(June 24, 2015 at 6:32 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I don't have the same understanding as Randy in regards to the OT, but I think what he's saying is that God was putting Himself down at the level of the people/culture of the time in order to integrate Himself slowly.
Which is really strange given that he is the supposed source of objective morality. And why is God constrained by the current understanding of the people, anyway? He wasn't powerful enough to think of a way of communicating his objective morality? He had to water it down for them?
The thing is, God had no problem giving short, concise moral statements like "thou shall not kill," but when it comes to forcefully penetrating women, he's strangely convoluted and ambiguous. Despite the early Israelites' culture, I imagine that if he started smiting rapists left and right, they would have gotten the message.
Instead of getting a picture of a perfect, objective morality, we get people like Randy tripping over themselves to justify imbalanced and ethically flawed punishments. Some God indeed.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
