Is it okay to feel 'glad' when someone we hate dies?

All right, I'll throw this one in for free.

There is an issue that isn't well known about the verses about marrying the rapist. You're lacking context, and it's super important. This isn't your fault. It's not easily accessible to know the lives of the average Israelite unless you look really hard, and the information isn't perfect, but we can piece it together from the societies around them that mentioned them-and they bloody well did.

One thing that was a really big deal to the Israelites was the ideas of monogamy and virginity. This was a huge deal back then, because you knew then all the kids were yours. We're still animals on some levels-we have a problem with little "strangers" popping up. We don't tend to like it. People have real issues with infidelity and the e blame isn't placed on her, but the children produced by it now. This is part of the issue why they put them together. The other is the fact that once rape happens, the woman is untouchable. Society instantly shunned the raped woman, which wasn't really right at all. In order to provide for a woman who has been made untouchable by this (and wartime rape was handled differently, just so you know) then the rapist is forced to marry his victim. And the entire community knows he did it. Every time he screws up there will be someone to kick his ass (very literally) and his wife will always have everyone's sympathy. In fact, some women used it to take revenge on the rapist. OK, most all women used it to torture them. It long term turns into a punishment for the rapist, not the victim. This is a time of arranged marriage for everyone, as well as a time when wartime rape was just another thing. We treat rape far differently than a lot of other cultures have. Multiple historical accounts contain quotes about "another battle, we're all gonna get raped again." I'm not defending this-I'm simply stating a historical fact. Rape was a common occurrence then, and this was a way for those women to still receive the status and honor due them, as well as an excuse to make a rapist miserable for his entire life.

Some things I'm really glad they've changed, aren't you? This wouldn't work really except in the culture the command was issued to. Because of this as well as other issues (a chosen people vs. salvation for all) the treaty of the OT was superceded by that of the NT, and such like the above went away, replaced with the ideal to love one another and love God. Nexxo has said that the NT redeems the OT, but in my eyes it simply completes it. To hold Christians accountable for the actions of a completely separate religious group operating under another treaty, said treaty being stated at the get-go is temporary is kind of wrong.

Believe it or not, I can go on about most topics of Levitical law with the same or better results. I wanted to learn all I could, so I did. It made it all make more sense, not less. Such like the dietary restrictions being ways to keep them from eating foods unsafe for them, or the restrictions on mold keeping them from getting fungal infections easily. Hygeine was not very big then, and they knew very little of what we do now, but you could do very well for yourself with the foodstuffs available by following some of the rules. And there were always those laws that were thrown in there just to make sure that they were different. They were supposed to be a people set apart, and the Levitical laws did that.

People continue to dismiss the Bible as only fairy tales, but it's still an amazing record of a people group penned by themselves instead of pieced together by what others said of them. A culture's beliefs are a very are thing to pass on completely. We still learn things every day about some groups and their early history. Here we have a view into how they really thought.

All right, I'm getting back to this half-dozen arrows that need completing. I'm still trying to get a process down for making proper Turkish arrows.

 

I was waiting for this to be honest, I understand the ideas prevelant at the time. So are you saying that the bible was only a book for that time? It can be updated, modified. How do we choose which bits we can change and which we can't?

The idea of who your material property was passed on to was also a big issue, this is why Christianity also adopted the idea of marriage. Also the idea of monogamy and virginity of women was a big deal back then. Lets not omit this very important part. Men seemed to be able to do as they pleased, which is even more well documented.

This explains why they did it, but I didn't ask that, I knew that context already. What I asked was, is it moral, and not just for the man but also the woman? So, you say I lack context, give me a context in which it would be morally correct, not just practical, for this practise to happen. And if you justify it by saying, 'well, women were property and second class so it had to be like that', I don't see how that makes it anymore moral. Is the bible condoning women as second class citizens?

I'm not really seeing any good results of your reasoning. There are plenty of health and hygene book available today and from the past that don't attribute their knowledge to a god but o trial and error and the spotting of patterns.

I still don't see how any of this information requires a god for it to have been learned or understood.

All I have got from this so far is that sometimes the bible is true, sometimes it is allogorical, and we can choose when. God is more concerned with property and practicality than moral rightousness. The slightest historical truth in the bible justifies it all as true. The bible wasn't really written by god but by men who we can trust somehow to be 100% honest. Parts of the bible are written for the time it was set and other were for forever, and, again, we can choose which.

Why would Christainity keep the OT at all if it was superceded by the NT?

It still seems to me that you are applying your own moral judgement to a book and using mental athletics to justify it to yourself as you want to believe it is true. You look for reasoning to justify want you want to be true and then frame it in a way that helps you cause, even if it is wholely inconsistant with reasoning that was previously applied.

For example the idea of the great flood that killed all but Noah and the other 30 odd people on the boat who then somehow repopulated the world fast enough, even though incest would not make great grounds for mating and the lack of food would have been a problem, and rebuilt civilisation fast enough that they were building the tower of babel within 150 years.

And also no other civilisation present at that time has a record of a great flood. Are you taking the allorgorical path on this one again or is there another excuse?

 

Context, history and legitimacy. You youself mentioned that some (bad christians) people just pick and choose which bits to belive or follow. How much worse would it be to ignore 1/2 to 2/3rds of it just because some of the lessons/rules in OT no longer apply because of Jesus sacrifice in the NT?

 

Through a glance at the thread it seems be very spiritual and religious so i'll say what I think from my point of view.

I think it doesn't matter whether or not you're glad. It has no repercussions for you or anybody else in reality. Karma isn't a real thing to me, or is divine retribution. As an atheist I see no afterlife, so I don't see anyone getting praised or punished in a heaven or hell. I see we live and we die and we have no real proof on what comes after. I don't believe in a god, sentient or not; I can't say that what we did in life has any value to anyone but people that remember and live after us.

If I hate someone and they have bad fortune then I will be glad, even happy for that. I only hate people who have done something to me, like the bullies of old. I don't find I have any grounds to judge anyone I haven't met personally. Fred Phelps for all he did was someone I never met and therefore have no credible opinion on him or his life. I've seen the documentaries and news coverage, but I still have no grounds to judge someone from some footage.

The Star Wars movies may not be the best thing to refer to but hatred does change you like a Jedi to Sith. You become a less tolerable person in every way if you continue to let hate and prejudgement cloud your life and people may consider your views wretched or evil if you continue to do so. I am one such example. I hate many people for my terrible childhood and as such i've become what some people consider a very intolerant, bitter and resentful person; those actions back then didn't do it, the hatred I felt was to blame.

So to sum it up; being glad that someone you hate has died or had been unfortunate doesn't really matter in a spiritual way or ethical or moral way but if you find joy in hate, then you start becoming a terrible person the more and more you continue to do so. Call it a pile of crap, but it's what I think.

 

Amen, to that.

As an non believer of any religion I often find it quite bizarre the way that some religious followers align their lives to some written text and it seems obvious that strictly following such rules on how to live your life is often going to bring you into conflict with those that don't agree with you.

Personally, I make it up as I go along, I like you, I don't like you and I know the difference between right and wrong as society dictates it and I know what will happen if I break those rules and laws, we are just bags of electro chemical goo, bumbling around on a piece of rock spinning in space and no one is better or worse than any one else because of their religious or non religious beliefs, it's just another day, get on with it.

 

Only the very best of posts make reference to Star Wars

(Check my post history, strong are they in the Force )

 

If it doesn't fit in the contemporary context and culture anymore, it is outdated. Problem is that religions inherently resist that process of mutation, otherwise they would not have lasted in the first place. Think of it as natural selection: adaptation and change only occur over time under continuous selective pressure.

It was more moral than the alternative available at the time, and life being what it is that is often the best you can aim for. Christianity, like Islam, often get a bad rap but compared to the cultures in which they emerged at the time, they were a breath of fresh, humanist, civilised air. Some absolutely bad stuff went on in those times.

Systematic scientific study did not really happen until the 1700's. There were some (now recognised as groundbreaking) earlier texts going as far back as the Classical Greeks and Arabs, but those were only read by an extremely limited number of people who had the ability to read, let alone comprehend them. Now you just try and convince an illiterate goat herd that it is bad to drink from the same river that you let your goats crap in upstream. Or that illness is caused by microbes and not evil spirits. We have enough problems getting people to accept good health and hygiene practices in the Western world, let alone the Third World where they still believe that, say, you can cure AIDS by raping a virgin. And that is now, not 2000 years ago.

Nope; you have to work with how people see the world, because people will only accept ideas that mesh with their pre-existing worldview. If you told an illiterate goat herd that his family is getting sick because he dug a well right next to a cesspit, he'd have no idea WTF you were on about. If you told him that it was because the well was cursed, and he needed to dig a new one as far away from this spot as possible, he'd take notice. In superstitious cultures, telling people to do something because it's God's command is an effective way to get them to do it. As long as the baby doesn't die of E. Coli infection, right?

It doesn't, but it may need God to sell it to people who don't understand, but still need to follow it.

Actually, they do.

 

Well, they ignore what is claimed to be the third book easily enough. And legitimacy? Have you missed the rest on the conversation?

 

Why doesn't Jesus/god come back and update everything? He had no problem with appearing before.

More moral maybe, but still immoral. I thought god and Jesus were supposed to be presenting the way to live, offering moral guidance, not saying well this is the best we can hope for now and, being omnipotent, I know that people will follow these teaching beyond the current time but I can't really say anything about that. Were those years are more important than the rest of human existence?

I understand this, I really do and it is a very wise thing to do. However on the same reasoning as believing the bible, Aesop's fables are to be believed as true as well, there really was a race between a talking hare and a talking tortoise? As I said before it is allegory when it pleases the believer but factual truth when it pleases them too and they get to decide when which is which, even if they can't agree between themselves. Convenient. Thought a god would have been able to deliver a clearer, less ambiguous understanding.

I agree, but none of this goes to prove any authenticity of the bible as the work or word of a god, or even the existence of a god.

Again, agreed but this still offers no rational to follow what it says now

Er, what you have presented is some evidence of some localised flooding in the Gulf regions and other localised flooding in other regions at differing periods of history, highly probable of a planet going through changes, much like today, hardly evidence a world wide planet killer. These events have been shown to have happened through geological studies too. However there is no geological evidence for a worldwide flood or other cultures even recording significant flooding. And even if there was a world wide flood, what would be the evidence for the cause being a god except one highly suspicious book which has to be twisted in 100 different ways at every turn to get it to fit with every new thing we learn.

It seems to me that the cultures in these places, yet to encounter cultures from much further a field , thought they were mostly alone and that they constituted the world. There was a flood by natural causes that they couldn't explain so obviously it must have been a god. The rest of the story a 5 year old could finish.

You have presented the bible as what I believe it to be, an out dated self help book, no more, no less. Yes somethings are still valid but that is no reason to accept it as a book about a real god.

Again. there may be a god, but this book is no way to find or know it/him/her.

 

Last time I checked it wasn't a him or her but an it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

 

I'm not arguing whether the Bible is true (for a given value of 'true'). You are asking: "How does that work, then?" and I'm answering your question. Religion has a function. It's why we came up with it.

Aesop's fables are allegories that have pragmatic value in real life. Similarly Biblical commandsments on food hygiene had pragmatic value in real life. It doesn't matter whether you take talking tortoises and hares literally any more than demons or curses. As long as you get the message. Don't get cocky when you're ahead. Don't eat shellfish in a hot climate where there are no freezers.

I'm not trying to. You asked how this religion stuff works. I am explaining how.

People think in story. Did then, do now, always will (unless the next few millions of years evolves our brains in a different direction). Hence, people's behaviour will be influenced by narrative imperative much more than by rational fact. Basically, people need a nice story why it makes sense to do something different than they always did it (which has a story of its own, in tradition, culture etc.). This story needs to fit in their current understanding of How The World Works. Make no mistake: conscientious housewives zap their kitchen worktops and toilets in Dettol to kill microbes, but most of them don't really understand what microbes are. People are still influenced more by horoscopes, lucky rabbits feet and other superstitions than a rational treatise on the mathematics of probability and chance.

Exactly. Your local illiterate goat herd in Mesopotamia 3000BC has no conception of what happens 100 miles away, let alone in other countries. When your region floods, it is your world that drowns.

Never said you should. I'm just explaining that religion and faith have a function. It's why they exist. Some of that function may be obsolete as science offers better answers, but science cannot give satisfactory answers to everything any more than religion or faith can. The wise man picks what works, and leaves the rest to the fanatics.

 

For the matter at hand, being glad someone had died is based entirely on what this did in their life, and personaql belief.

In this case, I am Glad. this guy brainwashed people into being hate-mongers. Seeking out any excuse to preach their twisted views, making the world a slightly worse place. So yea. Im glad he died. And im sure alot of people are. What he started and supported was not ok. And hopefully this will be the beginning of the end for his extremist cult hes got going, or it could be a new start because someone even more insane could take controll.

 

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Then I think we are cross purposes, I wasn't asking that, I understand the how of religious workings, in fact I don't find understanding it at all complicated, I was, however, asking why people believe the Christian God to be real.

 

You expect faith to have a rational explanation?

 

There's a lot of valuable points in the posts before as well as some less well considered. However rather that get diverted I'll throw in a rule of mine that seems to apply here:

"Never trust a preacher whose sermon is about the sins of those outside his congregation"

This applies equally to the subject of this thread ranting about gays, Ian Paisley getting worked up about the Pope or an Muslim Imman raging about the Jews.

 

Not so much faith in itself but the reason for directing it in a certain direction should be rational.

 

You woulda thought, if rape was so prevalent back then, that god would have maybe mentioned something about it in his 10 rules, instead of wasting at least four of them on his own vanity.

Regarding the subject of the thread, I don't see what's so wrong with a man who warned against the dangers of smoking. Fags will kill you in the end.

 

There are - i guess - many reasons to believe in God.
Believing in (any relgions) God provides answers to questions that can't be answered in any other way (KayinBlack provided good ones imo). Thus believing in God can give piece of mind.
Believing might give a feeling of sense. To your life and to what happens. Why do you care about others when we're all going to die and that's it - wouldn't it be reasonable to exploit every possibility to maximize your well being while you last.
Fun thing - reading this thread and especially your and KayinBlacks statements kind of made me realize that I do believe in some god-ish layer above it all. (And just for clarification - i did consider myself a christian before, but in a yes/no situation i would have answered no to believing in God. Still the core principles of Christianity made sense to me and seemed like a good thing to stick to.)
I'm pretty sure you will not accept anything above as a valid reason and obviously there's not much to argue about. Believing in a God-Figure is obviously kind of lazy - answering questions you cant answer "reasonably" with the Joker instead of searching harder. Then again refusing the possibility that there is something beyond the scientifically explainable is kind of narrow-minded and rather unscientific, don't you agree?

About the original topic - I'm not actually happy but certainly not sad either about his death, but I am happy he has been silenced.

 

@ sonicgroove: In the US, the expression "smoking a ***" has a wholly different meaning.

So an irrational cognitive construct should be subject to rational principles?

There are pragmatic, functional reasons why religions have the shape they have.

 

It does indeed. I'll never forget the time my father in law decided to get clever and ask me if he could bum a ***... I said yeah, go right ahead...

I don't think he quite got it. Out there they ask if they can bum a cigarette so he decided to be clever and ask me the above. Silly sod...