Religion: pros & cons (Religion)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, October 20, 2014, 21:51 (3685 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: The questions you have asked me pose clear moral dilemmas: we know the meaning of “killing” and “stealing”, both of which harm other people. But the dilemma in this context is far from clear. Whatever the original words may have meant (translation is a subjective exercise), we know that the people who wrote these texts did not have blood transfusions in mind, since the procedure did not exist. Would you then allow a child to die because a tiny minority of biblical scholars believe eating and ingesting are synonymous with transfusing? Of course you have the right to let yourself die, and that is why I am using the example of a child. You say you believe God wants us to enjoy and preserve life. You have also said that some of the most vicious laws in the OT were cancelled by the “new covenant”. The article I referred to quoted Luke 6, 7-10, in which Jesus cured a man's withered hand on the Sabbath, and the author comments that “Jesus invoked the Rabbinic principle...that the obligation to save life supersedes Jewish law.” In the scenario we are discussing here, it is not even clear that a law is being broken. And we also know that barring the unforeseen - a proviso that applies to all medications and operations - this manner of taking blood is harmless to the donor as well as life-saving to the recipient. Do you really believe, then, that the Jesus who cured on the Sabbath would have refused to allow the child to have a transfusion?
> -To answer the first question last, Christ would have not needed to allow a transfusion, as he demonstrated many times in front of numerous witnesses. Your so-called provisio also completely ignores all of the other scriptural evidence presented. I am not sure if you are actually reading the scriptures I post, but I have shown you several that explicitly say that saving your life is not grounds for breaking God's law. Further, the Sabbath was about taking a day of rest and setting aside time to worship God. And how loving of a provision is that? We can see today that humans will happily work each other to death, but the Sabbath law ensure that EVERYONE, even slaves, received time to rest and recover. -Yes, Christ cured on the Sabbath, and even endorsed saving life on the Sabbath, but he did not break God's laws to do so. The two prime components of the Old Law Covenant are stated at Mathew 22:34-40, "‘You must love Jehovah* your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul* and with your whole mind.'+ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 The second, like it, is this: ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.'" You look at the Law and see it as cruel and vicious. Why? I would love to discuss the law with you. --
>DHW: The blood example has taken over our discussion, as I'm sure it often does when you discuss these matters with outsiders. But the discussion in itself serves only to illustrate my point: that the bible is wide open to interpretation. One can hardly say it's not, when your own interpretation is so fiercely contested by your fellow biblical scholars. The “I am right and they are wrong” approach certainly does not mean that the text itself is clear.-Not at all. The bible is right, God is right. Everyone, including myself, could certainly be very wrong in deed. Fortunately, there is a provision for our ignorance. Prov 16:2 Tells us that God judges the motives of a man, not just the actions. Indeed, all of our ways 'seem pure to us', that is, we'd like to think we are doing the right thing, even when that thing causes unknown harm. Isn't it loving that, conceding our ignorance, he doesn't judge us based on our stupidity, but on what motivated us to take the course of action that we did. So, they can suck blood out of little baggies all day long, and call it whatever they like. As for me and mine, we will be obedient to the best of our abilities.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.