We have rules. Traditional rules.
From Leviticus 10:6
Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD hath kindled.
From Leviticus 11:7-8
And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.
From Leviticus 11:10-11
And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
From Leviticus 16:29
And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you:
From Leviticus 19:16
Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the LORD.
From Leviticus 19:18
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
From Leviticus 19:18
Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
From Leviticus 19:31
Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.
From Leviticus 20:9
For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.
From Leviticus 20:10
And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
From Leviticus 20:13
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
From Leviticus 20:27
A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.
From Leviticus 24:16
And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.
From Leviticus 26:1
Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it
From Deuteronomy 22:5
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment:
From Deuteronomy 22:11
Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.
From Deuteronomy 22:22
If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
From Deuteronomy 22:28-29
If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.
Can anyone tell me on what rational basis Traditional Values folk pick and choose among those laws and many others? Let me add that the Jewish Religion has evolved since those days so long ago. There is currently no effective murder penalty in Jewish law except for genocide.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
16 responses to “Rational Basis”
Other than the death part traditional jews observe all these. Traditional christians observe them depending on how the new testment views them. (That has to do with which laws do not need to be observed after the messiah comes). Why does the USC/liberals not observe the 10th amendment? That is a harder question.
Hey, I don’t have to write arguments for the other side!
But since they have ignored you, I think it’s fair to point out that the answer they would give if they bothered to do any homework on the subject is is that some traditions have been honored more than others, which in their mind means we need to keep honoring them.
A good example is this religious broadside against what is called the “God Hates Shrimp Fallacy”
http://courageman.blogspot.com/2009/03/god-hates-shrimp-fallacy.html
It’s not what you’d call a “rational basis” decision, but an arbitrary one — with a long tradition. It was long ago decided that some traditions are “better” than others. Not because of anything Jesus said, but because Saint Paul had issues with homosexuality, which he deemed pagan.
Of course, some Christian scholars have speculated that Paul’s issues were of a more personal nature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utyxeV1Hc5A&feature=player_embedded
(None of this means the Leviticus language is binding as law for Christians, though.)
Commenter Joe at the courageman link makes a very good point on the subject:
GHS = God Hates Shrimp
I believe that GHS resonates not because people are mislead on the actual teachings of the Bible on shellfish. GHS resonates in America, and has been successful for six years, because people actually understand that there is flim-flammery in the picking and choosing done by the Religious Right in America about the Bible in general.
You want to “take down” GHS, you’re going to have to do more than perry a parody straw man. You’re going to need to, at the core, make the case to the American public that the forces of political Christianity are wholly consistent with the teachings of, well, y’know, Christ.
Y’know, the guy who taught all about love, peace and charity, and who never once said a word about homosexuality.
I don’t really have an answer – not a universal, systematic answer at least – but this is exactly the kind of question we should be asking these days.
It reminds me of the old story about good sculptors. The “socialist”/Progressive view of the world is as a stone which must be dismantled and reshaped to build a sculpture: they hammer, crush, and destroy the stone, and then rebuild into (presumably) a piece of art. (Note that this is exactly what is depicted in some of the iconographic imagery of British socialist Fabian Society…) But of course the sculpture is alienated and disconnected from the initial stone, which is all but destroyed in the process.
The “good” sculptor is said to see within the raw stone the possibility of a beautiful image. He carefully pares away superficial bits and pieces of the stone, only where necessary, to reveal the underlying glory which was always present underneath, which is in every way connected to and flows from the stone from which it is formed, but required the careful and skilled hand of the artist only to reveal it to the public eye.
I’ll just point out Carlyle’s answer (not just Carlyle’s but he was one of the premier English-speaking proponents of this view) is essentially: to have good art, you need a skilled, talented, inspired artist to create it. The well-being of a civilization is directly proportionate to how capable it is, regardless of means, of finding skilled, talented, and inspired people and putting them in positions where they can put their gifts to best use. There is no “ideal method” for doing so: there have been artists who were rich and went to the best schools, and artists who were poor and self-taught; there have been inspired, noble leaders who were hereditary monarchs, and others who were elected democratically. What is of greatest import is not the means by which such people are found, but that such men may be found, and afforded the opportunity to use their abilities to better the lives of their fellows.
Can anyone tell me on what rational basis Traditional Values folk pick and choose among those laws and many others?
Trick question. As we are dealing with religion, there is no rational basis in use here. What do I win?
There will be peace and justice when moral socialists understand that the sentiment about “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” applies to the moral socialists just as much as it does to the economic socialists.
Hopefully that day will be sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, our opponents dwell in an echo chamber several thousand years old.
There’s actually a lot of discussion in Christianity about which laws in the Torah apply to Christians.
The ban on eating unclean foods not being applicable and circumcision not being mandatory are easy.
Those were explicitly addressed by the apostles in Acts.
Most aren’t so easy. There’s a lot of room for argument, and a lot of argument. And that’s mostly a good thing. It’s a common Christian belief that the Jewish religion was being strangled by legalistic hairsplitting when Jesus (according to scripture, the physical embodiment of the Torah) came to earth.
Insofar as there’s a consensus, to follow the seven noahide laws, and the commandments explicitly given/reinforced by Jesus is pretty much universal.
After that, opinions vary. I’m on the Torah-submissive side of the spectrum, myself, but I’m admittedly in the minority.
And of course, there’s a significant number of self-proclaimed Christians who don’t really know what they believe or why they believe it.
If you’re interested in the noahide laws this: http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/noahide.html is a pretty good overview. (Male homosexual acts are covered as a specific violation of a general rule, but are certainly not a focus.)
A lot of these seem to be designed to demarcate “my people” and “not my people” — like the cutting of the flesh for the dead (though if it stops the plague of middle aged ladies with nose studs, my aesthetic sense says yay.)
I submit to you the “loudly kept commandments” are of the same sort. They deliniate “our people/not our people.” The homosexuality one is easy, since most of them are never tempted. (Of course, that is MY standard for ‘it can’t be a sin. I don’t want to do it.’ My older son pointed out to me that leviticus forbids eating grasshoppers, and that fits my perception of ‘it can’t be a sin, because… EWWWWWW”) I think these people view it backwards. “Let’s call what we don’t like a sin, and that makes it easier.” Which is fairly insane, when it comes to politics. When it comes to religion, there are some … theological justifications. But meh… Jesuits can find theological justifications for everything, up to and including Marxism. And they do. Which is why those are not worth bothering with, and certainly not in POLITICS.
My basic opinion on the whole homosexuality matter is “it doesn’t bother me, and I don’t care if it bothers other people, provided they don’t try to legislate about it.” Oh, yeah, and marriage should be private. Very private. Private recording firms, etc. And Simon, I think the downside of polygamy is that in almost every society it happens women end up more or less coherced into joining or staying. HOWEVER if that can be controlled for it falls under “none of my business.” I’m told that there are several successful group and line marriages in Science Fiction fandom. Maybe there are. For my type of personality, polygamy would be its own punishment.
My take on the Noahide laws:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/09/tribalism.html
Luke,
I was raised Orthodox Jewish.
Christianity and Judaism have very little in common. Christianity is faith based and Judaism is an ethical religion.
Some other examples:
Islam – faith based
Buddhism – ethical
Funny thing is – Jews for the most part have given up on excessive legalism. Where as Social Conservatives are obsessed by legalism.
Old Testament Christians and New Testament Jews. Too funny. I’m rather at home with the teachings of Jesus. i.e. true religion is from the heart and can’t come from law. Which is one of the reasons I’m a libertarian. If you can’t get religion by force of law then we ought to have as few laws as possible. Because laws are expensive and there will always be mistakes and corruption. Fewer laws means less of the evil that inevitably comes with laws.
BTW the idea of Judeo-Christian makes as much sense as Islamo-Buddhism.
As a Jewish friend in Chicago once remarked. “It would be a lot easier for me to become a Buddhist than to become a Christian.” I agreed with him.
Religious traditions are the accumulated experience of a community. Sometimes part of an early version of that experience didn’t work out and a tradition is abandoned but still remains in the holy books. In that case, it makes sense for the community to ignore the tradition (e.g., the way the current Christians ignore the tradition of not eating shrimp or the way current Jews ignore the requirement of centralized worship). It still makes sense for the community to adhere to a “fundamentalist” attitude towards those traditions that did turn out to be important. (A century or two ago, part of the Jewish community decided to try ignoring the requirement to not eat shrimp etc. It looks like that isn’t working very well. As far as Jews are concerned, God really does hate shrimp.)
In other words, it makes sense for a fundamentalist Christian to disapprove of homosexuality because it says so in the Bible but not to disapprove of shrimp and it makes sense for an Orthodox Jew to disapprove of shrimp because it says so in the Bible but not to insist on Temple worship.
You may ask, why keep the laws on the books but reinterpret them instead of just dumping them? It’s quite simple. Keeping the laws on the books enables rapid backtracking.
Sometimes the above-mentioned accumulated experience goes awry. For example, the story of the Exodus is obviously about the rescue of a people from the horribly unjust system of slavery. For centuries, it was reinterpreted in Judaism and Christianity to be about a special case with no lessons for any other situation. (After all, everybody knew that slavery was a necessary part of the economy.) A few centuries ago, a handful of evangelical Protestants (which is embarrassing to those of us in other religions) went for a more literal approach and declared that slavery could not be tolerated. This actually worked.
In a system with cafeteria religion, there will be occasional attempts to “turn back the clock.” When backtracking is needed, those attempts can be used to fix the system. If we simply dump apparently-obsolete laws, it will be harder to fix.
Please note the tradition is prior to the scripture. There is no reason to believe the bible is the Bible and not just a bunch of squiggles without the tradition. The tradition comes first. The tradition doesn’t tell us how to interpret scripture; scripture tells us how to interpret the tradition. As far as Judaism is concerned, the Torah tells us that the tradition to rest on the Sabbath is essential whereas the tradition to vote Democratic is a ridiculous addition.
You may ask, why keep the laws on the books but reinterpret them instead of just dumping them? It’s quite simple. Keeping the laws on the books enables rapid backtracking.
Agreed. If we lost birth control and control/cures for STDs a return to old time sexual morality will be in order.
The problem for religion is – can it change fast enough to avoid the collapse of a particular brand? Can it maintain enough of its old structure to take advantage of all the old “advertising”?
That is really tough.
IMO religion would be way more effective if we had sacraments that worked. See “Native American Church” and Mexican curanderos.
The Church establishment in the 60s and 70s really blew it. OTOH such a move would mean an almost total break from the past. New sects with no common core values would arise and it would take quite a while to sort it out.
BTW not all the churches had a problem. Except they couldn’t be openly accommodating because the sacraments were made illegal except for Native Americans. I don’t get why that is OK but it is where we are.
Given the widespread diseases of the ancient (pre-antibiotic) world, the Biblical food and cleanliness laws made perfect sense. The Hebrews won military campaigns more than once when their enemies succumbed to plagues do to poor food, water, or mishandling dead bodies.
Simon,
From a Reformed Christian viewpoint[ less than 2% in US today], there are a few things to understand why.
American Fundamentalism[55%+ in USA] is considered a Heresy based on Arminianism, so they tend to confuse the Old Covenant with the New, so they do exactly as you say, they pick and choose.
Also they hold a historic minority position on End Times views, so that they believe they can “Christianize the world” so Church and State are concentric circles , so they must apply the Law as they see it to the Government to usher in the New World.
Nationalism is also a big factor for Fundamentalists as many believe we are a new “Israel”, namely the USA, so the laws you quote, in context were for the only Theocratic nation ever to exist directed by God, namely National Israel, should also apply here and now in the same manner.
And finally they hold a view that Mankind is merely “Sick from Sin”, not Dead, so that means they can convert people with a good argument or some facts, whereas the Historic Protestant view is we are actually “Dead in our Sins”, which provokes very different results.
Politically you will find many a Libertarian within the Reformed circles, and we constantly are butting heads with Fundies both Theologically, and Politically as they all tend to be So-Cons and Fi-Cons politically, where we Historic Protestants are more often Fi-Cons politically, and So-Cons amongst fellow believers.
T
The majority of believers in any religious faith are not concerned with reasoned apologetics. They believe because they need to, in order to cement their status of belonging to the group. This is not unique to religions and occurs to some degree in almost every type of group; tribes, nations, armies, schools, guilds, professions, political parties, bureaucracies, and even businesses. The need to belong, to be accepted, recognized, respected and/or loved; is usually as strong as the survival instinct that spawns it. This emotional need does not necessarily prevent critical thinking, doubts, or disagreement but even where these are quite strong, they are seldom voiced until a sufficiently charismatic leader appears and a new group can coalesce around him/her. Teachings that have a strong emotional appeal often succeed much better than unimpassioned reasoning.
Now for the apologetics; that of course, may easily be construed as the result of polarized bias. We are talking about Mosaic Law which was recorded about 3500 years ago. At the time the tribal descendants of the patriarch Abraham had been living as slaves for nearly four hundred years in what had once been their free settlement but had become a fertile fiefdom of Egypt known as Goshen. Their identity, history and religious beliefs were likely entirely oral at this point. The majority were probably slaves with some having a status similar to serfs and a very few skilled enough at some craft or trade to occasionally get the incentive of being paid.
A child born in Goshen was unlikely to be sacrificed to one of the many “Gods” other fiefdoms, nations and cultures used to rid themselves of unwanted hungry mouths. This did not improve the child’s odds of survival by much. Some were set adrift on rivers in hopes that G-d would direct them to a childless family that could feed and care for them; an event that apparently actually happened now and then. If they weren’t abandoned, didn’t starve, or die from one of the many diseases or plagues that periodically swept the country they soon wound up in the fields planting and harvesting crops; the vast majority of which would be taken by their masters. Between the planting and harvesting they were available for other forced manual labors such as building projects. After the harvest the slave community had a quota of bricks and other things to be made for their masters. Should they survive in reasonably good physical health into their early teens they had a good chance of being trained to be men at arms. They weren’t allowed to own or keep weapons, just trained to use them should their masters have need of them. Of course a few showed exceptional talents in the use of weapons and these were sometimes offered a military career. A military career with no chance of significant advancement, little chance of surviving un-maimed, only the slightest chance of acquiring some wealth, and yet offered in a manner that would be most unwise to refuse.
Assuming the child missed the opportunity to join the regular military and continued to survive infections and disease, the odds were pretty good that he would be crippled and unable to perform hard labor by age 45. Not everyone died young but infant mortality was around 65% and probably did not include child abandonment. The average lifespan for those who survived their first year was around 35 to 40 years yet there were a few, who managed 60, 70, 80 years and more. Then along came Moses and many, if not most of the tribe of Abraham and its sub-tribes escaped into the desert. We will skip the dramatic events that led to and may have occurred during that escape. These may well have had “natural” causes and there is an admitted amount of deception of the Egyptians in Moses’ written account.
They became a tribe of nomads for decades as Moses, their Judge and spiritual leader, compiled a written account of their oral history and lore. This “History” is heavily laced with philosophical, moral, ethical, and practical lessons in human interactions. Moses also codified a set of criminal and civil laws, including means for orderly transfer and inheritance of property, and regulations for financial transactions. Most of these were quite similar to the Egyptians but among the laws he established were unique customs of apparel and dress (team emblems) to promote emotional, spiritual, and familial bonding among the people, others to promote good hygiene, and diet. He established a Judiciary called the Council of Elders with representation from the families including the recently established family of priests. The laws and legal system that he established are completely contained in only four books however, as in any enduring legal system the number of accepted scholarly books commenting on those laws, their intent, and the history of their application has grown to a substantial library.
The written, Mosaic Law held the Children of Israel together through the bloodiest, darkest ages of mankind’s history. Every attempt to destroy their cohesive culture through genocide, relocation, forced integration, and other means failed. Whether they would have survived the eons without the harsh laws against adultery, homosexuality, and intermarriage seems to be at the core of the debate. Over the millenniums more books were judged to be divinely inspired and their texts were also taught along with with the books of Moses. 1500 years later a Rabi called Jesus is recorded as trying to get people to return to the spirit of those laws; to recognize that an understanding and manipulation of the legal system does not bestow true righteousness on anyone. His teachings spawned beliefs in other groups and they spread. The questions a critically thinking person has to ask are; would the world be a better place without the history of these beliefs? Could a God be so concerned with free will, self-determination, and the right of men to better or debase themselves, that he lets his very existence be questioned? Would a truly secular world without a belief in G-d or Gods have progressed faster, been less bloody, or come farther? Looking at what Nations have done that believed religion was the opiate of the people, I suspect not.
In the story of Adam and Eve the Lord tells them; Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely (dying) die.
This, since they didn’t die immediately; is assumed to mean they would ‘begin’ the process of dying. This story implies that the knowledge that an individual’s actions create ever widening and eternal consequences that can bring about good or evil, does not make one capable of correctly judging what those consequences will actually be. No longer able to live in the moment and yet too limited to plan wisely for the future; Adam and Eve age and die from stress. It is an intriguing story of human limitations, devious manipulation, self-deception, and long lasting unintended consequences.
I am not trying to persuade anyone here. I am attempting to explain that it is not just the existence of life and mankind in a vast universe that can lead an intelligent reasoning person to believe in a creator. A good, hard, honest look at humanity’s inhumanity can easily inspire the belief that something is guiding and protecting us from ourselves. This is a pretty poor, bare boned, and compressed attempt to convey some of my observations about our ability to “Believe” in a semi-rational as well as an emotional non-rational manner.
If I blew any historical aspect in this account hopefully Simon will set me straight
As for those shellfish; I have read that the State of Texas has 2,383 felony laws that can be prosecuted and is likely to raise that number above 3,000 this year. I have no idea how many of those laws are reasonable, nor whether any involve apparel, fabric, manufacturing, or deceptive advertising; but 11 of the ones on the books and at least one that is pending involve oysters.
Will,
If we had effective sacraments faith would not be required. Are you experienced?
Men create laws based on experience, understanding, and current conditions. For instance birth control and the control of STDs has changed sexual morality.
I have no problem with the old rules for old times. I object to blind Enforcement of those rules in the current situation.
BTW nice exposition.
Blind enforcement is insane. Refusing to change what doesn’t work is insane.
“Men create laws based on experience, understanding, and current conditions.”
… often for a small group’s advantage or gain. STD’s were/are not the only reason for promoting monogamy but they were one of the main rationalizations behind legal punishments.
What I am experienced with is the way groups can bind together, convincing themselves they are superior and more deserving than others. I’ve seen the benefits of belonging and the disadvantages and danger of not belonging.
Refusing to change what doesn’t work is insane and yet, I still prefer to be a hermit.