Sunday 11 March 2007

What the Bible says about rape

Our Bible reading this week comes from Deuteronomy 22:23-29, (courtesy of The Brick Testament where you can go to get the pictures), and purports to throw light upon the issue of the week here in Godzone: rape. Here's the Bible's rules on rape, as summarised by the Skeptics Annotated Bible:
City Rape: If a woman is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, the men of the city must stone her to death.
Country Rape:
If a woman is raped in the country, then only the man shall die (since there was no one to hear her if she cried out.)

Or as Dwindling in Unbelief puts it, Everybody Must Get Stoned.

Thank goodness, as Richard Dawkins points out in the centre-spread of this latest Free Radical, that even Christians don't take their morality from the Bible.

The Russell's Teapot team make a similar point:


LINKS: Rape - The Brick Testament
What the Bible says about rape - Skeptics Annotated Bible
Everybody must get stoned - Dwindling in Unbelief
Table of Contents - Free Radical 74

RELATED: Religion, Ethics

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rubbish that Christians don't take their morality from the Bible - stop trying to suck up Peter.

A good friend of mine - a former Christian - lives in a trailer park. He took his morality from the Bible and it cost him everything. Literally *everything* - his money,his house, his relationship, all his wordly goods. When he made any money on the markets he felt guilty. He now lives hand to mouth with NOTHING. That's biblical morality for you.

Check out www.landoverbaptist.org they have some good quizzes a well as articles.

Anonymous said...

Where is Rape an issue for the evolutionists?...Is not that survival of the fittest????
It is the materialist evolutionist who has no morality and therefore has no place to stand in judgment of the bible...end of story!
Dawkins like Rand are second handers! Worse they are wolves in sheeps cloth.
Ethics are the property of theism
not chemical reactions!
No matter how pretentiously pious you atheists get nothing can mask your nakedness!
Nor do you understand that the bible has snares for you infidels such as this verse. It is designed to catch you in your own craftiness!
Eg...there is not one account of a rapped woman being stoned for not screaming!...It never happened!
This fact undoes your argument!
Eg2 the Bible shows that Christ refused to stone the adultress...saying "let he who is without sin let him cast the first stone!"
Christ shows us the Law was never a standard by which any man or woman can live by!...It is a witness to sin and judgement...and exposes our need for mercy and Salvation!
This is where ethics come from, which not only includes "Thou shat nots..."...but the need to call upon God for mercy...and to have a forgiving heart of others who tresspass against us...to be meek....to be patient...to have charity...etc.

Your heart P.C...has been hardened and blinded so that your posts on religion are so foolish to most sencible people, except god haters.
Thus your reasoning is perverse, and nothing will save you from the judgment of God that awaits you.
The tragedy is you have been warned by people who care about you.
Dawkin's book 'the god delusion' is of such a poor quality...the same as your posts on religion that you cannot claim to be someone who sees the essentials of things as Rand said was the key to phlilosophy!
Like Dawkin's your posts are always on absurdly inessential issues!
your posts are not intellectual...but some sort of sick sport!
Eg3 No christian or Jew ever stonned a woman for not screaming loud enough!
This does not mean they conveniently ignore the scripures they dont like! They understand the development of the scriptures from..."time past...to..."but now"...into.."the ages to come"...which for your benefit is a dispensational transition!
I suggest you try mocking the writings of St Paul...if you want to be up to date!
Oh...thats not such fun is it!...not the sport you enjoy is it!
Well then carry on mocking the bible that you dont understand...esp the OT....you are simply piling hot coals upon your self!
Dont go crying about it either!
We christians dont want to see you go to Hell!
We are trying to save your soul!
But it's your choice my friend!
Eg4
Dawkins in his book tries to glorify the God of the Deist...because it is not interested in the actions of men like him!...how convenient!....worse is the fact that on the other hand he condemns the theist God for not caring enough!!!
Do you notice such glaring contradictions?
His book is entirely made of such bogus arguments!
I am shocked that you P.C dont grasp this essential nature of that book!

Berend de Boer said...

pc, many laws in the Old Testament were given specifically to the country of Israel. They have no validity beyond that, is the Bible clearly states, and which no one has really claimed it should have.

There are three kinds of laws in the Old Testament, clearly distinct, and two of them were to regulate the civil live specifically in Israel (please quote me the text where it says they should be applied everywhere else, you can't), and to regulate the ceremonial aspect (sacrifices and such).

Even in our country requires proof of rape. Or are you claiming that anyone who claims to have been raped, should be believed and the offender should be put in prison?

That's a part of this text: you cannot claim being raped after the fact, if it was actually consensual sex.

And tim, you're quite right. Evolutionist defenders have been the worst predators in history, the name H.G. Wells comes to mind.

Berend de Boer said...

PS: I mostly agree with Dawkins here, except the fact that true Christians don't pick and choose.

Because if you pick and choose Dawkins is wholly right.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone heard the 11th commandment (applies particularly to business owners): "Thou shalt not comfort thy rod with thy staff" ~:)

Berend de Boer said...

Except if you're in the police force of course.

AngloAmerikan said...

I really like your posts on religion PC. There’s something quite unmanly about being a Christian. It doesn’t sit well, it’s a little embarrassing and scary in a man. Women can be ok with it, I think, but that’s just my own perception – probably something to do with my mother being a Christian. A man needs to develop ethics for himself by just looking around and thinking about things and using logic. Any true man would rebel against God if he did exist – big immortal bully who has no appreciation or sympathy for the horrendous tribulations all mankind has to face. The thing is He doesn’t exist except as a metaphor for higher human aspirations.
A lot of the Christians I have known have been a bit flaky -poor workers, deviant, unreliable.
Anyway keep the attacks coming.

AngloAmerikan said...

All you need to know about Atheism
Go on it's funny.

Anonymous said...

With friends like these P.C you dont need me! HAW Haw!
Look at the silly buggers you are encouraging!
Angloamerican said..."Ug Ug me ape man atheist!"..."Me wave bum at god!"..."Me real man!"
...Your an Idiot!

AngloAmerikan said...

Yeah, PC stop encouraging me!

...and Tim it's "you're" not "your". Who were you calling an idiot?

Anonymous said...

Big come back Anglo-ape!
Spelling is like the tax code...It's pure B.S!
That I'm right...and You understood me...now that is the real issue!
Did you learn to spell in the same state school that taught you that you're a monkey?

What interests me is your notion that "real men rebel against god"...?
Don’t you think that comment deserved ridicule?
Where did you glean that Gem ?
I was once an atheist who would have said the same thing, but I got wise to the mountain of bollocks that I had been fed re evolution and materialism.
I realized they required 'miracles' of a much more fantastic nature as they happen without an intelligent cause...by pure coincidence...against observed reality and the real laws of science such as the second law of thermodynamics which tells us that the natural course of things is to decay not evolve!
Dawkins is wrong that design is invalid as a scientific explanation.
Man designing and building complex mechanisms shows the principle.
It is the only known principle that accounts for complex mechanisms!
I laugh at Dawkins half- blind lady avoiding obstacles and the half-winged birdie spiraling down to land on it’s face!
Evolution is a giant myth without scientific foundation...though guys like Dawkins try to gimmick you with such things as "climbing Mt improbable".
Materialism is devoid of ethics despite P.C's little jibs against the O.T
Spontaneous generation is an absurdity!
Just as is a germ very very very very slowly turning into Pamela Anderson!
So slowly you cant see it or prove it!
Why swallow this crap?
Gee I sure am glad that germ wanted boobies!

I discovered the bible was historically accurate and had the best explanation for what I experienced in the real world...that I and mankind really do behave as the scriptures say.
Thus my balls did not fall off and so I ran off and joined the 'god squad'...in fact It took a lot of balls to follow my convictions and choose to call myself a Christian in spite of all the garbage that has stuck to that label.
It may interest you that I don’t go to church because I don’t fit in with a lot of the woolly nonsense that goes on in such places.
There are a lot of good souls in the church, but also a lot of weirdos!
I study at home...science, history, politics, philosophy, theology...and always try to improve my spelling... and watch Dr Scheuller's "hour of power" on TV.
I live my live in the pursuit of truth and justice...
I defend righteousness and fight evil where I find it...and try to help and encourage my neighbors.
Lastly I live and let live.
I have no beef with you or P.C
I do throw my punches to bloody the nose of my opponents...yet I believe in a clean fight!
I hope our little altercation has given you something to ponder of greater magnitude than spelling!
Tim

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling said...

"I hope our little altercation has given you something to ponder of greater magnitude than spelling!
Tim"

It sure has. Syntax and grammar come to mind as well.

Anonymous said...

Tim said...
Evolution is a giant myth without scientific foundation

First, if evolution is a myth, then can you explain how we come to have different skin color today? Were Eve & Adam , white, brown , black, yellow couple?

Second, at what time frame did you think God, created Eve & Adam? about 6,000 , 8,000 or 10,000 years?

AngloAmerikan said...

Thanks for your story Tim. You obviously are pretty passionate about this subject and have put a bit of time and effort into your response. This is what I think:

Long ago the essential truth of evolutionary theory hit me like a bolt of lightening – a sort of Paul on the road to Damascus moment it was. It happened after reading a short book called, “Ever Expanding Horizons”. The title couldn’t have been more apt as that is what everything is all about really. As the Universe unfolds and zones of complexity develop the horizon expands. We see more, remember more, discover more and understand more. Information accumulates and all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. The Universe is older than the galaxy, the galaxy older than the solar system, the Earth older than life, life older than man and so on. You can fill in the gaps and nothing is out of place, nothing is out of order. Things come into existence in a very orderly, natural way, essentially the result of three processes called replication, mutation and selection. The realization that all organisms and artifacts exist as a result of these processes and that there could be no other way was my moment of enlightenment. It is the mechanics of creation. God would be incapable of creating anything truly new as he knows everything already and he would not be restricted by lines of descent – horses with feathered wings could exist. Evolution being mindless has true creative power even though it progresses in a linear way. The Theory of Evolution describes how creation occurs and why we see what we see– it’s an absolutely brilliant and simple theory.

That evolution is even conceivable and that it consistently corresponds with what we observe should shake the faith of any thinking creationist.

Anonymous said...

Falafulu fisi,
Let me explain how we have different eye colours, skin colours, tallness/shortness, frizzy hair/strait hair etc.
It is Mendel’s Law.
All the genes that are in mankind collectively existed in Adam and Eve.
They existed in dominant and recessive combinations.
Eg Though Adam had both the Brown eye gene and the Blue eye gene…because the brown eye gene is dominant and the blue eye gene is recessive …Adam would have had brown eyes.
Thus what ever genes were in dominance would have shown up as that physical trait.
Things were Great! Man fellowshipped with God!
God set up a simple system of Free will morality whereby man could demonstrate his love for God, and his due submission to his creator.
With both a reward for faithfulness and punishment for sin.
Now Adam and eve sinned and lost physical perfection which means that “bad things happened to their genes”…and continue to happen to our genes that cause evil mutations…which are degenerative never evolutionary!
There are no new genes! Only the original Genes of Adam and Eve…and some damaged genes that cause monstrous deformities, sterility and death.
(Hence the poor children born deformed)
Now sinful Adam and Eve had children…and their children had children (there was no law at that time against brother and sisters having sex) and by the time we get to Noahs flood…the earth is repopulated by 4 sets of couples…Noah and his wife and his 3 sons and their wives. In these sets exist all the genes of humanity that exist today.
Now at the tower of Babel we are told God separated the descendants of Noah and his sons with each separate group going off into different lands and thus forming separate gene pools with different combinations of dominant and recessive genes.
We are told Shem was the originator of the Asiatic mongoloids
Ham was the originator of the negroids.
And Japheth was the originator of the Caucasoid
Thus with time the dominant traits of each sub group became more pronounced. There are certain combinations of genes that form certain sub groups for various reasons, yet my basic principles apply across the board.
This is why you get pedigrees like Dobermans dogs and Friesian cows.
There is no evolution in this…no new genes…only special combinations from separated gene pools.
It ought to interest you that the genetics of “Kind after it’s kind” as expounded in the book of Genesis is 100% scientifically verified!
It has been genetically verified we have all descended from one woman!
The human race is indeed one big family!
This ought to show you how belief in the bible is not a superstition but scientifically wise!

I hope my explanation is good enough to answer first question.
As for your second question…let me also talk to Anglo as my answer also covers some of his last post.

Firstly the Bible does not set a date for the creation of the universe, or the planet, or the time that life first inhabited this planet.
Many people mistake the first chapter of Genesis as the beginning of the universe and the planet earth. This is incorrect.
The original creation of the universe and the planet earth is mentioned in other places of the bible such as John chapter 1…and in the book of Isaiah.
What happened in Genesis chapter 1 was a recreation of dry ground from a universal flood (note it is the dry ground that is called earth…not the planet!)
This event was a new beginning from a time of darkness and void that had previously befallen the universe in a judgment of God upon the fall of Satan
Who was pre-Adam…ruler of the earth.
It is my view that it was in this pre-Adam earth that the dinosaurs also roamed the earth.
Satan fell! God judged the planet with his first universal flood.
After an unknown period of Time God moved and said “let there be light”
God then set the stars and the sun back in order and the planet earth…and then put life back on it…and finally he made Adam and eve.
Thus for Anglos sake I have shown the developmental stages of creation that closely matches his Universe first, then earth, then life, then man!
But there is no evolution in this!
This was simply how God unfolded his works.
Man did not come from monkeys!
Fish beget fish. Dogs beget dogs. Humans beget humans!
This is all scientifically verifiable!
Evolution says rocks can become germs and germs can become fish which can become lizards which become rats which become apes which become people!
All this is mythical nonsense! Certainly not science!
Thus it is the atheist evolutionist who is the unscientific myth monger!
They would have you believe in aliens and X Men to boot!
Finally setting a date for Adam. The bible does not do such a thing.
I don’t think there is much reason to speculate on this as it happened a long time ago…when I don’t know…yet some have attempted to get a date by genealogy and have come up with numbers like 4000bc.
Is this accurate? I do not know? I certainly trust the biblical account of the lineage from Adam to Christ, but my attempts to get a date have failed due to not spending enough time on this particular subject.Maybe one day I will have both the time and the inclination to reach my own conclusion, for now I am happy to say 4000bc might be very close to the truth.
Before I go let me end with saying that setting dates by scientific method appears very dubious as I have herd several arguments that say such things as carbon dating are not reliable and that bias of the experimenters puts a “knowledge filter” on the results (they accept data that supports their theories and reject as anomalies any data the contradicts their theories)
I have herd that fresh mollusk shells have been dated as thousands of years old…and also that such dating methods as geological strata and fossil strata have been arrived at by very dubious “circular reasoning”. Eg it is supposed a certain life form lived a certain time ago and so strata that it’s fossil is found in is said to be or that assumed age…and then that assumed dated strata is used to vindicate that a said fossil is of that age because it was found in that strata!
I kid you not! This is how silly the theory of evolution is and how it has corrupted every branch of science from geology to astronomy!
(It was said that evolution requires so many millions of years to acure and so upon this assumption the earth and the universe has been dated the requisite age to fit the theory in! I kid you not!
Yet Ultimately with all this controversy aside.
It matters not to me how old the universe is. It is irrelevant!
The Bible does not set a date!
It does say how life got here and that is relevant!
It did not spontaneously generate!
This too is scientifically vindicated by Pasteur…whose experiments disproving it have never been contradicted!
They still hold good!
Life never spontaneously generates!
And now that we understand the complexity of genetics the reason is obvious!
The God hypothesis stands sure and apart for the absurd impossibilities of atheist delusions of Materialistic evolution!

Anonymous said...

Falafulu fisi,
I must add that when sets of recessive genes pair up then you get the resessive traits...eg blue eyes...strait hair etc
cheers Tim

AngloAmerikan said...

Listen Tim from a scientific point of view there is no benefit in subscribing to the sky fairies did it theory. We gain nothing from it, it helps us not one bit. It requires faith to believe in it and there is no place for faith in science. That ‘God did it’ is just not an explanation that has any value. Believe what stone-age nonsense you like but don’t bother attacking evolution with your feeble counter arguments that reveal that you don’t even have the dimmest understanding of how it works. Give us some proof that your theory of God is valid.

Berend de Boer said...

angloamerican, from a scientific standpoint it might well be the opposite actually. Just to add to the genes debate, the theory of evolution has led scientists to believe and propose something as junk-DNA. All those millions of years of evolution surely must have accumulated a lot of junk.

And we found it. Lots of junk-DNA. So evolution proved.

However, it increasinly appears that there isn't such a thing as junk-DNA, and the evidence against it is slowly accumulating.

Some scientists have stated that we're about 15 years behind from where we could have been, if we hadn't believed there was such a thing as junk-DNA.

And then, let us not speak about evolution driven extermination camps in Germany. Or the race separation laws which were not introduced in the 18th century, but in the age when evolution became firmly established, and Darwin's theory of races of men (certain superior of course) was widely accepted.

Peter Cresswell said...

Just wondering from whom Cain's wife got her genes?

Anonymous said...

PC said...
Just wondering from whom Cain's wife got her genes?

I can recall from my Sunday School day's that Cain was copulating Eve (his own mother), because she was the one and ONLY woman at the time. It stated very clearly in the bible that GOD only created ONE woman. For the human race to keep reproducing, Cain had to have sex with Eve regularly, even perhaps a three-some with Adam.

Anonymous said...

Actually Falafulu fisi the Bible says Adam had sons and daughters (Gen 5vs7), and so It is obvious that Cain had sex with one of his sisters.
As I said before the was no law against this at that time…it was a Libertarian society!
(Or do you P.C say the Libz would ban consensual sex between adults if they happen to be brother and sister?)
Now this is good example of how the Bible speaks the plain truth whether we like it or not, and also how things change with the process of time in the bible.
This show that Dawkins and P.C are completely ignorant of why Christians DO take their ethics from the bible, but not from instances like this!
The bible is 100% scientifically accurate in this account!
We all have the genes that can be traced back to one woman!
So again the Bible is found to be truthful!
Another account is of Lot and his daughters…which is another example of the plain truth that is not a specific ethical example for Christians…It simply was something that happened.
These accounts add credibility to the Bible because it shows that it is an honest account of things that happened that often we today would condemn if some one we knew was practicing such things. The Bible has not been invented nor ‘sanitized’!
A Libertarian may oppose these things whist still not being able to ban them!
As a Christian in a Libertarian society…I would exercise my right to free speech and condemn such practices…I might withdraw my association with such people, and I would leave them to it believing God will judge them in due course.
It is of interest that any Human pair (couple) could have 2 Billion children, all with different gene combinations! Such is the scope for variety within one couple.
And because the genes of early man were much more pure and closer to how God intended, humans lived almost a 1000 years and Cain could have been as much a stranger to his sister whom he took to wife as anyone is today when they meet their soul mate!
(eg His wife may have been born a century or longer after he was!)
None of this stuff actually matters.
I only say it because PC was fishing for it!
Another interesting issue is how the actions of parents can have dire consequences upon their children and the decendants!
Adam and Eve became sinners, and the first born Human ever became a murderer!
And this set up the pattern that is still true today!
Man is murderous! We have not evolved one bit!
Another side issue is God warned Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit lest he die!
In my view that fruit was probably toxic!
And toxic enough to not only kill him but to alter his genes for the worst!
Hence the poor children born with genetic disorders as a direct result of our fathers actions!
He ought to have heeded Gods warning!
Finally let me say to Anglo your little squeak that I don’t understand evolution is the very rubbish Dawkins accuses theists of doing! That is closing your eyes and ears and blurting out a irrational retort that smacks of self delusion!
You are an ostrich!
I make it my business to know a lot about the theory of evolution kiddo!
I have probably read more books on that subject than you matie!
I am constantly checking all the latest claims and have a vast file on everything I can get my hands on!
So stop squawking and try and hit me with some real science Pal! I’m waiting!!!!
Lets talk about Natural selection and survival of the fittest shall we?
Here is why Dawkins and You are wrong!
There are no new genes!...end of story!
Evolution hinges it’s hopes upon millions of freak accidents that create new and beneficial improvement genes!
They don’t happen Pal!
The never happen!
Mutations are degenerate monstrosities that are always detrimental!
Do you want a list of freaks to prove it?
Wingless flies!...4 legged Chickens! Etc etc!
Thus Natural selection to the extent that it might be said to operate is actually the law of extinction not evolution!
What happens in reality is that if the environment becomes such that a species cannot cope…it either moves or it dies…it never evolves!
This is why fish are still fish and trees are still trees yet the moa is extinct likewise the dinosaurs!
There are no freak improvements for nature to select and thus evolve! End of story!
and your theory requires millions of these non existent freak improvements!
Not to mention the fact that Nature is not usually that selective!
Volcanoes, fires, droughts etc kill off almost everything indiscriminately…esp the higher orders. Bugs might live! Where is your evolution in this?

Time is not a magic wand either!
You are a bloody dreamer if you thing a lizard can just sprout wings and fly!
There are impassible genetic boundaries between species! Ddddrrrrrrr!
How much science do you need to snap you out of your silly mythical religion????
You may be dumb but your not an ape!
Your Granddad was not a protozoa !
God made you!
You have a soul!
Good and evil are not imaginary!
Can you not see that the evolutionists are just the latest priests of false religion hiding behind secular terms?
Darwin did not discover the laws that govern heredity, Mendel “the father of genetics did!
He was a Christian!
(pity his discovery was not widely grasped when he made it as this would have sunk Darwin immediately!)
The greatest naturalist and Father of botany, Carl von Linnaeus who 300 years ago invented the system of classifying living things, believed in special creation…said that species don’t change!
Darwin isn’t a pimple on his butt!
Darwin is not the father of any true science at all!
But fanatical atheists, like fanatical socialists will never quit!
Newton the greatest scientist of all time was an Anglican minister!
You atheists are bloody ostrich!
That you think science is on your side can only be believes by folk with their head buried in the sand!
I laugh at your pathetic grasp of the true nature of things!
You actually think that your essence is nothing more than bubbling chemicals!
That’s tragic dude!
Oh and I cant wait to evolve giant electrodes which I can shoot lightning bolts from! Ha ha! That is on the cards with Your ridiculous theory! That and much more!
How about evolving my own biocell phone! Yes! Man will get esp!
This is a parallel with you belief that a germ can turn into a bird with wings…eyes… Etc etc!
Pathetic!
You don’t like your own theory? Ha ha!
Tuff mate!
I’ll give you crap about it until you get wise!

AngloAmerikan said...

You're hysterical Tim.

Berend de Boer said...

pc, tne answer is Adam and Eve. Cain married a sister. As genes hadn't deteriorated much yet (these people lived quite a few hundreds of years...), there was no biological objection.

leelion said...

berend, are you a young earth creationist?

Peter Cresswell said...

"Cain married a sister."

Perhaps you could tell me how you know that, since The Bible gives no evidence of that happy event?

Divine revelation perhaps?

Oh, and presumably some of your genes also come from Melchisedec, king of Salem, since he was "Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God" (Hebrews 7:3)?

Peter Cresswell said...

"Cain married a sister."

Are you sure he didn't marry his brother's daughters? After all, Joseph Smith says so, and he really did have divine revelation, didn't he? ;^)

Or perhaps his wife, and everyone else in the Land Of Nod, came from the 'earlier' creation?

Please provide working for your answer.

Anonymous said...

P.C
It makes no difference whether Cain married his sister or his niece as all that means is his brother had sex with his sister!
And while the bible does not say either thing, we have no need of Joseph Smith as reason allows us to make the assumption.
(The bible is not anti-reason...God gave us a brain!)
And to repeat the Scientific fact it is genetically proven we all are descendants from one woman!
Do the math and someone had sex with either their mother or their sister This is simply a fact!
Speculation aside, The bible account of Adam and Eve is vindicated! Get with the program!

As for Melchizedek It appears to me that he was Jesus Christ…God Almighty! Everything about this passage indicates this is the case.
Jesus himself said…”before Abraham was I AM”
Melchizedek is called “the King of righteousness” and “the King of Peace”...Which are titles for Christ.
also ... Melchisedek had "no beginning of days..." Like Christ who is part of the Trinity.
God appeared in Human form in other places as well.
The pre-incarnate Christ had no mother or Human Father.
Reason again must be employed when reading the bible!
Theism proper is Reason!