Very much so, yes. God is even feminine (as well as being masculine; pangendered, if you will) for some of us. 
ETA: it wasn’t clear that I meant liturgically speaking; I’m an effective atheist and so are most of my friends and rabbis.
And I’m sure the old school creeds will consider such a concept to be ridiculous. Irony is never their strong point.
You’re both out of line for Great Debates, and I’m warning each of you. If you can’t converse in a reasonable way, then ignore each other or just post in the Pit. Nobody wants their threads hijacked by read page after page of this nonsense.
I thought I would just add this into the mix since it is on topic. It demonstrates what modern day Christians think so such barbaric practices.
William Lane Craig
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767
OK, so we should all feel sorry for the brutalizing effect the holocaust had on those poor nazi campguards.
It demonstrates what William Lane Craig thinks about them, at least.
“arranged marriages” has to be the most bullshit euphemism I’ve heard all year. Dio was right - this was kidnap and rape.
What, with god on their side, the Jews still had to be scared of some traumatized women? Huh, guess it’s not just iron chariots that are beyond god’s powers.
“Marry” = rape.
God got off on watching the rape instead.
The Bible doesn’t say this.
Where did I say I don’t object to the slaughter? Cite?
William Lane Craig is a sick fuck. The death of babies and children “is their salvation,” is it? All Christians should be out killing all the babies they can, then. They should all be pro-abortion too.
And really, people who worship other gods deserve to be slaughtered? Can assholes like this even hear themselves?
It does show the kind of pretzels apologists will twist themselves into to defend the indefensible, though.
But they did marry the women.
That assumes that God does everything for you in Judaism, which He doesn’t. Why didn’t God just slay all of the Israelites’ enemies himself? We already covered that in the first part of this thread, but you’re a bit late to the game, eh.
This means absolutely nothing.
This just underlines the point that the Bible is no moral guide for today, and that it reflects a barbaric, violent, amoral culture. Yahweh is depicted as a huge piece of shit much of the time.
I disagree, the OT is essentially a moral guide (as well as a history) to this culture, but the morals simply are not our morals; they’re the typical morals of a bronze-age culture.
I think the OT is absolutely fascinating for several reasons
Forced marriage does nothing to absolve rape. Listen to yourself - you’re excusing one of the worst crimes people can commit. There’s a reason wartime rape sits just below killing as an abomination, for every war crimes trial. Saying “It’s OK, I married her” doesn’t make it better. In some ways, I think it makes it worse. Not just being raped, but being forced to carry your rapist’s babies and cook and clean for him? That’s subhuman.
Because he’s impotent.
I’m saying look at the context. It wasn’t oh but what? A generation ago? that men were able to rape their wives, or that men did marry women they raped. Rape was also forbidden. The difference here is that these Hebrew soldiers wouldn’t be paying the woman’s father.
The ‘rape’ in question was about forced marriage. In Jewish law, when you have sex with them, you are married. So…it isn’t like someone would be allowed hanky panky for months and then grudgingly marry.
Jewish law also doesn’t allow for forced marriages and it has specific protections for women. So while it’s extremely shady - ‘marry me 4EVER! or adios’ - it’s not the same as rape and pillage. I think it’s important to note the distinction, as fuck & run happen to be weapons of war in some areas of the world today…and I don’t want to detract from that horror.
The definition of ‘rape’ changes from society to society. Arguably, forced marriages in India are sanctioned rapes.
I’m not making excuses so much as putting it into context.
He can’t get a hard on?
Also: this practice that’s been quoted died out about 500 BCE or so (figuring the falls of Judea and Israel and lack of war, not to mention more scrutiny around marriage and tribes).
Knowing what we know about human psychology + the evolving Jewish law, there’s no fn way it would be allowed to force women into marriage, or capture anyone and hold hostage, or kill everyone in a village, or whatever.
Forced marriage is worse than a one time rape on a battlefield because it isn’t just one rape, but a lifetime of rape and slavery. You’re also ignoring the cited passage where Israelites were ordered to kidnap women from another tribe they were not even at war with, in which case trying to spin it as some kind of act of kindness (which is asinine anyway) falls apart.
Mosaic law DOES allow for forced marriages (women being forced to marry their rapists, for instance), and the above mentioned practice of kidnap and rape from other tribes, and captive women did NOT have a right to refuse it, as you falsely keep stating.
Your appeals to context are meaningless and cede the OP’s point that the Bible cannot be defended as morally authoritative, and that the character of Yahweh is not good.
By the way - remember that guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart and kept her hostage as a sex slave for several months? Did you know he “married” her before he raped her? By your own logic, that wasn’t rape, and God approved.
There is no need to put it in context, unless you admit that it is the work of ancient barbarians. I guess you can make a case that the ancient Israelites were no worse than some of the other barbarians of the time.
But if you maintain that the Hebrew Bible was inspired by an omniscient, loving, timeless God Almighty, then any attempt to “put it in context” is just comical. If God could order them not to eat pork under any circumstances, or to cut off the tips of their baby sons’ dicks, then he could order them not to rape women under any circumstances.
But he didn’t.
This is an online interlinear searchable bible. The hebrew and greek are both available and both have lexicons. It’s a great deal of help with the original languages.