Vox Day has a great post:
Vox goes on to cite the New Testament passages that define Christian responsibility to the Law of Moses. He cites the letter of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15):
Vox observes:
As Christians, our Law is a Person.
Christians and the Law
The responsibility of Christians to obey the Law of Moses is a subject that comes up from time to time, which always surprises me because the Bible is perfectly clear on the matter. While it is understandable, though not excusable, that atheists regularly confuse Christianity with Judaism when attempting to criticize the former, it is absolutely bizarre that some Christians are still under the impression that they have an obligation to abide by Jewish Law.
Christians are not Jews. Christians are not obligated to follow Mosaic Law. Ask any Jew, he should be able to confirm it. As will the Bible, in Acts 15...
Vox goes on to cite the New Testament passages that define Christian responsibility to the Law of Moses. He cites the letter of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15):
The apostles and elders, your brothers,To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.But didn't Jesus say that not one iota will pass from the law and that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it?
Vox observes:
The fact that Jesus Christ did not abolish the Law says nothing about its continued inapplicability to those who are not Jews. In fact, to claim it now applies to non-Jews when it did not before on the basis of Matthew 5:17-20 is clearly self-contradictory, for the obvious reason that making it applicable to people to whom it did not previously apply would be changing the letter of it. Note particularly how Jesus states even those who "sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly" will still nevertheless be part of the kingdom of heaven.It is a common atheist rhetorical strategy to hold Christians to account for all manner of Old Testament Law-- stoning homosexuals, executing disobedient children, holding slaves, etc. That conflates Christianity with Judaism, and obviously misrepresents modern Judaism as well. The proper reply to the strategy is this: Christians are freed from obedience to Mosaic Law.
As Christians, our Law is a Person.
Yes, and though anti-theists spend their lives haranguing Christians about barbaric Old Testament laws that we don't follow and haven't ever followed because they don't apply anno Domini, they rarely if ever harangue Jews for the same thing. I think they understand that this would be a form of antisemitism.
ReplyDeleteI don't stone people for working on the sabbath and I sometimes wear clothing made of two kinds of material. I also enjoy shrimp cocktails. And while I believe homosexuality to be wrong, I don't put homosexuals to death, or witches for that matter. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, is there anything else you anti-theists would like to talk about?
TRISH
We're too busy laughing at the idea of building a rule of law on an imaginary person.
DeleteOne of the greatest advances in Western societies is that law is based on rules achieved by democratic consensus, not on the whims of single people, imaginary or not. It's great that Egnor shows that his Muslim faith is a barbarism.
TRISH,
DeleteYou should check out A. J. Jacobs's book The year of living biblically. One of the things he learned was: "I became the ultra-fundamentalist. I found that fundamentalists may claim to take the Bible literally, but they actually just pick and choose certain rules to follow. By taking fundamentalism extreme, I found that literalism is not the best way to interpret the Bible."
I heard the author being interviewed on NPR, of all stations.
DeleteAnd it sounds as if he didn't understand in the least what Vox Day was getting at.
I have NEVER met a person who claims to take the Bible literally. Not one. I'm certainly not a Biblical literalist. And that's what's frustrates me about talking to ignoramauses like you. First I'm stupid for supposedly taking the Bible literally, then I'm hypocritical for not taking it literally enough. Maybe you should stop and learn what I really believe. It would help if you learned it from the source, rather than from silly books like AJ Jacobs' or from atheist websites. We always know when you got your talking points from the atheist websites because they're always the same well worn, already debunked talking points.
Start by reading for comprehension, not to find gotcha quotes.
TRISH
The "imaginary person" you speak of is not imaginary.
Delete"One of the greatest advances in Western societies is that law is based on rules achieved by democratic consensus, not on the whims of single people, imaginary or not."
Says the ceaseless defender of judicial activism. Anonymous, my state did not allow me to vote on "gay" "marriage." How about some democratic consensus, you hypocrite?
TRISH
@TRISH:
DeleteHe will never stop and learn what you really believe. He isn't interested in learning, he's interested in trying to make a fool out of you.
Little John
"... learning, he's interested in trying to make a fool out of you."
DeleteNaaa! These little trolls don't have even that much ambition. They find it far easier to deminstrate that they are fools.
TRISH- when do I get to vote on your marriage?
DeleteBoo
@Boo:
DeleteYou already did vote. We have laws governing marriage.
Isn't democracy frustrating?
Boo,
DeleteAny time you can get the signatures on the ballot. Go have an argument with anonymous. "One of the greatest advances in Western societies is that law is based on rules achieved by democratic consensus..."
Polygamists just want to have what they want and screw everybody else as well. It's their "right."
TRISH
Am I to believe Christians don’t have to obey the Ten Commandments? That’s super, considering at least five of them would be unconstitutional if they where actual laws. Or are you only talking about stoning children and owning slaves?
ReplyDelete-KW
Those were renewed in the New Testament. Stoning children is out. I'm not sure what you're referencing with owning slaves. It certainly wasn't commanded.
DeleteLittle John
KW,
DeleteGood question. The short answer is no, Christians are bound only by one law, Charity. This is sometimes expressed in a single commandment ("Love one another as I have loved you") sometimes in a dual commandment ("Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself") and sometimes as a tenfold commandment (the decalogue.)
In cases where the letter of the decalogue seems to be in conflict with the Spirit of charity, reflection is needed, and the Spirit - being the source of the letter - takes precedence. (So, for instance, a destitute and starving man does not break God's law by taking bread from a wealthy man without paying for it. Such an act is not actually theft, since it is not contrary to justice.) The decalogue is a case study in charity - a way to offer examples to help illustrate the one law of God.
The danger here is twofold: on the one hand, it is tempting to meticulously follow the letter of the commandments and flaunt the Spirit of charity (you could call this the "conservative" heresy); on the other, it is tempting to throw out morality altogether, defining Charity as whatever you want it to mean (you could call this the "liberal" heresy.) Both are mistakes, and ways in which well-meaning Christians can be led away from God.
The problem, I think, is that these 'atheists' are 'Christian Atheists' who see the stories of the old testament in a similar way to the medieval mind that had no reference (even then refuted by many Christian thinkers) to the Judaic interpretations.
ReplyDeleteJudaism just does not compute.
The old testament is a very rich repository of stories for a people who are EXPECTED to argue and interpret these texts BY LAW.
A prime example of this is Abraham and Isaac. (Gen 22)
They see it as a justification for sacrifice - some strange test of loyalty. Anyone who has taken the time (like the Catholic or Big Protestant churches) to understand the story. Rather, the story of Abraham and Isaac is actually a polemic AGAINST child sacrifice and more importantly against the idea that we own our offspring. God 'takes' Isaac to prove to Abraham he does NOT own him, rather he belongs only to God - and that NO HUMAN sacrifice is to be allowed AT ALL.
They think they are being smart, these Anti-theists... but actually they are being, in the broadest terms, anti-Semitic. They are spreading a libel against the Jews that is almost 2000 years old.
PS an excellent speaker on this specific subject is the Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, Lord Sacks. I have had the honour of meeting his Grace (twice once here, and once in Israel), and what a thinker!
DeleteIf you search him on youtube you will find all sorts of commentary on this specific subject and many more we discuss here from a Jewish perspective.
They're not Christian atheists. They're anti-Christian bigots.
DeleteLittle John
LJ,
DeleteMore often than not, those terms are interchangeable.
As Christians, our Law is a Person.
ReplyDeleteAnd as such, your law cannot be objective.
Of course, it must also be kept in mind that Vox Day has a strange and illogical understanding of God -- one not all that dissimilar from that of the God-haters who litter this blog -- and that he denies the Triune nature of God; which denial is doubtless related to his strange and illogical conception of God.
ReplyDeleteYes, manifestly it makes much more sense to believe that your god is three beings in one yet has only a single nature. I mean, who can deny that the Trinity is the most logical form of godhood?
ReplyDeleteYou fools don't even try to get right the truth you will not accept.
ReplyDeleteGod is not three beings; God is one being. God is three persons, who are one being.
"I mean, who can deny that the Trinity is the most logical form of godhood?"
Just those who *refuse* to understand what is being talked about, and refuse to understand why Christianity says that God is three persons, who are one being.
But, really, Anonymouse, you need to go bark somewhere else. Until you admit that God is, you have nothing at all to say.
God is three persons, who are one being.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that really makes sense. God raped Mary, who gave birth to Jesus who is the same being as God himself, while both of them are also the Holy Spirit. Who can argue with that? And then Jesus died, but not really, and God who is also Jesus knew all along that he didn't really die, and by doing so he lifted a curse from himself on a woman who accepted the advice of a talking snake in a magic garden. You have to be really dim not to buy that story.