"John (Burgy) Burgeson" wrote:
> >>IF what you say is heresy there is an old tradition behind it, that of
> the gnostics of the early Christian era who denied that the God of the Old
> Testament, the creator of the world, was the Father of Christ. In
> particular, Marcion rejected the OT all the parts of the NT which he thought
> too Jewish - in part because of the type of arguments you make.>>
>
> I can certainly understand why. Maybe I am part gnostic. No, I think not.
> But I do regard that part of the OT as not more than an old folk tale and I
> certainly don't take it seriously when formulating my own ethical position.
>
> >>It's one thing to say that the "turn the other cheek" is an
> improvement on "eye for an eye", & quite another thing to say that "eye for
> an eye" never had any validity.>>
>
> The babies who were slaughtered certainly could not be included in the "eye
> for an eye" argument, George. So I must reject that line of argumentation
> altogether.
I cited this transcendence of "an eye for an eye" as an illustration of
a general principle, not a justification for the slaughter of infants.
I have not here been advocating holy war, extermination of populations
&c & in fact my point has been precisely that Christian theology & ethics - at
least their healthy varieties - have developed well past that kind of thing. (&
other traditions have too, but that's not to the point right now.) But 3000
years ago there wasn't a whole lot better that was available. Genocide is
reprehensible today, and believing in a solid dome of heaven is dumb. But I
don't think it's helpful for us to be self-righteous about the activity of
Israelites of 3000 years ago or to think that we're intrinsically smarter
because we understand astronomy better.
Let me also note that my point in initiating this thread seems to have
been pretty well missed by everybody, perhaps because of my lack of clarity. I
did not want to argue for polygamy, holy wars &c. My argument was really
directed toward conservatives who feel that they have to accept the scientific
picture of the world used in the Bible but who realize (openly or tacitly) that
the moral standards accepted in parts of the Bible are not acceptable today.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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