G‑d involved in His creation, or does He stand beyond it? On the one hand, to be the Creator of all that exists out of nothing, He must be entirely beyond all the creation contains. On the other hand, He must be here right now in every event that occurs.

So we say that He is both—in the language of Chassidut, He is within all things and yet encompasses them all at once. To be G‑d, He must, so to speak, be of two minds at once:

He must see things from beyond and from within at the same time.

This is what Rabbi Joshua was explaining to the heretic: On the one hand, G‑d knows all before it happens. He is beyond it all and nothing affects Him. At the same time, He involves Himself within every event of the story as it happens. He is there intimately, within the sorrow and within the joy, within the pain and within the beauty that comes out from that pain. Both modalities are true at once and in both together is He found.

I wrote something on this topic in an article called Playing G‑d, but let me know if this helps answer your question.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

[Astargath]

In the bible it says clearly that god has failed. That's why the flood happened because he failed. A god cannot fail yet it says he failed, it shows again, the stupidity of people who wrote the book.

It does not say God has failed it does however repeatedly discuss the failures of mankind.

Did G-d change His mind with the Flood?
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/756601/jewish/Did-G-d-change-His-mind-with-the-Flood.htm

Question:

The following text from just before the flood seems to imply that G‑d did something wrong, was sorry for it, and surprised by its happening:

"And the L-rd repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart. And the L-rd said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for I repent that I have made them."

How could that be when He knows the end before the beginning?

Answer:

Here's what the ancient Midrash has to say on these verses:

A heretic asked R. Joshua ben Korchah: "Don't you Jews say that G‑d knows the future?"

Rabbi Joshua answered, "Yes."

"Why then," continued the heretic, "is it written that 'grieved Him in His heart'?"

Responded R. Joshua, "Was a son ever born to you?"

"Yes," said the heretic.

"What did you do?"

"I rejoiced."

"But didn't you know that one day he will die?"

Replied the man, "One rejoices when it is a time for rejoicing, and one mourns when it is a time for mourning."

Said R. Joshua, "So it is with G‑d."

Rashi, the classic commentator, cites this Midrash and adds a few words to explain further. He adds, "Although it was known to Him that they will sin and be destroyed, He nevertheless created them for the sake of the righteous who will descend from them."

Meaning that G‑d created humankind because He wanted righteous human beings. So when He created them, He rejoiced. He knew there would be wicked people, for there cannot be righteousness without wickedness, good without bad. But now was a time to rejoice. Later, when the wicked would arise, that would be the time to mourn.

If you wish to go a little deeper, ponder this: Is G‑d involved in His creation, or does He stand beyond it? On the one hand, to be the Creator of all that exists out of nothing, He must be entirely beyond all the creation contains. On the other hand, He must be here right now in every event that occurs.

So we say that He is both—in the language of Chassidut, He is within all things and yet encompasses them all at once. To be G‑d, He must, so to speak, be of two minds at once:

He must see things from beyond and from within at the same time.

This is what Rabbi Joshua was explaining to the heretic: On the one hand, G‑d knows all before it happens. He is beyond it all and nothing affects Him. At the same time, He involves Himself within every event of the story as it happens. He is there intimately, within the sorrow and within the joy, within the pain and within the beauty that comes out from that pain. Both modalities are true at once and in both together is He found.

I wrote something on this topic in an article called Playing G‑d, but let me know if this helps answer your question.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

And isn't mankind made by god? Do you not realize that if humans fail it's because god made it that way? He already knew what would happen when he made humans, therefore it makes no sense to punish them or get angry. I mean if he already knows why make something that you know it's going to be flawed and then get angry about it, it makes no sense. Again showing how little, the people who wrote the book, understood about logic.

[Astargath]

The biggest problem with the god from the bible is that you need to believe in him to go to heaven. It seems to me that believing in him is all that matters. Im using my brain, logic and the tools god supposedly gave me to find the truth and after studying the bible my conclusions are that he does not exist. Now because of that I'm going to hell. So I'm going to hell because I used the logic god gave me? You realize how that does not make any sense. I can't force myself to believe in him. Why am i going to hell for that. I'm trying to be a good person but it's meaningless if you dont believe in god. You see how it doesn't make any sense.

[Okurkabinladin]

You are defending a lost cause. God gave them orders on how to enslave people. That's not a moral god. God also commanded to kill someone because he was working on the Sabbath, that's not a moral and logical god, that's a barbaric god and just shows the mentality of the people who wrote the book.

You simply have your religion. Since you are unwilling to look at what the Bible says in its entirety, you have made a different kind of religion for yourself.

You will come to find out how majestic God is. I hope it is before your death, in ways that cause you to turn and accept Him. Because it won't be fun for you if you find out after your death.

The bible has literally pages of god commanding to kill people, what do you mean to look at its entirety? If it's truly the book of a god, you would expect it to have no mistakes. Or that people won't be able to misinterpret it.
You see, all that matters to god is for me to accept that he exists, he doesn't care whether I am a good person or not, it just shows how stupid he is lol

Old Testament and ancient Israelites that is. New Testament is the book, that christianity is actually based upon closely. Your hatred is completely misplaced here, Mr. "lol".

The biggest problem with the god from the bible is that you need to believe in him to go to heaven. It seems to me that believing in him is all that matters. Im using my brain, logic and the tools god supposedly gave me to find the truth and after studying the bible my conclusions are that he does not exist. Now because of that I'm going to hell. So I'm going to hell because I used the logic god gave me? You realize how that does not make any sense. I can't force myself to believe in him. Why am i going to hell for that. I'm trying to be a good person but it's meaningless if you dont believe in god. You see how it doesn't make any sense.

No, not at all. Salvation is offered to those, who follow teaching of Jesus Christ to the best of their abilities, to those, who atone their personal mistakes aswell as those, who lived good life, but were never for whatever reason offered place among true believers.

Now, if you know the teaching and willingly refused it (but you never actually read the bible, did you?) aswell as the justice of Lord then thats different matter.

So the idea of salvation, unlike say communism or other warped secular ideologies is based completely around equality and FREE WILL of the person in question.

How can bitcointalk member have problem with that?

[BADecker]

You are defending a lost cause. God gave them orders on how to enslave people. That's not a moral god. God also commanded to kill someone because he was working on the Sabbath, that's not a moral and logical god, that's a barbaric god and just shows the mentality of the people who wrote the book.

You simply have your religion. Since you are unwilling to look at what the Bible says in its entirety, you have made a different kind of religion for yourself.

You will come to find out how majestic God is. I hope it is before your death, in ways that cause you to turn and accept Him. Because it won't be fun for you if you find out after your death.

The bible has literally pages of god commanding to kill people, what do you mean to look at its entirety? If it's truly the book of a god, you would expect it to have no mistakes. Or that people won't be able to misinterpret it.
You see, all that matters to god is for me to accept that he exists, he doesn't care whether I am a good person or not, it just shows how stupid he is lol

Before mankind sinned, there was no death. Mankind used his free will to bring on death.

Then mankind went on to use his free will to do all kinds of things that would further death.

If someone murders your daughter, you might have mercy on him, and not pronounce the death penalty on him. But if he is not in the least repentant, and doesn't care that he murdered your daughter, but goes out and kills your other daughter, just for the fun of it, and would go and kill many others any time he had the chance, are you still going to let him live?

Doesn't justice require execution for the murderer? Especially if the guy is an unrepentant homicidal maniac who enjoys killing?

That is the thing God is judging when he puts nations and people to death. It isn't the simple act of direct murder that He is judging. Rather, it is the activities of sin-without-repentance that He is judging. Sin without repentance is the intentionally bringing of death, just like the first sin brought death. God's judgment is accurate, as is His mercy towards many people who He gives a long time, and much more chance to repent... like you.

Like as nations often exercise the death penalty... for justice to be done... so God does the same. He is even more accurate in the justice. And, He is owner of all things. Don't tell Him what He can and can't do with His property. Rather, be glad that He gives you a time of joy for a while, so that you can repent, so that you will not be destroyed like others that God righteously executed.

[CoinCube]

Charlie Gard - the state is not God

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/07/13/charlie-gard-state-is-not-god.amp.html

Anyone looking for another reason not to leave life-and-death issues to the state need look no further than the conflict between the British government and the parents of 11-month-old Charlie Gard.

Governments, including the British courts and the European court of human rights have refused to allow Charlie’s parents to take him to the U.S. for what they believe is life-saving treatment. In what many will regard as a cynical decision, UK judge Nicholas Francis gave Charlie’s parents just two days to present new evidence as to why their son should receive experimental treatment. A final decision will be handed down in a hearing on Thursday.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital where Charlie is on a ventilator, his brain reportedly damaged from a rare genetic condition, argue that he should be removed from life support and allowed to die. President Trump has offered help. Pope Francis also supports the parent’s right to determine what is best for their child.

Charlie’s parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, believe an experimental treatment known as nucleoside therapy might work on their son. British doctors say it won’t improve the child’s “quality of life.” They want him to die. Apparently that’s OK with the state-run National Health Service (NHS), which is always looking for ways to cut costs.

Judges, bureaucrats and politicians should not be allowed to make such a decision, but the growing power of the state is increasingly assuming the power to determine who is fit to live and who should die.

The parents have raised enough money to take Charlie to America for treatment. Wouldn’t most parents do all they could for their child, especially one so young who is helpless and at the mercy of adults? I know I would for my grandson, who is also named Charlie.

Judges, bureaucrats and politicians should not be allowed to make such a decision, but the growing power of the state is increasingly assuming the power to determine who is fit to live and who should die — and to quote Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” “decrease the surplus population.” Who, or what, can stop them, assuming a majority want to?

When the state is allowed to assign value to a human life, the unwanted, the inconvenient, the sick, the elderly and the handicapped are all at risk. Seeing lives as less than valuable, or of no value, will bring us to the point where only the fit and healthy are allowed to live. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, wrote in 1921, “The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” The Nazis took this thinking to its most inhumane level with horrific results.

At a Monday hearing, Judge Francis said “new and powerful” evidence submitted by the parents and their attorney could overturn previous rulings. That would be good, but the larger question is why does a court get to decide what health care is best for a child? That should be the parents’ privilege and responsibility.

It was University of Chicago professor of biology, Dr. Leon Kass, who issued this stern warning: “We have paid some high prices for the technological conquest of nature, but none so high as the intellectual and spiritual costs of seeing nature as mere material for our manipulation, exploitation and transformation. With the powers of biological engineering gathering, there will be splendid new opportunities for similar degradation of our view of man. ... If we come to see ourselves as meat, then meat we shall become.”

Charlie Gard is not “meat.” He and his parents should be allowed to come to America. As long as hope lives, so does Charlie.