The Natural Law fallacy and Homosexuality

by JanH 62 Replies latest jw friends

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  waiting

  hey doug,

  Thanks for answering me - this has been nice, and I appreciate just talking about a difficult subject, and not reverting to insults, etc.

  If a woman has to scream then by all means a man should do no less. - doug

  I agree wholeheartedly.

  However, I don't believe that God would have deliberately given a woman any less justice than a man in that He didn't enforce the same law. - doug

  [quote]“In case there happened to be a virgin girl engaged to a man, and a man actually found her in the city and lay down with her, you must also bring them both out to the gate of that city and pelt them with stones, and they must die, the girl for the reason that she did not scream in the city, and the man for the reason that he humiliated the wife of his fellow man.” If, however, the attack took place in a field and the woman screamed and thus tried to get away from the attacker, she was not to be stoned, since she was overpowered and there was no one to rescue her.—Deut. 22:23-27.

  If you believe in the Bible, this is what God's law was. We are not under that law and the WTBTS successfully put women only under that law. That was wrong of them.

  My point was also that God in the Bible in the Mosaic Law put women only under this law. We can assume what we want, but if a man was raped (and he didn't have to be hit on the head - men can be intimidated just like a woman, knife or no knife) under the law and did not scream, he would not be punished. If a woman was in exact same circumstance, she would be stoned to death.

  There is a gross inequality in the law and the WTBTS further added to this grossness.

  waiting
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  dshields1

  Hi Waiting,

  You wrote:

  "We can assume what we want, but if a man was raped (and he didn't have to be hit on the head - men can be intimidated just like a woman, knife or no knife) under the law and did not scream, he would not be punished."

  Actually that is incorrect. Again let me restate that in the Mosaic Law any two men found lying together as would a man and wife would be put to death. Both of them (or more in the case of a gang rape) would be put to death. Since there is NO provision for a man to scream and thereby escape the punishment then I maintain that some semblance of justice would have to take place at the hands of the older men i.e. "Your Honor the man screamed for a mile but nobody was around to help him. He was a victim and therefore should escape this judgement." I would imagine that at this point he would be set free. However there is NO PROVISION for this and so if we want to just read the "letter" of the law then we would have to contend that there was NO allowance for an unwilling victim of homosexual rape to escape the judgement spoken of in Leviticus 20:13.

  In other words I could condemn God for the same mistreatment of men that you could for women if I went simply by the "letter" of the law. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that you are attempting to prove that God is sexist against women. I simply don't believe that and what we have discussed so far simply doesn't prove that.

  Doug
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  waiting

  howdy doug,

  Yes, I think God's sexist in this matter. For the following reasons:

  Again let me restate that in the Mosaic Law any two men found lying together as would a man and wife would be put to death. Both of them (or more in the case of a gang rape) would be put to death.

  That is, if we are take the present translation of the Bible (SanFranciscoJim's point of translation seems to have valid points).

  1. If a man is raped, God will kill him.

  2. The rapist? God will kill him - not because he raped, but because he "was lying together" with another man.

  “In case there happened to be a virgin girl engaged to a man, and a man actually found her in the city and lay down with her, you must also bring them both out to the gate of that city and pelt them with stones, and they must die, the girl for the reason that she did not scream in the city, and the man for the reason that he humiliated the wife of his fellow man.”

  3. This is a highly qualified law - only a virgin girl engaged to a man was under the rape law. What was the law for married women? Non-virgin girls (or were they just stoned automatically)? Old women?
  And what was the reason that the rapist should be killed? Because he raped a woman? No. "He humiliated the wife of his fellow man." This is age-old male ego talking. "Hey, buddy, you insulted my wife/woman, I'm gonna kill you." It's just changed and it's God talking for the male - you humiliate his wife and I'm going to kill you." Of course, nothing is said about recourse to the humiliated virgin engaged girl (wife).

  4. And, of course, if the virgin engaged girl didn't scream in the city - she'd be stoned to death also along with the man. For perhaps humiliating her husband by not screaming thereby showing her devotion to her engaged husband? Afterall, that's why the man was killed.

  I enjoyed this conversation with you and doubt we've changed each other's opinions. However, I've changed mine somewhat. God, through the Mosaic Law, does seem to put women in *man's property* position. He doesn't seem to care about rape much at all, in fact. Sounds more like archaic men's law, imho.

  Thanks again, doug. Hope to see more of your posts.
  waiting