What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

Regarding the debate about rape and the God of the OT:

My opinion is that the text clearly condones rape, at least in certain circumstances. To convince yourself otherwise is to try and patch up one verse by finding another which contradicts it and convince yourself the horrible bit is negated; or to weave a ridiculous narrative in your head that somehow justifies it. CL however takes a different approach, to deny it ever actually happened. I much prefer this last approach, partly because I agree that it didn't happen (at least not anything like as written) and partly because there is then no need to justify it as a real story and so defend the immorality. To an atheist it's very hard to understand how someone can think the bible is the word of God yet contains things that are totally wrong, or allegories for...?... no idea what they could possibly be allegories for. But this clearly works for CL, and the result is she comes out able to keep her morality regarding rape being wrong. Even though I can't begin to understand the thought processes, the end result is she is firmly against rape, and that's the most important thing.

The OT God is evil, through and through. Virtually everything he does I would associate with an evil fascist dictator, just one who happens to be magical as well.

Now, most civilized people feel very strongly rape is wrong. So that means they must make some sort of excuses for why the bible clearly condones it. That's fine, as long as your end result is that you say rape is wrong, I don't much care what mental hoops you have to jump through to override your sacred text. The danger for any particular Christian is that they may know rape is wrong, but end up having to partially justify it in order to preserve their belief that their morality actually comes from the bible. That is sickening, and a clear example of religion warping morality and sucking us back to the dark ages.

However, some people may really think rape is OK. In that case all they have to do is refer to the text as is, and they have instant righteous justification, at least in the eyes of anyone who takes the text seriously. That is the scariest part of all.

I agree with this assessment.

I don't really care whether a person believes the OT's stories are written literally or not. As long as they still believe rape and slavery and murder, etc, are immoral, that's all that matters IMHO.

If in the end we all agree, theres no reason to get wrapped up and upset about nuances and details regarding belief in the OT. Luckily I've never come across anyone who supports those things.