[Seekers] Punishment

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WARD FENLEY
<big snip>

>

>Again, without the Bible, who are you to tell me its wrong to steal?

>Because society says so?????? 


NANCY
Well, yes. I don't steal because it is wrong to take what doesn't belong to
you (at least under most circumstances). I don't want people to go around
taking what is mine. Perhaps the only reason you don't steal is because God
tells you not to steal. That means that if God told you to steal, then
stealing would be okay. 

WARD

> Some societies teach it is very proper to eat your babies. 


NANCY
Please, Ward, tell us which societies teach that it is proper to eat babies.
No bald assertions here, Ward, give us credible evidence.



>WARD 

>So then now it's a cultural ISSUE????? Right!

>


NANCY
Since codes of ethics are human inventions, they are, of course, cultural.
Some things are universal. Every human culture had prescriptions against
killing and every human culture has incest taboos. Marriages that are
considered perfectly normal in our culture would be considered incestuous in
another. Many of the practices found in the OT are considered immoral by
Western culture - polygamy, forcing a woman to marry her rapist, and slavery
pop to mind. Certainly, many of us find Yahweh's genocide abhorrent. I would
venture to say that the vast majority of Americans would find Jesus's demand
that his followers abandon their family responsibilities to be, well,
downright repugnant. The first four of the so-called ten commandmants would
be considered a human-rights violation by Western standards, denying, as
they do, freedom of (and from) religion. 

I always find the righteous indignation of xtians to be so darned
hypocritical. They preach that nothing a human does, no atrocity, no horror,
can keep him or her from an eternal reward except having the wrong religious
beliefs. And no matter how upright a person is, no matter how good a life a
person lives, if her or she doesn't believe in Jesus (or in the right flavor
of xtianity), he or she is doomed to hell. So we are left wondering, why is
it that xtians do not just do whatever they want when they know that all
their sins will be forgiven and they will be rewarded with everlasting life
in heaven? Xtianity is a morally bankrupt religion that provides no
incentive whatsoever for its adherents to behave morally. In fact, it
teaches that we are all sinners, that we cannot avoid sinning, that immoral
behavior is inevitable.

So, Mr. Fenley, don't hold up your bible, with its genocidal, blood-thirsty,
baby-killing, vengeful god, as a moral standard. It just doesn't cut the
mustard.

Nancy Todd
todds@pa.net

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