Well, the "Mile-High Messiah" Sure Met His Match Tonight!

[Goodman]

Pretty much all cultures throughout human history have outlawed murder and theft. Don't need the Bible to tell us that those two activities are wrong.

Granted, it wasn't effective in your case. Still, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be of value to others. Your sentiments are approaching censorship and book banning.

[ltorlo64]

That's what I was getting at, it makes more sense to qualify such acts as "adultery" not "stealing". But even then, do you really feel acts of adultery like two unmarried people having sex is anywhere near as bad as child molestation? Really? I mean, the Bible doesn't seem to distinguish between the two. It may be all sin in God's eyes, but as far as OUR law goes, the secular law of the land, does it really make sense to use the Bible as a source for our inspiration, where each of those acts of sexual immorality are considered the same? That just seems crazy to me.

If you look at our family situations, what drives most poverty is not wealthy people keeping the poor people down, but it is unwed mothers who do not have the earning power of men because instead of getting a degree or a diploma or training, they were pregnant. When you look at how adultery in any sense breaks down the family structure it all becomes just as bad.

On a more spiritual note, one of the examples God gave us to understand His love for us and how we are to love Him was the family. When adultery enters the picture it destroys the trust that married people are supposed to have for each other, even if the adultery happens well before marriage. Not having a parent around, especially a father makes it more difficult for people to understand what God means when He describes Himself as the father. If the father abused the child, especially sexually, it is almost impossible for the child to see a father as loving, so to then hear that God is the Father, makes no sense for the person to want to follow or even be known by God.

Again, why so vague? I would think that an omnibenevolent God would have specifically outlined those things. Not just torture, but slavery as well. Why was slavery so tolerated in the Bible? Does it really come across as a just, inspired word of an all-good God, or more likely just echoing the particular laws and customs of the people of the time?

I don't understand everything, but I trust that God knew what He was doing, and I know He was working in a fallen world so not everything could be as He originally intended. I see no reason to believe that if Adam and Eve had not ate of the fruit that slavery would have even been thought of (nor any of the other 6 moral laws included in the 10 commandments). What I can tell you is that slavery as practiced by the Jews when they followed the Old Testament Laws was much different than how it was practiced here, and much different than practiced by the countries around Israel. For instance, if a man had a female slave and slept with her, she now had the rights of a wife. If a slave owner punched a slave and caused physical harm the slave would go free. There was even a way for a slave to show that he/she maintained their position as slave willingly. That doesn't even compute for us, but Israel was required to treat their slaves better so this could happen.

For your last question, isn't it also possible, since the 10 Commandments didn't come out until a couple of thousand years after the Bible started, that the laws that were written down came from God originally, but as humans forgot them more and more, people like Hamurandi (-5 sp) wrote them down so they would be remembered? For instance, if you go back all the way to Genesis 3 or so, to the story of the murder of Able, there was no law that said "do not kill", but Cain knew he did wrong when he murdered Able and God punished Cain for his act, even though there was no law. How could God do this except people knew what was right and wrong? As you go through the Old Testament from Genesis to Exodus there are examples of all 10 Commands being kept even though they were not yet written down. It is interesting then to see what changed that caused God to write the Commandments in Exodus. I can tell you it was not God.

[jloneill]

The OP is just a sack. I feel almost sorry for the guy that he has all that negativity. Why do you care what Tim Tebow does or doesn't do? I doesn't affect your life in the slightest.