pop morality

[Jenny A]

The real question to ask Drippy, here, since he claims that the Bible is the Ultimate and Unchanging Moral Authority™, is how can he condemn slavery or rape, since they are not prohibited by that Bible of his?

the obvious answer.
Those things are crimes.
I condemn because the society I live in condemns them. and if i maybe allowed to show some empathy without being called a sociopath again, I would not want those things done to me.

That said, from a big picture Survival of the species perspective I can also see how both rape and slavery were needed to get us out of our inbreed, family clans, xenophobic, hunter gather, cave dwellings, and into modern social structures.

GARBAGE.

Explain to me how rape was necessary to the survival of the species. In particular explain how it was necessary to the Hebrews at the time of Moses. Remember, the clan of the Hebrews was supposed to be over two million people at that time. That's a pretty big breeding pool and hardly in need of influx of genes from outside races. But even if it were, the rape countenanced by The Law of Moses as a petty matter, included rape of Hebrew women by Hebrews. How would Hebrews raping Hebrews stop inbreeding? And if inbreeding were the problem, why would the OT discourage Hebrew men from marrying non Hebrew women? Not to mention discouraging them from engaging in sex with Canaanite priestesses?

Outside the little clan of the Hebrews there was a great wide world complete with many nations larger than the Hebrews, all busily breeding within the confines of marriage. What pray tell was rape good for?

As for xenophobia, that's what The Law of Moses was all about promoting. The Laws of Moses were designed to separate the Hebrews from other people. And they worked. So claiming that rape countenanced by them was necessary to reduce xenophobia is ridiculous.

That aside, consider rape as a vehicle for ending xenophobia. Does rape do that? It does not. Fear of rape is one of the leading causes of xenophobic responses to Muslims moving into Europe. It was one of the alleged reasons for separating blacks and whites in the U.S. and South Africa. Rape between races is not a tool for reducing xenophobia, but a cause of xenophobia.

And civilized society runs better when half the population doesn't have to stay in hiding to avoid rape.

Was slavery necessary to remove people from a hunter gatherer existence? Hardly. The Hebrews were already herders and farmers. And their herds and farms were not of a size to benefit from mass labor. Nor, did they ever use slaves for mass labor. Try again. Many cultures have transitioned to agriculture and herding without slavery. And many hunter gatherer cultures kept slaves without ever progressing to agriculture.

Slavery is wrong. So is rape. How do we know? Not from the Bible or it's god, but from empathy and reason.

BTW, it is not by showing empathy, but by not showing empathy that one is branded a sociopath. It's definitional.