Why does god want to cut off women's hands?

[Esquilax]

The fact that such people exist shows that they don't mutually agree with stopping those things.

Well then, it's lucky that there are more people that exist than just drug dealers and rapists and serial killers, isn't it? And it's equally lucky that these people can see the negative effects of drugs, rape and murder, and band together because they don't want to be subject to that, no?

I've never once said that everyone agrees on this standard. I've never once said that things don't happen in the heat of the moment, or that some won't lack the empathy or moral compunction to follow the laws, but those are in place to protect people, not merely for show. The fact that criminals exist just details the need for laws in the first place, it's not an argument against them.

So far it's an ad hoc opinion which ignores certain objective, evidently demonstrable facts that are inconvenient for it.

Such as?

I ignored it because you can't support it. Go ahead and try if you like, though.

I can't support the idea that society self corrects? What is it that you think changes to the laws are?

This line of your argument assumes an objective morality which we are progressing toward. You haven't shown such objective morality. Change is not necessarily progress.

No, it assumes a set of objective facts that we can know to be true: life is preferable to death, pain is not preferable, etc etc. I hope I don't need to explain why those are so. We are living in a universe that adheres to physical laws, and so we can come up with a set of stimuli that are unpleasant to us, and that we'd wish to avoid; even the drug addict doesn't enjoy the downsides of drug addiction, they're just trapped in a cycle. Rapists probably wouldn't want to be raped. Serial killers probably wouldn't want to be murdered. This is the basis of our system of laws, and our concept of good and bad; why is it that hell is depicted as a place filled with fire? Because fire burns us. Why is "thou shalt not kill," a commandment? Because murder is bad.

The ideal is to try and come up with a set of social rules for a community, without knowing what you will be when you enter it. Equality and fairness are necessary because they are the only way that we can be sure the worm won't turn on us and the people we've oppressed/hurt won't do the same in turn, because we've deemed those behaviors unacceptable.

Is it an imperfect system? You bet. Does that mean it's untrue?

Well, it your belief in the bible shaken by the immoralities there? You just put that down to the imperfect nature of the people who wrote it, why won't you accept that from anyone else?

By your subjective idea of optimal. Go it!

Until you can demonstrate the existence of your god with his objective standard, subjectivity is really all any of us have.

No, I'm saying it's arrogant to apply the modern western definition of rape to all times and cultures. I've already noted that the law prohibits kidnapping, and I've said that slavery was allowed as a compromise due to the times and circumstances.

So if your entire family was transported back to that time, you'd be okay with these things happening to you and yours? If not, why would you accept it from them?

In a way, it's weirdly racist to hold them to a more lax standard than you do yourself, like they're idiots who didn't know any better.