The issue is not the goodness of monogamy but whether polygamy is tolerable to God. Clearly it is. Even Moses did not denounce it. He certainly banned murder, strange he couldnt be equally clear re polygamy isnt it?
Exactly so. Or more likely, His inspired revisionist temple editors/scribes doing so with inconvenient stories re past great leaders.
Lets lay out some basic facts of the Bible:
Agnosticboy. It is a moral option. If a circumstance like the one I described, were to present it’self. It’s possible that the evil of permitting it is less than the evil of allowing it.
Love isn’t what identifies marriage. Love is supposed to bond all relationships. God was loving Leah because Jacob could not. She was not at fault and God didn’t want a mother of His people to bear children from a womb unloved. Marriage is identified as oneness. One man and one women is a microcosm of one humanity. It’s a simple as that gets as a sign. One man and two women are a manifestly deficient sign of oneness. Leah suffered that reality when she was excluded from it. Laban, who seems to be a father of lies was asked for a daughter to marry into a godly sign of marriage. Through deceit and manipulation he forced a marriage that God only permits iif there is no other choice.
You were supposed to show that Christian morals can be circumstance-based, as in murder and rape not always being wrong. You have not demonstrated how or why God would approve the murderous act. Just you doing it doesn’t mean God approved of it. If you can show me God actually ordering it or assisting you, which is not possible unless you refer to biblical stories, then you’ll be on to something. What about rape?
In my view, if it conflicts with God’s rules, then it is never a moral option. Polygamy does not conflict with God’s rules.
I’ll try to address this point in my next post to you.
Love by itself isn’t what defined a marriage, since also procreation is involved. BOTH Leah and Rachel were considered Jacob’s wives so clearly he met the standard, otherwise why were they called his wives,?! Most importantly, they were treated as such by God.
Oneness refers to union. According to the Biblical writers, it is possible to have multiple unions. We have a union with the Church and we can have a union with our spouse. In the case of polygamy, the man has two unions (or marriages), each marriage has two people within. That’s why I stress the important difference between the biblical writers teaching a two-person marriage as opposed to ‘monogamy’.
True, but where did God divorce or order others to divorce or even assist someone in carrying out a divorce? He did want and assist polygamous acts, and by definition all that God wants and does is perfect and morally good!
Assuming that God’s figurative divorce counts for a literal divorce through implication, then that would mean at some point divorce was made moral. This would count as a change in the rules. I accept this change in rules (which is different from relative or circumstance-based morality, I might add) because Jesus verifies that the change took place (Matthew 19). I don’t see that same verification for polygamy when it comes to it being declared immoral at any point of time. There’s good evidence that it would not change and that’s because polygamy is accommodated in God’s moral laws which are forever binding. I brought up that evidence earlier in the thread regarding how the meaning of adultery (adultery is in 10 commandments - from God’s finger and not Moses) accommodated polyGYNY…
Not to be confrontational, but you seriously have absolutely nothing but out of context fundamentalism.Elf01:
So not only does your side lack evidence for any rule change on polygamy, but I also have counter-evidence.
I used to be a fundamentalist Christian until logic and evidence freed me from it. You start off assuming that all of it is true, and then expect that a deeper look will explain everything. You have nothing to say for all of the other religionists who expect the same of their religion. That leaves you prone to confirmation bias. I start out by looking at the Bible just like any other text, capable of errors, contradictions, I assume nothing.
Does he explain why Genesis 29 can’t serve as evidence for God’s will on polygamy? If so, then use all that you’ve learned from him to argue for it here and you can start by addressing my arguments.
Are you afraid to dive into the details? You’re being very superficial and I have to keep assuming what you mean exactly. What exactly about my point in Genesis 29 is out of context? Are you at least willing to accept that God assisted in polygamy in that case?
Any truth can be built on multiple passages, BUT all of those passages must be coherent - without contradiction. And yes, ONE passage can lead to a contradiction if it conflicts with all of the other passages. Please lets get down to the details of my argument.
You simply have no idea what in the world you are talking about.goout:
Are you afraid to dive into the details? You’re being very superficial and I have to keep assuming what you mean exactly. What exactly about my point in Genesis 29 is out of context? Are you at least willing to accept that God assisted in polygamy in that case?
Any truth can be built on multiple passages, BUT all of those passages must be coherent - without contradiction. And yes, ONE passage can lead to a contradiction if it conflicts with all of the other passages. Please lets get down to the details of my argument.
I know logic, and it’s clear that TRUE statements can not contain contradictions. Do you agree? And if yes, what good is an eternal Truth to a rational mind when it is “chock full of contradictions”?
We are still waiting.goout:
I know logic, and it’s clear that TRUE statements can not contain contradictions. Do you agree? And if yes, what good is an eternal Truth that is “chock full of contradictions”?