So yet another angry group of people have decided to "refute the Bible" by printing a huge list of supposed "sins" according to the Bible in an attempt to make God look like an unreasonable idiot who doesn't deserve to be even thought about, much less followed. Unfortunately, they have outright distorted and sometimes lied about what Scripture says, so I have chosen to take their list of "sins" and explain what it's all about.
- Eating shellfish - This is one of the Old Testament rules on what creatures are and are not good to eat. However, there is no punishment listed for not holding to these rules, and they were arguably abolished in the New Testament with Peter's dream, in which God offered him "unclean" animals to eat and told him that they were now clean. I'd like to add, though, for the sake of completeness, that the animals labeled "unclean" in the OT are now known to carry an increased risk of food-borne illnesses.
- Wearing clothes made of more than one fabric - Again, this is a cultural requirement only. It has no punishment listed, and it is not labeled explicitly as "detestable" or an "abomination".
- Getting raped (this only goes for the ladies, but you can smooth things over by marrying your rapist, so…) - This one is an outright lie. The verse says that if a man *seduces* and lies with a virgin, that he can make it right by marrying her, unless her father refuses the marriage. In that case, he has to pay her three years' wages on the middle-class level. These days the payment would be approximately $180,000. Of course, seduction is not rape.
In fact, if a married woman has had sex with a man outside of the city, it is assumed that she was raped and so she merits no penalty whatsoever. The man, however, is put to death. There is no actual Biblical law regarding the punishment for rape.
However, we must remember that the Old Testament Law was a restraint, not the be-all and end-all of the country's laws. In a time when killing someone carried the punishment of your death and the death of all your friends and family, for instance, the OT law limits the punishment to the murderer. So to see what God's society did for rape, we have to look at the actual documented incidences of it. In every situation in which rape occurs, either the perpetrators were killed (sometimes very painfully) or the Bible makes it clear that their lack of punishment is in itself abhorrent. God does not treat rapists gently.
- Trimming your beard or sideburns - Cultural requirement only. It has no punishment listed, and it is not labeled explicitly as "detestable" or an "abomination".
- Getting remarried - Not according to the Old Testament, and in the New Testament it is only listed as a sin if your previous marriage was dissolved by what would now be called a "no-fault divorce".
- Planting more than one crop in a field - Cultural requirement only. It has no punishment listed, and it is not labeled explicitly as "detestable" or an "abomination".
- Having a wet dream - The term "unclean" is often misunderstood by non-Jews and non-Christians. Both Judaism and Christianity recognizes that we frequently fall short of the goal of utter righteousness. In other schools of religious thought, such as Secular Humanism, proving your own righteousness is very important. In Judaism and Christianity, it is not.
Anyways... back to uncleanliness. It is understood by Jews and Christians to be an inevitability rather than something to be avoided and feared at all costs. In addition, not all uncleanliness in the OT was a result of sin. Many times, it was a simple protection in the society. Any emission of semen made the man "unclean until evening", which was really a pretty lightweight requirement. Interestingly, the people who laugh at the Bible for requiring a man to wash his clothes after discharging semen all over himself are silent when it comes to the rules regarding diagnosis and treatment of mildew and mold in homes and clothing.
- Eating rare meat - Only meat that is rare enough to actively bleed. This had two uses. The first was hygenic... even today, we recognize that there are enough blood-borne illnesses to make drinking it a risky proposition. Secondly, the Old Testament is meant to teach humankind the importance of shed blood for forgiveness of sins, because that's the method Jesus had to use. For that reason, blood is especially sacred.
- Touching a dead animal - Cleanliness issue. The person has to wash and is "unclean until evening", meaning basically a temporary quarantine. He couldn't stick his hands inside an animal that died out in the field (this didn't refer to butchering your meat, by the way) and then proceed to knead bread for supper. Remember that the high death rate in childbirth a few centuries ago came from doctors who did not wash their hands when going from the morgue to the delivery room.
- Menstruating and/or earning your “red wings” - Issue of cleanliness, as with the semen, with an extra ritual required due to the blood, as described in the "rare meat" section. I'd like to add that the punishment for sex during menstruation was exile, not death.
- Getting a tattoo - Do not cut yourself or make marks on yourself for the dead. Whether this applies to all tattoos or just putting a permanent representation of your dead relatives on your skin is up for debate. It's also worth noting that people back then used to slash themselves with knives (and sometimes kill their own children) because they believed that their gods would not listen to them unless they suffered enough. God did not want His people developing that mindset about Him.
Hope this helps the next time someone starts spouting laws that they don't understand.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
We want a king!
I got onto a forum temporarily and found myself discussing Obamacare. I got the usual, nods of affirmation and extra explanations from some, while the detractors contented themselves with no better response than "you're an idiot". While I was thinking over Obamacare and what it does and doesn't do, however, I realized something startling and made a larger connection.
One of the worrying attributes of Obamacare is the incredibly large power shift from the private sector to the government. The nature of that attribute, however, deserves further study. Over and over again one man is mentioned: the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. This person, not Congress, will develop the three government-approved healthcare plans covered by the mandate, the ones I like to call "Regular, Premium, and Premium Plus". All Americans will have to have one of these three plans, purchased from one private company or another... does it matter anymore which company you use?
Consider the implications of that for a moment. Suppose the head of this department, unelected, appointed by the President, does not believe that people over a certain age should receive any care at all? Suppose he believes that we are ruining the world through overpopulation and each family should only have two children? He can decide that the mandatory health care plans do not, any of them, cover any procedures if the patient is over 80 years old. He can decide that only the first two pregnancies will be covered in any of these plans. In a way, he has a kingly power over us.
That's when it began to click for me. We were ruled by ourselves, and our economy was ruled by the natural force of Free-Market Capitalism. Now, increasingly, the vocal minority is clamoring for a "king". They are trying to give our powers and our rights, not to the Federal Government, not to Congress, but specifically to the President and his appointees. Why would they do something like that?
They distrust the free market. The free market is a force that they cannot control. If there is a bad year for tomatoes, they cannot force the price of tomatoes to fall. If they disapprove of people eating beef instead of goat meat, they cannot force the stores to sell goat meat and not beef. (I know I slip into agricultural idioms easily, bear with me please! This goes for other products and services as well.) We conservatives believe that the free market will always act in the best interests of the largest numbers of people. However, the liberals do not like it.
The Israelites felt the same way. Ruled directly by God Himself, they wanted a king. They wanted something more than a force they could not control, who might make decisions of which they disapprove. They wanted a man. God will never tell you that you are allowed to sin. A man may be coaxed to do so. Now I am not comparing God directly to the Free Market, with all the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence that implies. However, God, like the Free Market and all laws of Nature which He created, is constant and will not reward behavior that violates His laws.
This started with the Free Market, but it can be applied to other things. The liberals who push hormonal birth control, abortion, and gay 'marriage' want sex to have no consequences. Natural law created by God says that it must, but they hope to take control and force what is wrong to become right. This requires them to reject God's laws and set up a king to rule over them instead, a man whom they hope to give the power... the power to decide what medical care we can afford to receive, the power to set the price of goods and services, the power to declare by government fiat that old borders to chastity and modesty no longer exist and anyone who supports them deserves to be hated.
This was God's warning when the Israelites demanded a king:
One of the worrying attributes of Obamacare is the incredibly large power shift from the private sector to the government. The nature of that attribute, however, deserves further study. Over and over again one man is mentioned: the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. This person, not Congress, will develop the three government-approved healthcare plans covered by the mandate, the ones I like to call "Regular, Premium, and Premium Plus". All Americans will have to have one of these three plans, purchased from one private company or another... does it matter anymore which company you use?
Consider the implications of that for a moment. Suppose the head of this department, unelected, appointed by the President, does not believe that people over a certain age should receive any care at all? Suppose he believes that we are ruining the world through overpopulation and each family should only have two children? He can decide that the mandatory health care plans do not, any of them, cover any procedures if the patient is over 80 years old. He can decide that only the first two pregnancies will be covered in any of these plans. In a way, he has a kingly power over us.
That's when it began to click for me. We were ruled by ourselves, and our economy was ruled by the natural force of Free-Market Capitalism. Now, increasingly, the vocal minority is clamoring for a "king". They are trying to give our powers and our rights, not to the Federal Government, not to Congress, but specifically to the President and his appointees. Why would they do something like that?
They distrust the free market. The free market is a force that they cannot control. If there is a bad year for tomatoes, they cannot force the price of tomatoes to fall. If they disapprove of people eating beef instead of goat meat, they cannot force the stores to sell goat meat and not beef. (I know I slip into agricultural idioms easily, bear with me please! This goes for other products and services as well.) We conservatives believe that the free market will always act in the best interests of the largest numbers of people. However, the liberals do not like it.
The Israelites felt the same way. Ruled directly by God Himself, they wanted a king. They wanted something more than a force they could not control, who might make decisions of which they disapprove. They wanted a man. God will never tell you that you are allowed to sin. A man may be coaxed to do so. Now I am not comparing God directly to the Free Market, with all the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence that implies. However, God, like the Free Market and all laws of Nature which He created, is constant and will not reward behavior that violates His laws.
This started with the Free Market, but it can be applied to other things. The liberals who push hormonal birth control, abortion, and gay 'marriage' want sex to have no consequences. Natural law created by God says that it must, but they hope to take control and force what is wrong to become right. This requires them to reject God's laws and set up a king to rule over them instead, a man whom they hope to give the power... the power to decide what medical care we can afford to receive, the power to set the price of goods and services, the power to declare by government fiat that old borders to chastity and modesty no longer exist and anyone who supports them deserves to be hated.
This was God's warning when the Israelites demanded a king:
He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”We might want to keep this in mind as we see those who happily hand their medical privacy and insurance rights to a single unelected man, who seek greater power for human men, all hoping that this path will lead to their being permitted to do that which is against natural law... whether it be to receive without working or engage in acts of depravity with government approval.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
What the heck, it's been a month!
I love to write, and I love to write in this blog. However, I just have to come to the conclusion that I will not be able to post daily, and sometimes I might not even be able to post weekly!
On Saturday, I had the pleasure of seeing my brother marry a good woman. My house was Grand Central Station, with several people staying here rather than spending needless money on a hotel room, and several more people meeting up with them to go various places and enjoy various activities. My last houseguests leave today... and then the house will be quiet again.
Even though I am a very introverted person, I also very much enjoy sharing my house and property with other people. When we first bought this place, we felt led by none other than God to make it a pleasant place where other people could find rest. Some people become missionaries, others lead groups, others create new charities... But for every person who goes out there to make something of themselves, you need people who spread the load just a little bit further! For every adventurer, you need an oasis. My husband and I are pretty much devoting our lives to raising our children and maintaining our home in such a way that we can provide an oasis to those who just need a break.
Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't spend enough time pursuing things like writing that 'could make me money someday'. However, I have to keep reminding myself that now, as my kids are young and being homeschooled and we are providing this restful service to those who could use a break, I really am contributing enough to society as it is. The steady, frequent writing will come later.
I still have my entire middle age and elderly years ahead of me.
On Saturday, I had the pleasure of seeing my brother marry a good woman. My house was Grand Central Station, with several people staying here rather than spending needless money on a hotel room, and several more people meeting up with them to go various places and enjoy various activities. My last houseguests leave today... and then the house will be quiet again.
Even though I am a very introverted person, I also very much enjoy sharing my house and property with other people. When we first bought this place, we felt led by none other than God to make it a pleasant place where other people could find rest. Some people become missionaries, others lead groups, others create new charities... But for every person who goes out there to make something of themselves, you need people who spread the load just a little bit further! For every adventurer, you need an oasis. My husband and I are pretty much devoting our lives to raising our children and maintaining our home in such a way that we can provide an oasis to those who just need a break.
Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't spend enough time pursuing things like writing that 'could make me money someday'. However, I have to keep reminding myself that now, as my kids are young and being homeschooled and we are providing this restful service to those who could use a break, I really am contributing enough to society as it is. The steady, frequent writing will come later.
I still have my entire middle age and elderly years ahead of me.
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