[Seekers] Punishment

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Ward Fenley wrote:


>     <snip>

>

> Send me what you will. I will gladly send you Bible verses. But

> honestly, that is not what interests me or you in this particular case.

> The subject is origin of morality. WHY WHY WHY?


MWF    Why not? It's a Christian presupposition that people can't get along together
without a carrot and a big stick forcing them to. Do you have any convincing evidence
that that is so?

     Oh, and here's my quiz one more time:

    Okay Ward, maybe you can solve the following quiz. I've given it to almost a
dozen different professing Christians on assorted different lists. So fat none
have succeeded. Maybe, since you're so sure of yourself, you can succeed where
they have failed to so much as make an attempt:

    1.)  Define, via the bible, "murder".

    2.) Define, via the bible, "stealing".

    3.) Define, via the bible, "rape".

    What you should be able to do is find the applicable passages and demonstrate
that it is unnecessary to already know what "murder" "stealing" or "rape" are in
order to infer that  each is prohibited. Another way to put it is that you should
be able to go through the Bible, replace any instance of any of the above words
or their cognates, and demonstrate that the Bible defines such terms contextually
such that it is possible to know exactly what it is that is prohibited, even if
that particular word was otherwise unknown for some reason.

    Bonus question: Is it wrong, as in immoral (a sin?) for you to lose property
which someone else has entrusted to your care, and which you have voluntarily
agreed to safe guard? In legal speak, you agree to act as the bailor of the
bailees property, thus creating a bailment. At law, the bailor is liable for any
loss or damage to the bailees property once the bailment is created. That's the
law. Thus the question in effect asks: Is the law moral?

    If you cannot come up with  satisfactory answers for at least the first three
above, using the bible and strict deductive logic, then what that tells us is
that the Bible, rather than being "gods holy word" and a SOURCE of "absolute morals"
actually  -presupposes-  that the reader already HAS a moral code, and thus thus
the bible merely supplies Gods backing for the priestly punishments for
violations of the presupposed moral code by putting the sentences in Gods mouth. But
note,
that adds nothing to the arena of moral discourse.

************

    Good luck.

    Ciao.




--
       Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., law student

 >>NEW->http://www.infidels.org/library/humor/lioaca.html

       http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html

       http://home.aol.com/Mfish6994

        *               *               *

        ". . . a very LONG discussion is one of the most
        effective veils of Fallacy: . . . A Fallacy which
        when stated barely . . . would not deceive a child,
        may deceive half the world if diluted in a quarto
        volume"
               Richard Whately, "Elements of Logic", p. 151

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