Is God’s law relevant without enforcement?

[Greatest I am]

Is God’s law relevant without enforcement?

Most of us follow secular laws regardless of what our religious laws say.
In fact, those who sometimes follow what they think is the laws of God are often punished by secular law if the believer breaks a secular law in following the law of his God.
We follow secular law primarily for altruistic purposes or from fear of retribution or enforcement. That and most recognize that Biblical law is draconian, outdated and unworkable.

Has God then become redundant as most of us follow a secular God, so to speak, who can enforce and explain the logic behind that law and change them as we evolve?

Does that mean that the trend of religiosity will continue to decline, as it has of late, and that the near or further history of man will result in no religion at all or in one that has little to no meaning to the daily lives of the vast majority?

Having said this and if you think it holds some truth, do you think the religious should be confronted to help religion die as soon as possible?
Is religion, as it is, holding back other more worthy endeavors based on reality and not myth, fantasy and magical thinking?

Please Google Why Religion Should Be Confronted by Victor Stenger for a good article on this issue.

"Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God,
holds other people in contempt.
Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God,
there is in that man no spirit of compromise.
He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature;
he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance.
Believing himself to be the slave of God,
he imitates his master,
and of all tyrants,
the worst is a slave in power."
--Robert Ingersoll

This quote, if true, shows that religions will never unite or cooperate enough to help us solve problems that can only be solved by a world government or world body that is given authority by the all of the people; religious or not.

Is it time for secular tolerance to be moved to a more firm demand that the religious of all stripe either accept their Gods as myths only so that we can progress or should secularists lay back and allow religions to keep us in our progressive doldrums as we see our world ecology and economies cause severe hardship for all of us?

Regards
DL

 

[Jeeves]

Outlawing religion is usually a bad idea, because believers hold their belief dear, and adherents (people who belong to a church without necessarily believing) hold their attachment dear, and in either case, the religious leaders have enough power (which they hold dear) to foment discord.

The most desirable outcome would be for religion to fall away gradually, in wave upon wave of enlightenment - no struggle, no bloodshed, no oppression of one faction by another - until we simply don't need it any longer.

The laws of religions were the laws of tribes. That's why their civil components are similar: they are mostly about social co-existence, but with variations according to the environment of their inception: food supply, resources and physical threats - to ethnic experience: more or less xenophobia, stricter or looser rules regarding reproduction, chain of command and property; with regional differences in ritual, cultural expression and etiquette. Those codes worked quite well for each individual tribe.

When you bring them into an empire, problems arise. In the case of Christianity (and later Islam), the single - foreign - religion was imposed on all the tribes of Europe by the power of the conqueror. Of course, some natives were ready to convert, because their old religion had let them down (their armies slaughtered by foreign armies; their gods beaten by the foreign god) while others resisted and were martyred, and the majority, as usual, kept their heads down and pretended to go along, while secretly holding onto the old beliefs. Eventually, not without plenty of internecine conflict, Christianity grew into its present size and form, incorporating local customs, superstitions and legends.

Anyway, it was brought to the West by Europeans, who were not a unified group. Christianity itself had at least three distinct flavours by the time it arrived in the New World, and would develop several more in situ. The Europeans abducted a large number of Africans, also with different native religions (and whose conversion to Christianity took a different method and application from the European experience) and overran aboriginal populations who had religions of their own. Then came people from Asia and the Middle East, with quite different beliefs again.

In such a mixed population, would you expect a single religious code of laws to work? Of course not. That's why it was necessary to institute a secular law that could work - allow commerce and governance and enforcement and social congress to proceed unhindered by religious conflict - for all Americans. That's why it was necessary to separate church and state.

But nobody who has wielded power likes to relinquish it, and belief is such a seductive tool of manipulation that crowd-controllers just won't leave it alone. So, while each religious person certainly doesn't need their cherished law enforced upon them, each community leader will enforce such particular codes as he can.

 

[Greatest I am]

Thanks for this. Well said.

The thing is though, that while the secular system holds back it's criticism and revulsion at religionist antics, we are not giving our citizens the protection they deserve. think J W and blood.
We move against that child abuse while ignoring others.

It is my view that all literalists and fundamentals hurt all of us who are Religionists.
They all hurt their parent religions and everyone else who has a belief. They make us all into laughing stocks and should rethink their position. There is a Godhead but not the God of talking animals, genocidal floods and retribution. Belief in fantasy is evil.

Google Religulous to see how they hurt all believers. i would link you but the program here will not let me.

They also do much harm to their own.

Please Google African witches and Jesus and Jesus Camp to see the carnage.

Regards
DL

 

[John99]

Were in a rush to go nowhere.

 

[Jenyar]

Laws are codes of conduct that are socially expedient. They fulfil the same function within religion as without, so if anything, religion itself is not the problem, but lawlessness. Lawlessness is synonymous with sin (1 John 3:4). Before the concept of states, laws were formulated and dictated by rulers, who would rely on their own authority and power for enforcing them. A wise ruler made good laws, a bad ruler made bad laws. Tough for the people.

That's because laws by nature rely on authority, so it has a historical connection with divine command. See "Ma'at", especially its 42 precepts. A person derived his morality from these commands - they would determine good and evil for you.

Jesus took the idea of divinely commanded morality a step further, and placed it firmly in the individual's conscience - the 'law written on the heart'. He taught that external laws are powerless to effect the change necessary to create a moral society (He used the Hebrew distinctions of clean/unclean) from an immoral one, and pointed out the hypocrisy that legal systems habitually foster (the point was driven home, if you'll excuse the pun, when he was condemned to death by those legal systems). In stead, he emphasised the role of individual responsibility, starting from thoughts themselves and only ending with the next person, your 'neighbour' (and by extension also the environment; you don't love a person if you destroy his habitat).

So Jesus substituted a different kind of authority than the secular one - a bottom-up one - but not a different law. He still told people to 'give to Caesar what Caesar is due'. In fact, keeping to religious law should be stricter than secular law, because it requires keeping commandments an external law cannot hope to enforce (do you see the police on your doorstep anytime soon, because you didn't love your neighbour?) This is probably why "The Torah from the Old Testament is probably the oldest body of law still relevant for modern legal systems" (wikipedia: Legal history).

Believing in God should make you a better citizen than any law can ever force you to be. If holding to higher standards brings you in conflict with legal authorities, it should be for the right reasons (say, because you oppose a murderous regime).

Since this makes a direct indictment against religion, I want to present such a 'religion' to you (and I can only speak for my own) and let you decide whether abolishing its duty would achieve your purpose. Pardon the long quote, but I think you'll find it actually echoes what you're saying.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ...

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.

The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
(Romans 12-13)​

 

[Gremmie]

Were in a rush to go nowhere.

And, we are getting there quickly.

 

[Jeeves]

Thanks for this. Well said.

.....

It is my view that all literalists and fundamentals hurt all of us who are Religionists....


DL

Yes, i understand this.
I am an atheist. All that means is, i don't believe the stories of Jehovah or Buddha or Hermes or Raven. I do appreciate the significance of mythologies, just don't personally subscribe to any.
Back as recently as 1990, i was tolerant and polite to all religious people. I had sincere respect for practicing Christians - you know, the kind who feed the sheep and render onto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
Then they started firing science teachers for teaching science, intimidating congresspeople into voting against their party policy and forcing Muslim kids to stand in the hall while they have prayers.
That's unacceptable. If the religious can't respect me, why the h*ck should i respect them?

Sorry, i won't look up those references. Don't need to be depressed any more than the last few days have already depressed me. I expect witch-burning to start again, almost any day now, in North America.

 

[Yazata]

Is God’s law relevant without enforcement?

If you are referring to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, then that's a theological question. It's kind of an internal question within that particular belief system in other words. I don't share those presuppositions, so "God's law" isn't particularly relevant to me, with or without enforcement.

I guess that I'd say that for Judeo-Christian-Islamic believers, enforcement/judgement has traditionally been absolutely important, serving as the principle of ultimate justice in their religious ethics. Suffering innocents in this life get their postmortem rewards while prospering evil-doers finally get the punishment that they deserve. Everything comes out right at the end.

In Indian religious ethics, similar concerns are addressed by the very different myth of karma. Once again, everyone eventually gets what they deserve in postmortem existence, except in India that process is imagined as if it was a natural law, not in terms of the legal proceedings of an ancient king.

But members of the Jewish-Christian-Islamic traditions can have different motivations for following God's law as well, beyond the narrowly ethical and less focused on reward/punishment. Early Sufis like Rabi'a al-Adawiyya imagined the proper relation between mankind and God in terms of absolute devotion to a beloved. The medieval Christian mystics used similar imagery. For these religious enthusiasts, true religiosity consists of having no other motivation and no other concern than love of God. Rabi'a went so far as to pray that God deny her paradise if she worshipped out of desire to go there, and to send her to hell if she worshipped out of fear of damnation, thus rejecting the whole Islamic reward/punishment myth. Later Sufis toned that rather heretical idea down quite a bit, but never entirely lost the idea that God's law is a discipline like a monk would follow, a training of the heart.

That's the psychologistic direction that Buddhism takes. That religion doesn't really have a myth about divine lawgivers, opting instead for India's karma theory. Postmortem rewards and punishments are simply the results of dependent origination, a natural process. What Buddhist ethics offers instead of divine law is a path with various stages and sets of precept for aspirants to follow. These vary from the five 'pancasila' precepts of a lay householder, to the hundreds of precepts in the full vinaya and 'pratimoksha' undertaken by the ordained monk. These aren't laws and there isn't any formal enforcement beyond the possibility of getting ejected from the monastic order for the worst transgressions. Rather, they are rules of training, self-disciplines undertaken as part of the inner work of learning to tame one's own desires.

 

[Greatest I am]

Were in a rush to go nowhere.

Check out the economy and the ecology and rethink.
We had time. past tense.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Le
The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
(Romans 12-13)[/indent]

Snipped it just for brevity. Good rhetoric but that is all it is. Without a God around to look to, useless. You will know that in the old days, their was religious authority that was trusted. No more.
Jesus had some good saying but he also had so garbage. his divorce laws were unworkable, he did nothing for slaves or Gays except play to the crowd. I don't blame him. if he ever really lived that is. that is quite doubtful.

If we are going to unite, as a people and tackle the problems on the way, we cannot be divided by God but united in some other way. We need a new God and it must and will be a man. That is the promise of Revelation and that is where the world is going.

With luck we will all get to choose soon to be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Start helping by dropping your literal God. If you Googled the site on witches or Jesus camps you know why.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Yes, i understand this.
I am an atheist. All that means is, i don't believe the stories of Jehovah or Buddha or Hermes or Raven. I do appreciate the significance of mythologies, just don't personally subscribe to any.
Back as recently as 1990, i was tolerant and polite to all religious people. I had sincere respect for practicing Christians - you know, the kind who feed the sheep and render onto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
Then they started firing science teachers for teaching science, intimidating congresspeople into voting against their party policy and forcing Muslim kids to stand in the hall while they have prayers.
That's unacceptable. If the religious can't respect me, why the h*ck should i respect them?

Sorry, i won't look up those references. Don't need to be depressed any more than the last few days have already depressed me. I expect witch-burning to start again, almost any day now, in North America.

I do not want to depress you further for sure. You do not need convincing. perhaps a bit of motivation. I would like to get you mad though and keep in mind my good man, for evil to grow, all good men need do is nothing. Please do not be seen as doing nothing.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

ethics, similar concerns are addressed by the very different myth of karma.
That's the psychologistic direction that Buddhism takes. That religion doesn't really have a myth about divine lawgivers, opting instead for India's karma theory. Postmortem rewards and punishments are simply the results of dependent origination, a natural process. What Buddhist ethics offers instead of divine law is a path with various stages and sets of precept for aspirants to follow. These vary from the five 'pancasila' precepts of a lay householder, to the hundreds of precepts in the full vinaya and 'pratimoksha' undertaken by the ordained monk. These aren't laws and there isn't any formal enforcement beyond the possibility of getting ejected from the monastic order for the worst transgressions. Rather, they are rules of training, self-disciplines undertaken as part of the inner work of learning to tame one's own desires.

Rather Gnostic. I like it. Yes, the idea is to bring things within and control our passions. Cater to the God within, not without. The east have always been ahead of the west except for Islam who probably had to literalize their beliefs to follow the Abrahamic Christian fools who did and surprised the hell out of the Hebrew and Jews who had previously not read their own scripture literally. Christianity screwed it up for everyone unfortunately. Oh well, can't blame them for people being sheeple.

Regards
DL

 

[ULTRA]

To address the OP directly, I would say yes. Because even though outdated, "God's" Law is still basicallya code for good honest living. That it has not kept up with the itmes is not the fault of the law per se, but our fault for mis-interpreting it for the society of today. The parables were never to be taken literally, it was thier underlying meaning that was important, and to some extent still is. I'm not a practising christian, but am mostly happy to live under christian-based law because it is basically still a force for good. Stalin tried to suppress religeon and just started a huge subversive underground movement and a yearning for it. Was Russia any richer for supressing it? I don't think so.

 

[Jenyar]

Snipped it just for brevity. Good rhetoric but that is all it is. Without a God around to look to, useless. You will know that in the old days, their was religious authority that was trusted. No more.
Jesus had some good saying but he also had so garbage. his divorce laws were unworkable, he did nothing for slaves or Gays except play to the crowd. I don't blame him. if he ever really lived that is. that is quite doubtful.

If we are going to unite, as a people and tackle the problems on the way, we cannot be divided by God but united in some other way. We need a new God and it must and will be a man. That is the promise of Revelation and that is where the world is going.

With luck we will all get to choose soon to be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Start helping by dropping your literal God. If you Googled the site on witches or Jesus camps you know why.

Regards
DL

If with 'religious authority' you mean God, then why not trust Him? If you mean man ("a man"), then why trust him?

Or more importantly, why do you think people won't be just as divided by any proposed Way?

You're waiting for a messiah, but you don't want authority and you don't seem to trust anyone for that role. It won't square. How would you, personally, believe what he says and follow him?

Let's say he tells you to "love your neighbour as yourself," what will your response be? "Good rhetoric but that is all it is"? Or he might say: "I have divine authority." Will you answer "drop your literal God"? He might simply say "everyone follow me" and you will call those who do "sheeple".

I have no idea how you propose anything will be different with another person or principle to unite under if it isn't in some way authoritative.

 

[wynn]

Is God’s law relevant without enforcement?

Per definition, God's law is 1. relevant, 2. enforced. If it weren't, it wouldn't be God's law.
Because God is the Creator, the Maintainer, the Controller of the Universe and everything in it. He has the first and the last word, so to speak.

 

[SnakeLord]

If with 'religious authority' you mean God, then why not trust Him? If you mean man ("a man"), then why trust him?

The reason we 'trust' a [hu]man is because of experience with them. We can say that we trust this individual or don't trust this individual based upon knowledge of what that individual is like. There are those, (largely theists), who trust people merely because they say they are trustworthy and they believe in all kinds of mystical nonsense. From "quantum wands" to horoscopes and homeopathic medicine. It seems that all anyone need do is make claim to nonsense and theists will buy it without consideration.

This aside, the reason we trust individuals - or gain trust in individuals - is through knowledge of their activities.

On what basis exactly can one say they "trust a god"?

'Experience' of the biblical god comes in the form of the bible - a 'holy text' that shows us the nature of said being. A nature, I hate to say, that wouldn't even come close to the level of morality of the worst human being alive. What is there to trust and on what basis?

Let's say he tells you to "love your neighbour as yourself," what will your response be?

My neighbour got arrested for having raped and slaughtered 7 young children. What is there to love exactly?

 

[dhcracker]

Is God’s law relevant without enforcement?

Most of us follow secular laws regardless of what our religious laws say.
In fact, those who sometimes follow what they think is the laws of God are often punished by secular law if the believer breaks a secular law in following the law of his God.
We follow secular law primarily for altruistic purposes or from fear of retribution or enforcement. That and most recognize that Biblical law is draconian, outdated and unworkable.

Has God then become redundant as most of us follow a secular God, so to speak, who can enforce and explain the logic behind that law and change them as we evolve?

Does that mean that the trend of religiosity will continue to decline, as it has of late, and that the near or further history of man will result in no religion at all or in one that has little to no meaning to the daily lives of the vast majority?

Having said this and if you think it holds some truth, do you think the religious should be confronted to help religion die as soon as possible?
Is religion, as it is, holding back other more worthy endeavors based on reality and not myth, fantasy and magical thinking?

Please Google Why Religion Should Be Confronted by Victor Stenger for a good article on this issue.

"Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God,
holds other people in contempt.
Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God,
there is in that man no spirit of compromise.
He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature;
he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance.
Believing himself to be the slave of God,
he imitates his master,
and of all tyrants,
the worst is a slave in power."
--Robert Ingersoll

This quote, if true, shows that religions will never unite or cooperate enough to help us solve problems that can only be solved by a world government or world body that is given authority by the all of the people; religious or not.

Is it time for secular tolerance to be moved to a more firm demand that the religious of all stripe either accept their Gods as myths only so that we can progress or should secularists lay back and allow religions to keep us in our progressive doldrums as we see our world ecology and economies cause severe hardship for all of us?

Regards
DL

I believe the big three as in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity can easily be combined, or at least practiced in a way of tolerance. However for that to happen people have to realize their "bibles" are flawed as they are written by men, I believe todays top and most tolerant theologians could write a compatible text without actually changing much of the message. All religions are supposed to teach us to treat each other well, especially our own people.. the only thing is today the entire world population needs to be considered "our people".

It is possible to have a God and a faith and yet not be idiots bent on world dominion. Actually science is not incompatible with such a faith.

We will always have a god because not everyone will be comfortable in an understanding of how we got here.. which science cannot ever really explain really if we are honest. I see no problem with people using an intelligent design option, because honestly we don't know if we are actually a product of supreme intelligence or not. If people take comfort in our short little spec of a lifetime by having a little hope it means something.. fine with me. But lets be intellectually honest about what that creator would have us do to our fellow human beings and for them. I don't think a God would care for quibbling over things we cannot understand, or punish us for rejecting what we cannot prove as ify. If there is such a thing, then its only real concern would be our evolution and probably our ethics and culture.. our society. I would say we are not impressing anyone at this point...

 

[SnakeLord]

We will always have a god because not everyone will be comfortable in an understanding of how we got here.. which science cannot ever really explain really if we are honest.

Science has explained how we have got here. We have got here through the process of evolution.

I see no problem with people using an intelligent design option, because honestly we don't know if we are actually a product of supreme intelligence or not.

We certainly do understand that we are not such "product" - unless you want to define 'intelligent' in a way inconsistent with what we mean by it.

If people take comfort in our short little spec of a lifetime by having a little hope it means something..

To them, certainly. And yes, that is fine.

Regards,

 

[Jenyar]

The reason we 'trust' a [hu]man is because of experience with them. We can say that we trust this individual or don't trust this individual based upon knowledge of what that individual is like.

Like you said, this is the role the Bible plays - it's the record of a people's experience with a specific God. Israel trusted this God because He miraculously led them out of Egypt. That evidence of God's faithfulness was enshrined in the first commandment; it was literally the foundation of their relationship. The Bible is a testament that their trust was never in vain. God's character was revealed in other places and through prophets, and people continually found refuge in (or, as they proved themselves untrustworthy, came into conflict with) it, putting their faith in Him. Getting to know God was a cumulative process, from the moment mankind became self-conscious, which for Christians culminated in Jesus who explained God's nature and ratified faith in Him. Jesus showed people "what God is like" beyond Judaism and the Bible.

There are those, (largely theists), who trust people merely because they say they are trustworthy and they believe in all kinds of mystical nonsense. From "quantum wands" to horoscopes and homeopathic medicine. It seems that all anyone need do is make claim to nonsense and theists will buy it without consideration.

It might be true for many people, but I find your stab at theists uncalled for. This study found that religiosity or prior belief creates a filter that determines which 'supernatural' phenomena are considered credible and which are met with scepticism (Beck, R. & Miller, The erosion of belief and disbelief: The relationship of belief in the supernatural with belief in the paranormal. Journal of Social Psychology, 141, 277-287 [PDF 1Mb]).

It simply isn't true that only people who believe in God fall for quackery. My belief in a supernatural God makes me no more prone to believe other supernatural claims than anyone else. In fact, with a sound metaphysical framework I should be less prone to turn to mysticism, because it's incompatible with my belief in God (for naturalistic and spiritual reasons). On the other hand, people without such a framework might have their spirituality waving in the wind. These are the people who assign a personality to 'The Universe' and follow pop-spirituality without discernment wherever it takes them.

For example, God forbid the Israelites from consulting mediums and spiritualists or turning to superstitions - "away" from Him. John tells believers not to believe "every spirit". Paul exhorts us to test all prophesies and hold on to what is good. Similarly, good science is critical for reasonable faith because it helps to shape an accurate picture of reality. Only in uncritical New Age spirituality is "God" found in anything and everything that claims all manner of nonsense. But I'm sure you have plenty of evidence where you live that it doesn't take a robust faith in God for people to go running after nonsense - any excuse will do.

So I fully understand why naturalism is proposed as the only alternative for reasonable people. It's a safe bet. But it seems to leave a metaphysical vacuum that gets filled with other relativistic nonsense. You'd have to be a fanatical sceptic to be safe from false claims, and that's just more fundamentalism; the flip-side of blind faith. Somewhere, everyone trusts someone. (Hardwig, J. The Role of Trust in Knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy, 88, 12(1991) [PDF 846kb]).

This aside, the reason we trust individuals - or gain trust in individuals - is through knowledge of their activities.

On what basis exactly can one say they "trust a god"?

'Experience' of the biblical god comes in the form of the bible - a 'holy text' that shows us the nature of said being. A nature, I hate to say, that wouldn't even come close to the level of morality of the worst human being alive. What is there to trust and on what basis?

I think you confuse God with the people whose faith and experiences are being described in the Bible. Yes, God reveals His nature, but amid the violence. And we see people both appealing to His justice (in forms we don't find acceptable anymore) and His grace. As René Girard put it:

"Your scandal at the Old Testament is Exhibit A that you are a child of these texts. For without the Old Testament your scandal--the very moral code you use to indict the Old Testament--would not exist."​

My neighbour got arrested for having raped and slaughtered 7 young children. What is there to love exactly?

You hit the nail right on the head - such sin indeed warrants condemnation. But when people object against the idea of a divine condemnation and hell, it is ostensibly out of concern for even a person like this. We hypocritically expect God to let sins slide that we won't.

So it's ironic that the love the Bible talks about means that no-one is ever beyond its reach. It does not preclude justice, but at the same time the only way such a person will experience love is in the possibility of redemption and forgiveness. Such a system will not materialise on earth without someone actually acting it out.

It helps to view this command from the perspective of the perpetrator as the parable of the Good Samaritan did. When you're the man left for dead next to the road, your neighbour is the one who goes out of his way to care where others wouldn't - for perfectly socially-acceptable reasons.

 

[Greatest I am]

To address the OP directly, I would say yes. Because even though outdated, "God's" Law is still basicallya code for good honest living. That it has not kept up with the itmes is not the fault of the law per se, but our fault for mis-interpreting it for the society of today. The parables were never to be taken literally, it was thier underlying meaning that was important, and to some extent still is. I'm not a practising christian, but am mostly happy to live under christian-based law because it is basically still a force for good. Stalin tried to suppress religeon and just started a huge subversive underground movement and a yearning for it. Was Russia any richer for supressing it? I don't think so.

Thanks for this.

If the law was good, you would think that God himself would be able to keep it.
Take the big 10. God kills, God lies and causes to lie. He covets.
Even the divorce law is unjust and unworkable.

Think on these and see if you agree.

If that is not bad enough, just answer thefollowing and you will see that even his punishment is unjust.

Judgment and punishment go hand in hand.

Our human laws have a form of punishment where the penalty is graduated to fit the crime. An eye for an eye type of justice.
God‘s punishment seems to surpass this standard.

The definition I am comparing here is the eternal fire and torture type of hell and I am not particularly interested in the myriad of other definitions and theories that some use to supplant this traditional view.


To ascertain if hell would be a moral construct or not, all you need do is answer these
simple question for yourself.

1. Is it good justice for a soul to be able to sin for only 120 years and then have to suffer torture for 12000000000000000000000000 + years?

2. Is it good justice for small or mediocre sinners to have to bear the same sentence as Hitler, Stalin and other genocidal maniacs?
This might actually include God if you see Noah’s flood as God using genocide and not justice against man. Pardon the digression.

Punishment is usually only given to change attitude or actions and cause the sinner to repent.

3. Is it good justice to continue to torture a soul in hell if no change in attitude or actions are to result?

4. If you answered yes to these questions, then would killing the soul not be a better form of justice than to torture it for no possible good result or purpose?

Is hell moral construct or not?

Please explain your reasons and know that ---just because God created it ---does not explain your moral judgment. It is your view I seek and not God’s as no one can speak for God.

Regards
DL