Originally posted by antimony
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How about slavery, rape, child abuse?
But these are not just laws, are they? They are supposed to commandments, directly from god. As such, they should be all encompassing, universal and eternal. Instead we have a few pronouncements urging believers to believe in one specific god and a few very specific pronouncements against some very specific crimes. Hence my contention, this is a set of man made laws not relevant in today's society. If you want a historical basis for a law abiding society, I am sure we can take plenty from Greek or Roam texts
Your reply reflects a basic misunderstanding of the scriptures. You've heard the saying that man is created in the image of God. The idea is that a prime creator is the source of all matter in the universe and all physical laws affecting it. True or not, if you reason from that point, you come to the conclusion that your body consists of this matter and is subject to the physical laws, which are everywhere the same. Thus, the argument goes, you are directly connected or part of his/its whole body, and because of this, his will can be known by man if seeks it. Building on this idea yields attempts to develop right laws to govern and lead the individual and the society of which he is a part. And those attempts are, of course, characterized as the 'word of God'. Now, whether or not the basis of this lawmaking is true, the individuals who wrote down the law believed it was true. In drawing on this idea, they set down commandments that were presented as divine revelation. They, in effect, created a religion. In order to preserve the basic idea, they led off their commandments with the one that commands people to accept only one god ("I am the Lord, thy God...etc). And for good measure they added one prohibiting worship of idols...material things. The added 'Keeping the Sabbath' because something similar was done in Egypt from where they had recently escaped. It was a custom in Egypt at the time for people to refocus on spiritual matters after a long week of dealing with material matters. The rest of the commandments were just common sense rules for maintaining a harmonious and secure society. You can toss it all out as outdated, but you won't be rid of it. Today it is reflected in all modern law everywhere, inasmuch as all the major religions have counterparts to the commandments, with cultural variations of course.
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