Because if the potion is actually harmless, and the Biblical author knew this, he was being deliberately misleading. If he thought the potion was harmful but was wrong, he was still fully expecting miscarriages to happen as a result of this punishment. Therefore, we have a situation in which the Bible commands a procedure with the expected result of a miscarriage; if we were presented with this situation in any literature but the bible, we would easily conclude that constitutes support for abortion.
I do not believe that is the case.
Do you have a new argument or are you going to repeat what you already said ad infinitum?
Who knows, maybe prolapsed uterii DID happen as a result from time to time.I suppose it could be that all parties simply believed that God would do all the punishing, but then why concoct such a silly ceremony in the first place? Someone at some point thought it was important that this whole procedure be carried out, but why? Public humiliation or a display of clerical power?Do you have a new argument or are you going to repeat what you already said ad infinitum?
How about this: the priest knew the concoction was harmless. So did the woman, the man, and all involved. Ink, dust, and water has never harmed anybody and it’s unreasonable to believe that anyone ever believed it was the “potion itself”. In fact, even the scripture makes clear that it is a CURSE from God which supposedly does the action in the event that the woman is guilty.
Ergo, the priest administers a concoction that he knows is harmless, asks God to administer punishment if the woman is guilty, and then leaves it to God to decide whether the woman suffers such a fate.
At any rate, the priest fully expects that if God wants He will take action, but the ACTION of the priest cannot possibly be described as abortion because IF the woman becomes ill and miscarries, the action is by God, who has all right to human life and ending it at any time for any reason. There is never a point at the process where the priest believes his actions (apart from God) will lead to any sort of consequence on the woman.
Now, as I originally asked, do you have some new question, or are you going to restate the same deficient logical syllogism (devoid of a comprehensive set of possibilities)?
Or sympathetic magic… so that when nothing happened the woman who, if we look at current practices in the middle east, most likely WAS innocent, could go home and her husband could be placated by the fact that he had seen the ceremony and that it was in God’s hands.
So you’re saying that everyone knew the ceremony was pointless except the upset husbands?
I guess it doesn’t matter. There is still the implication that a miscarriage is an appropriate punishment for an unfaithful wife.
chuckle Um… it’s God we’re talking about here, right?
Well I guess we know which side of the Euthyphro dilemma you come down on.
That would seem to be defined in the very position of the Catholic Church, as a Divine Command Deontological system of ethics is our teaching and Divine Command theory posits that morality itself is authored by God…
No, it is quite clear. You have taken the position that if God wanted to abort a baby, we cannot question or know the motives. I believe there is no room for discussion left.
We can question the motives and know them all we like, but it doesn’t make any difference in the question of “is it just”. Just like we might be offended if we found out that Monet piled some of his art in his fireplace and roasted marshmellows over it as it burned, we would not declare that Monet was unjust or committed a crime in so doing… the same applies to God: He is the owner of our lives, and we are His creation.