Posted on 10/28/2012 4:25:31 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
...When I was a medical student, I delivered 12 babies... - but I also had to learn about abortion. Fortunately I only had to witness one - I won’t describe it to you – it is sickening even in a clinical environment - later that day we accompanied the same consultant to an infertility clinic - I remember walking through a room full of sad-faced couples - any of them would have been overjoyed to take away the aborted baby
The term ‘abortion’ is a euphemism. Medically it refers to natural termination - about 1/10 foetuses have abnormalities which won’t survive birth - a few of these come to term, but most of them are aborted naturally - we call these ‘spontaneous’ abortions, now that we do medical abortions - and we usually use the passive “they are aborted”, or “terminated” - this helps us to believe that it really isn’t our choice. It just happens.
In the ancient world they used a similar kind of euphemism - instead of abortion (which was very dangerous) they used infanticide - but they didn’t speak about ‘killing’ babies – they said they were exposed - we have an example in Act.7.19 saying Pharoah forced babies “to be exposed” - but of course we know that Pharoah wanted them killed at birth - Miriam was breaking this command when she put Moses in a basket
Originally, in rural Greek & Roman society they did “expose” infants... - it was easier to quietly smother the baby at birth and throw out the corpse - some people did still leave babies on a hillside, leaving them to the ‘gods’ - but in practice this left them to the dogs, and to brothel keepers who sometimes rescued infants as an investment for their business.
(Excerpt) Read more at instonebrewer.com ...
They didn't realize that; but then there's a whole lot they didn't realize, because God's revelation was gradual, and they grasped it partially and imperfectly, over a period of centuries.
The pattern can be seen in the "Six Antitheses". The OT law represents an advance which mitigates some evil in the ancient barbaric milieu; Jesus' later precept involves not an entire repudiation of the OT law, but a further advance in the same direction.
For instance:
Barbarism: Murder, esp. by a chieftain, tolerated. Jewish law: Thou shalt not commit murder. Christ: Don't even nurture the kind of wrath that motivates murder.
Barbarism: Dismiss one's wife at will. Jewish law: "You must give her a written bill of divorce (with reasons)." Christ: no divorce.
Barbarism: Use women sexually ad libitum. Jewish law: "No adultery." Christ: "Don't even look at someone with lust."
Pagan milieu: Unlimited revenge ("You put one of our guys in the hospital, we put one of you guys in the morgue.") Jewish: exact limitation of retribution (Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth) --- Christ: no revenge.
Biblical history is very often at variance with God's law. Did God want the killing of babies by Moses, Joshua, David? I say "No" ---not on my own, but on the basis of Biblical precedent and Law (Decalogue), and especially on the basis of the true and perfect Law given by Christ.
Let's face it, I am neither a Jew nor a Protestant Fundamentalist. So I'm not stuck with Moses and Joshua's interpretation of God's will. I have Jesus. And Jesus Himself critiques Moses' interpretation, which he says was a concession to people's "hardness of heart."
In the Letter to the Hebrews (1:1 ff)---
"In the past God spoke to our ancestors
through the prophets
at many times and in various ways
but in these last days he has spoken to us
by his Son
whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory,
and the exact representation of his being,
sustaining all things by his powerful word."
And again (Hebrews 7):
"The former regulation is set aside
because it was weak and useless
(for the law made nothing perfect),
and a better hope is introduced,
by which we draw near to God."
And Hebrews 8:
"For if there had been nothing wrong
with that first covenant
no place would have been sought for another."
Everything which was imperfect in the OT, is perfected in the New. That's why I have no hesitation to say Moses and Joshua were mistaken in their interpretation of God's will, when they committed murder. They were wrong, and Jesus is right forever.
Thanks, Mrs. Don-o!
So, to condense the explanation, would it be accurate to conclude that 1 Samuel 15:3 (which the Bible records as divine commandment to kill the infants) is a corruption of the actual instruction, corrupted by the prophet who delivered it, and not really the will / command of God? If not, which part of this conclusion would be in error?
But (scratching head) here goes:
Short version: I think it was a partially understood divine inspiration. Not directly "Forget what I said before about murder; murder is now OK," but rather "Do not be like the Gentile nations. Do not pursue war for wealth."
First of all, I think the authors of the OT were divinely-inspired to see their national history as Acts of God. This is not to say they were religious-chauvinistic self-glorifiers. Yes, sometimes they saw themselves as God's agents for uprooting evil regimes; but at other times they see themselves uprooted (over and over) as a punishment for *their* sins. They see the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians and Persians as the "scourge of God" upon their *own* backs, paying them back for their evil and extirpating them from the land.
In this context, their prophets make little distinction between The Primary Cause (God) and the secondary causes. It's either "We're having our asses whipped because we're evil in His sight" or "the Canaanites are having their asses whipped because THEY are evil in His sight."
Second: I think they had a clear idea that they were not to become gold-chain-festooned, concubine-collecting looters like typical plunder-seeking warlords; nor were they to become a Slave-Empire like the Assyrians and Egyptians; nor were they to culturally assimilate with their neighbors (as they would through the customary practice of seizing captive women and thus siring cohorts of descendants who would be a permanent servile class of polytheists and idolators.) So then, what are your options if you're engaging in an existential war in which you will either be annihilated on the battlefield or you wlll prevail?
You must fight or be wiped out; and if you prevail, you are not to take plunder of goods or livestock or women or slaves. If you did the universally accepted thing, the expected thing, seizing wealth, you would surely pursue perverse incentives into more warfare: more plunder, more sheep and oxen, more slaves: a successful predator regime.
So the radical rejection of that kind of success, when you've won your battle, is to offer all the potential plunder (of goods and herds and humankind) as a total oblation to God. This severely deprives the warriors of any material incentive or reward for further warfare. As well, it underscores that these are Divine-Judgment Wars --- in other words, Miracle-Wars --- achieving not their personal or tribal or national wealth as successful fighting men, but the judgment of nations by the divine Judge.
In short: no looting, no slaves, none of the customary (and substantial) rewards of success. THis is a judgment on evil nations (the Canaanite armies) and that's all.
Does this really justify murder? Is murder better than slave-taking on a massive scale? No? (I want to say "No".) But what were their options? (Here's where I really wish I had a better understanding of ancient warfare.)
I mean: do they turn from the field of carnage to try some ind of democracy-in-our-time nation-building like the League of Nations after WWI? or the polices of Bush 43? Really? They're going to rebuild the Canaanite settlements, and then settle the Canaanite survivors in there? Build them some schools and dig them some wells?
Or: neither kill them nor re-settle them, but keep them captive permanently, without using their labor (that is to say: without enslaving them)? How does that work in a society with very low technology, very low productivity, where every man and woman and child must necessarily labor or starve?
I don't know. It's just my guess -- and this may be rubbish, but it's my best Mrs. Don-o Rubbish --- that their real option was: "Hey, Yehuda! Hey, Joshua! Let's become a fabulously successful predator-nation! Why not?"
And the prophetic word that came to them was: Not.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
Deuteronomy 21:10-14: "When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her [i.e. rape her or engage in consensual sex], and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her."
Deuteronomy 20:14: "But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself"
What is one to make of such verses? Are these the words of your god or not?
Such things are in the same category as Moses' allowance for divorce, which, as Jesus says, Moses permitted "because of their hardness of heart."
This can be seen all through the Old Testament, whose precepts are always gradual and partial, always needing correction from the New.
The Hebrew Scriptures often miserably demoralized and scandalized me, when I was reading them in a fundamentalist way, with an essentially static, ahistorical point of view.
But this was an error. Isolating single verses or even chapters is like snipping single frames out of a film: you can't see whether a guy is just inclining casually aslant, or if he's exerting himself as hard as he can against the countervailing winds of Superstorm Sandy.
The Hebrews in Deuteronomy, so lately slaves living the most debased sort of existence in the forced-labor camps of Egypt, are being nudged--- barbarian people -- over a course of lifetimes and centuries, towards a gradual but splendid culmination: the revelation of the Son of God.
Here's how St. Paul, the mentor of St. Timothy, warns this half-Jewish half-Greek disciple against misinterpreting Scripture:
(1 Tim 1)
The end at which our warning aims,
is charity, based on purity of heart,
on a good conscience and a sincere faith.There are some who have missed this mark,
branching off into vain speculations,
who now claim to be expounding 'the law',
without understanding the meaning of their own words,
or the subject on which they pronounce so positively.The law?
It is an excellent thing,
where it is applied legitimately;
but it must be remembered that
the law is not meant for those who live innocent lives.It is meant for the lawless and the refractory;
for the godless and the sinner,
the unholy and the profane;
for those who lay violent hands on father or mother,
for murderers,
for those who commit fornication or sin against nature,
the slave-dealer, the liar, the perjurer.All this and much else
is the very opposite of the sound doctrine,
contained in the gospel I have been entrusted with,
that tells us of the blessed God and his glory.
In other words, these commands and laws were meant to restrain, in stages and by degrees, the evils which were absolutely endemic in barbarian societies. They were used to slave-dealing, fornication, murder. If men were used to torture traitors to death, the command would be to kill, not torture; if they were used to maim a thieving slave by amputation,the command would be to flog but not maim. A captive woman might become a wife, but not a chattel; if this should prove unsatisfactory, the man can free her but not sell her.
Anyone will have major comprehension problems if he pries the Bible apart from the Church. because the Bible is not a manual of systematic morality. It is often not moral, and systematic? -- not even close. No one can read it intelligibly outside of the "Principle of the Whole" (=cata holos,, i.e., its Catholicity) by which the Scripture is rightly interpreted by the whole of Revelation, which is not a "what" but a "who": Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Law is not a magic spell, a formula of words which always "works". In each instance, one must carefully discern its voice, magnitude and direction. Law is not a point, it's a vector, a directed line segment, pointed, aimed at a goal. To read it intelligently, read it as directional, as in motion, as in the Church, God's arrow though time.
Simone Weil: "Christ lui-même est descendu et m'a prise."
Christ Himself has come down and taken me.
Mrs. Don-o, your entire justification rests on the foundation that changes to moral behaviour must be gradual, in stages, each stage generations and thousands of years apart, critically relying on the assumption that sudden, radical change is impossible.
What reasons have you accepted to convince yourself that such a scheme is the only way?
I am sorry, I have left the impression that I consider sudden, radical change "impossible," and gradual change "theonly way." This is not so..
If I were acting on the level of my own preferences and proclivities and writing a Bible, it wouldn't just be the "Good Book," it would be the "Nothing But Good Book," and it would be a hell of a lot shorter. I would go even further than Marcion, the 2nd century teacher who was plain-spokenly literalist, very much a moralist, and a heretic: he believed that Jewish Scriptures were the true and faithfully written revelations of a god, but that this god was evil and opposed to the Good God revealed in the New Testament.
Marcion accepted only the Gospel of Luke (who happens to be my favorite, too) and I think 10 Epistles,and rejected the entire Old Testament and anything that was distasteful to him in the New.
As I say, if I were going according to my preferences, that would be it! But I'd be wrong.
Actually, I say that OT revelation is gradual, not because it "has" to be, but just because that's the way it is. I would make short shrift of barbarism, but God did not make short shrift of barbarism.
I think sudden and radical revelations are possible, simply on the principle that "that which happens, is possible."
The revelation of God as the Source of All Being, the YHWH, made to Moses via his burning bush experience, was radical and sudden. It certainly cut across all the polytheism of all sensible people both great and small: the Egyptians --- in whose royal and highly-advanced academies Moses was educated --- the Babylonians, and all the rest. believed in many gods. Moses' sudden new doctrine --- that which was stunningly revealed to him --- made the Hebrews almost atheists in the ancient context: they dis-believed in a thousand gods; they believed but One; and what might His name be? They wouldn't say!
And the Incarnation of Our Lord in the womb of the Virgin was sudden and radical. No one could have thought it; without hands-on proof, most couldn't accept it, not even Jesus' right-hand men.
As was His Gospel sudden and radical. After all, humankind (spoken for by Caiaphas and Pilate, Church and State so to speak) didn't crucify Him because He said things that went down easy.
So yeah, there can be gradual, and there can be sudden. I can't say why. I'm not explaining, I'm just reporting.
The point you made regarding gradual “refinement”, of coaxing savages to civilised societies gradually by eliminating barbarism one vile commandment at a time, is honestly repulsive and contradictory to the essential nature of a true god (which could never indulge / promote / sanction evil and which could never contradict itself over time).
It is a gigantic leap of faith to accept a god with such qualities as a true god, and a decision which my conscience will never permit me to make in a similar fashion.
Thanks for your views, and your participation. I will continue to discuss such matters with you in the future, if you want to.
I found this today, I felt you may find it interesting:
DEVOTION AND ITS EFFECTS
Bhagavad-Gita, Ch: IX, V. 26
patram pushpam phalam toyam yo me bhaktyaa prayacchati
tadaham bhaktyupahritamashnaami prayataatmanah // 9.26 //
Whoever offers Me with devotion and a pure mind, a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a little water - that I accept (the devout gift of the pure minded).
A gift, however small, is accepted by The Lord when it is offered with profound faith and devotion. He is satisfied even with a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a little water when it is offered with single-minded devotion and pure heart. What is offered is not as important as how it is offered. Although all the objects of the world belong to Him only and not to the devotee, yet if they are offered to Him by a devotee they become the conveyors of the latter's love and dedication unto The Lord.
Therefore the offerings serve their purpose only if they are accompanied by (a) devotion and (b) pure mind and heart. If these qualities are absent they are mere economic waste, vanity and false belief breeding superstition. On the other hand, if properly done, they are the means of transport in the spiritual path of self-development.
The way to the Highest is not by way of subtle metaphysics or complicated ritual. It is by sheer self-giving, which is symbolized by the offer of a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water.
WHY AT ALL THE LORD REQUIRES OFFERING FROM A SEEKER?
yatkaroshi yadashnaasi yajjuhoshi dadaasi yat
yattapasyasi kaunteya tatkurushva madarpanam // 9.27 //
Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer in sacrifice, whatever you give away, whatever you practice as austerity, O Kaunteya, do it as an offering to Me.
This verse explains how through all activities of life one can constantly live in the spirit of `devout offering' unto the Supreme. It is repeatedly said in the Gita that mental attitude is of utmost importance than the mere physical act and this fact is generally overlooked by the seekers.
The Lord being the creator and sustainer of all objects needs nothing from anybody. All that is required by Him is the devotion expressed through the spirit of offering. Sri Krishna therefore says that even simple common tasks of daily life like what we eat, what we offer in sacrifices, what we give as gifts and what we practice as austerity, can be done as a sacred offering unto the Eternal and thereby a constant remembrance of the Supreme can be maintained although undergoing the vagaries of life.
When all the activities of life are performed with a spirit of offering, not only our love to the Supreme increases in us but also our entire life becomes sanctified with a nobler and diviner focus. A devotee who constantly remembers the Substratum behind everything in life can give to life the respect and reverence that it deserves and in turn the life bestows its rewards on him. Love of God is not an escape from harshness of life but a dedication for service. Karma Yoga or the way of works which starts with the duty of performance of prescribed rites concludes with the position that all tasks are sanctified when done with disinterestedness and dedication.
The message is when all actions are consecrated unto Him with disinterestedness and dedication they become sanctified by which one is freed from the bondage of Karma with no re-birth to him. The individual becomes one with the Cosmic Will.
It is appropriate to quote here a verse from Adi Sankara’s “Siva Manasa Pooja” which reads:
Aatmaa tvam girijaa matih sahacharaah praanaah shariiram griham |
Poojaa te vishhayopabhogarachanaa nidraa samaadhisthitih |
Sajnchaarah padayoh pradakshinavidhih stotraani sarvaagiro |
Yadyat karma karomi tat tad akhilam shambho tavaaraadhanam||
You are my self, Parvati is my understanding. My five praanaas are your attendants. My body is your house, and all the pleasures of my senses are objects to use for your worship. My sleep is your state of samaadhii. Wherever I walk I am walking around you (pradakshina), everything I say is a prayer in praise of you. Whatever act is done by me, every one of them, O Lord, is worship unto You.
Dedication of all our activities to the Supreme is the corner-stone for spiritual awakening.
It does seem truly strange that believers in the theory of evolution, ‘survival of the fittest’ would selectively pick out I Samuel 15:3 as their rationale for disdain and repulsion of the Creator. God created all souls, even the souls of the Amalekites and He has not yet destroyed their souls. One must need to begin in the beginning Genesis 1:1 wherein the Creator elected Moses to lay out a chronology of events covering a vast amount of time to inform His creation His plan.
Christ was described in the first prophecy along with that first rebel. That first rebel was symbolically called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before the Adam was ever formed. Moses does not go into detail of what caused that first rebel to be called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But it most certainly indicates that evil existed before any soul was placed in a flesh body.
Planted in other places we are given more details as to why the need for this flesh age. There is only one entity named that has already been judged to hell, the devil, the serpent, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is a number given of his adherents that refused to be born of woman in flesh that have also been judged death.
Genesis to the Gospel is the story of the Adam and his progeny tracing the lineage to Christ, and all the other peoples this family came into contact with up to the conception of Christ. For Christ to be who God said He would be, God with us, only God could protect that blood line from the wiles of that first rebel.
Interesting that before I Samuel 15:3 happened you ignore the decree of that Pharaoh of having all the males babes killed. You sure do go the extra mile against God while ignoring that He created your very soul and someday yet future every soul He created will get to have a one on one accounting for their actions and/or inaction. But quite unlike say our seat of judgment in this flesh USA, God is perfect in His judgment, as only He knows the purity of heart and mind of ignorance.
The infants were ordered to be slaughtered by your god. It asks humans to perform this act of mass murder. Why did your god “knit in the womb” that which it wanted destroyed by humans? And if this god is also Jesus, some “great plan” it had for those infants’ stomped-out short lives, eh? Not a sentence in the Bible to address this immense moral conundrum, almost expecting the addresses population to accept it at face value, as if it were nothing. And if this is the standard of evil your god chooses to associate itself with, then how did you make a choice between such a god, instead of, say, Allah?
It’s laughable how jealous, uncompromising and arrogant your god can be at times, while allowing perfidious evil at other times because it suddenly realises the “hardness” of human hearts. Your god’s principles and “absolutes” waver like the seasonal sea winds. A true god would not be able to contradict itself the way the OT god and Jesus do, with each other, as well as with each’s self, and it doesn’t take plenty of mental gymnastics to not see this. If you are honest with your conscience, you are aware of it. Even Mrs. Don-o admits the difficulty she had about the problem.
A god, due to stringent definitional qualities, will have to be held to a higher standard than mere pharoahs. A god simply cannot do a single wrong or condone a single act of evil without contradicting and therefore nullifying itself. Do you realise this?
Oh, and by the way, evolution is the undeniable truth, buttressed by evidence with each fossil find, and the basis of whose truth is used in biology, medicine and agriculture by millions, and ultimately benefitted by billions. The more you oppose accepting it, the harder you make it for yourself to contend with the growing evidence. The Catholic Church realised this, and so will you be forced to, likewise.
addresses = addressed
doesn’t = does
Autocorrect isn’t always effective.
I appreciate the beauty and spiritual relevance of the Bhagavad-Gita, with its many elements of truth and goodness.
Two points: first, the relevance of warfare in sacred writings like the Gita, and second, the mode of interpretation of the Bible: is it, essentially, a moral manual, or is it a true record of the unfolding of incarnational revelation?
My take on the Gita relies heavily on Gandhi and also on Eknath Easwaran. As I understand it, the Gita --- from which you derive inspiring excerpts --- is a “Poem of Force” comparable in some respects to the Iliad /Odyssey epic or the Talmud. In what way is it moral? How does it “get around” or “through” its inspired war imagery?
In the Gita, Arjuna, realizing that his enemies are his own relatives, beloved friends, and revered teachers, turns for advice to his charioteer/guide, Krishna, who tells him his duty is the protection of the pious and the destruction of the impious. Krishna displays his Vishvarupa (Universal Form) to Arjuna on the battlefield, a splendid Being facing in every direction at once and brandishing every implement of bloodshed (swords, axes, arrows, daggers, lances). He summons Arjuna to do his duty as a warrior.
Is all this a glorification of war? It apparently depends upon interpretation by the devout mind, and not by the ignorance-filled mind. Faith and total surrender to a chosen God (Ishta-deva) are considered to be important aspects of warfare interpreted in a spiritualized sense. It’s Bhakti yoga -- devotional service with no thought of personal reward, a total oblation to God alone. Like (I daresay) the annihilation of a Canaanite town in Deuteronomy.
This is beautifully rendered in the selected texts you quoted to me, but it doesn’t resolve the question of killing in warfare.
You look at wars in Deuteronomy and Judges, etc, as literal, outside of the interpretive context of some 60 other books of the Bible and ignoring the three solid senses of Scripture beyond the literal: the analogical, the moral, and the anagogical. At the same time, you are willing to take the devotional bhakti-aspects from the Gita as a kind of unalloyed moral teahing, easily ignoring the explicit war and battle context.
This seems to me a truncated and tendentious reading doing justice neither to the Gita nor to the Bible.
Now turn to the Bible. Saying there’s “not a sentence in the Bible to address this immense moral conundrum,” is like being indignant about a forest because it has not a tree to be seen. It failing to engage with the vast hermeneutic of commentary provided by the whole rest of the Bible.
Some key points:
And then later Jesus says that God dwells in a Temple not made by hands?
“There’s a contradiction here,” says James C. Bennett.
You don’t say??!
This announcement that one has discovered the bleedin’ obvious almost leaves me gaping. It’s so far off it’s not even wrong. It's (as Mark Shea says) like watching some sophomore burst into a chat room discussion on relativity among quantum physicists in order to say, "If you're so smart, then how can light be a particle and a wave at the same time. Huh? Huh? Isn’t that some kind of contradiction? Why don't you learn some real science? When are you going to admit you don’t know a thing about non-contradictory logical thinking? Huh?”
Did you notice that the Catholic Church has been pursuing a kind of Unified Field Theory of Ethics, a hermeneutic cognizant of history, philosophy, Divine and Natural law, for, like, 20 centuries now?
And that we’re not “Sola Scriptura” believers, “verbal inerrancy” supporters or Fundamentalists? (I notice that skeptics tend to have the most fun arguing with fundies, strangely... maybe not so strangely ...beinst y'all have the same presuppositions about how "a deity" is "supposed" to communicate and how Scripture is "supposed" to work.)
Are you gratified to know that our Councils and Catechisms teach that the intentional killing of an innocent human being under any circumstances (whether under medical or military auspices, whether by abortion or infanticide or counter-city bombing or genocide,) is a “crime against God and humanity” which is unequivocally condemned?
Yes? Well, good. I’m gratified, too. Let’s shake hands.
Welcome to the chat room.
This is like having a conversation regarding 'toe'. The pretense of that supposed claimed hot steaming pot of primordial soup that never existed. But always referenced as the origin of life. So here is what God has to say. He created all souls long before this flesh age. It is call the 'age' that was, by Peter. Other writers reference this time period where in all souls/spirit intellect existed, but not in flesh bodies. At some point during this 'age' that was Lucifer who reached the level of the anointed cherub that covereth the mercy seat, was perfect in his ways and beauty stopped loving the Creator. Lucifer fell in love with himself and decided he would be god and drew with him a third of the sons of God.
As result he, Lucifer, Satan, the devil, the serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the accuser, the destroyer, all 'names' he was called to identify his method of operation, (plus many more) was judged to death.
But rather than sentence any soul/spirit to death that followed the first rebel, that heaven/earth age was destroyed. Hence no more dinos, etc., but their remains were left to give evidence there was an 'age' that 'was'. The Genesis account of 'creation' is the cleaning up of this earth to make it habitable for this present earth age, as Peter calls it the 'world' (age) that is 'now'. Genesis 1 describes the creation of multiple peoples in flesh bodies and even describes their responsibilities/dominion of this earth.
Peter says that God keeps time that one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day. So each day of creation would account for a thousand years. Quite a clean up after the first rebel was cast down. We in this age have not personally witnessed a supernatural war yet.
The Adam was not formed until the 8th day, 2-3 thousand years depending on which part of the thousand year time frame the creation took place.
Now there were some that did not follow the first rebel when he rebelled. They are the 'elect' and they earned in that first heaven/earth 'age' their justification and were chosen to perform specific duties by the Creator. We can know who some of them are by who penned the WORD. We can also know the mindset of those that carried their rebellious nature with them in this present age. BUT, what no person can know or JUDGE is the standing of any of God's children when all is said and done.
It’s laughable how jealous, uncompromising and arrogant your god can be at times, while allowing perfidious evil at other times because it suddenly realises the “hardness” of human hearts. Your god’s principles and “absolutes” waver like the seasonal sea winds. A true god would not be able to contradict itself the way the OT god and Jesus do, with each other, as well as with each’s self, and it doesn’t take plenty of mental gymnastics to not see this. If you are honest with your conscience, you are aware of it. Even Mrs. Don-o admits the difficulty she had about the problem.
A bit of a refresher here Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous GOD, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and forth generation of them that *hate* Me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that *love* Me, and keep My commandments.
It is not like the peoples have not been warned.
Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
You obviously have not read all of the WORDS of Christ, because Christ was right there in the Garden of God called the tree of life. And right there allowed in the midst of the Garden was the first rebel, called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Ah, when the peoples were warned, even in the heaven/earth world (age) that was, and rather than literally destroying their very existence then and there God gave opportunity for each and every soul/spirit to come through this flesh age. That is the first requirement to see the kingdom of God. And not all of the sons of God took that opportunity, some of them came and cohabited with the daughters of the Adam and produced hybrid giants. Hence the flood of Noah. Obviously there was a second influx that produced the Amalekites, and God was not going to allow that already preplanned blood line to Christ get polluted.
A god, due to stringent definitional qualities, will have to be held to a higher standard than mere pharoahs. A god simply cannot do a single wrong or condone a single act of evil without contradicting and therefore nullifying itself. Do you realise this?
I would say given your ridicule of Him and you still have the gift of breathing demonstrates a far greater love for you than you for Him.
Oh, and by the way, evolution is the undeniable truth, buttressed by evidence with each fossil find, and the basis of whose truth is used in biology, medicine and agriculture by millions, and ultimately benefitted by billions. The more you oppose accepting it, the harder you make it for yourself to contend with the growing evidence. The Catholic Church realised this, and so will you be forced to, likewise.
A load of donkey dung. There is absolutely NO evidence of the hot steamy pot of primordial pond scum and without it there is NO such thing as evolution they way it is manufactured. And you are itching about the Creator removing a peoples from His real estate promised to His peoples because they loved Him, and you have the audacity to tell me I will be forced to 'believe' evolution. You have no clue the level of ignorance you promote.
Thank you so much for the ping and your beautiful comments. I will reply later.
Gigantic hug.
I just want to apologize if my tone has been condescending or high-handed, or if my replies have not addressed the points you are most interested in.
Sometimes I write too quickly --- maybe you're rolling your eyes, because I do go on and on -- but the fact is, I do hit SEND before I do a tone-check and then sometimes I offend people through sheer inadvertence.
Please forgive me if any of this has been aggravating to you because of my polemical twists & quirks.
I do know the moral indignation you feel, because I have been struggling -- flailing about with it, actually -- for decades. We may be kindred spirits after all.
Give me a "Hey there" back?
Mrs. Don-o
Is all this a glorification of war? It apparently depends upon interpretation by the devout mind, and not by the ignorance-filled mind. Faith and total surrender to a chosen God (Ishta-deva) are considered to be important aspects of warfare interpreted in a spiritualized sense. It’s Bhakti yoga -- devotional service with no thought of personal reward, a total oblation to God alone. Like (I daresay) the annihilation of a Canaanite town in Deuteronomy.
I found the thread! I will be back tomorrow....
I am sorry for not responding earlier, but every once in a while, I take a weekend and a day off to travel deep into the country, far from civilisation, and all the associated amenities. I should have responded before leaving, but I didn't have an opportunity to do so. That said, please remember, nothing can offend me: Either I accept ideas and as true provided they are convincing enough, or I don't. There is neither shame, nor fear in rejecting that which is unbelievable. To do the contrary would be the the ultimate betrayal of one's conscience. So, why take any offence? Therefore, no tone check needed for any replies to me. Let your mind speak without inhibition.
That said, about the comment:
(I am pinging little jeremiah to this comment too. LJ, as a Hindu will have some good insights here.)
I appreciate the beauty and spiritual relevance of the Bhagavad-Gita, with its many elements of truth and goodness.
Two points: first, the relevance of warfare in sacred writings like the Gita, and second, the mode of interpretation of the Bible: is it, essentially, a moral manual, or is it a true record of the unfolding of incarnational revelation?
My take on the Gita relies heavily on Gandhi and also on Eknath Easwaran. As I understand it, the Gita --- from which you derive inspiring excerpts --- is a “Poem of Force” comparable in some respects to the Iliad /Odyssey epic or the Talmud. In what way is it moral? How does it “get around” or “through” its inspired war imagery?
In the Gita, Arjuna, realizing that his enemies are his own relatives, beloved friends, and revered teachers, turns for advice to his charioteer/guide, Krishna, who tells him his duty is the protection of the pious and the destruction of the impious. Krishna displays his Vishvarupa (Universal Form) to Arjuna on the battlefield, a splendid Being facing in every direction at once and brandishing every implement of bloodshed (swords, axes, arrows, daggers, lances). He summons Arjuna to do his duty as a warrior.
Is all this a glorification of war? It apparently depends upon interpretation by the devout mind, and not by the ignorance-filled mind. Faith and total surrender to a chosen God (Ishta-deva) are considered to be important aspects of warfare interpreted in a spiritualized sense. It’s Bhakti yoga -- devotional service with no thought of personal reward, a total oblation to God alone. Like (I daresay) the annihilation of a Canaanite town in Deuteronomy.
This is beautifully rendered in the selected texts you quoted to me, but it doesn’t resolve the question of killing in warfare.
Yes, the Gita does have Krishna advocating Arjuna to wage war against his own relatives, teachers and former friends, as part of his duty in life. However, many make the mistake (not directed at you, but could it be considered as an example of lying by omission?). The crux of the reason for Arjuna having been forced into fighting his own blood, his teachers and his former friends is that they chose to side with evil. Wouldn't the bigger lesson therefore be that those who side with evil must be opposed with no regard to whether they share special relations with you, rather than specific tribes, ethnicities and cultures, indiscriminately, as 1 Samuel 15:3 advocates? Mind you, warfare in the Mahabharata is conducted under specific conditions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmayuddha
http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/features/12-08/features1216.htm
In the Mahabharata epic, which describes the Kurukshetra war, the two sides agree on the following rules:
Contrast this against crushing / slaughtering babies and infants (and animals belonging to that ethnicity), indiscriminately.
You look at wars in Deuteronomy and Judges, etc, as literal, outside of the interpretive context of some 60 other books of the Bible and ignoring the three solid senses of Scripture beyond the literal: the analogical, the moral, and the anagogical. At the same time, you are willing to take the devotional bhakti-aspects from the Gita as a kind of unalloyed moral teahing, easily ignoring the explicit war and battle context.
This seems to me a truncated and tendentious reading doing justice neither to the Gita nor to the Bible.
Having clarified the context regarding the Gita as to why Arjuna had to wage war against his kith and kin (who chose to side with evil), how can any "beyond the literal" interpretation of the Bible narratives justify slaughtering children and infants through the hand of man by the command of a supposed divine entity? What moral lesson is to be sought from this section? Mrs. Don-o, I am not doing any tact check for any of this, but I take it that you understand the mindset which is causing me to type this. You mentioned earlier how you would have had things in the Bible - the parts involving genocide - gone differently, were you in charge of the events. You said:
I would make short shrift of barbarism, but God did not make short shrift of barbarism.
This admission is important in many respects. First, whose barbarism was it where the children and infants are ordered to be slaughtered? Second, why did men have to finish what this god created by way of conception? Wouldn't true divine will have avoided ordering men to kill infants by preventing their conception in the first place? Why is there the absence of any divine explanation as to why the children had to be killed? Wouldn't the ethical implication have been immense for a god to order babies to be chopped to pieces? No man can perform this act in a genocide scale and expect to come out psychologically intact. So, why the absence of any explanation of the "morality" in the particular command from this god?
Most importantly, you say you would have liked to have had the things been done differently. Isn't it plainly because you have your conscience finding a problem with the narrative? If your conscience is not permitting you to find the morality in these heinous orders, to the point that you would have preferred their complete absence in the narrative, it cannot mean anything other than an unresolved moral crisis, can it? Deep down, you do know these parts still trouble you. Otherwise, the moral validity (that you seem to believe that the commandments ordering the violence carry) would have been immense enough to not even have a shadow of doubt about their necessity by way of their presence in the Bible. Is there really any other logical explanation, Mrs. Don-o?
Now turn to the Bible. Saying there’s “not a sentence in the Bible to address this immense moral conundrum,” is like being indignant about a forest because it has not a tree to be seen. It failing to engage with the vast hermeneutic of commentary provided by the whole rest of the Bible.
Some key points:
Not worthy. Got that? And then, who ends up building the Temple? Hold on.
Oh! Those names.... they sound ....familiar. They weren’t genocided? Oh! AND they built Solomon’s Temple? What is going on?
And then later Jesus says that God dwells in a Temple not made by hands?
“There’s a contradiction here,” says James C. Bennett.
You don’t say??!
This announcement that one has discovered the bleedin’ obvious almost leaves me gaping. It’s so far off it’s not even wrong. It's (as Mark Shea says) like watching some sophomore burst into a chat room discussion on relativity among quantum physicists in order to say, "If you're so smart, then how can light be a particle and a wave at the same time. Huh? Huh? Isn’t that some kind of contradiction? Why don't you learn some real science? When are you going to admit you don’t know a thing about non-contradictory logical thinking? Huh?”
Again, what is the resolution to the contradiction? The physics analogy is not really comparable - the particle and wave natures do not contradict each other, unless each's contribution is abstracted for the convenience of manual calculation. In reality, you and I have associated "particle" and wave natures, but the latter is so negligible in our existential experiences that we do not consider them at all.
However, the moral contradiction vis-a-vis 1 Samuel 15:3 and the NT is wide enough to be irreconcilable.
Did you notice that the Catholic Church has been pursuing a kind of Unified Field Theory of Ethics, a hermeneutic cognizant of history, philosophy, Divine and Natural law, for, like, 20 centuries now?
And that we’re not “Sola Scriptura” believers, “verbal inerrancy” supporters or Fundamentalists? (I notice that skeptics tend to have the most fun arguing with fundies, strangely... maybe not so strangely ...beinst y'all have the same presuppositions about how "a deity" is "supposed" to communicate and how Scripture is "supposed" to work.)
Are you gratified to know that our Councils and Catechisms teach that the intentional killing of an innocent human being under any circumstances (whether under medical or military auspices, whether by abortion or infanticide or counter-city bombing or genocide,) is a “crime against God and humanity” which is unequivocally condemned?
Yes? Well, good. I’m gratified, too. Let’s shake hands.
Welcome to the chat room.
No hesitation in shaking hands, but 20 centuries of work ought to have produced something to account for the problems I mentioned in the sentences before. Any proper justification for the presence of that vile "divine" commandment would suffice.
The Bhagavad-Gita.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Chapter VIII
ARJUNA:
WHO is that BRAHMA? What that Soul of Souls,
The ADHYATMAN? What, Thou Best of All!
Thy work, the KARMA? Tell me what it is
Thou namest ADHIBHUTA? What again
Means ADHIDAIVA? Yea, and how it comes
Thou canst be ADHIYAJNA in thy flesh?
Slayer of Madhu! Further, make me know
How good men find thee in the hour of death?
KRISHNA:
I BRAHMA am! the One Eternal God,
And ADHYATMAN is My Being’s name,
The Soul of Souls! What goeth forth from Me,
Causing all life to live, is KARMA called:
And, Manifested in divided forms,
I am the ADHIBHUTA, Lord of Lives;
And ADHIDAIVA, Lord of all the Gods,
Because I am PURUSHA, who begets.
And ADHIYAJNA, Lord of Sacrifice,
I—speaking with thee in this body here—
Am, thou embodied one! (for all the shrines
Flame unto Me!) And, at the hour of death,
He that hath meditated Me alone,
In putting off his flesh, comes forth to Me,
Enters into My Being—doubt thou not!
But, if he meditated otherwise
At hour of death, in putting off the flesh,
He goes to what he looked for, Kunti’s Son!
Because the Soul is fashioned to its like.
Have Me, then, in thy heart always! and fight!
Thou too, when heart and mind are fixed on Me,
Shalt surely come to Me! All come who cleave
With never-wavering will of firmest faith,
Owning none other Gods: all come to Me,
The Uttermost, Purusha, Holiest!
Whoso hath known Me, Lord of sage and singer,
Ancient of days; of all the Three Worlds Stay,
Boundless,—but unto every atom Bringer
Of that which quickens it: whoso, I say,
Hath known My form, which passeth mortal knowing;
Seen my effulgence—which no eye hath seen—
Than the sun’s burning gold more brightly glowing,
Dispering darkness,—unto him hath been
Right life! And, in the hour when life is ending,
With mind set fast and trustful piety,
Drawing still breath beneath calm brows unbending,
In happy peace that faithful one doth die,—
In glad peace passeth to Purusha’s heaven,
The place which they who read the Vedas name
AKSHARAM, “Ultimate;” whereto have striven
Saints and ascetics—their road is the same.
That way—the highest way—goes he who shuts
The gates of all his sense, locks desire
Safe in his heart, centres the vital airs
Upon his parting thought, steadfastly set;
And, murmuring OM, the sacred syllable—
Emblem of BRAHM—dies, meditating Me.
For who, none other Gods regarding, looks
Ever to Me, easily am I gained
By such a Yôgi; and, attaining Me,
They fall not—those Mahatmas—back to birth,
To life, which is the place of pain, which ends,
But take the way of utmost blessedness.
The worlds, Arjuna!—even Brahma’s world—
Roll back again from Death to Life’s unrest;
But they, O Kunti’s Son! that reach to Me,
Taste birth no more. If ye know Brahma’s Day
Which is a thousand Yugas; if ye know
The thousand Yugas making Brahma’s Night,
Then know ye Day and Night as He doth know!
When that vast Dawn doth break, th’ Invisible
Is brought anew into the Visible;
When that deep Night doth darken, all which is
Fades back again to Him Who sent it forth;
Yea! this vast company of living things—
Again and yet again produced—expires
At Brahma’s Nightfall; and, at Brahma’s Dawn,
Riseth, without its will, to life new-born.
But—higher, deeper, innermost—abides
Another Life, not like the life of sense,
Escaping sight, unchanging. This endures
When all created things have passed away:
This is that Life named the Unmanifest,
The Infinite! the All! the Uttermost.
Thither arriving none return. That Life
Is Mine, and I am there! And, Prince! by faith
Which wanders not, there is a way to come
Thither. I, the PURUSHA, I Who spread
The Universe around me—in Whom dwell
All living Things—may so be reached and seen!
Richer than holy fruit on Vedas growing,
Greater than gifts, better than prayer or fast,
Such wisdom is! The Yôgi, this way knowing,
Comes to the Utmost Perfect Peace at last.
Here endeth Chapter VIII. of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, entitled
“Aksharaparabrahmayôg,” or “The Book of
Religion by Devotion to the One Supreme God”.
-----------------------------
The concept of "heaven" in the Gita does not revolve around material-based "afterlives" based on glorified aspects of earthly life, but rather, a sort of spiritual union with Divinity, thus requiring no palatial homes, no guilded streets paved in gold, no endless jugs of wine, no celestial wives, none of these material complications. The question so arises: in the Christian narrative of the "afterlife", how does the reconciliation of free will and the ability to choose evil live together? In other words, what perfection does this level of existence have which was lacking in Adam and Eve? And why was this perfection absent when these two were "created"?
Well, I haven’t enough knowledge to attempt an intelligent opinion on the Mahabharata, the Kurukshetra war, and any related matters. This is a possible avenue for my own further reading and learning.
I do have the impression --- and you must correct me if I'm wrong --- that the entire Mahabharata (inc. the Gita) is an allegory for the ethical and moral struggles of human life. Its intention is to be exalted moral teaching in an ideal, literary construction.
The words of Krishna, in particular, are presented as divine sayings in finished form, a theophany tout court.
This makes it quite different from the conquest of Canaan in the OT, which is not lofty epic poetry, and does not contain systematic moral law per se.
Notice the contrasting levels of development. Apparently the overlords, warriors and sages in the Mahabharata are the heirs of a millenia-long civilization. The people on both sides of this war share the same cultural attainments--- necessarily, since the kingdoms at war are all kin, with the same ancestors and the same teachers.
The Hebrews entering Canaan are at a much more primitive stage: one generation away from abject slavery in which they were deprived of all culture (cleaning the outhouses of Egypt, so to speak, or turning its windlasses like beasts), and thence to wander 40 years in the desert, where the original slave generation dies off altogether and the fugitive descendants are as good as feral, with only Moses to teach them the rudiments. They are not Vedic princes. They are at Square One of development as a society, one foot in dung, the other on the bottom rung.
If this is so, then the two texts must be evaluated differently. The Indic text is an exalted allegory and the fruit of a long civilization; the Hebrew one is the brute history of the most debased people on earth: a Sand Rat nation of fugitive slaves: slaves chosen (why?), chosen and saved by the One whose name they were forbidden to say. One foot in the dung, one in the Divine; rescued without necessarily wanting to be rescued: "Out of Egypt I called my Son."
I again emphasize that the words --- purportedly God's words --- commanding genocide have no context to establish this as systematic moral theology. The Bible itself doesn’t suggest that 's what it is. It contradicts the warning reiterated throughout the OT, that God abhors the shedding of innocent blood; it finds paradoxical re-evaluation in that the men who shed blood in this way are found unworthy in the end (Moses unworthy to cross the Jordan, David unworthy to build the Temple). Joshua is contrasted with someone immesurably better than Joshua, namely Jesus (their names are the same in Hebrew) in an extensive critique of the Old Testament in the NT Book of Hebews.
It’s a bigger message than you think.
Read discerningly. Is Mahabharata to be read as history? --- come on: 2 vast armies, 4 million in all, fighting to annihilation, without passion, and with impeccable sportsmanship? --- it’s not history, it's a spiritual allegory. And don’t read the Conquest of Canaan as if it were a graduate seminar on Ethics.
There is no question that the killing of the innocent is against moral law. What does that mean in terms of the Conquest of Canaan books? Did God command what He himself abjured as abominable?
My Catholic Study Bible says "The slaughter of the innocent has never been in conformity with God's will." The footnote goes on to suggest that Samuel misrepresents God (Footnote on 1 Sam 15:3, CSB).
One has to sort this carefully, because we are not Marcionites: the whole OT is not set aside by the New. Much, like the Decalogue, is plainly carried forward and affirmed by later texts. Some OT moral requirements are explicitly abrogated (such as when Jesus rendered all foods clean). Others are recast by Jesus Christ (e.g. Six Antitheses in the Gospel of Matthew.) Others simply disappear from sight and are never reaffirmed by later texts or the New Testament.
That last is the case with the Wars of the Ban: they are "boxed into" the Conquest of Canaan: they have no precedents and are not carried forward as legislation. It's just a brute fact: this is what they thought, and this is what they did.
Its role in the development of Doctrine? Affirmed on the level of allegory (deal thus with your own sins and vices: annihilate them) and repudiated at the level of moral doctrine. They are not models for us on the just use of force.
Keep in mind that the Development of Doctrine is something which God himself directs in the pages of the same Scripture. And in His Church. So for systematic moral theology, I direct you, as I direct my RCIA students, to the Catechism.
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