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Originally Posted by NatCh
Well, that's actually a (probably deliberate) mistranslation. The original wording is " You shall not murder."
Murder and kill being rather different things.  |
And, um, "go forth into this land and slaughter the people who live there so you can live there instead" is not murder?
Or it's not murder when a deity orders it? (And it's not theft, to take their property?)
I can grok "not kill" doesn't mean "don't kill cattle so you can eat them." Doesn't mean "don't cut down grain; don't fish; don't swat mosquitos." But saying it just means "don't kill people that your own laws make it illegal to kill" makes it utterly useless as a moral guideline.
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Anything can mean anything if the context is sufficiently removed.
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Granted. However, Jesus did claim he was only sent to the Jews, and that his message should not be squandered on less-worthy people, although they might be allowed some benefit from it.
These kinds of contradictory messages are all over the bible. The claims by "true believers" that the "real message" is obvious seems like verbal sophistry to prove whatever point they've already decided on; no reading of the bare text makes one passage more important or more currently relevant than another.
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A lot of hostility toward God that I've encountered has a fairly firm rooting in what people have "heard" the Bible says. Often the words (or something close) really are in there, but they've been totally divorced from their context and made out to mean something else entirely, sometimes something completely opposite of what was originally meant.
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My favorite bible verse is Matthew 22:14. (Many called; few chosen.) I'm amazed that while many Christians understand it to mean "not everyone who thinks they're getting in, are getting in," very few of them are willing to accept it also means "not everyone is invited."
I consider myself one of the not-called.