You called me absolutely right on this one.
I jumped the gun to get an argument up and didn’t think it through as long as I should have.
I disagree with law from revelation because it lacks a framework beyond the people who supposedly heard from God – the Quar’an from Mohamad, the Bible from x number of authors. Justification for those books is not something I feel like arguing here.
Quickly on the NT: homosexuality is “worth of death” Romans 1:31-32, kept out of heaven 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, etc.
I didn’t mean that our laws are based on religious doctrine – our system of democracy comes more from Greek origins (but doesn’t feature aspects of Greek mythology), and our laws have moved a long ways away from the laws that were in place during medieval times. I guess it’s personal bias that our current laws are more just than those of the past – but I do feel that secular humanistic laws (even if they weren’t meant to be).
The thing I’d have to agree with you is that a lot of the things Jesus (is accredited to have) said made sense – they had to or people would have immediately called him a loony and there’d be no Christianity. Loving your neighbour, peace, and friendship are things I hope all people want, I just don’t think the miracles happened (and it’d be a rather boring book without them ).
Anyways, I responded because I admit again that this was one of my weaker posts, but I hope I made up for it a bit here.
]]>“Religious law is a 1000-year backwards step for a society.” Really? Yet you said that our law is based on religious doctrines. How can it be a step backwards if that’s where we already are? And how do you choose the direction to step forward? (I don’t expect that these are questions that will stump you; I’m simply curious to hear your answer.)
What New Testament passages are not applied to modern law? I can think of divorce, but what else? And would following those passages really be a step backward? There are sound logical reasons for everything I can think of in the New Testament. And even though you may agree with current laws on divorce, I don’t think you can say that to disallow it would be a 1000-year backward step.
And as I’ve mentioned before, the New Testament renders a lot of the Old Testament laws obsolete (the book of John is a good starting point if you’d like to read why the coming of Christ changed things). So I’d agree that to force people who commit a crime to sacrifice a couple of doves and smear the blood on themselves – that would be a big step backwards (in both a social and a religious sense).
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