What is the main moral
contributions of the Bible?? Again, don't ask Bandoli. He's still stuck on sound bites and crybaby fantasizing. Check it out:
A lot of people think that our western ethics and moral values are
based on Christianity and the Bible. And without this glorious and holy heritage
we all would be immoral and unethical perverts. This is of course rubbish and a
product of 1700 years of the church's biased propaganda of itself and it's
outdated teachings. And of course it's merely imagination that for better or for worse our primary moral leaders over those past 1700 years have almost all being religious men, and those who were not as a whole shared values borrowed from religious men. The "perverts" part is a strawman -- no one claims this; least of all anyone who has seen Japan put together a fairly moral society without Christian religion (but with flaws of its own). This is not a place, given the sound bite atmosphere, for a detailed defense of this subject, but we'll reply to the extent that is needed for Bandoli's depth. Our western culture is of course not unaffected of the
Christian Church's total religious domination the last 1700 years, but in fact,
most of what we call human rights and values are based on ideas and philosophy
from Antiquity (mostly Greek and Roman) forming the base for the human ideals
developed in the Renaissance period. Documentation? None. Actually both were used, and it happens that the Greek and Roman sources used exemplifed values cherished in the Christian tradition. Hmmm.
These ideas were finally formulated
in the declaration of human rights after the French Revolution, at a time when
Europe gradually had liberated itself from the religious medieval legislation
and the Church's negative view of man and nature. And the French Revolution went on to conduct the Reign of Terror. Dod we forget that part?
This humanization of
legislation and society happened against the Church's will, not because of it.
In fact, the Church has always tried to fight any kind of human og [sic] scientific
progress. The Pope, Pius 6., condemned the declaration of human rights as a
"monstrosity" in 1791, and later Popes followed up this. Gregory 16.
declared the liberty of faith as "insane" (deliriamentum) in 1832. In
1868 Pope Pius 9. called the Austrian constitution which declared the freedom of
speech, press, faith and teaching, and treated all religions equally, as a
"disgusting law" (infanda lex). Kind of hard to judge when all we get are disconnected quotes. Not that it matters. Three popes hardly represent any sort of consensus or moral judgment over the range of 2000 years.
But what is the morality in
the teachings of the Bible? First and foremost, the Old testament is full of all
kinds of mainly useless religious rules. Rules made in a time and in a
uneducated primitive society where no science existed and magical thinking was
the common trait. Sound bite of course, and highly bigoted. The most likely example in mind has to do with ritual purity which, contrary to Bandoli's bigotry, was far from "useless" but gave the ancients a much-needed sense of order in a world where life was tenouous and unsure. Bandoli may as well mock Feng Shui. The Christian God is a vengeful, intolerant, angry and
punishing God. I.e., He judges those who do wrong. And no not expect any analysis by Bandoli of the justness of the judgments and their fitness to the offense; argument by outrage is all we get: And the most common punishment for breaking the rules in the
Bible is death, usually death by stoning. (Most enlightened western people
are appalled by the harsh and medieval Sharia-laws of Islam, none seem to see
that we find the exact same laws and recommended punishments in the holy
Bible)."Most enlightened people" live in air-conditioned offices or in great/relative comfort where they can make arrogant pronouncements of what other socities offer as "barbaric" having never been in their shoes. This is not to say that there is NOT genuine barbariam out there, but it must be taken as a piece and analyzed, not merely called "barbaric" because we don't like it. The person who claims that somehting is morally wrong is without ground until they explain WHY.
And the Old Testament is
brimming over with stories where God kills tens- and hundreds of thousand people
in one blow. (Not a very morally thing to do, not even 3000 years ago.) Not moral unless it is shown to be not moral; again, merely presuming that outrage is enough will get you nowhere. Nazis find it outraegous that you don't hate Jews -- what does that prove?
The multitude of bizarre rules in the Bible are not particularly consistent or
coherent either. Examples: The death penalty is seemingly suitable for men
having long hair, Not sure where Bandoli gets that one from. It's not in the OT. for children not obeying their parents, for cursing your
parents, For good reason -- see here. Maybe Bandoli prefers that millions die because of anarchy. for (men) not being circumcised, No, that person is "cut off" which does not mean death -- see here. for eating bloody meat, That's Lev. 19:26, but it doesn't prescribe the death penalty, sorry. for girls not
being virgins when wed, More to it than that. See here. working on sundays etc etc. Sundays! Try Saturdays in that time. And it's a matter of order versus anarchy again. Again, it's not exactly very
nice thing or considered of particular high moral standards to kill people for
trifling matters like this. "Trifling" is a bigoted and anachronistic judgment. To these people, whose world was constantly in danger of anarchy, collapse, and starvation, strict discipline was needed to keep alive. To call these concerns "trifling" is to stand as one in comfort judging those in needed.
The view that the Jews were the "chosen people
of God" together with their strong religiosity, lead to the by far most
extreme nationalism in Antiquity. A fundamental ethnic intolerance is at the
heart of the story of Israel. Far from it. Nationalism was a fundamental orientation of ALL ancient peoples and what Bandoli calls "intolerance" was normal for every party from the Israelites to the Romans. And Christianity, based on the Jewish religion,
adopted this charming trait, and refined it to the most extreme religious
intolerance. Beyond that, begs the question of whether what Christianity says is true. The truth is of course very intolerant. Gravity sure knows no "tolerance" for people who think they can fly.
Intolerance is also specific to monotheism, and it's plays
a particular central part in Christianity. All (pagan) polytheistic religions
were usually tolerant and including, Christianity was not a problem for them. Vague generalization. Of course it also assumes that pagan religions had any validity. Wonder if Bandoli would preach "tolerance" for the polytheistic Aztecs and their blood sacrifices, or the folks who sacrified children to Molech...nah, then he'd have to be consistent.
Christianity on the other side was and is an intolerant religion, and
non-orthodox and deviating ideas and opinions are not tolerated. As noted, the truth IS intolerant. Rather than being a crybaby, Bandoli needs to get to work proving that it is not the truth. Based on his sound bites for the Christ myth, he has thousands of miles to go to even get a start.
The useless
Ten Commandments
Of the Ten Commandments, the first five rules are
purely religious and regulating your relationship with God. So they are not
particular helpful as guidelines for human to human conduct. Though they are useful IF God exists and is the source for our guidance -- so this bare dismissal begs the question (and Bandoli's essay on atheism itself has a long way to go to prove what it needs to). Four of the last
five commandments are all common "rules" found in most cultures past and
present, and not at all particular to Christianity. Gee, yeah, well, if they were NOT there he'd pitch a fit about how they were missing. Come on now. The last commandment is
concerned with "to covet" your neighbour's ox, wife and whatever, something
which is beyond legislation. It's no point regulating people's yearnings or
desires. It's just stupid. Um, yeah. Hello? ALL laws and rules are curbs on "yearnings or desires" so that complaint is "just stupid" because it makes all laws "just stupid". Good job.
As guidelines for human relations or for
societies the Ten Commandments are tragically insufficient. Gee, as if that were all that were offered anyway. May as well say the same of the Roman Ten Tables.
From an all-knowing and omnipotent "God" we would expect something less
banal, insufficient and crude! From a bigoted and anachronistic skeptic, we would not expect anything more than this judgment.
And Jesus is not any
better: Jesus uphold the bizarre laws of the Old Testament as he say
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come
to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matt. 5:17) and "….it is easier for heaven
and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." (Luke 16:17). Based of course on bigoted and anachronistic judgments above.
The immorality in the biblical laws, commandments and rules, are
found in the motivation behind them. You shall not kill/steal from/lie to a
"brother" because its "Gods will", not because it is an evil unethical thing to
do to your fellow man. At the same time it's obviously fine to kill people
outside your own tribe/congregation. God himself do this all the time by the
thousands in the "Good Book".. This is a repeat of the same argument Bandoli offered and we refuted here.
