The Ten Commandments were designed as the basis of a legal code that would be enforced by human beings. In other words, the law said “Don’t Murder”, but it was up to the tribal elders, king, Sanhedrin or whatever to decide whether or not a certain act constituted murder. Just like any other legal system, really.
Sure, but my boundaries would be as subjective as anyone else’s. I would certainly call some killings murder that others would not.
I have to disagree with this point. If we reject the notion that God gave us laws, then inherently, whatever his interpretation of them is, it is irrelevant. If we accept the notion that God gave us laws, then it seems illogical to me to reject his interpretations of those laws. It seems to me that your begging of the question is a situation in which we accept the law given down not to murder, but reject the interpretation of what constitutes murder.
But he didn’t give us any interpretation, so we just have to guess - and we always guess in the way that’s most convenient to us.
Fair enough. However, I think any matter of law or morality is always going to involve some matter of guess work. As you point out, for a given killing, barring the most extreme cases, it’s difficult for society to determine whether or not that individual should be punished and how much.
My point was more at the idea that, if you believe in God, then it must not be murder, and if you don’t, it may or may not be, but it doesn’t matter because you don’t accept the idea of the divine law. As such, attempting to apply our own unclear perspective of what murder is to the actions of God is inherently meaningless.
I’m mostly here to express my distaste for the term god-breathed.
I’m not a Christian, but I don’t think there’s a conflict. The kill in the commandment you refer to is better translated as murder, since God goes on to tell the Israelites to kill tons of folk. Evidently he burped while exhaling that order.
Not only that, but the same legal code that says “Do not murder” also lays out a list of capital crimes, including murder.
I thought this might be another abortion thread.
I’m not sure of this. One could easily stipulate that a supernatural entity exists and issued the laws in question, but that he, she, or it is wrong in giving the laws, in giving definitions, or both. And I think it’s fair to take the entities behavior after the law-giving in account. The genocide of the Amalekites reveals Yahweh to be villainous.
So are we to take the translated king james version (and probably other tranlations) as innacurate but the validity of the original text is to be taken as objective truth?
it seems to me if someone accepts the possibility that the translated is invalid, it should be no great leap for that same person to accept the possibility the original text is also invalid (here’s hoping)!
it reeks of personal bias!
Nobody said the original was objectively true. But it’s fair to point out that flaws in the translation don’t reflect on the original.
But the OP is concerned with those who take the original texts as “god breathed”, so I don’t think that applies in this case. Unless you are arguing that we don’t actually have access to “the original texts”.
…what im saying is that for some belief in a higher supernatural entity has desensitised the morality of killing/war/punishment.
It does hinge entirely on what individuals believe, but from the perspective of someone who does not have this belief in a higher supernatural entity it is difficult not to have an issue. I would say that in this regard I am being critical of the justification of authority of modern society.
maybe i’m being completely idealistic but it comes out of wanting a positive change within society. 
Well? Would you mind possibly stopping the poorly executed Socratic inquiry and simply state your thesis?
ok i’ll try and wrap up my thoughts on this…
My motivation for starting the thread was that initially (before being informed of the mistranslation in king james bible) I considered it a contradiction that the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was not reflected in the actions of peoples and society of biblical times and until this day. It was something I couln’t reconcile beforehand so I thought It worthwhile posing the question, if I hadn’t asked the question I would not have been able resolve this. I should explain that I used to have a ’ faith’ but then re-evaluated my beliefs. I am no doubt biased the other way now and I will openly admit that.
I still doubt the probability to gain that faith that I once had but It would be entirely impossible without knowing about the translation error. So the point was resolved, (btw I wanted to close the thread at after post #29 as I thought it was exhausted but I didn’t know how :o )
that’s when I started to muddy the waters a bit(sorry) but I will try and explain my posts from then on…
My point from then on was that for some belief in a higher supernatural entity has desensitised the morality of killing/war/punishment, and that i was calling to question the justification of certain actions and the belief systems that are used to justify them.
Actually I am asking people to question how beliefs are used to justify certain behaviours in society? and what are the implications of this?
…and isn’t the validity of a belief driven behaviour, directly related to the validity of the belief?
and finally, if the invalid belief continues to drive negative behaviour like war/genocide etc without being properly questioned then:
Society will be forever stuck in a pattern of destrucive behaviour!
Since societies that have been officially atheist (like the Soviet Union and China) have had no problems with war and genocidal behavior, why do you think eliminating religion will have any affect on human nature?
people always cite the soviet union and china as reasons why alternative political systems have failed, i dont agree that it sensible to reference these everytime as an argument against political change, because these systems have failed (just 2 instances) is it sensible to use that as the yardstick against possible success? (this seems like another cycle we are stuck in)