Dawkins Demolished

[Flosshilde]

Hmmm, yes, in today's world of suicide bombers our security forces are taught to shoot to kill. An injured, er, person can still detonate a bomb.

Scotty wasn't talking about suicide bombers, or security services, but an individual 'spraying' people with gunshot, in the context of the commandment about not killing. The commandment doesn't have any ifs or buts, just the straightforward instruction not to kill (it doesn't even specify that that applies only to humans, it could equally mean that we shouldn't kill animals). As I said, it's possible to disable someone (even a suicide bomber - should you know that they are a suicide bomber, which is usually not the case) without killing them (I won't mention a Brazilian killed in the London Underground).

[Flosshilde]

(I won't mention a Brazilian killed in the London Underground).

Ah, I see someone already has.

Frenchy, I don't think that Jean Charles de Menezes did fit the description the police had - he just looked vaguely brown.

[MrGongGong]

The commandment doesn't have any ifs or buts, just the straightforward instruction not to kill (it doesn't even specify that that applies only to humans, it could equally mean that we shouldn't kill animals).

Indeed
So to have the clergy praying for those about to break this fundamental "law" is the height of hypocrisy

(I started to have big doubts about the whole christianity thing when , as a treble in the choir, we sang "O little town" and "Once in RDC" at the same service !
it's either a "City" or a "little town" can't these people make their minds up ??? )

[John Skelton]

Indeed So to have the clergy praying for those about to break this fundamental "law" is the height of hypocrisy

You think that Christians should follow every Old Testament law and prohibition literally, Mr GG? "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." Leviticus 18:22. And that if they don't they are on those celebrated heights of hypocrisy?

As Seymour remarks of Dawkins and his chums, in common with the fundamentalists they get so exercised about they have a literal, a-historical, understanding of religious texts which elides massive changes in human society etc. And get equally enraged at any interpretation other than the literal / fundamentalist (denouncing hypocrisy).

(Before you pursue that line, I'm not saying I think the clergy in a military context makes for an edifying spectacle).

[heliocentric]

So there is this commandment not to kill, no ifs or buts as Flosshilde says. And yet not much later on in the Old Testament there's plenty of killing as the chosen people invade and occupy their promised land. Bringing us back on topic, this is the kind of glaring contradiction which those who believe in the "literal truth" of the bible aren't really able to wriggle out of; as for those who believe in twisting the scriptures for pragmatic reasons ("what Jesus really meant was..." and so on) it seems to be OK to delete the commandment not to kill, and of course also the one about making images. So why stop there? Where do you draw the line between fudging the contradictions in the bible (ie. deciding that one or other of its authors wasn't after all divinely and infallibly inspired when writing it) and admitting that as a consistent and credible basis for faith it looks more than a little inadequate?

[MrGongGong]

You think that Christians should follow every Old Testament law and prohibition literally, Mr GG? .

I guess if what you profess is the teachings of Christ then I would assume that the 10 commandments are pretty fundamental to that belief system !

Where it says "Thou shalt not kill" I always assumed that it mean't that you shouldn't kill people !

I'm no Biblical scholar but I always thought that Jesus was in favour of this one ?? whereas some of the dodgy stuff in Leviticus and Deuteronomy is more "marginal" ?

But if what you say is true

"As Seymour remarks of Dawkins and his chums, in common with the fundamentalists they get so exercised about they have a literal, a-historical, understanding of religious texts which elides history, changes in human society etc."

then the Christian churches are more than a little guilty of "moral relativism" which is supposedly what they are standing against ????

[Serial_Apologist]

(I started to have big doubts about the whole christianity thing when , as a treble in the choir, we sang "O little town" and "Once in RDC" at the same service !
it's either a "City" or a "little town" can't these people make their minds up ??? )

My doubts, which originated with reading Sartre's "La Nausee" at age 14, galloped on the discovery that the school's deputy chaplain - who had asked me personal questions I thought had nothing to do with Confirmation Class btw - had been "interfering" with some of the younger boys. Up to that time my parents had "warned" me in portentious terms about a certain aunt being "an atheist", and as leader of the school choir I had anxieties that my questionings might bring the roof of the chapel down on all our heads -

In the proverbial end it and other experiences of adolescence all proved valuable lessons in unaccountable power that have stayed with me. He was either sacked or resigned, and it was all hushed up.

[Serial_Apologist]

So there is this commandment not to kill, no ifs or buts as Flosshilde says. And yet not much later on in the Old Testament there's plenty of killing as the chosen people invade and occupy their promised land. Bringing us back on topic, this is the kind of glaring contradiction which those who believe in the "literal truth" of the bible aren't really able to wriggle out of; as for those who believe in twisting the scriptures for pragmatic reasons ("what Jesus really meant was..." and so on) it seems to be OK to delete the commandment not to kill, and of course also the one about making images. So why stop there? Where do you draw the line between fudging the contradictions in the bible (ie. deciding that one or other of its authors wasn't after all divinely and infallibly inspired when writing it) and admitting that as a consistent and credible basis for faith it looks more than a little inadequate?

Can we accuse muslims of not being relativists? We ask it of our Christian brethren struggling to square theocratic circles and find ourselves able to point out intrinsic dilemmas. This is where I tend to part company with those who take a heavy-handed view of Dawkins's condemnations of Islam.

[robk]

According to my bible the command is not to commit murder. In the Old Testament the law allowed the taking of life in revenge for murder and seemingly did not exclude killing in war. Nothing much changed there then! Jesus generally took the ten commandments and strengthened them. He diffused the situation of the women taken in adultery by suggesting the person without sin should throw the first stone. I agree that there are contradictions in what is a very disparate collection of writings but perhaps not as many as some argue. Have I gone off topic - sorry!!

[Serial_Apologist]

According to my bible the command is not to commit murder. In the Old Testament the law allowed the taking of life in revenge for murder and seemingly did not exclude killing in war. Nothing much changed there then! Jesus generally took the ten commandments and strengthened them. He diffused the situation of the women taken in adultery by suggesting the person without sin should throw the first stone. I agree that there are contradictions in what is a very disparate collection of writings but perhaps not as many as some argue. Have I gone off topic - sorry!!

Thanks for this, robk.

I don't have an Old Testament Bible, but for the benefit of those who do, would you happen to know whereabouts in the OT the Ten Comandments are first enunciated? Might be useful for spotting the changes JC brought into the Sermon on the Mount.

[aeolium]

As Seymour remarks of Dawkins and his chums, in common with the fundamentalists they get so exercised about they have a literal, a-historical, understanding of religious texts which elides history, changes in human society etc. And get equally enraged at any interpretation other than the literal / fundamentalist (denouncing hypocrisy).

Not for the first time, I think Seymour is just wrong here and it makes me wonder just how much of Dawkins' work he has read. Far from eliding history and changes in society, he refers back to the difference in the historical accounts of the authors of the gospels, other creation myths around that period and at other periods. He doesn't merely consider the literal texts but various theologians' interpretations of them, right up to the present day. If Richard Seymour means that Dawkins does not sufficiently take account of economic changes in understanding the attractions of and development of religious belief, then he may have more of a case, although Dawkins does acknowledge the argument of religion being used as a tool by a ruling class to subjugate the underclass. Dawkins, though, as a Darwinian, wants to know 'why people are vulnerable to the charms of religion and therefore open to exploitation by priests, politicians and kings'. His interpretation, even if you disagree with it, has at least made an attempt to examine and challenge the arguments made by religious theorists, rather than explain away all religion, and religious conflict, as at bottom merely manifestations of the class struggle.

It's interesting by the way that Seymour seems to be such a strong defender of the religious against the 'new atheists'. He is presumably an admirer of Lenin, who was responsible for the extensive destruction of Russian monasteries and killing of priests (though his policy towards Muslims and Jews was more tolerant). Many more were killed under Stalin. Both Marx and Lenin thought, as Dawkins does, that belief in religion is delusional though Marx was more sympathetic ("Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions"). That did not, though, stop him from stating that '"the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism".

[Anna]

I don't have an Old Testament Bible, but for the benefit of those who do, would you happen to know whereabouts in the OT the Ten Comandments are first enunciated? Might be useful for spotting the changes JC brought into the Sermon on the Mount.

As a list - Exodus 20:1-17 (There are other references to the Tablets in Exodus and Deuteronomy of course)

[jean]

According to my bible the command is not to commit murder.

It's the Hebrew bible we need.

Both the KJV and the Vulgate use general words for kill, so unless the Hebrew they're translating really is more specific about who you are not allowed to kill, using the word murder is already an interpretation.

Some alternative translations and commentary here.

[Serial_Apologist]

As a list - Exodus 20:1-17 (There are other references to the Tablets in Exodus and Deuteronomy of course)

Of course!

Thanks, Anna!

[robk]

Does this help?
You shall not murder or You shall not kill, KJV Thou shalt not kill (LXX οὐ φονεύσεις, translating Hebrew לֹא תִּרְצָח lo tirṣaḥ), is a moral imperative included as one of the Ten Commandments in the Torah,[1] specifically Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17.
The imperative is against unlawful killing resulting in bloodguilt. The Hebrew Bible contains numerous prohibitions against unlawful killing, but also allows for justified killing in the context of warfare, capital punishment, and self-defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_shall_not_murder