(June 24, 2015 at 6:46 pm)Faith No More Wrote:(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.
What Randy is saying is that people wouldn't follow His commands on morality if it just got thrown on them all at once. It had to be done slowly, over time... otherwise it would never have worked at all. This was for our benefit, not His.
^I don't necessarily agree that this is what took place, btw, but I can understand the concept Randy is presenting here. Can't you?
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
-walsh
-walsh
