The bible says a lot of things about morality. Most of them are quite strange indeed, especially in the old testament.

One of the things, for instance. is that to save a male house guest that you never met before from sodomy (apparently large groups of men demanding to 'know' other men were very common in biblical times) it is OK to offer your own (virgin) daughter to them.
When she then barely breathing returns to your doorstep the next morning, you simply remark "Let's go" and go somewhere.

Ultimately, everyone needs to pick and choose what morals they think make good life. I do not in any way see how enjoying any form of fiction in any way could be a violation of one's morals. Let's not forget all the killing that go in Shakespears and other great playwrights' works, people went there for entertainment and back then being religious or not wasn't even an option!

This is one of those 'If you have to ask...' things, clearly you enjoy these games, and unless you seriously think that there is some sliver of possibility that they will send you on some sort of killing spree in the future, my advice to you would be 'just do what YOU deem right'

As awkward as this story is, I think I can justify some of it. It's not something pleasant to talk about but since you brought it up :

1. Nowhere does it say the decision taken by the host was the best one. It's not like an angel came down to tell him to go ahead with it.

2. That would fall under the cultural aspect of the people at the time, when women existed pretty much only to have children. That's how it's been just about everywhere since the beginning of time until less than a century ago.

3. He didn't actually give them his daughter, the other man gave them his unfaithful concubine (woman + concubine + unfaithful = worthless).

Either way the story is obviously disturbing to most readers. I still remember how much it bothered me when I read it (I went on a Bible reading spree some 8 years ago and read it front to cover). Until now when I read what you wrote it still bothered me but now that I think about it with a clearer mind, I don't see what this has to do with God or biblical laws. It's just a messed up situation (a consequence of sin from a biblical perspective) where a choice had to be made but neither option would have ended well.

In the end, the man probably would have died from the abuse just like the woman did. If the host had said "sure come in and take him", the above post would likely say how "according the biblical morals it's OK to give away your guest to be raped and killed".

Anyways back on topic :

- Read my previous post.

- If a Christian you are, look up the answer in the Bible.


Feelings have nothing to do with this.

I'd just like to add a little to this before you go back on topic there, and if you want we can actually take it into deeper discussion in another thread.
I presume the story you're talking about is when "God" sent his Angels to Lot since "God" was going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm not even going to go in to how deeply flawed and immoral that decision to kill thousands of people is right now.

My question to you is this:
If "God" is omnipresent and omniscient, (and according to the Judaism, Christianity and Islam, he very much is), then obviously he knew beforehand exactly what the outcome of sending his angels to Lot would be. Since both of those outcomes are equally immoral and wrong, I would conclude that "God" would have obviously approved of at least 1 of them. Why give Lot a choice if both of them are a sinful choice? And of course, it's the two virgin daughters who are sacrificed to be gang raped. After the massive divine attack on the cities, and Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt (for simply looking back at the city they were fleeing being destroyed), Lot drowns his sorrows away by drinking in the mountains while his 2 daughters lay with him. They both became pregnant from their father.
How come Lot wasn't punished for committing Incest and Pedophilia? Obviously "God" was willing to destroy entire cities for other sins just days before this. And since we've already established that he is omniscient and omnipresent, it's obvious he would have known Lot's daughters would sleep with him, so why not kill them along with the rest of Sodom and Gomorrah? What was the point in saving such sinful people while murdering countless others, such as the innocent babies in those towns, I suppose his only justification would be that they would have grown up to be sinners. Obviously Incest and Pedophilia are okay according to the bible then too.
It is stories such as this that make the bible an unworthy source to get your morals from.
And you can't say that such and such don't apply in modern times, because then you must ask yourself if anything in the bible at all should apply to us now, and how do you choose which to follow and which to disregard?
And there are several other similar examples in the bible besides this.

Yes it is indeed awkward, which is why I used it to illustrate my point : The bible is not a good source for morality.

Expect that in BOTH cases (it happened twice in the bible, once with Lot, one time with an unnamed man and priest) The man immediately gave away his daughter. In both cases he was rewarded for this choice.

Indeed, which illustrates my point: Don't use the bible as a source of morality 1100 years after it was written.

Lot gave his TWO virgin daughters, the unnamed man offered up his virgin daughter AND the priests' concubine.

Yeah, expect that the option : "In the absence of another option I'd rather sacrifice my family than a stranger" or rather, "a woman instead of a man" is considered ludicrous now. Once again illustrating my point that the bible is not a good source for morality.

No, in that case the morality might have been "Protect thy family" or maybe even simpler "Don't gangrape anyone"

And this ending to your post is incredibly condescending. You clearly completely missed my point and got completely (deliberately?) hung up on one of my examples. Then to just *completely* ignore what I said and end your post with "Look up your answer in the bible" is no way to conduct a conversation in any way.

Getting back to the actual matter at hand:

You completely missed my second point before referring back to your bible: In shakespearean times it was considered OK to go to plays in which many things, including murder, were portrayed on stage. In those times EVERYONE was religious.
If in THOSE times it was OK to enjoy fiction that contained the same things as videogames today, I see no reason why a Christian searching for morality in a book TODAY would have to feel guilty about anything when playing GTA or SC. Or any other work of fiction.

Just made this thread so we can continue this discussion without cluttering up the other thread

Dude, morality is an abstract concept that is totally relative to the individuals own view. I guarantee no two people one the planet have the same view on what is moral or not. It can be fueled by religion or other similar means. In my case, my view on morality is fueled by my views for civil rights, my political philosophy, and my own life experiences.

"dude"

I did not try to quantify morality in any way, I merely said that the Bible is not a good source to base your own morality on and that no Christian actually DOES base his or her morality on the Bible. Mostly because the morality in the bible is extremely questionable.

Please, please read the whole thread before throwing in your own 2 cents, I'd hate for this one to derail into a thread which tries to quantify morality.

lol, sorry, I waked n baked. I always say "dude" before everything. Not meant to be condescending.

That spoke volumes about the way you feel about women.

I think the Old testament is a poor choice in the bible to illustrate a point. I'd use the new testament if I was even going to quote the bible at all. This could apply to other religious texts as well, though. I know the Koran is quotes like this, too. The problem is that the Bible was not written by God, or Jesus, but by people sometimes hundreds of years after his death.

Another one of those times that I'm glad my church doesn't quote the bible in their services.

Very well, I will refer to some morally 'questionable' parts of the new testament, in fact... I'll refer to Jesus' actions! According to the new testament Jesus was quite content with what was said in the old testament, besides that he (just to name a few)

* Suggested self-mutilation
* Suggested to give to the rich, take from the poor
* Condoned slavery
* Didn't use clear language so not to convert people so they couldn't go to heaven
* Tore families apart intentionally

And there's more where that came from.



I can understand that.

I don't think the new testament is much better when it comes to teaching us morals.

I would like to see some quotes to back up the claims. Not to say that I disagree but it's interesting how different people interpret the passages differently. I think the new testament is a lot more cryptic than the old, allowing for a broader perception of what the gist is, which I'm still not totally clear on. Everyone is going to have their opinion on what they "think" Jesus or one of the disciples is trying to say but no one really knows for sure, except the people that wrote the books, which are often not even written by the disciples themselves. Some books, such as those of Mary and Thomas and even Judas, were removed in most versions of the bible, which complicates the situation.

I read the bible in Dutch several times but in discussions with English speaking people it's not very useful, so I also read the King James version a couple of times. I also don't understand why you religious folk don't read your own books. Whenever I make a claim about the Bibles content I always have to show where it says that

at any rate:

* Being quite content with the old testament
5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

* Suggested self-mutilation
5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

* Suggested to give to the rich, take from the poor
25:28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
25:29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
25:30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

* Condoned slavery
8:5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,
8:6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
8:7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
8:8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
8:9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
8:11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
8:12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
8:13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

* Didn't use clear language so not to convert people so they couldn't go to heaven
13:10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
13:12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
13:13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
13:14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

* Tore families apart intentionally
Too lazy to continue looking now

If Jesus was alive today I doubt he would have liked the Bible...

Got your attention? Ok here's what I think...

If he lived, whether or not he was the son of God whatever he taught his disciples allot of it must have been "lost in translation". There's a ton of good and descent things written in the Bible, but there's also a bunch of weird contradicting and confusing stuff as well.

Imagine this situation. Jesus teaches his disciples, they in term teach their disciples who start writing down what will become the new testament (not knowing this at the time though). They all travel the world to spread their faith considering themselves to be "Christian/Jews" (probably taking with them a pretty accurate version of the teachings of Christ). Then the converted Emperor Constantine steps in and makes Rome a Christian state. Now all of a sudden the religion "needs" some form of structure. So Constantine orders the making of the Bible. He did a bunch of minor changes to the structure of Christianity, but the biggest thing was make sure that Christ was to be considered the Son of God. This is a direct result of the merging of two very different faiths. The monotheistic Christians and the polytheistic pagan Romans.
This is where the really messy part comes in. The Romans wrote the Bible by simply voting and arguing what should be in it and not. And as far as I can see this is as far as you can get from the teachings of Christ.
Thusly, whatever way you look at it the bible is a big mess. But at the same time I think criticizing it for all its flaws is pointless and unfair to Christians. Aren't you allowed to pick whatever morals that suit you from the Bible? Do you as a Christian really have to defend all the stuff the Romans put in there 1700 years ago?
My point is, whatever stuff that got missed over the past 2000 years. Most Christians believe that Jesus was here to spread a word of peace and love. Something all of his disciples continued to do (until the Romans took over). It is that tradition that is alive today. And that is what is important. Not the some odd quotes that presumably was said by Jesus.

Well, us "religious types" don't always belong to a traditional church where the whole sermon is quoting or paraphrasing bible quotes. And I think you'll agree that the bible is a pretty hefty book and even newer version, while the language has been updates, are still very hard to understand what the point is.

That aside, I'd still say that the Bible should not be your only source of information. It's only a starting point (or the Koran for Muslim, etc.). Heck, even reading all manner of religious texts out there would be helpful.

I think you can pretty much look at all the world's major religions and ideals and generalize a lot of the "morals" of each one.

This discussion started in another thread where some religious person suggested to look up in the bible if something was morally acceptable. My response to the original question was to suggest that he absolutely should NOT refer to the bible as a source of morality and by extension that none of the "religious types" actually do so, since the bible is filled to the rim with morally questionable and even objectionable 'advice'.

The ones that ACTUALLY get their morality from the bible are the people who say that non-believers should be shot, and that laws need to be made to make that legal. And yes, those people exist as I am sure you know. And not just in Islamic countries, in the US there's actually a movement that want to make the entirety of the US 'jesusland' because they DO get their morals straight from the bible.

I also hope you realize that in asking for 'bible quotes' I anticipated some sort of reply from the bible quotes that I posted. Not in the least because it took me quite a lot of time to gather the exact verses. For you to just completely ignore them is a bit of an insult, I think you can imagine.

How do you know I didn't read them? In fact, I did. Just because I didn't quote your response doesn't mean I didn't read it. To have done that would be very time consuming and result in a Link-sized wall of text. However, if you need a response to feel accomplished...

I think it's interesting looking at them because I wonder how off base some of them may have become over the centuries. There is no proof that what is written in the Bible was said verbatim by Jesus. Faith is the only thing people have to really decided if they believe it or not. While I do agree with some aspects of the bible, I think a lot of it is very contradictory, even things said by Jesus. This could be due to the changing language and the subsequent degradation of it over time as words are updated to compensate for changing culture and language, etc., as I said before. To base all your morals from one source is like the old adage: to put all your eggs in one basket.

What happened while I was gone!?

I'd like to clarify that I was not attacking TMM nor was I trying to prove the Bible is the absolute truth. I'm not even Christian so it's not like I was trying to convert people but I was just saying I didn't think the argument brought by TMM was not useful in the context of the question asked in the thread where this originally begun. I was not flaming you but now I see this misunderstanding has gotten huge and even made mscupcakes turn this into its own thread for some reasons to become some kind of combat pit.


Now about TMM's replies :
First of all, your attacks were very personal and unneeded. You need to stop it. I read what you wrote (multiple times) but I didn't see how the example you wrote about fitted in the equation. I wanted to point it out then direct the topic where it belonged and reply to the OP once again but someone did not like this at all.

Secondly the end of my reply was directed at the OP and was not meant in a douche way. I have the impression he has not even looked the answer in the Bible. It was more a challenge, hoping it would get him to think either about the answer to his question or his spiritual standing. Even in my first post I didn't just tell him "I am telling you to do whatever you want to do because I am right and everyone else is wrong".
Learning without thinking is useless - Confucius.

You told to OP that the foundation of Christianity itself (the Bible) is not a good source of morality and that he should pick his own moralities. You are not answering "Is murder in a game a sin?" but rather telling him that from a non-Christian perspective, it's ok to do so. Bringing your views on the validity of the Bible had nothing to do with the question asked. Trying to convince people to reject the Bible does not answer the question either.

I take your initial reply as an attack and I don't think you understood what I wrote since there is no reason you should call the end of my reply "condescending" or claim I missed your point.


One way NOT to conduct a conversation is to use personal attacks. I'll repeat once more that I did not want to shred your text and try to destroy everything you posted (like you did to mine) but I tried to point out that I didn't think the story had anything to do with Christian moralities. Apparently that fueled your anger.


Hold your tongue before saying "your" Bible. There is no "my" Bible. I sense much unneeded hatred in your text and I don't see how this is a "way to conduct a conversation in any way". I had an open mind and was not attacking anyone when I wrote what my reply which, in my opinion, is THE better way to converse than to jump at someone's throat as shown here: I didn't completely ignore what you said but I should have since it had nothing to do with the question originally asked.


You said the ending to my post is "incredibly condescending" because I suggested a Christian to read the Bible but you are accusing religious folk to not read their own books. I cannot suggest someone to read the Bible but you can scold them for not doing so. This doesn't make sense. Also "religious folk" includes a lot of people that you don't know. If you were talking to Lady Zanthia, then put her name there and don't generalize.


Some Christians DO base their morality on the Bible FYI and they are not mindless killers.


This goes against the text quoted above but anyways. If you have read the Bible and concluded that it tells you to kill non-believers, you have completely missed the point. That's like saying the parable of the prodigal son is about eating swine food because that's what the son did at some point.


Remember that this is the "Why So Serious?" subforum in case you're kidding. In case you are serious and my post wasn't clear enough, I am not expressing my views about women but merely the one expressed by the people at the time of the story (look at point #2, the part you didn't quote).

Ah yes, that must've been it. I don't care if you quote the entire thing that I posted. The thing is you asked :

I suppose it was wrong of me to assume you'd actually give a response to it, you know, like saying what your interpretation would be. How silly of me! And indeed I thrive entirely upon the validation I get from random people on the internet, thank you so much for being gracious enough to provide it! You truly are a great person!

That the content of the bible is 'off base' is something that we can both agree on at least. But the organized religions do quite clearly state that it is the bible that has the truth, in all matters. And that is also something that was parroted, but not in those words, earlier in this thread. Even the bible itself says so. When it comes to these matters you don't get to pick and chose what parts of the bible you believe and which you don't. If you don't think the bible is true then you're not a Christian, you're someone who believes in a magic skyman. Not that that is any better or worse than being a Christian. Christians also believe in a magic skyman, they just sort of formalized it though the mythology in the bible.

What is my point through all this? Once again, like I said earlier: The bible is a bad book to base your morality on, if you pick and choose what parts of it you want to base your morality on then you make that choice based on a preexisting morality. Which is why I said that most religious people don't actually base their morality on the bible.

Sorry I kind of fucked up and should have merged this and the previous post, my apologies



The way you constructed your reply made it seem like you were replying to me. The thing I tried to say was that it would basically be OK based upon 2 things. 1) The bible is not a good source for morality 2) In the time where people didn't have a choice but to be religious they also enjoyed fiction that contained killing.
Your reply only dealt with the example that I used as to why I think that the bible is a bad source for morality, and you completely ignored what I said about morality in older times.

I tried to show that using the bible as a 'direct' source for morality probably wouldn't work, furthermore I suggested that in older times it was OK to enjoy fiction that contained murder, and that it would probably be OK now.

Because you only replied to one of my examples it did come off that way to me. Perhaps wrongly so, my apologies for that.

We appear to differ in opinion on that

This reply stems from the earlier misunderstanding about what I thought you said, once more, my apologies if I misunderstood your meaning.

If you can 'pick and choose' what parts of the bible you base your morality on or decide how to interpret the contents of it it means you already have a 'base morality' by which to judge what bits are moral and what bits are 'lost in translation'. Which is why I say that most Christians do not get their morality from the bible. They might cherrypick parts of it to enforce their moral values, but they do not DERIVE their moral values from the bible. Perhaps I should have been more clear on the matter. Don't forget that Jesus would only help a non-isrealite woman save her daughter after she said she was merely a dog hoping for scraps falling from the table!

Anyway, the reason why I even made my reply was not to spark some religious argument, even though I must admit I enjoy having them. The reason for my reply was because I felt the OP was genuinely torn up between reason and religion and I simply wanted to extend a little insight. He can reject it or do something with it that is his own choice. I just felt sorry for him, and I didn't mean to suggest he abandon his faith, just that with a little bit of reason (people have been enjoying violent entertainment for a long long long time) he could come to a conclusion that should satisfy him.