posted on Sep, 21 2004 @ 10:16 AM
Hey Marg6043:
"Amadeus, I've never heard you talk like this before..."
Sorry, Marge, I was just trying to have a little fun for a change..so many people take the ritual To'qeboth ("abominations") and blatant
sexist-racism of the Bible so seriously, I have to laugh a little at them once in a while if they think they are upholding some kind of eternal divine
morality by following the precepts in the Jewish "scriptures".
As I've said before on these threads, I hardly think the "Bible" is a wholesome place to look for any kind of humane morality in the 21st century
West.
People living in Democracies simply don't live (or even think) like that and any encouragement to start "moving civilisation backwards" needs to be
stopped dead in its tracks right now.
The kind of fear-baseed "US versus THEM", xenophobic racist ("we are the chosen people" cf: "we are the Master Race") mentality that we read in
the Bible (both OT and NT) might have seemed to have worked well for all those primitive semi nomads lost in the desert throwing Urum and Thummim dice
around for the next tent stakeout all those thousands of years ago, primitives near savages who needed every son they could count among them to
fight their nomadic tribal wars--- but we in the overpopulated West are not part of that Weltanschauung----and anyone who thinks that the confused and
reactionary "morality" in the Bible has relevance for modern man needs to go back and read the text a little more carefully next time.
Even in their watered down English translation if that's all they can read. But it's much harsher in Paleo Hebrew.
Today, we, in the West at least, don't tend to condone RACIAL GENOCIDE any more (read the vomit in the book of "Joshua" in whatever versions you
care to consult (LXX, MT, Pe#ta, DSS) for a taste of what "the Bible says" about how to deal with non Yahwistic residents of Canaan like the people
of Ai).
The Torah itself is even worse when it comes to Morality. Read the genocidal extermination policies explicit in Deuteronomy chapter 20 or the orders
"to exterminate" from YHWH in chapter 13 ---a morality which led the Ultra Orthodox "Dr" Chasidic Rabbi Baruch Goldstein to scream verbatim while
he opened fire with his American Made Automatic Weapon in Hebron on the morning of 25 Feb 1994, killing 29 people in cold blood?
Dr Goldstein thought he was "upholding the morality of G-d" when he started screaming verses from Hezekiel chapter 8 and 9 and then starting
shooting all those who "were facing the east" in the Mosque that Friday morning...or as Hezekiel said, "Show no Pity, Murder them all..."
Some Morality to live by !
Even David, (whom the clan -god YHWH says, "Behold my Servant David, a MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART!") lived by a different MORALITY than what the Bible
later included in its texts: clearly David himsefl did not keep the Mosaic Law (of the Torah) any more than a gentile dog because---clearly--- there
was at his time, no "recogniseable" Mosaic law (i.e with what we have today in the Masoretic Text) during that period in Israelitish history.
So therefore there is no Mosaic Universal Law that was handed down from the beginning, just different moral codes that kept getting refined over time.
This curious non-observance of even basic tenets of the later Torah (which must have meant a different set of Ordinances in early days from what was
later put into the Masoretic "received" text of the Jews that we can read today) might explain why Moses felt free to make Jebusite bronze snake
idols in the desert to worship (and even, to add insult to injury, place them on top of poles !) or why Aaron felt free to make golden calves out of
earings, or also might explain why David, 300 years later, felt free to walk around wearing the linen "ephod" of the Levitical Priests---when he was
of the tribe of Judah---and then go and dance half naked in front of the Ark of the covenant,--a taboo relic which only the Levetical priests could
approach--- and might also explain his "abominabale" sexual practices with prince Jonathan (read II Samuel 1:30 etc for a taste of David's court
love poetry to another male)---makes sense ONLY if there was no book of Leveticus in force at the time which listed all those ritual toqeboth
("abominations", " hateful things to YHWH")
The so-called "morality" which people extract from "the Bible" comes from the late reactionary "laws" that came to be written AFTER THE EXILE
(post 587 BC) by priests who were trying to re-constitute Judah in some form or fashion after Israel was destroyed by first Assyria (721-701 BC) and
then Babylon (BC 601 to BC 587).
The wandering Israelites in the early days at first needed healthy male bodies for their military and later for their rebuilding projects, so
bi-sexuality-homosexial practices were not encouraged and later after the Babylonian Exile, they became "ritually toq'ebah" ---but these forbidden
practices (not only were Canaanite remeniscent but..) had a very practical aspect to them as well... it produced no sons and wasted "seed" as
someone pointed out--in a culture where every male counted in order for their decimated communities to survive.
Similarly, various 'practical reasons' which reflect a dying/struggling "remnant" community may lie at the root of the superstitious ritual
toqeboth morality in the tiresome book of "Leveticus" with all the abomination (to'qeboth) laws i.e. why certain "laws" were passed after the
Exile (i.e. avoidance of pork and seafood for example)...
But we live in the modern age of refrigeration, and are not struggling to survive in terms of numbers in the West, so most of these superstitious
to'qeboth have no validity to the modern 21st century citizen today...
In fact, most of the dubious "morality" of the Bible (that is besides all the blatant genocidal racism and overt sexism in the text) such as the
condoning of Slavery and Polygamy, and the relegation of females to chattel, as well as on the other hand, the prohbition of such practices as
masturbation (i.e. the Sin of Onan) or sowing diverse seeds in the same field, or mixing cotton and linen together in the same garment (which would
naturally affect the modern garment industry) should tell you how worthless and useless these documents are for modern man in the West to live by any
more.
Yet how many so called Fundamentalist Christians today (who cannot even read Paleo Hebrew) pick and choose some of these silly To'qeboth out of books
like Leveticus and throw them into people's faces as examples of how to "live by God's Law"...
It really is too much of a Joke...which is why I make so much fun of the whole subject at times !
But don't get me wrong, Marge. The subject underneath is deadly serious. Especially for those 29 Palestinians that Rabbi Goldstein "exterminated"
in the name of the clan-god of Israel to uphold the pseudo morality of such worm eaten texts as a Torah which would dare to encourage such heinous
crimes against humanity as we see perpetrated in "Israel" today....