A Levite and his concubine

[Lek]

Yes, they sure did. But there was undoubtedly a better way, one that didn't involve so much suffering. You understand that the suffering itself was never the reason the world benefited from those civilizations, right? It was the power and influence that they took by force that allowed them to do those things, of which the immoral acts were but a means to an end. In truth, they aren't connected; the good could be done without committing the bad.

We've pretty much talked this one to death. Let me just say a few things. I agree that we should try to avoid doing things that might hurt others. And that's a big part of christian morality. I believe that humanity is not basically good or else we wouldn't we wouldn't need laws to keep us from causing harm to our neighbors. You've logically decided that the world would be better off if the Romans would have been nice and not overran neighboring lands. Well, maybe or maybe not. I agree that we would have been better off spiritually, which is what really matters, but there's no way to objectively show that we would have better off physically. It's really theory. If the happy Romans disagree with you, all you can do is tell them what you think. Of course, either you're right, or they're right, or you're both wrong, but who's to make that determination. You've related your beliefs about morality, but you've done nothing to objectively prove that they are correct. Your opinions also carry no authority to assume that God's actions in dealing with a world full of sin were unjust or immoral--especially when he sacrificed himself to assure that we all end up in eternal happiness.

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Children are selfish, because they have poor impulse control and still developing cognitive faculties. But that doesn't mean that they are exclusively selfish, or don't possess some rudimentary concept of fairness, which is also demonstrated through psychological studies. Hell, this is even true of monkeys; there are studies that show certain types of chimp understand fairness.

A similar experiment has been carried out with dogs and has shown, they also have a concept of fairness. The scientists ordered two of them to give paw and rewarded them with a treat. When one of them didn't receive the treat after a time, he simply went on strike.

That doesn't demonstrate a concept of fairness. It demonstrates how rewards effect actions. He went on strike because he wasn't being rewarded and therefore had no reason to give them his paw.