RE: How Do We Behave?
May 27, 2011 at 5:43 pm
(This post was last modified: May 27, 2011 at 6:31 pm by Girlysprite.)
Biblical standards for criminals is stoning. To death.
I think that the way prisons are today has very little to do with religion. Our standards for forgiveness also have little to do with the bible. Yes, the bible may agrue for forgiveness at points, but some pages later there are scenes of people being stoned to death for sleeping with someone of their own gender. On that point (forgiveness) the bible is (again!) very confounding.
I get where you are coming from; some of the rules are quite gentle, esp. when compared with certain other practices of slavery. But that is like a guy coming up and saying 'hey, we shouldn't kill those criminals, because killing is bad. Let's chop off both their hands so they can't steal anymore! Well...at least they are no longer killing, but does that really make it so good? And other cultures also practiced kindness towards slaves in that time, and servitute to settle debts was not uncommon. So it's not like the writers of the bible stumbled upon a whole new concept here.
I think that the way prisons are today has very little to do with religion. Our standards for forgiveness also have little to do with the bible. Yes, the bible may agrue for forgiveness at points, but some pages later there are scenes of people being stoned to death for sleeping with someone of their own gender. On that point (forgiveness) the bible is (again!) very confounding.
I get where you are coming from; some of the rules are quite gentle, esp. when compared with certain other practices of slavery. But that is like a guy coming up and saying 'hey, we shouldn't kill those criminals, because killing is bad. Let's chop off both their hands so they can't steal anymore! Well...at least they are no longer killing, but does that really make it so good? And other cultures also practiced kindness towards slaves in that time, and servitute to settle debts was not uncommon. So it's not like the writers of the bible stumbled upon a whole new concept here.
When I was a Christian, I was annoyed with dogmatic condescending Christians. Now that I'm an atheist, I'm annoyed with dogmatic condescending atheists. Just goes to prove that people are the same, regardless of what they do or don't believe.
