The best I can see is that you find the interpretations farfetched, but shouldn't effectiveness be the determinant for preservation as opposed to lack of farfetchedness? That is, shouldn't we look at the value the current institution has on people's lives, as opposed to whether you personally find it preposterous? — Hanover

Possibly, but - and this seems to be something that's consistently missed, so I'm going to emphasise it - I'm talking about risk, not necessarily just contemporary issues. Using a book which has to be carefully interpreted in order to avoid the conclusion that stoning girls is OK, as a guide to moral behaviour and community living - that's a big risk. In contemporary America, it may not be causing any problem at all (though I'd argue the contrary), just as the unexploded WWII ordinance might not have caused any problems for the last 80 years. You still wouldn't want one in your back garden would you?

As for evidence that it's a risk, that it has caused problems in the past, that it causes problems in other parts of the world? Do you still need to ask?

My point is that I know the myth is factually false and I would have no motivation to create a factually false myth that leads to a negative result, so obviously it's positive. — Hanover

Indeed. Nor would anyone here I suspect. Unfortunately we live in a world where we cannot rely on the quality of upbringing that's given you the moral sense to see that 'stone girls' is obviously wrong, and 'love thy neighbour' is more like it.

One reason that the Bible gets such positive interpretation (i.e. special pleading) is precisely because it's the narrative we use for positive effects in our society. It's the "good" book. It is therefore specially interpreted that way by definition. — Hanover

Now I'd ask you in turn for empirical support. Christians are no more charitable than average, no more compassionate than average. Highly religious societies are no more equitable than secular ones, no more happy, give no more development aid... I'd be interested in what measure you're using to determine the 'positive effects'. Possibly an historical one? But this fails on historicism. There aren't any societies which haven't been effected by Christianity, so you've no control group.

It's like you're running around telling me that George Washington really wasn't a perfectly honest person and that he did not really confess to chopping down the cherry tree. Yeah, I get none of it happened. I think the myth being advanced in that narrative is that America was founded by the most honest of men, explaining its higher sense of morality than all other nations. — Hanover

Yes, but confessing to chopping down a cherry tree is a 'good' thing. So it was put in the myth. Stoning girls is 'bad' thing. We're talking about why 'bad' things are in the myth. Can you think of a similar myth in which the main protagonists advocates stoning girls to death, punishing people for eternity who don't worship him, killing the babies of non-believers... What the fuck kind of myth is that?

it just isn't clear how to spell it out without making it so loose and arbitrary anyone can be construed as believing anything. Not a criticism of the approach or an attempt to block it, I'm trying to inquire how it could be done.

What characterises a tendency? How do you use actions to evaluate a 'tendency to act as if' on those states? What scope of behaviours does any particular tendency require for its evaluation? — fdrake

Right. Starting from the beginning. No-one has access to our beliefs-as-models, not even we do. If we say "I believe that..." it's a post hoc story to make some unified sense of the behaviour (or intended behaviour) which actually results from a whole set of, often completely contradictory, models in various separate cortices (and yes, before I get ripped to shreds, this model I'm describing is itself a post hoc justification for the behaviour I enact - such as writing this post, and, no, I don't think the circularity is a problem - I've yet to have anyone sufficiently explain why it might be).

So when we talk about 'beliefs' as in "that priest believes that X" we're already in the realm of post hoc storytelling. If we wanted to go deeper than that, we could (although still storytelling) look into what the various models in his brain might be outputting that could provide a better story. Or, we could choose any level in-between for our story.

The point I'm making is that a story which says "When in context A the priest believes Y, but when in context B the priest believes X' is... a) more complex than necessary (but this point could be argued, I agree), and b) superfluous - because we're going to have to come up with a story anyway covering what it is about A and B which causes such a shift.

Let's say that A is 'in church' and B is 'in the vestry'. We could say the priest believes "it's OK to molest boys" when he's in the vestry but believes "we should protect the innocent" when he's in the church - two belief-stories which are contradictory, but never meet. Or we could say the priest believes "it's OK to molest boys when in the vestry and we should protect the innocent when in church" (note the changed quotation marks). So the second story captures the effect of the context within the belief. Then we can interrogate that belief-story because there'll be a hidden belief about the vestry and the church that might yield a better story (less painful dissonance). The vestry is private, the church isn't so maybe it's "it's OK to molest boys when hidden but we should protect the innocent when in view".

I'm not claiming here to have uncovered why priests molest children and then preach protection of the innocent in church, it's just an example. I don't doubt it's much more complicated than hidden/public, but I don't see the complication as a barrier to producing a non-(or less) dissonant story which helps better understand the behaviour.

And finally - how does the answer to those questions interface with the argument? — fdrake

When people are looking for these stories, they'll more readily pick one off the shelf than make one up themselves. The myths and narratives that a society offers matter a lot to the kind of society that results because of this. It' my belief that a contradictory mythology such a Christianity offers - with the sort of contradictions Lewis is highlighting - offers a narrative which allows for such horrors as priestly child abuse, much more readily than better mythologies might, precisely because of these underlying themes (that God's actually something of a git himself. That he sees the rites, cassocks and prayers as more important that the behaviour...).

It's not just the bible. I feel the same way about, say, gangster culture which offers a hero-narrative that's become detached from any need to protect the innocent. I've argued extensively about the effect this has had on criminal behaviour, particularly on stripping away narrative choices from the young men in many of our inner-city neighbourhoods.

A succinct summation. — Banno

Thanks. I thought maybe it might be veering off topic to get into 'risk' as well as just 'actual Christians right now', but I think there's still sufficient overlap with what Lewis is saying.

when an argument is at loggerheads like this, I tend to think both sides are wrong (and right, in their own way) and try something else. — Srap Tasmaner

Not a bad idea.

how does an individual Christian decide where to sit under the big tent? Why would an individual Christian choose to sit among stoners or non-stoners? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I think that's where @fdrake and I were going in asking "why 'interpret' this, but take that literally?"

My answer would be that we have better narratives which make 'stone those girls' sound awful, but 'love they neighbour' sound good. The social token of 'being a Christian' gets re-interpreted to fit the more powerful social narratives we have these days around tolerance and moderation.

On the other hand, we might look at what Jesus did here as an example of the technique. There’s the law that authorizes and even requires the stoning of the adulteress. Jesus does not question the law or those calling his attention to it. Elsewhere he even says that he comes not to destroy but to fulfill the law, so what’s the deal? Our question now might be, why doesn’t Jesus agree to join in an afternoon’s stoning? And further, how does he get away with it? That is, how does he not stone the adulteress and still manage not to be accused of impiety? — Srap Tasmaner

This is interesting, given my beliefs above. It's entirely possible that the narrative offered by the New Testament is the manner by which the narrative offered by the Old Testament is 'interpreted' without falling into stoning girls. If so, Christianity as a whole is somewhat rescued by being both problem and solution. It provides a dangerous narrative in which various xenophobias can turn very nasty indeed, but then also offers a solution narrative by which we can re-interpret all those.

Maybe, but I'm not sure offering both problem and solution is better than offering only solution. Maybe a kind of deep psychological game whereby we're shown the false way only the more to feel the redemption. God's a bastard so that his son can show us how not to be?

Using a book which has to be carefully interpreted in order to avoid the conclusion that stoning girls is OK, as a guide to moral behaviour and community living - that's a big risk. In contemporary America, it may not be causing any problem at all (though I'd argue the contrary), just as the unexploded WWII ordinance might not have caused any problems for the last 80 years. You still wouldn't want one in your back garden would you? — Isaac

You have reduced the Bible to a single passage you do realize, as if the entire book goes on and on about stoning girls. Perhaps if you give the specific cite we can see how it has been interpreted and how it has been placed in context with the greater story.

In any event, we don't have a single instance of a stoning you can cite to in the past 2,000 years in those nations that have adopted the Bible as a guiding document (although I'm sure there were some somewhere). Those limiting stoning (and the death penalty generally) have been the believers in the text (i.e. the rabbis). More recent trends within those nations that have historically accepted the Bible as a foundational document have been to secularize their societies to even further reduce the power of those who interpret the Bible. In current Western societies, the death penalty has been eliminated in many countries and in many states in the US and the total number of death penalty cases where it is legal has been in decline.

I don't see the danger you see.

As for evidence that it's a risk, that it has caused problems in the past, that it causes problems in other parts of the world? Do you still need to ask? — Isaac

By the past, I'm not sure what you're referencing. I can assume that stoning might have occurred in the bronze age and iron age by the desert dwellers in the near east, but I don't know what reliable historical or archeological record you're using to show that other than the dubious historical accuracy of the Bible itself. Even in those instances where stoning was deemed acceptable in the Bible, there's no evidence it was carried out in any significant way. I'll concede barbarism is part of every people's past and we should always remain concerned that our most base instincts don't prevail, but I don't live in fear that one day we'll adopt a strict literalism and start stoning little girls. That doesn't seem to be a reasonable worry.

As to other parts of the world where stoning occurs, that seems limited to Muslim nations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning#Judaism

Why that is is a much more complicated question than looking to a single book. A society's norms are determined by its peculiar history, which includes its political system, its interaction with other nations, specific leaders it might have had, philosophies it might have adopted and on and on. Why the US has the laws it has goes far beyond what the Bible says. It owes its culture to the English, the French, the Greeks, the Hispanics, the ancient Hebrews, the many diverse African nations, and many more than I need to recite.

Why some Muslim nations engage in stoning seems not entirely related to the biblical text, but to a much larger political and social reason, but I really don't know enough about those regions to speak without more knowledge. I'm also not that clear on Muslim theology and what weight they afford the OT versus the Koran versus various other Muslim sacred literature. But to those who may know, that'd be interesting to learn.

How is Deuteronomy 25:12 to be interpreted:

“If two men get into a fight with each other and the wife of the one intervenes to protect her husband from the one striking him and she reaches out her hand and grabs hold of him by his private parts, 12: [you must amputate her hand. You should not feel sorry.]"

Is this advice to be taken taken literally by a true Christian? How is it to be interpreted? Will this not result in a one-way trip to hell, without a stay in the intermediate state of limbo purgatory, if he has taken it seriously and decided to realize the advice after he has seen his wife grabbing the balls of his opponent? What about the poor rescuing woman? Will she go to hell if she is punished already by axing of the sinful hand?

Or is it meant emblematically? What if the man rescues his wife from an assaulting woman by embracing her private parts? Should his hand be cut off? If man and women are treated equal it should.

Jewish interpretation doesn't limit itself to the text, but it relies upon an oral tradition, that tradition holds, was passed down at the time the Torah was given to Moses. What this means is that the text of the Bible is not primary to interpretation, but the spoken history of the people is considered as well. This passage is therefore not interpreted as referring to a literal hand being removed, but that financial compensation must be paid. https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9989/showrashi/true/jewish/Chapter-25.htm (Click the button that says "show Rashi.") (Who was Rashi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashi )

This oral tradition is what is now written in the Talmud.

And all of this is just to further point out that those who wish to open up the Bible, read a passage, and then comment on what it must mean in a vacuum without referencing the religious doctrine as a whole aren't providing a meaningful analysis of any known religion.

And all of this is just to further point out that those who wish to open up the Bible, read a passage, and then comment on what it must mean in a vacuum without referencing the religious doctrine as a whole aren't providing a meaningful analysis of any known religion. — Hanover

Isn't the problem then that people reading it are generally unaware of the history of the words or of the just interpretation, and possibly take it litteraly (especially in the old days and it is the Bible)? How one knows this wasn't done for real back then? Did the cutting off of a hand once mean that money was involved? It's maybe more probable a contemporary interpretation. Like it can mean: "A rib should be cut out of his chest". And why should the woman give money for saving her husband from a cruel attacker? Shouldn't the attacker be given a fine?

I'm not sure offering both problem and solution is better than offering only solution. — Isaac

And I would assume it is. If you show both, you show not just an answer (Rubric 15 in The Little Book of How to be Perfect — memorize by Wednesday), but how solution and problem fit — which is, what having a solution looks like, and what solving a problem looks like. Of course it’s better.

Maybe a kind of deep psychological game whereby we're shown the false way only the more to feel the redemption. God's a bastard so that his son can show us how not to be? — Isaac

The word ‘dialectic’ fair lunges to mind here.

I’m no Bible scholar, so I can’t tell you what’s really going on here. After the would-be stoners leave, Jesus also refuses to condemn the woman — is Jesus not without sin? Couldn’t he have cast the first stone? But he never offered or agreed to; the first stoner was to come from them. — All he says to her is, go and sin no more. He doesn’t deny that she has sinned. He denies only that men are to be enforcers of the law he acknowledges. Where is that in the law? Why are the Pharisees ashamed, instead of arguing that whether they’re also sinners has nothing to do with it? It feels like what Jesus pulls off here is not a reinterpretation of this particular edict, but of the sense in which the law is law: it’s not something we are to enforce, so that means it’s not other-facing; and that fits because he gets there by getting the would-be stoners to look inward, to look at themselves rather than the adulteress — and that makes the law a matter of what God expects of you, not what you are entitled to expect of others.

Which is somewhat curious, because the original problem is adultery, which is something of a threat to family and community stability, for which this religion offered a solution — tell them it’s forbidden, and if they keep at it, go nuclear on their ass. (These fuckin’ adulterers, man, it’s like talking to a wall, amirite?) Jesus calls bullshit on that, without saying that adultery is just fine. Right here, you can see a flip from a proscriptive scheme — these specific behaviors are forbidden — to a prescriptive scheme — here’s how you should live. That raises the troubling specter of human perfectibility, but you only get that idea, as here, by acknowledging human imperfection. There are some hints here about how to feel about that, but not everyone took the hint, so instead we have sometimes gotten a new, much more sweeping enforcement regime — because under a prescriptive model, any deviation is by definition forbidden.

But that’s a tangent. (He said, as if he had a point.) The question is what resources could Jesus draw upon in the existing Jewish tradition he was born into to pull off anything like this sort of reinterpretation? Because besides being, you know, God, he also looks a lot like a really interesting Jewish rabbi.

Let's look at this from a broader perspective when we're referencing biblical interpretation. Keep in mind the legalistic nature of the interpretation, considering the Bible was used at a time as a legal document setting forth the rules of a society.

First, a modern day example:

I have an automobile insurance policy that reads "your liability coverage shall be $10,000." My question then is, how much liability coverage do I have? The answer is $25,000. That seems a strange reading, right?

The reason though is that in Georgia, there is a statute that requires that the minimum liability limits are $25,000. So you might say that I have no coverage because the insurance company failed to provide the minimum limits, so therefore the policy is void. Well, no, the courts have already addressed this question and have decided that if an insurance company sells a policy with less than $25,000 in limits, those limits will be increased to $25,000. The reason for this is that the public policy of the State is to assure people are covered against losses and not uninsured, so the courts won't void the contract, but they will make it compliant.

What this means is that there are various sources of rules and laws ( in this case: the insurance policy, the statute, and the judicial decisions). The same holds true for the Bible.

When it says we're going to stone the girl, that doesn't mean she will get stoned just like when the policy says you have $10,000 in coverage, that doesn't mean that's all you have.

John Hunt ("Bringing God up to Date") writes:

"The meaning is exactly what it says. What’s the problem? The woman's punishment for improperly touching a man who was not her husband is to have her hand cut off.

By 21st century standards of human rights, gender equality etc (broadly speaking, at least, Christianity is still backwardly patriarchal, particularly in the RC church, Greek Orthodox and evangelical Christianity) the customs of the time were barbaric. The Hebrews as much as any, if not more so - Assyrian (1100 BC) law for instance says that the punishment for a woman if she injures a man's testicle during a quarrel is just to have her finger amputated, rather than the whole hand."

Just a finger cut off. While she rescued her man...

I gave the quote... — Isaac

Point me to it. I try to respond directly and am willing to re-read (and read anew) a fair amount. If I am asking you for the courtesy of directing me to the issue, it is not rhetorical; it is vastly more efficient for the both of us and more likely to lead to a meaningful response.

You're dismissing my engagement. . . — Isaac

In what way have I dismissed it? Despite its obvious error (who is instructed to stone girls and whether such stoning is a good thing), I've taken it at face value that the Bible tells someone to stone someone. I haven't disagree that it says so (or that is says many other objectionable things) or even tried to explain the broader context or sentiment of various interpretive communities. What I did do is comment that reading something in isolation as if the justification for its inclusion in the book is that it stands self-evidentially wonderful all by itself is not the way that other interpretive communities understand such stories. If you wish to address yourself to those communities, you need to do so in a way that suggests you understand what they are saying. If you wish to address those outside the community and advocate for a position about what the book means to that community, again, it would behoove you to have a reasonable idea of whether your position is an accurate representation of that community's meaning.

I expect any intelligent participant in a conversation to meet these standards if they actually want to discuss a topic. Knowing something about what you are speaking and working together to understand it better makes, in my view, for a more worthwhile conversation. Where specific knowledge is required, speaking without it is a waste of time. Where generalized knowledge is required, speaking without it is a waste of time. Where people are discussing something that requires neither, you can make some progress in the absence of knowledge. Any of those conversations can be enjoyable (or at least a tolerable way to waste your time on the internet), but I prefer a reasonable level of knowledge as needed. This preference/expectation holds regardless of the topic. You'll notice (not that I've participated much in this forum) that I do not comment on topics that require specific knowledge when I have none and in general I do not try to authoritatively speak for anyone (or any group). For instance, regardless of my educational background in philosophy, you'll never catch me saying, "Spinoza meant this..." or "Kant intended that..." or "Novick's critique of Plato was..." I haven't studied philosophy in that way and I heavily rely upon secondary/tertiary sources to predigest specific philosophers/topics for me.

. . .but I'm fine with my current approach, thanks anyway. — Isaac

Your current approach is great for something, I suppose, but it makes for terrible ethical reasoning or literary analysis. As someone in the thread has already said, we don't judge individuals for membership in a group, we judge them on their own merit. As Lewis said in his article, we must ask the individual whether they are aware that they admire someone horrible. Contrast that with the group exclusion @Banno (who I tag only because he asked that I not use his name without tagging him) suggested (or asked about) based upon someone being a member of a group alone (e.g. Christians). From what I can gather, besides your dislike for the Bible as source material and your opinion that other people should use some other book for ethical guidance (or wisdom or ...), you also think that something can be said about the beliefs of an individual viz-a-viz admiring a bad god by virtue of their identification as a Christian. What is offered as advice to you (if you want X, do Y) is sincere, but is also a straightforward critique of your seeming approach - ignorant condemnation of an individual based upon poorly constructed standards of judgment is wrong. Trying to educate you (as to any individual or group) is a waste of both of our time, so I am focusing on the method - what can we say about an individual based upon identification in a religious group?

If you like, discuss the topic at hand. If you want to continue this back and forth about methods of having a discussion, I can do that, too.

What the Bible says is up to the individual (within various interpretive influences and communities);
Your interpretation of the Bible does not dictate how others interpret it;
Knowing your own interpretation tells you nothing about what others think;
Identifying as a member of a group does not necessitate that the member believes/agrees with all group positions/dogma (to the extent the group has identifiable positions/dogma);
Your opinion as to what a group's position/dogma with respect to any position does not make it so;
Knowing your own opinion about a group's position/dogma tells you nothing about the beliefs of an individual group member;
Knowing that a Christian makes use of the Bible provides you no information about what that individual Christian believes;
Judging an individual based upon either your opinion about a book or you opinion about a group is both an ethical and intellectual error; and
Lewis's article cannot be used to support individual judgment based group membership given Lewis's own analysis of what identification in a group relates about them.

You are welcome to disagree with any (or all) of those statements. If you have a different thesis related to the thread you want to offer up, restate, or point to in prior posts, feel free. But please, stop the claims of victimization and that I (or anyone else) am somehow being intellectually unfair.

For what it is worth, this is sort of like the conversations about self-avowed Nazis. The justification for banning such a person from the forum upon site is not because of any judgment with respect to the individual, but that because the site administrators have deemed that declaring yourself a Nazi is sufficient warrant for banning. To their credit, the administrators have posted rules about it and offered up some justifications. The primary justification (if I can speak for admins/mods) is wholly unrelated to the individual being banned, but about the community that is being protected. It is simply unkind to forum participants (and counter-productive to the environment the admins are trying to create) to have to explore why someone thinks being a Nazi is a good thing or why Nazi philosophy should be given serious intellectual consideration. We don't have to judge the individual being banned - we just ban them. That is, where individual behavior poses intolerable risk to the community, individual evaluation is unnecessary and irrelevant.

This issue has been hinted at by several posters when they say things like, "Christians come from a long history with multiplicity of views and have done both great things and horrid things. Someone simply saying that they are Christian does not pose sufficient risk to the community to justify group treatment." There may be fruit in saying why Christians are more or less like Nazis, but Lewis's article does not go so far and actually says that even individual Nazis should be given the chance to explain themselves. I have not, therefore, explored the theme of group treatment based on communal threat in my responses.

If you can think of a third way to get to Banno's offered conclusion (that is exclusion from a conversation not based either upon 1) individual judgment or 2) group judgment based upon communal threat) using Lewis's article, go ahead an offer it up. As it stands, Banno's thesis is an unwarranted extension of Lewis's article.

Is this advice to be taken taken literally by a true Christian? How is it to be interpreted? Will this not result in a one-way trip to hell, without a stay in the intermediate state of limbo purgatory, if he has taken it seriously and decided to realize the advice after he has seen his wife grabbing the balls of his opponent? What about the poor rescuing woman? Will she go to hell if she is punished already by axing of the sinful hand? — Raymond

Since you put this question so starkly I'm going to give everyone a quick Biblical lesson. God made people and gave some laws for all people (known as the Noahide laws in Judaism, but found as part of the story of Noah in god's covenant). Sometime later, god chose a specific group of people among the nations to make another covenant with (see Exodus) with laws that applied ONLY to that group. Anyone who was not part of the chosen people was not required to follow ANY of the laws given specifically to the chosen people.

Absent the Christian being a part of the chosen people to which the Bible refers, they are not required to do any of the bad stuff that people keep complaining about. A naive literal reading of the Bible gets you there. The thing is, you actually have to read it rather than just picking a sentence at random and then start asking why everyone in the world isn't doing whatever the sentence says at all times in all circumstances. It doesn't take any level of sophisticated textual analysis or weird interpretive communities to get you there. You just need to follow the pronouns and scope.

P.S.

These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan—that is, in the Arabah—opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab. 2 (It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.)
— Deut. 1

If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him— 23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. 24 Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. 25 No one will be able to stand against you. The Lord your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.

12 These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. 2 Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
— Deut. 11ish

For flavor..

15 One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
— Deut. 19

I keep writing these posts that are somewhat complementary to yours — trying to add in whatever I feel you’ve left out that’s important — and I never really get around to trying to deal head-on with the arguments, such as they are. (And I’ve never given fdrake that response to Mengele I promised.) Maybe it’s just my temperament, but when an argument is at loggerheads like this, I tend to think both sides are wrong (and right, in their own way) and try something else. — Srap Tasmaner

The scary thing is that we're living in times where we feel we need to discuss such topics to begin with.
In an ideal society, the OP and the essay it refers to should not exist, or should be regarded as redundant, because in such a society, people would think, "But of course we should not admire those who worship a god who dooms people to eternal damnation! How can anyone even think to doubt that!!"

But we're living in times where we have to justify our basic moral intuitions with arguments. It's not clear it is possible to succeed in that.

(@Michael, would you join?)

You have reduced the Bible to a single passage you do realize, as if the entire book goes on and on about stoning girls. — Hanover

Only for shorthand. There's lots of atrocities in the bible.

http://www.realbiblestories.com/10-biblical-atrocities-that-go-overlooked-part-two-2/

https://thechurchoftruth.org/god-committed-unspeakable-heinous-crimes-against-humanity/

https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html

I'm trying not to make this about "isn't the bible terrible", but you force my hand by trying to make out that I'm cherry-picking a single incident. You know there are atrocities in the bible, we all know that, so let's not pretend my shorthand example is a lone aberration.

In any event, we don't have a single instance of a stoning you can cite to in the past 2,000 years in those nations that have adopted the Bible as a guiding document (although I'm sure there were some somewhere). — Hanover

Again, this is going to go smoother if we don't first have to get over the stage where we pretend that my specific issues can't be generalised. We know that there are a number of atrocities and other less horrific, but still dodgy, aspects in the bible. We also all know that numerous horrific atrocities have been carried out in the name of Christianity, from witch trials and crusades to child abuse and Calvinism.

If you show both, you show not just an answer (Rubric 15 in The Little Book of How to be Perfect — memorize by Wednesday), but how solution and problem fit — which is, what having a solution looks like, and what solving a problem looks like. — Srap Tasmaner

Which is problem and which solution? If the antagonists presents a problem and the hero solves it, we have ourselves a classic myth showing how to solve problems. If the protagonist (A) does X and another protagonist (B) shows a way to get around X, which is the problem and which the solution? Is A the good guy and the conniving B keeps dodging the law, or is B the hero showing how to do the right thing despite the difficulties A seems to have arbitrarily created?

I like the idea of Jesus the hero showing people how to be good (without strictly breaking the law) even when the law is barbaric, but...

There's nothing in the book to say it's this way round, and not, say, a very highly contextualised and historically specific Jesus showing how - in that unique historical circumstance - one could get around God's law, which in most other cases should be interpreted literally.

I think you've got a great story there. Cruel laws laid down by a vengeful, but all-powerful being, a populous in terror, horrified by their own barbarism, but powerless to defy the lawmaker - along comes a carpenter, with nothing but patience, compassion and his wits he shows the people how to defy the cruel overlord without actually bringing on another famine/thunderbolt/hailstorm. In a classic scene he's defies the Lord's will that a girl be stoned by turning one of his own constitutional edicts against him! In the final death scene, in a brilliant twist, it turns out he's the cruel overlord's son! Cut to credits

A fantastic plot which you should definitely sell the rights to to some major Hollywood studio...but it's not the bible.

Point me to it. — Ennui Elucidator

I did. It's the quote I pointed to. Just under the words 'the quote...'

In what way have I dismissed it? — Ennui Elucidator

It's in the quote.

If you aren’t willing to engage with the material on that level (be it as “because this is the unerring word of god as related to *** and then written down, copied, and translated from then till now under the guidance of god” or “because that was a cultural creation story of the region of the people who told the story and the editors/codifiers of the book had to include to maintain legitimacy” or any other such attempt to understand the material), you aren’t having a conversation with the people that find meaning in it. — Ennui Elucidator

If I don't engage with the text in the way they want, I'm out of the conversation.

And again...

If you wish to address yourself to those communities, you need to do so in a way that suggests you understand what they are saying. — Ennui Elucidator

If you can think of a third way to get to Banno's offered conclusion (that is exclusion from a conversation not based either upon 1) individual judgment or 2) group judgment based upon communal threat) using Lewis's article, go ahead an offer it up. — Ennui Elucidator

That, to my mind, is what I've done, so there doesn't seem much point in doing so again.

Sometime later, god chose a specific group of people among the nations to make another covenant with (see Exodus) with laws that applied ONLY to that group. Anyone who was not part of the chosen people was not required to follow ANY of the laws given specifically to the chosen people. — Ennui Elucidator

But those non-chosen people are also said to be doomed, are they not? They are automatically classed as the enemies of the Lord, as the enemies of the chosen people, no?

Absent the Christian being a part of the chosen people to which the Bible refers, they are not required to do any of the bad stuff that people keep complaining about.

And there are those who would say that this is a naive literal reading of the Bible!

And all of this is just to further point out that those who wish to open up the Bible, read a passage, and then comment on what it must mean in a vacuum without referencing the religious doctrine as a whole aren't providing a meaningful analysis of any known religion. — Hanover

Sure, but the responsibility is also on those who popularize the Bible. Arguably, their responsibility is bigger. The Bible (usually in a simple version without footnotes) is available in many places for free. People are being encouraged to read it.


(One of the reasons Roman Catholicism discouraged literacy and reading the Bible for so long was precisely this concern that if ordinary people are left to themselves reading the Bible, they are very likely going to become confused, lose faith.)

he shows the people how to defy the cruel overlord — Isaac

Well no -- the villain here is the Pharisees.

That is odd. You are saying that I dismissed something by pointing you to the fact that other people will dismiss you?

You have yet to offer a third way, Isaac. Again, just point me to it (even a simple reference to the post number) and I'll try to find it to specifically engage with.

Let's say that A is 'in church' and B is 'in the vestry'. We could say the priest believes "it's OK to molest boys" when he's in the vestry but believes "we should protect the innocent" when he's in the church - two belief-stories which are contradictory, but never meet. Or we could say the priest believes "it's OK to molest boys when in the vestry and we should protect the innocent when in church" (note the changed quotation marks). So the second story captures the effect of the context within the belief. Then we can interrogate that belief-story because there'll be a hidden belief about the vestry and the church that might yield a better story (less painful dissonance). The vestry is private, the church isn't so maybe it's "it's OK to molest boys when hidden but we should protect the innocent when in view". — Isaac

Or perhaps he doesn't see it as "molestation" at all. Maybe he read a lot about ancient Greek culture where paedophilia is regarded as a good and normal thing. Maybe he doesn't think children are automatically innocent. Maybe he himself was a victim of priestly sexual abuse as a child and is now repeating the pattern. Maybe he lost his faith and is since then in a volatile psychological state, more likely to engage in problematic or even criminal behaviors.

I'm not saying this to excuse the priests. It's just that these are also the realities of religious life.


(I don't know about English literature, but in some languages, there is a whole subgenre of literature the theme of which is the troubled inner life of priests. This is also the theme of some works of art. It seems plausible enough that actual priests have similar problems.)

When people are looking for these stories, they'll more readily pick one off the shelf than make one up themselves. The myths and narratives that a society offers matter a lot to the kind of society that results because of this. It' my belief that a contradictory mythology such a Christianity offers - with the sort of contradictions Lewis is highlighting - offers a narrative which allows for such horrors as priestly child abuse, much more readily than better mythologies might, precisely because of these underlying themes (that God's actually something of a git himself. That he sees the rites, cassocks and prayers as more important that the behaviour...).

When you look at this in the context of Christian culture as a whole, priestly child abuse is, sadly, not some egregious special case. People can be quite rough on eachother, and Christians are no exception. Physical violence, domestic abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, ...

I'm trying not to make this about "isn't the bible terrible", but you force my hand by trying to make out that I'm cherry-picking a single incident. You know there are atrocities in the bible, we all know that, so let's not pretend my shorthand example is a lone aberration. — Isaac

But let's not pretend they are examples of condoned conduct.

See above and see here

Sure, but the responsibility is also on those who popularize the Bible. Arguably, their responsibility is bigger. The Bible (usually in a simple version without footnotes) is available in many places for free. People are being encouraged to read it.


(One of the reasons Roman Catholicism discouraged literacy and reading the Bible for so long was precisely this concern that if ordinary people are left to themselves reading the Bible, they are very likely going to become confused, lose faith.) — baker

I don't know that I have responsibility to defend the Bible. I don't care what people think about it enough to do that. My only point is that if someone is going to read a passage from the Bible, having some background into what it means is important.

When it says we're going to stone the girl, that doesn't mean she will get stoned just like when the policy says you have $10,000 in coverage, that doesn't mean that's all you have. — Hanover

Still, there is a considerable difference between 10 000 stones as written to be thrown while getting 25 000 and 10 000 dollar that is written while 25 000 is implied by local laws. Why writing 10 000 stones when one means 10 000 dollars? Were sticks and stones money in these ancient times? Should one be coined to death or should his wallet be cut in two? Why use the vivid imagery of cutting hands and throwing stones? Who says this didn't really happen and won't happen again if Christians seize power?

That, to my mind, is what I've done, so there doesn't seem much point in doing so again. — Isaac

It's become an odd thread. We seem to have general agreement that hell is an unjust notion, and hence a disavowal of those who would claim otherwise, including censure of those who would praise such an unjust god. At this point we pretty much have unstated agreement on the merit of the Lewis article.

But it has been combined with a claim from avowed non-christians that those who would claim otherwise do not exist in great numbers nor do they understand the bible; this last based on some notion of there being a correct, non-literal interpretation. Hence comments such as folk

...having some background into what it means — Hanover

But of course meaning is imputed, as much as discovered.

@Hanover, do you agree that there are those who read the scriptures as giving permission for abominable acts?

@Ennui Elucidator and Hanover appear to wish for a reinvigoration of scholasticism; a narrow focus on defending the one true faith by any rhetorical means available.

If I don't engage with the text in the way they want, I'm out of the conversation. — Isaac

Sort of, yes. If you read a single page of a legal document without putting it into the context of other controlling documents and opinions and rules, then you're out of the conversation in terms of what the import of the single document is.

Sure, you can keep pointing to the rule you've read and tell me that it makes my society horrible, but it doesn't.

But those non-chosen people are also said to be doomed, are they not? They are automatically classed as the enemies of the Lord, as the enemies of the chosen people, no? — baker

No. The Bible was not a universal code and it anticipates the people Israel living in a world with many nations not subject to their local war god's rules for the chosen. That is one of the typical misreadings about the Biblical Israelites - that they wanted everyone to be like them. They didn't. They were special.

P.S. Go read about the stranger living in the land of Israel and the rules for the Israelites dealing with them.

My only point is that if someone is going to read a passage from the Bible, having some background into what it means is important. — Hanover

Even so, how do we tell what it means? New Testament example - I was talking to a Catholic priest friend of mine yesterday about Jesus throwing out the money changers from the synagogue. I asked him if this was an example of Jesus as human, loosing it - a reaction based on dualistic thinking. He thought for a moment and then said - "Depends upon whether you think this actually happened and if you wish to take it literally." He's more of a Platonist who sees the stories as allegory.

I think it is futile to imagine we can arrive at what these old books mean. It will always be about communities of shared interpretation and radical re-interpretations and crazy outlier interpretations. A hot mess.

do you agree that there are those who read the scriptures as giving permission for abominable acts? — Banno

I believe there are those who read the kindest and gentlest of words, whether it be from the bible or wherever, to do terrible things. So, yes. There are some horrible people out there, Bible or no Bible.