Oh, good, the debate seems to be getting at the core of the disagreement and thus winding down.
Note this isn't an 'I win' post, just the point where it's obviously getting repetitive. It feels like that to me, at least.
I may not be able to answer as specifically as you'd like because I don't have all that many resources available to me on ancient Hebrew culture, but here is the gist of what I have been saying this whole time: Laws in the U.S. have a few terms which categorize homicide, namely: Manslaughter and murder. Both of these have fairly precise definitions and also fairly precise defenses. While there are other types of homicide, for now I will focus on these two. Ancient Hebrew has a few terms which categorize homicide. The two we'll focus on right now are their word which translates fairly well as murder, and one other which is frequently translated as destroy but has an additional connotation of as a religious sacrifice.
Hebrew law forbid the first—Murder—but did not forbid the second. This is very similar to our own system, which allows us to lawfully kill people under specific circumstances. These circumstances are what differentiates Cain's murder of his brother from Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son.
It doesn't magically stop being murder if you say it's not. I mean, I can't get away with that.
Sure, you can't get away with it, but... if the law says murder is only if you kill a 13 year-old boy on Thursday, you can kill him on Tuesday and it won't be murder. It might be something else, but it won't be murder. And all I am saying is that God laid down rules about killing and not killing and has not altered them. You may not agree with the morality of the rules. That's certainly your right. But it doesn't magically mean the Bible is saying God is breaking His own laws.
I'll get to some of the later points tonight sometime.
This goes back to my whole 'God redefines things to suit him' argument. You keep arguing from
within God's laws that he can't be contradicting himself because he made the rules. However, that is irrelevant to my argument because
murder is not defined by God. That's why I kept hammering on past genocidal dictators. They would surely say 'murder is wrong' and then add 'except in this arbitrary circumstances where it benefits me'. And we, the enlightened outsiders, could surely deem them as murderous (or genocidal, not there's much of a difference beyond scale), no? That's why I'm saying he's breaking his own laws. There isn't even an internally consistent "deeper" framework to determine when to violate them beyond when they benefit God (see: Rahab).
Anyway, this leads into Zedpower's argument.
I think you're missing the key point that if the ultimate authority of morality, God, let's you break his laws when it's "convenient" (which has a nebulous definition) he is both A: contradicting himself and thus leaving it all up to mortals to make the judgment call; rendering his codified system pointless.
Alright, so here's how I see your reasoning. Correct me if I'm wrong.
-If a code of laws is flexible, it can occasionally be ignored at one's discretion.
-Nothing prevents one from ignoring a flexible code of laws all of the time.
-A code of laws that can be ignored all the time might as well not be there at all.
This is essentially correct. There is no point to a moral code that relies on people's own internal compass. What insights into morality do people gain when they have to make their own judgment on what parts are wrong or right in any given situation?
The answer is none. You are still relying on the fundamental 'goodness' of mankind to make this decision, without actually defining what goodness
is.
I can see how you get to think that way, but it's an incomplete picture. The thing is, even if there are exceptions to a law, it might still be there for a good reason.
I mean, at the time of the passage I quoted, Jewish society operated on a covenant that once every seven days, everyone has to rest for 24 hours. From the leaders and priests to the lowliest peons, everybody takes a break to recuperate and spend some time with their friends and families. And if a landlord wants to force a laborer to pick grapes on the Sabbath, the latter could tell the former to take a hike, and society would support him.
Why shouldn't the laborer work on the Sabbath? It's obviously harming the landlord. Why does the Sabbath take precedent over the landlord's well-being?
That said, if you got three cows, and one of them breaks your fence and runs away into the wilderness, suddenly the benefits of keeping Sabbath don't outweigh the benefits of running out and getting your cow back. It's one third of your herd, you need that cow to live. So you can make an exception, and society should accept that exception and support you.
And the well-being of that person takes precedence over the Sabbath, God's holy day, but the landlord's "suffering" doesn't because...?
Now does that mean that the law of the Sabbath is meaningless? Of course not. It's a good law, with some flexibility in it so you don't basically get punished for obeying it. You seem to think that flexibility makes a code of laws meaningless, but I'm of the opinion that it's actually an essential quality for a sane, viable code.
No, it's a condemnation that codes are a foolish way to determine morality. Nowhere in your post did you explain the underlying mechanism of why you could ignore the laws. You're leaving it up to the moral agents to determine what constitutes bending or breaking and when someone's suffering is more important than keeping the Sabbath. How is this determined?
Is it a general principle to reduce suffering?
Then why have the laws at all? They have unnecessary, dangerous (see: religious conflict) baggage. I can see how a general, non-obligatory for the laborer, holiday benefits people to some extent. Although every Sunday might be excessive, I'd have to look into it a bit. In other cases, in order to reduce suffering, it should be abolished. Say, during a war of national survival, for example.
Religious morality is pointless if it relies on some, unstated, inner goodness.
If we use utilitarianism* (Goodness is greatest (happiness/reduced suffering) for the greatest number), for example, we can solve the conundrum of "Do you kill 1 person or 100, assuming equal social value?" The answer is obviously 'kill 1'. How is this answer derived from the Bible, Torah, etc? In a non-convoluted obviously-God's-intent manner, please.
Of course, you can cite Exodus 31:15, "For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.", but my answer to that is that I'm Christian instead of Jewish for a reason.
Well, Jesus also says he hasn't come to "abolish the law", either. Not to mention Christians frequently cite the Ten Commandments and some other parts (see: homosexuality) as an important part of their religion. Without stating the process for determining which parts of the OT to keep or kick out, might I add. Which relates to my previously stated points.
*This works except for bizarre scenarios that only occur in abstract philosophical dilemmas. The scenarios talked about in this discussion occur often enough, so I'm not contradictory for stating this caveat.
