(December 2, 2014 at 1:46 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: I thought God's laws were supposed to be objective and universal, anyway?I can recall that the JWs felt that the laws and regulations given the nation of Israel set them apart from the other nations and cultures, and I think I've seen that argument made on this forum once or twice as well. But I think that the way the old testament treats women doesn't point to a kind or caring god. This would be the same god who regularly lays savage ass-whippings on nations and individuals (and once almost the entire world), but suddenly he feels he must be sensitive to the cultural mores of a relatively small community that has pledged to serve him?
"We'll do anything you want, god, on penalty of suffering and death! But do you mind if we keep our rape culture? I mean, it's not like we have video games or even a soccer pitch around here!"
"Meh... sounds reasonable to me. Let me know when you grow out of it, though. It makes me just a tiny bit uncomfortable to allow it."
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
