This is a major thesis of Mirror Reversal that I’d love to discuss.  I’d love to hear reasonable defenses of the Holy Scriptures to the following accusations:

The three patriarchal religions condone and encourage the following immoral behavior:  war, slavery, misogyny, homophobia, genocide, child abuse, murder, isolation from friends and family, self flagellation, xenophobia, guilt about sex, dichotomous thinking (seeing everything as right or wrong, good or evil), hadephobia, hierarchical obsequiousness (kissing the boss’ ass), and ego abasement…  on and on. 

No wonder human history is so screwed up!

It also seems immoral to me to present supernatural explanations about the nature of the universe as the ultimate truth and basis of how one should live their life to children and other naive persons.

Aristopus - 11 April 2012 01:50 PM

This is a major thesis of Mirror Reversal that I’d love to discuss.  I’d love to hear reasonable defenses of the Holy Scriptures to the following accusations:

The three patriarchal religions condone and encourage the following immoral behavior:  war, slavery, misogyny, homophobia, genocide, child abuse, murder, isolation from friends and family, self flagellation, xenophobia, guilt about sex, dichotomous thinking (seeing everything as right or wrong, good or evil), hadephobia, hierarchical obsequiousness (kissing the boss’ ass), and ego abasement…  on and on. 

No wonder human history is so screwed up!

Damn. I can’t think of any defense for any of that. If it weren’t considered to be an infallible holy book by so many people, I’d say it is simply an accurate reflection of the mores and attitudes of its time. In fact, I will say that. It’s when modern people try to treat it like a textbook, an encyclopedia, and a guide to life that it becomes a big problem.

I’m pretty sure I can defend any of these positions if challenged.  Take the one on slavery.  There are numerous quotations in the Bible, Old and New, that accepts and condones slavery.  It was no more a moral issue than our going into a restaurant and telling the waiter staff to get us all kinds of stuff. 

I always liked the lecture by Professor Teofilo Ruiz of UCLA, a Cuban expatriate who’s an expert on early Spanish history.  It’s a good example of how religion screws up thinking: 

When the Conquistadors landed in Western Africa they needed slaves to replace the Taino Indians that were being worked to death in the gold mines of Hispaniola.  There were only a few tribe members left and none today.  They were sending gold back to Spain by the galleon load.  The island had over a hundred gold mines that needed fresh healthy laborers. 

1.  The land belongs to God.

2.  These half-naked savages are definitely the children of the devil.

3.  God would prefer us to own the land and enslave these savages because we are righteous.

4.  If we enslave them to work the mines, we can bring them closer to God.

5.  In fact, it’s better for them if we work them to death than if they stay here in the tropical paradise but lose their souls. 

No bull.  It’s enough to piss a humanist off just thinking about it.

Aristopus - 11 April 2012 04:55 PM

I’m pretty sure I can defend any of these positions if challenged.  Take the one on slavery.  There are numerous quotations in the Bible, Old and New, that accepts and condones slavery.  It was no more a moral issue than our going into a restaurant and telling the waiter staff to get us all kinds of stuff. 

I always liked the lecture by Professor Teofilo Ruiz of UCLA, a Cuban expatriate who’s an expert on early Spanish history.  It’s a good example of how religion screws up thinking: 

When the Conquistadors landed in Western Africa they needed slaves to replace the Taino Indians that were being worked to death in the gold mines of Hispaniola.  There were only a few tribe members left and none today.  They were sending gold back to Spain by the galleon load.  The island had over a hundred gold mines that needed fresh healthy laborers. 

1.  The land belongs to God.

2.  These half-naked savages are definitely the children of the devil.

3.  God would prefer us to own the land and enslave these savages because we are righteous.

4.  If we enslave them to work the mines, we can bring them closer to God.

5.  In fact, it’s better for them if we work them to death than if they stay here in the tropical paradise but lose their souls. 

No bull.  It’s enough to piss a humanist off just thinking about it.

Yeah it seems psychopathic to me, but it worked out well for the Conquistadores.

Aristopus - 11 April 2012 01:50 PM

This is a major thesis of Mirror Reversal that I’d love to discuss.  I’d love to hear reasonable defenses of the Holy Scriptures to the following accusations:

The three patriarchal religions condone and encourage the following immoral behavior:  war, slavery, misogyny, homophobia, genocide, child abuse, murder, isolation from friends and family, self flagellation, xenophobia, guilt about sex, dichotomous thinking (seeing everything as right or wrong, good or evil), hadephobia, hierarchical obsequiousness (kissing the boss’ ass), and ego abasement…  on and on. 

No wonder human history is so screwed up!

Ha-ha, it would be hard to come up with a reasonable defence for that stuff that would convince freethinkers; but the bible thumpers have no problem with - as you say, dichotomous thinking.  To them, life is simply black and white; and if we can’t take it, then they say we should die.

When the Conquistadors landed in Western Africa they needed slaves to replace the Taino Indians that were being worked to death in the gold mines of Hispaniola.  There were only a few tribe members left and none today.  They were sending gold back to Spain by the galleon load.  The island had over a hundred gold mines that needed fresh healthy laborers. 

1.  The land belongs to God.

2.  These half-naked savages are definitely the children of the devil.

3.  God would prefer us to own the land and enslave these savages because we are righteous.

4.  If we enslave them to work the mines, we can bring them closer to God.

5.  In fact, it’s better for them if we work them to death than if they stay here in the tropical paradise but lose their souls. 

No bull.  It’s enough to piss a humanist off just thinking about it.

Remember also that the Spanish bought the slaves from West Africa from the Portusuese who began the trade. The conquistadores were bored Spanish military leaders who had just defeated the Moors and wanted to search for the three G’s (gold, god, and glory). See the above, and I sustain that list! God was used for a justification to commit the atrocities against the native peoples of Africa and the Americas. Everyone knows that you can cherry pick anything from that loose collection of pseudo- history and bronze age philosophy to cover practically anything you want, including genocide (ex. the Jews killed jesus, soooo).

Cap’t Jack

Nah, you people just added one erroneous hidden premise at the beginning:  that god has all the moral ideas that we think of as good.  In reality, s/he/it obviously assigns all the moral beliefs listed in the first post above as positive.  Remember when he got pissed at Jobe for asking why he was being punished after being so good and said something like, “What makes you think, asshole, that you can have any idea of what my ethics are?” 

See, we just misunderstood what’s really moral. 

Occam