Is Biblical Morality Situational, Based Upon the Arbitrary Whims of Yahweh? (page 4)

00DAD

NewChapter: I still try to figure out how this all used to be okay with me----

Yeah, that is a conundrum, is it not!

00DAD

I'm not seeing the "situational" aspect at all, just the whimsical, capricious part.

THIS is WRONG, unless I say IT IS NOT!
THIS is RIGHT, unless I say IT IS NOT!
I AM JEHOVAH
- Just do whatever it is I tell you and we'll get along fine, unless I change my mind ....

No wonder the GB thinks they can change doctrine/policy/teachings whenever and however they want. They're just imitating Jehovah!

james_woods

I'll take option three, Sulla -

3. Christians don't think about God the way you do

I have stated here before that I am agnostic.

My comments are on the simple statements translated in generally available christian Bibles.

The bible record as presented shows a situational enforcement of morality if taken as literal truth.

firstly, the child from that union of david and bethsheba didnt die because of god. if we look back at the conditions of the ancients, its a fact that a lot of babies or young kids died. im going to say that was just nature. i believe what we have here is some ancient trying to show god really participating in all actions. does it really make sense, that a supposed omnipresent god, let david kill uriah by placing him in harms way, and then kills the baby, or did the baby just die.

let us ask who where the priests and what was the ituation back then we might get a different idea. life in the priesthood was difficult, there were a lot of rival gods offering gods with easier laws. lets face it the mosaic laws are harsh and annoying. its not a wonder that the hebrews always whored after other gods. what exactly did hehovah do for them? it seems jehovah i always angry, and never helps when it counts, eg against the babylonians, romans, greeks.

in fact we have one situation where there is a faminine after king david takes a census, which is recorded in both chronicles and kings. one says the devil caused the faminine while the other said it was jehovah who was angry because felt necessary to trust his army and needed to count.

back to the priests. they were greedy, they wanted the best animals, food, wine, money for sacrifice. i believe they were not very popular with the populace. if we examine the scriptures giving totals that left with and then returned after the exile, we can see the returning was less. could it be those jews didnt want to come back because of the harsh kings and priests. in those days, religion was part of the government. god made prpnouncements via his priests. they were actually part of the ruling elite.

lastly if we examine the 613 mitzvot or laws in the torah we see an extraordinary amount about priests, ceremony and related business of the temple. somehow god forgot abput helping women, kids, and slaves but was primarilt concerned with business.if we examine the laws from a selfish priestly angle we almost get an understandable answer. it may be cruel but it is to their advantage, always!

LongHairGal

leavingWT:

It always seemed arbitrary to me and certainly very unfair to certain peoples or ethnic groups.

james woods:

That situation with David never sat well with me. He certainly got away with things no other Israelite would dare do. The JWs said it was because of his victory over Goliath. I guess what they mean is that because of this one thing he could do "no wrong" in the eyes of god for the rest of his life and because of this he was "special" forever. Later he subsequently committed murder because of his tremendous sense of arrogance and entitlement. Of course, the religion would say that he didn't "really" get away with anything because of the tragedies later in his life which were supposedly attributable to his bad choices, etc., etc. I personally felt he was "greedy" in his sexual desires and I could hardly stand to read the bible accounts about him. Made me sick, really.

All in all, I do feel the moralilty in the bible was certainly situational, arbitrary and very, very unjust.

Terry

It is like my friend, Elaine. She is very vocal about being a Vegan. If I heard a report that she had been to a backyard bar B Q and chomped down some ribs I'd immediately regard her actions as hypocritical. That is, IF I regarded the report as unimpeachable! However, if I regarded the source of this report as being a very dubious one, I'd never get to the point of doubting Elaine. I'd first try and determine what aspect of the report had been garbled, confused or misinterpreted in the transmission. Such as discovering it was another person who looked like Elaine. Or, that a joke had been made and taken as fact.

But, now, what if I was a no-nonsense apologist for Elaine under any and all circumstances? What reaction would I have to such a report if I absolutely believed the report to be 100% accurate???

I would have to INVENT a perfectly reasonable-sounding accretion to EXPLAIN the apparent inconsistency. Anybody hearing about the event FROM ME would have my built-in "explanation adjustment" as though it were the original report.

These built-in changes are like

ASPACKLE. They are just enough to make the "cracks" disappear.

Terry

Otherwise honest people like to be helpful when they explain something they heard. They will add just enough "spackle" to a report to make the "cracks" in it disappear. This is especially true when they are absolutely certain the intention is pure. When you document different versions of differing events and compare them it is easy to find dissonances solely because of the "help" those stories got along the way.

Events can be reported from a great many varying points-of-view. Personal reporting is likely to be colored by understanding differences.

We all understand this and make adjustments in our critical thinking to accomodate this fact.
What makes BIBLE ACCOUNTS different is that we have been taught to automatically consider the reports as INERRANT and then contort our minds trying to make everything balance out with reasonable and logical expectations a "Truth" is hidden there if only we were brilliant enough or faithful enough to discover it.

No need to do this. All you have to do is understand the VERY HUMAN quality of the reporting which constitutes the Bible and the Message and the wrong-headed attempts RELIGION has made to fob it off on us as BLACK and WHITE divine perfection.

mP

@terry

actually the ot particularly tells us there are two sets of rules. the ordinary person must always follow these rules and provide for the establishment. the establishment can do whatever they wish, they are special cases we must not question. sounds pretty similar to the establishment of wts. everyone must obey those above. there is no honesty, truth or law, only obedience.

GOrwell

@mP: obviously, you haven't read the account of David and Bathsheba's baby lately (or at all). Let me quote it for you, because it's pretty clear who was responsible for the death of the baby :

2 Sam 12:14,15 (ESV):

"Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die. Then Nathan went to his house. And the LORD afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick." Other translations have it that God 'struck' the baby with an illness of some sort.

Now, this is the account that first greatly disturbed me and caused me to leave the JW's.

My question is this : if we were created initially as perfectly in God's image, and with all that entails, a sense of justice, love, mercy, a conscience etc etc, why does reading of this account and others like it disturb us so much? Why wouldn't we, by and large, go along with the account and deem God's actions as justified or moral? Why is our morality seemingly on a different level?

tec

I agree with

a) What Miz said about Israel wanting a King and getting all that it entails. God tried to warn them about this bad thing that they wanted, but then made the best of it for them. David also did not get off scott free... he was forced to face the truth of what he did, along with the shame, guilt and repentance that came with that. This might seem like nothing, and it is if someone is superficially sorry for something... but if they are truly down to their marrow sorry, then it is not nothing.

b) I agree with mP above regarding the baby of David and Bathsheba. I could be wrong of course, because I was not there. But God does say elsewhere that the son is not punished for the father. So that I know is true.

Of course such a thought would negate the entire premise of the fall in Eden----since we are ALL portrayed as being punished for the sin of our father, Adam.

We're not being punished for their sins. For their sins they were cast out of the garden. We are their children, born outside of the garden, in their image (spirit inside flesh, but unable to move between spiritual and physical) It is not a punishment. It just IS, because we are their children. The alternative is not having BEEN at all.

I have not looked up all of the quotes from the OP, but I'm hazarding a guess off the bat that half of those references are out of conte x t. I'll look a couple up.

Peace,

Tammy

Is Biblical Morality Situational, Based Upon the Arbitrary Whims of Yahweh?

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