Why did Lot offer up his daughters to be raped?

[Freddy]

Well, you’ve covered all bases here.

1. Just because we think they’re innocent, they could still be guilty.
2. But they are not guilty because they haven’t commited any sin.
3. God would know how they would turn out but gave them no chance to repent (for things yet done?).
4. It’s up to God anyway.

 

[Freddy]

Those children were in the clear. As we’ve been trying to say to you.

No Julius. That’s what you have said. Others have said that they were killed because they were part of a corrupt city. Collateral damage as it were. Plus I have been told that they were guilty. Plus I have been told that they could turn out to be guilty. Plus Inhave been told that it’s better off killing them anyway. Plus…it’s up to God, so who are we to question it.

My problem, which I think would have been glaringly obvious, is that there have been arguments in support of killing infants. And the reason it’s found acceptable is that quite a few people consider that it was God’s will.

Now personally, the story can only be read as a metaphor. Mess with God and you will be punished. But not just you, but your family, your friends, the whole city. Including your children and even the unborn. It’s the ultimate threat. Even if you don’t care about your own soul then surely you must care about your children’s.

Has anyone pointed out this rather, to me, obvious point? No. But there have been post after post trying to justify it.

One can extrapolate from the arguments to suggest that if someone genuinely believes that God is commanding them to do something that we would all consider evil, then there would be an internal argument suggesting, not that they are wrong in thinking that God has commanded it, but that it cannot be evil because God has commanded it. And therefore proceed.

 

[Freddy]

That’s exactly my point. Especially when it comes to ‘his prophets’. Which can literally be anyone. And to some extents to a state (‘God is on our side’, ‘Gott mit uns’ etc).

The arguments that claim that it is justified to kill innocents allows anyone to claim that he is doing ‘God’s will’ and acting on God’s behalf because God has ‘granted the authority’.

We don’t want people confusing metaphors about avoiding sin with a justification for carrying it out.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

But not just you, but your family, your friends, the whole city. Including your children and even the unborn.

Death is only a punishment if you are in sin.

 

[Freddy]

All prophets are known by their works.

All states are granted the authority. Some abuse it.

The arguments that claim that it is justified to kill innocents

You keep saying innocents, but except in cases of infants we cannot make that judgement.

(‘God is on our side’, ‘Gott mit uns’ etc).

That’s what the Church is for.
[/quote]

That was a post that ignored everything I said.

I was specifically talking about infants. And if someone is convinced he is doing God’s work then who are you to say he is not? It can’t be because he intends to do evil because we have seen that some people say that God will allow that. Indeed, will even suggest that God can command it.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

But not just you, but your family, your friends, the whole city. Including your children and even the unborn.

Death is only a punishment if you are in sin.

So it’s OK to kill innocent children because their parents are sinners.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

So it’s OK to kill innocent children because their parents are sinners.

Or their time was simply up and God found no cause in them.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So it’s OK to kill innocent children because their parents are sinners.

Or their time was simply up and God found no cause in them.

I’m afraid that makes no sense in regard to the discussion.

 

[Elf01]

I’m pro choice, not pro abortion

Same thing. You should have no issue with God killing those in the womb since you have no issue with their mothers doing it.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

I am sure that you are right. I think there is a problem that some people regard reasoning about morality as something that can be reduced to a science or a series of logical deductions. Obviously people need to have a framework within which to determine morality, but one can also risk losing sight of the human dimension.

For example, there was another recent thread where somebody was asking about the morality of sometimes not being honest with people who have dementia. I would say that this is a question for a doctor or a psychologist or something that family members can work out based on experience. For example, when I used to volunteer with people with dementia, I used to see a woman who seemed to be permanently anticipating going on holiday to Wales with her parents. Every time I spoke to her, she would tell me that she was about to go to Wales with her parents. I guess her dementia had progressed to the point where she could only remember this one event from her childhood. It was clearly a happy memory for her, and I was told that it was best to let her believe in something that clearly seemed real to her. However, apparently, if one goes along with such delusions, it is perverting the faculty of communication, which is contrary to natural law. I can follow the reasoning, but it seems to become an abstract intellectual exercise rather than something that can be applied to real life.

So, returning to the example at hand, I do understand the process of reasoning involved. However, it simplifies very complex human experiences. It is as if real people and real experiences are not really important, and all that matters are the scientific principles that can be learned from textbooks. I keep reading arguments that follow the pattern of “A perverts the faculty of B”. Another baffling argument was that using contraception is the same as vomiting, because contraception perverts the faculty of reproduction in the same way as vomiting perverts the faculty of digestion. I see the logic, but I just don’t think that human experience and moral choices can all be simplified like this.

The worrying thing is when one ends up with people making these extraordinary statements, such as that the rape of a man is worse than the rape of a woman. Everything that we know as feeling, intuitive human beings, and everything that we know from observation of actual human experience, tells us that the rape of a man and the rape of a woman are both horrific crimes which have devastating impacts on their victims, and we know that there is no point in trying to weigh one against the other. Indeed, some would say that the fact that the woman risks an unwanted pregnancy as a result of rape should be considered an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one. But, apparently, cold, hard logic tells us that when a woman is raped, it is “merely” a sin against chastity with added violence, not a sin against nature, and is therefore not as bad.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I’m pro choice, not pro abortion

Same thing.

Which is why your arguments against abortion will always fall on deaf ears. You don’t appreciate the position of those with whom you argue.

Rule 1: Always attempt to understand the position of your opponent.

 

[Freddy]

Literally the Church’s job.

If he claims it, and the Church says he is not, then he clearly is not.

So it’s OK to kill innocent children because their parents are sinners.

God can do as He pleases. They are His creations.
[/quote]

Not everyone is Catholic. And not everyone checks with the church as to what is correct. And not everyone agrees with the position the church takes. But apart from that…

And if the God that you believe in would kill innocent children then it wouldn’t be the God that I could believe in.

 

[Anicette]

I think the crucial question of our debate is: is there an absolute, a morality, which means God above all realities of existence, or things are always relative and dependant to the people’s concern feelings about them- which means no God, or at the maximum an absent God such as in theism doctrine, as opposed to a sovereign God like the Catholic Church believes.

To answer your arguments:

For example, there was another recent thread where somebody was asking about the morality of sometimes not being honest with people who have dementia. I would say that this is a question for a doctor or a psychologist or something that family members can work out based on experience.

I agree with you that it is a question for people who have the experience, the experts and the relatives of the person concerned. But I would add that we can add a moral perspective because we should always seek what is right and what is pleasing God.

With my husband we also visit a family member with demantia. She lives in a retirement house since a stroke. She always said us that she didn’t live here, she just go here for the mass and now she waited the bus. Like you, we didn’t argue with her in saying it is untrue. Nor the medical staff who just opinated when she said that. Yet, we had not enter in her dement thinking with helping her to go to thereal bus stop. If she had tried we should have stopped her. I am sure that you would agree with this approach. We don’t analyse our attitude before to find the moral and Catholic way to deal with the problem. But I think in the result it was a moral attitude, to respect her in her belief without putting herself in danger.

However, apparently, if one goes along with such delusions, it is perverting the faculty of communication, which is contrary to natural law.
[/quote
I don’t think it is what the Church ask us.

It is as if real people and real experiences are not really important, and all that matters are the scientific principles that can be learned from textbooks

real people and real experiences are important. However we are all limited people and our experience is also limited. We can’t see all the dimension of everything by only empirical experience. If our experience is traumatic it can even distorsed our vision to life.
For eg, If a woman has been raped by a man and let her trauma run her life, she can quickly come to the conclusion that if one man treated her like that it is because she is undeserving. If this man was like that, it is because there is fundamentally something pervert in man’s nature. The only intellectual conclusion is to not procreate and let the human race extinct herself.
It can be seen caricatural, but I am sure that it is the thinking that some people see as rational.

That’s why we argue that experience is not enough and objective morality from God is to enlight our conscience.
Even most philosophs would agree that feelings are not enough and we should tend to something moral- an “universal” thruth for the human race.

 

[Anicette]

Another baffling argument was that using contraception is the same as vomiting, because contraception perverts the faculty of reproduction in the same way as vomiting perverts the faculty of digestion.

That is an oversimplification of the argument of John F Kippley*.

Contraception is not really the same as vomiting. It is an unperfect analogy to make us understand a logic.

The lay theologian don’t compare to vomiting as a biological reaction that happens sometimes, but to roman orgies where men gather to eat more their body can accept, so they vomit in order to not be ill and to continue to eat more. It is eating for eating with no link to the bgiological need of nutrition.

And we also noted that eating is a biological need, whereas sexuality is not because we can choose to abstain without dying.

The argument is that if we want to have sex, we have to accept the consequences. It is naturally ordained to procreation, so we should prepare to welcome a baby, even if a baby is not conceived every time nor that we should “try” to conceive all the time we are intimate.
It is not even sinful if we deliberatly abstain during fertile period but not always in less fertile period.

• the co author of The art of Natural Family Planning.

 

[goout]

Literally the Church’s job.

If he claims it, and the Church says he is not, then he clearly is not.

Freddy:

So it’s OK to kill innocent children because their parents are sinners.

God can do as He pleases. They are His creations.

Not everyone is Catholic. And not everyone checks with the church as to what is correct. And not everyone agrees with the position the church takes. But apart from that…

And if the God that you believe in would kill innocent children then it wouldn’t be the God that I could believe in.
[/quote]

I’m just going to quote this post as a textbook example of why fundamentalist interpretations of the bible might be participating in the sin of scandal.
And to demonstrate why atheists find justification of their beliefs through fundamentalism, and the atheist conscience (in this type of exchange at least) might be more sharply attuned to the true God than that of some believers.

 

[goout]

God’s omnipotence cannot contradict God’s revealed nature. This is sometimes expressed as “God can’t make a square circle”.
For more from P Benedict on the “logos” of God, check out the Regensburg Address, in which he contrasts the God who is revealed in his Logos, and the God of Islam, who is arbitrary.
Arbitrary means that God’s purposes are utterly unknowable, and he may behave capriciously outside Gods’ revealed nature. This is all discussed in the context of violence, so it might be specifically informative to this discussion.

 

[goout]

That’s a out of context reading of scripture.
The answer to this is Jesus himself and what the Church teaches about Christ.

PART ONE
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

SECTION ONE
“I BELIEVE” - “WE BELIEVE”

CHAPTER TWO
GOD COMES TO MEET MAN

[50] By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation.1 Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

We can know God’s nature by natural reason in grace, always through Christ. Christ is God’s fullest and final revelation of himself.

 

[goout]

I’m not going to run in circles with you.
You claim that God can do what God pleases with his creation.
God’s omnipotence does not contradict God’s revealed nature.

 

[goout]

That’s ok. The replies are for those reading who are looking for Christ. And they ought to have well rounded presentations of our faith.
Your obstinacy is yours.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

That is an oversimplification of the argument of John F Kippley*.

Thanks for explaining. Somebody posted it on a CAF thread but didn’t attribute it to anyone in particular.