Adstar said:
But having said all this SetiAlpha6 this disagreement with the Word of God does not prove or disprove the existence of God. It just shows your disagreement with God.
Proverbs 20:30 (NIV)
30 Blows and wounds cleanse away evil,
and beatings purge the inmost being.
Thank you for clarifying your own personal position on this passage of scripture. I understand your concerns and I agree with you that sometimes spankings, which leave no real injury and only cause a little temporary pain, can be necessary and even beneficial to discipline a child.
But, for me to agree fully with this exact scripture, I would have to be willing to carry out exactly what it actually says. I would have to physically hit my children with “blows” enough to cause “wounds”. I might also have to be willing to call these spankings “beatings” in describing to others what I do to my own children. Are you willing to describe a spanking in this way to your friends at church or the police? Surely, what you describe as spankings are not what this verse describes at all. In my opinion, it describes something far worse. To me, it really does describe physical abuse, not a mere spanking, even if that is what we want to believe it says.
Unfortunately there is more, and it gets even worse. Much worse! Here are some more warm and fuzzy loving family values from the Bible. These verses command the killing of your own children.
Exodus 21 (NIV)
15"He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
17 "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.
Leviticus 20:9 (NIV)
9 " 'If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (NIV)
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
Deuteronomy 13:6-10 (NIV)
6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. 9 You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
This next one shows how far and severe you can go in beating your slave before you are punished. You can clearly beat your slave, with a rod, not the palm of your hand, so hard and so many times that she cannot even stand up for two days. Now how is that for a little spanking?
Exodus 21 (NIV)
20 "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
Adstar, surely you have enough personal love for your own family, character, integrity, honor, and morals to cause you to take a stand against the ideas presented in these verses, don’t you? If you agree with these then you must also be willing to carry them out. Are you? “Your hand must be the first in putting him to death” and you must “Show him no pity” (Deuteronomy 13:8 & 9). Surely, you cannot really believe that this is good and righteous, can you? Well, anyway I cannot and I do not!
Best Wishes to You My Friend!