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The Morality of Rape

Jill

I really didn’t want to post anything about V-x D-y ever again. I stopped reading his blog. I agreed with commenters who said that linking to him only gives him more attention. I won’t write out his whole name — that way, when he googles himself for masturbatory material, hopefully he’ll come up short. I vowed never to link to him again.

Except now he has a column on WorldNet Daily about the same issue, where he spells out his “Christian Libertarian” beliefs even more clearly (and, naturally, they’re even more offensive than you thought):

The Judeo-Christian moral ethic is clear – rape is a sin, a willful pollution of a temple that rightly belongs to God. Neither the Jew nor the Christian need hesitate before asserting the act of rape to be evil and justly holding the rapist accountable. But this ethic does not offer a blanket excuse to victims, near victims and would-be victims either, since the element of consent – which today draws the dividing line between sex and rape – can also provide a contrarian condemnation of the woman’s own actions.

Rape isn’t bad because it’s harmful to people — it’s bad because it pollutes God’s house.

To put it more clearly, if a woman consents to extramarital sex, she is committing a moral offense which is equal to that committed by the man who engages in consensual sex with her, or by the man who, in the absence of such consent, rapes her. Christianity knows no hierarchy of sins. Since only the woman who is not entertaining the possibility of sex with a man and is subsequently raped can truly be considered a wholly innocent victim under this ethic, it is no wonder that women who insist that internal consent is the sole determining factor of a woman’s victimization find traditional Western morality to be inherently distasteful.

And there you have it: Rape is no worse than consensual, but extra-marital, sex. And unless you were hiding in your house, wrapped in clothing from head to toe, and not even thinking about sex, you aren’t wholly innocent if you’re raped.

Oh, plus he’s just flat-out wrong about Christianity. There are, in fact, different kinds of sins, and some are taken more seriously than others. All sins can be forgiven, sure, and we’re all sinners, but all sins are not created equal. Glad my twice-a-year church visits have taught me something that even a Christian Libertarian with a Satanist haircut doesn’t seem to understand.

His basic point is this: Only Christian morality makes rape “bad,” and even then it’s only as bad as any other sin (or, though he doesn’t say this explicitly, perhaps he means it’s only as bad as any other sexual sin). Without Jesus, we have no basis to make moral judgments.

For someone who claims to be a member of Mensa, this seems like a pretty shallow wade into understanding morality — and one has to wonder about a person who truly believes that the only reason something is wrong is because a certain book tells him so.

53 thoughts on The Morality of Rape

  1. I have a hard time believing this guy is for real. I don’t see how a person could ruminate about such things as this. Either he is truly sick or he is trying to get attention. Well, maybe it’s both. And his pretentious academic tone annoys the fuck out of me.

  2. When it comes to a religion (or in this case a small geographically limited religion – in this case parts of the US) where any sex out of marriage means you are going to Hell, what could be worse? When you are going to burn in Hell’s fires for all eternity for having sex anyway, how much worse can it be for someone who forces sex on someone else? You are burning forever anyway. There is no scale in the punishment. Thinking this, you are stuck with justifying certain “sins” in the hopes of saving your soul.

  3. “For someone who claims to be a member of Mensa, this seems like a pretty shallow wade into understanding morality ”

    VD’s not even dipping a toe in–this is nothing but a peculiarly vile expression of his hatred for women, tricked out as a grotesque parody of moral reasoning. If I found something like him on the sole of my shoe, I’d burn the shoe.

  4. that way, when he googles himself for masturbatory material, hopefully he’ll come up short

    just like he does when he masturbates.

    ba-doom-boom.

  5. Shorter VD:

    So, because Taoism says that you should be relaxed and accept whatever happens in stride, and because rape is important in Roman mythology, we can conclude that the Biblical view of rape is that it is an equal sin with premarital sex.

    Also, a text from a long time ago says you should bribe women for sex after their periods, and beat them if that doesn’t work. This is somehow important to my point.

  6. I agree with the assertion he just wants attention. No sane person would really spout such nonsense unless they wanted attention. As for Mensa, look folks pay money to be a member of a snobby “smart” group of people. The only smart ones are the people getting cash from the membership fees. People who brag about such an “honor” usually have a raging inferiorty or superiority complex.

  7. Does his same reasoning apply if he happens to get raped?

    I am amazed that in the last five years the clock has turned back 250 years for women and women’s rights and equality.

    I think that he should continue that all rape victims must be burned at the stake – maybe that’ll teach us…his reasoning is just that absurd.

  8. I ‘spose shining a light on these nutbars is beneficial.

    But…I’m with Jason. Nobody is that stupid. No way. If there is a hell, the fires there are stoked for him and his ilk.

  9. As I’ve said in the past, people who derive all of their feelings for right and wrong from ‘God told me’ worry me. They’re all one good frontal lobe seizure away from mass murder and genocide.

  10. Ahh, the fresh whiff of moral absolutism. All sins are equal. Therefore, if you’re going to commit any, you might as well get ’em all! Already lied to your mother and can’t bring yourself to repent? Might as well knock her off; you’re going to hell anyway! Rape that girl – after all she’s probably a sinner anyway, right? You can’t do anything to her that’s worse than what God already says she deserves.

    And here I thought my nausea was just that virus the kids brought home.

  11. Rape isn’t bad because it’s harmful to people — it’s bad because it pollutes God’s house.

    Jill, that’s a cheap shot. While I agree that he chose particularly offensive language, what he means is that people are valuable only by virtue of having been created by God. Obviously, you can quibble with that point but it’s a common religious sentiment.

    I think one of the major reasons that discussions between Christians and feminists about issues like rape and abortion never get off the ground is related to this point. Many religions don’t recognize personal autonomy in the modern sense of the term. Before God, we don’t have any rights – not to our bodies, not even to our lives. So arguments along the lines of “my body, my choice” falls on deaf ears.

    I’m not taking a side on this right now (although I’m in the middle of a post working out this stuff in more detail). But it’s important to recognize the different starting points, even if just to argue against it more effectively.

    What really gets to me, though, is how VD makes conventional religious ideas sound offensive. In Christianity (Judaism has a related idea but it’s understood very differently), humanity is presumed sinful. If we’re all sinful, then so is a woman who’s raped – unless she did every possible thing to prevent it. See that? It’s disgusting. He takes a generic notion of “sinful” and uses it to bash women. I would go into more detail about the logical fallacy but I just took the LSAT this morning and my head might explode if I don’t give it a rest.

  12. Jill, that’s a cheap shot. While I agree that he chose particularly offensive language, what he means is that people are valuable only by virtue of having been created by God. Obviously, you can quibble with that point but it’s a common religious sentiment.

    VD says: “rape is a sin, a willful pollution of a temple that rightly belongs to God”

    Jill says: “Rape isn’t bad because it’s harmful to people — it’s bad because it pollutes God’s house.”

    I’m sorry, but how is that a cheap shot? I pretty much just re-phrased what he said. And while I understand that perhaps he’s alluding to the religious ideas you mention, I’d take issue with the statement that the only reason that rape is a sin is because it’s “willful pollution of a temple that rightly belongs to God.” I think the moral Christian opposition to rape is a little more complicated than that. VD purposely twists a basic religious belief to suit his own purpose here; I think he means it exactly as the common reader would understand, and I think it’s fair to call him out on that.

    You’re right about having different starting points, but part of the problem is that VD doesn’t even seem to understand his. He gets basic tenets of Christianity wrong. He gets utilitarianism wrong. He tries to act like a philosophy expert by bringing up Kant, but then doesn’t bother explaining how that relates at all to what he’s talking about.

    And I agree with everything you wrote in the last paragraph. I look forward to reading your post! Hope the LSAT went well, but if you want some unsolicited advice, don’t go to law school.

  13. He tries to act like a philosophy expert by bringing up Kant, but then doesn’t bother explaining how that relates at all to what he’s talking about.

    People who think they know everything are very irritating to those of us who do.

  14. I think it depends on what “Christian” sect you belong to. I was raised Catholic and I was taught that I needed to repent for being raped as a child. While the rapist was a sinner, i was “responsible” for keeping “god’s temple” pure. When I got old enough to prosecute, the priest who was the only impartial (ha!) observer refused to testify to the rapist’s guilt because he claimed the rapist might think he was under the seal of the confessional despite not even being Catholic.
    This joker sounds like every man who populated my childhood and I dont think he’s wrong about the religious view of rape, unfortunatly. Which is why so few people actually follow their religion.

  15. Of course I find the Western “morality” that states that the most vile rapist and murderer is golden as long as he loves Jesus, but the kindest, most giving, most loving, most peaceful, most courageous, most wonderful person in the world is going straight to Hell to burn forever if she doesn’t believe in Jesus distasteful and unacceptable.

  17. He obviously needs to go back to his Bible. If he truly wants to be an old school Bible thumper, he can’t simply say that a woman who does not give consent is innocent of sin. The Bible clearly states that a woman who is raped in the city shall also bear guilt and be punished alongside her rapist, because she could have cried out for help. According to the Old Testament, only a woman who is raped in the country, where no one is around to assist her, is truly an innocent.

    Yes, I’m being sarcastic concerning this idiot’s “true” Christianity. But no, I didn’t make the information up. That crap is actually in the Bible. It only illustrates that maybe in the modern world, we shouldn’t actually be taking our cultural, social, and moral cues from a series of writings that are more than 2,000 years old.

  18. I apologize, I should have added the scripture, just in case someone actually wants to look it up. You can find it here: Deut. 22:25–27 and 22:23–24.

  19. So, let’s see if I have his thinking straight. If I as a man feel that a woman is interested in sex, in even a passing way, then I shouldn’t be charged with rape if I take advantage of her? Is there any kind of statute of limitations on the thoughts? Do first dates count, since, OBVIOUSLY, if a woman goes out with me she wants sex, right? Sounds like a serial date raper trying to justify his actions.

  20. As an evangelical Christian, I get very angry with folks like VD. Guys like this foster hostility, and leave secular progressives with a very ugly impression indeed of those of us who love Jesus and work and live within his church.

  21. And there you have it: Rape is no worse than consensual, but extra-marital, sex.

    Ahhh, memories. This is the VERY IDEA that made me decide I didn’t want to be Christian anymore. During a confirmation class, we went over the Ten Commandments, and I was thouroughly shocked (and psychologically bitchslapped, really) to find out that “adultery” does not mean “rape.” i.e. according to the Ten Commandments, rape is fine when it’s between a married couple, and nonmarital consensual sex is worse than that variety of rape. I decided rather quickly that any God who’s such an asshole as to make such a commandment, is not worth worshipping, and started looking for Something better.

    Nobody tell me not to tar all Christians with the same brush—I know that. However, I chose and stand by my choice of a faith whose moral tenets are of the proper priority—“An’ it harm none, do what ye will.” Rape harms people, whether or not they’re God’s valuable creations, therefore rape is wrong. Yes, many Christians are beyond this bullshit. But they’re not the only ones.

    Thanks, V-x. People like you are what guided me to the Goddess.

  22. this also means that there can be no rape within a marriage, right? the only reason to marry is to have babies, so when a woman says ‘i do’, she’s obviously got sex on the mind, and is planning on having babies, for the length of the marriage. that one little ‘i do’ is all the consent the husband needs, until death do they part. i suppose the wife could rape the husband, too, but since the only type of sex allowed is penis-in-vagina, this might be a little harder for the wife to do, without slipping him some erection drug first.

    so do you think vd practices his beliefs? if he really believes this and he’s married, he is probably a rapist. i guess if he’s single, he realizes his extramarital sex is as evil as rape. still not someone i’d want to be alone with.

  23. Before God, we don’t have any rights – not to our bodies, not even to our lives. So arguments along the lines of “my body, my choice” falls on deaf ears.

    Bullshit. Any decent deity would uphold our rights, not ignore them because He’s powerful enough to get away with it. Consciousness = an interest in what happens to oneself = a right for one’s existance to be worthwhile, as a soul if not as a mortal being.

  24. David sez: “Before God, we don’t have any rights – not to our bodies, not even to our lives. So arguments along the lines of “my body, my choice” falls on deaf ears.”

    I think you are partial correct there David. The problem is what does “Before God” mean? Are we talking about standing before God for judgment on that appointed day? If so then the statement is true since God, as an all powerful being deciding your fate, would find your choices and body irrelevant. (not that I believe in this particular hard-ass version of God anyway)

    However, as we live our lives on mortal plane we are creatures of free will. Free will and your body for that matter are part of God’s grace. So it is my body, my choice. The distinction of course here is that as a fallible humans we can be immoral using that free will. So we can make decisions that “pollute” our bodies. It is also a given in Christian theology that God is all-knowing so I suppose anything we do is “before God” here as well.

    In practice, when you get to the nub of it, “Before God”, as far as certain flavors of Christian are concerned, has little to do with God and more to do with being “before” man-made religion and the arrogant sub-culture that religion supports. Your choices offend the individuals of that religious tradition and neither the adherents nor anyone else knows what God’s judgment is or would be.

    Now the religious types stand around puffing out their chest, pointing at the Bible and squawking about the Word of God and literal truth when that is really justification for their own moral relativism and arrogance.

    VD is doing the same thing he is just espousing a different flavor.

  25. Yay for the notion that the Bible is completely and totally logically consistent and can be used as a template for how to comport ourselves in every day life! Now all I really want to know is where my slaves are…Leviticus is quite clear on this point. Also, does anyone have any spare rocks? I’m all out and it’s time to stone the blasphemers again.

    P.S. What could be more arbitrary and relativist than “rape is wrong because he said so!”

  26. How anyone manages to extract a coherent moral message from the Bible is beyond me sometimes.

    And damn it, if eating shellfish is an abomination, then I don’t wanna be right.

  27. In one sense this is almost absolutely mind boggling how some people can still think this way, but then I take a step back and look at who is spewing this crap and go, “Oh ya, them.”

  28. Here’s a happy thought: if what VD says were true (decidedly unlikely, as I am sure that, to quote Captain Picard, “The universe is not so badly designed”), and everyone were condemned for the sins they inspired others to commit (his suggestion that victims are guilty unless thouroughly NOT entertaining the idea of sex seems to suggest this), then he and every other fundamentalist Christian who thinks that way is condemned under this clause, by being the reason for my “sin” of leaving the Church.

    After all, I left BECAUSE people like this portrayed the Christian God as such an asshole that I went to a whole nother religion to find a decent Deity.

    Ahhh, conservative logic. So amusing to turn it against them.

  29. I like where he says that any God-ordered rape is moral and anyone who doesn’t rape under God’s orders is inherently immoral.

    This, dears, is why I’m an atheist.

  30. This, dears, is why I’m an atheist.

    A bit like deciding to hate the Cubs because your next-door-neighbor Cubs fan is an asshole, isn’t it?

  31. Well, that and not believing in any god. Rather, I should have said, “This, dears, is why I stopped attending church five years after I stopped believing in any god.” That and I like sleeping in on Sundays. And other stuff.

    Damn you, Robert.

  32. As a (nominal) Christian, I’ll just make it clear that VD worships no god of mine. His god is clearly a vindictive asshole with no love for his subjects (and yes, VD’s god is obviously male); my god is compassionate and forgiving…and she has an actual sense of humor.

    As for extracting a coherent moral message from the Bible, I read most of the Bible as a myth–that is, a story (which may or may not be historical) with a moral. Not all of the characters are moral, but you can learn something from most of them. I also take the teachings of Jesus his ownself seriously, while just kind of ignoring Leviticus through Deuteronomy. I suppose that makes me a “cafeteria Christian,” but as I’m not a fundamentalist, I don’t care.

  33. Well, the Cubs exist. But just barely.

    For me, it’s more like exasperation in the insistence that there’s an actual football team founded by the Care Bears that competes in the NFL. I mean, I’ve seen illustrations, but I’m still skeptical. And all your Care Bears fan-mania isn’t helping the decision.

  34. A bit like deciding to hate the Cubs because your next-door-neighbor Cubs fan is an asshole, isn’t it?

    Does this mean I have to stop hating the Red Sox?

    More on-topic, I’d join the chorus arguing that Jill’s recharacterization of VD’s “keep your penis out of God’s temple” statement isn’t a cheap shot at all.

    The argument that we have no rights before God is understandable, though I think it’s debatable. But I don’t think that can be extended to argue that we have no rights before each other. Free will means autonomy. And if God doesn’t care how we treat each other, only how we appear to him, then why all the business about hospitality to sojourners, and “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me?” VD’s pretty clearly, as Jill illustrates (and if I’m misrepresenting, obviously, I hope you’ll correct me, Jill), claiming a duty to God while conveniently forgetting that his duty to God includes a duty to his brothers and sisters. His words may be technically true, but his obvious implication, which Jill makes clearer, that other people are mere vessels rather than God’s children is prideful and abhorrent (and to a godless humanist like me, sociopathic).

  35. I was thouroughly shocked… to find out that “adultery” does not mean “rape.”

    How exactly does one confuse the two?

    according to the Ten Commandments, rape is fine when it’s between a married couple, and nonmarital consensual sex is worse than that variety of rape.

    By your logic – according to the Ten Commandments, it’s okay for me to punch a random guy on the subway. But in fact, it’s not okay. There are a whole group of verses later in Exodus that prohibit it. Similarly, the Ten Commandments doesn’t probihit rape, it simply doesn’t mention it. But a number of verses elsewhere in the Bible do. So what you’re saying is, you decided that God “is not worth worshipping” because the probihition against rape is included in a different chapter than you would have liked?!

  36. Bullshit. Any decent deity would uphold our rights, not ignore them because He’s powerful enough to get away with it.

    I said: “Before God, we don’t have any rights.” You counter that by arguing that a “decent deity” wouldn’t ignore our rights. Do you not see the big giant logical flaw staring you in the face?

  37. How anyone manages to extract a coherent moral message from the Bible is beyond me sometimes

    Maybe you should stop pretending that the Bible isn’t accompanied by thousands of years of scholarship and interpretation. It’s not meant to be studied by itself; it was allows taught along with an Oral Tradition (the religious version of “common law”). Of course, it’s debatable what that Oral Tradition is but it’s disingenuous to cite biblical verses out of context only to make fun of it. If you have sincere questions about moral ambiguities in Scripture, do some research.

  38. I said: “Before God, we don’t have any rights.” You counter that by arguing that a “decent deity” wouldn’t ignore our rights. Do you not see the big giant logical flaw staring you in the face?

    There’s no logical flaw as long as you don’t limit your choice of deity to God alone.

    I had never heard, or imagined, that adultery was rape. The theft angle was novel to me, though. Silly me, thinking women weren’t property.

  39. David, only if you are anthropomorphizing your deity to to the level of a randy Zeus or the cranky Old Testament God. Hell, even the kinder gentler New Testament God is anthropomorphized in spite of stated theology.

    The Christian view seems to generally be that God is absolutely good, all powerful, all knowing yada, yada, yada. Oh and exists outside of our concept of time and space.

    How does that being have any of things that we silly humans ascribe to it? Such things as doubt, anger, jealousy, expectations, judgment, good, evil, etc. Were we made in God’s image? Pfffft, who cares. What we should be paying attention to is how often and why we make God in ours. That way lies arrogance and hubris and shit tends to hit the fan when we do that. You know nasty things like crusades, forced conversion, genocide, tyranny and general suffering.

  40. First of all, as a Jew, I tend not to think of my God as “cranky” and resent the implications of a “kinder gentler New Testament God”.

    I can’t speak for Christians on this point, but the fact that humans are made in God’s image is fundamental to Jewish morality. I posted on a related issue a few weeks ago.

  42. David:

    Maybe you should stop pretending that the Bible isn’t accompanied by thousands of years of scholarship and interpretation. It’s not meant to be studied by itself; it was allows taught along with an Oral Tradition (the religious version of “common law”). Of course, it’s debatable what that Oral Tradition is but it’s disingenuous to cite biblical verses out of context only to make fun of it. If you have sincere questions about moral ambiguities in Scripture, do some research.

    “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you. The rest is commentary. Go and study.” (Hillel kicks ass!)

    My view is that the Epistles are Oral Tradition (as is Acts, to a lesser extent) that somehow made it into the Canon, even though it’s pretty much 180 degrees in philosophy. Much of the modern Xtian thought comes from this commentary, rather than the truely Christian philosophy of the Gospels.

    But, being ex-Jewish (because the God of the Old Testament is a vicious, cruel, bully (see Job for one example), what do I know?

  43. I really hesitate to dip a toe into this one.

    The commenter missed the point entirely when he observed that “rape” isn’t included in the Ten Commandments under “adultery.” The reason that the commandment did not apply to nonconsentual sex is so that a woman who was forcibly violated would not be deemed an adultress. Rape is prohibited in Mosaic law, and was generally punishable by death.

    One other significant misconstruction. Both the ones who assert that there aren’t “big sins and little sins” and those who think Christianity does assign different weight to different sins are right. It’s not so complex a concept, though. Nobody would argue that the common cold is as bad a disease as advanced cancer, but mankind is unable to cure either. The Christian view of “sin” is similar, in that certainly there’s a distinction between a “white lie” and torturing a toddler to death, but they’re both beyond man’s capability to “self-atone” and gain his own salvation.

    Please understand that I’m not intent upon starting a debate here, simply trying to put to rest a couple of misconceptions as to Christian teaching on these points.

  44. Well David as something akin to a monotheist follower of the teachings of Christ my “cranky” and “kinder and gentler” comments were tongue in cheek. That you resent it is a personal problem I can’t fix.

    As to man being made in God’s image being central to Jewish morality, I have no reason to doubt you and thanks for the tip and link I will check it out.

  45. A bit like deciding to hate the Cubs because your next-door-neighbor Cubs fan is an asshole, isn’t it?

    No, it’s more like deciding to hate the Cubs because most or all of the players on the team are assholes.

    How exactly does one confuse the two? (Adultery and rape)

    Simple: adultery was never defined to me before that. I thought it meant rape and cheating (because both of them are harmful), and it had at some point been explained to me that having sex before marriage was cheating on your future spouse. I assumed it had to include rape, because it was unthinkable to me that a kind, loving God would not bother to forbid rape. I mean, why would my family and friends and all the other nice people I knew be worshipping a god that allowed rape?

    By your logic – according to the Ten Commandments, it’s okay for me to punch a random guy on the subway. But in fact, it’s not okay. There are a whole group of verses later in Exodus that prohibit it. Similarly, the Ten Commandments doesn’t probihit rape, it simply doesn’t mention it. But a number of verses elsewhere in the Bible do. So what you’re saying is, you decided that God “is not worth worshipping” because the probihition against rape is included in a different chapter than you would have liked?!

    The Ten Commandments are presented as Important Things That Everybody Has To Follow. The “prohibitions in different chapters” are a) not presented as anywhere near as important, and b) selectively ignored. The prohibitions on pork and shrimp and clothing woven of two fibers, for example.

    And what I’m saying is, I decided that the way these people portray God couldn’t be right, because an omnicient, perfect, loving God would not make a such a mistake, nor put so low a priority on prohibiting rape, as to put a higher importance on forbidding premarital sex.

    I said: “Before God, we don’t have any rights.” You counter that by arguing that a “decent deity” wouldn’t ignore our rights. Do you not see the big giant logical flaw staring you in the face?

    You mean the inconsistancy between your argument and mine, specifically the idea of God acknowledging rights we don’t have? I was disagreeing with your argument, therefore of course there is a “big giant logical flaw” between your argument and mine. My argument contradicts yours. It was meant to. I was explaining why I believe we do have rights before God.

    We humans have come up with the idea that as sentient beings, we have rights. We tend to regard this idea as one of the better accomplishments of the species. It is good. We humans tend to worship a being known as God. We generally believe this being is the ultimate good; perfection. If it is good to uphold human rights, and better still to uphold them when you have power to abuse them, then God, being better than any human, would value our rights most of all, despite obviously having the ability to ignore them.

    I’m suggesting, basically, that God’s sense of good and evil tempers God’s use of power. I’m suggesting that God is nice enough, good enough, to not use our ability to suffer, against us. God, I believe, allows us to suffer only because it helps us grow stronger and wiser, never to provide a pointless existance of misery in order to punish us, in this life or afterwards. To do so would be cruel, and God is NOT cruel. If God were cruel in such a way, God would be nothing but an overgrown bully in the sky with power He doesn’t deserve. I repeat: the Universe is not so badly designed.

    By “decent Deity,” I mean that respect and reverence and love can only be earned, not demanded. If it is demanded, it is not respect or reverence or love, it is fear mimicking these things. I do not worship tyrants. I do not believe that any tyrant could truly be God. God is love, and kindness, and goodness, and respect, and the giving and upholding of rights, and the strength one gets from overcoming obstacles, and right-is-right-not-might-makes-right. God is not God because of His power. God is God because of His goodness. Or Her goodness, however you want to think of it.

    And for future reference, David, you are badly misunderstanding my beliefs. It is NOT a case of “your idea of God is God but I don’t worship Him because I don’t like Him/what He does,” as your analysis of my comments implies. I simply flat-out DON’T BELIEVE that God is that way and only that way—your concept of God IS NOT REAL TO ME. He can certainly be real to you; I can believe that, as my faith is pluralistic, but to me, God is infinitely loving, never vengeful at all, and fully respectful of the rights our existance gives us, and She is worthy of worship because of this.

    By all means call me evil, call me wrong, call me whatever the fuck you want to. Your idea of God has no authority over me, because your idea of God deserves no authority over me. Choosing what to believe in is probably the most important decision anyone ever makes, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be picky about it, to insist that anyOne one worships be worthy of that worship.

    God gave me a free mind to make that decision. I highly doubt She meant for me to ignore that gift. (Obviously, I don’t believe in the Adam and Eve creation story, either.) I am an optimist, and choose to believe that we who have been gifted with consciousness are meant to be happy; that that gift of consciousness is meant to be a joy, and not a burden. For it to be a joy, God has to be good, and faith must be meant to be celebrated, not mourned. By everyone.

  46. The commenter missed the point entirely when he observed that “rape” isn’t included in the Ten Commandments under “adultery.”

    He? Y’know, a feminist blog is probably not the best place to be making that assumption.

    The reason that the commandment did not apply to nonconsentual sex is so that a woman who was forcibly violated would not be deemed an adultress. Rape is prohibited in Mosaic law, and was generally punishable by death.

    That is only a valid excuse if one makes no difference between the rapist and the rape victim.

    Actually, to clarify, the commandment against adultery DOES include rape, and make that distinction between choosing and being forced, but only between unmarried people. My problem with the whole thing was that it was perfectly legal under the Commandments and under the rest of Mosaic law for a man to rape his wife. And with the way marriages were arranged and structured back then, it is almost certain that marriages in which a man felt entitled to have sex with his wife against her wishes, were much more common. And this is the grating oversight that led me to think that “if what this says about God is true, then God isn’t a very nice being, so I think these people are wrong about what God is. I’ll see about finding people who say nice things about God, because they’re more likely to be right.”

    Notice that I said that. Post #21.

  47. Wow. Let me just say that Kyra’s #45 comment is one of the greatest statements of faith I’ve ever read, and that I am very, very moved by it, even though I claim a different faith. Her god is the One I worship, though I call Her by a different name.

  48. The Ten Commandments are presented as Important Things That Everybody Has To Follow. The “prohibitions in different chapters” are a) not presented as anywhere near as important, and b) selectively ignored. The prohibitions on pork and shrimp and clothing woven of two fibers, for example.

    I think that’s a misunderstanding of the Ten Commandments but I’ll admit I’m a bit out of my league here. The Jewish view is quite different. I, for one, don’t eat pork or shrimp and have my clothing checked to make sure it doesn’t contain both linen and wool. I think there are thematic reasons for the content of the Decalogue that don’t necessarily correlate with level of importance.

    I was disagreeing with your argument, therefore of course there is a “big giant logical flaw” between your argument and mine. My argument contradicts yours. It was meant to. I was explaining why I believe we do have rights before God.

    I wasn’t suggesting that we don’t. If you look at the context, I was trying to explain where VD may be coming from.

    And for future reference, David, you are badly misunderstanding my beliefs… your concept of God IS NOT REAL TO ME.

    In the handful of comments I’ve made to this post, I’ve said very little about my conception of God. Are you reacting to posts you’ve read on my blog? Otherwise, I really don’t know where you’re coming from.

    On a completely unrelated note, the “dictionary” feature in the comments is really cool.

  49. I think that’s a misunderstanding of the Ten Commandments but I’ll admit I’m a bit out of my league here. The Jewish view is quite different. I, for one, don’t eat pork or shrimp and have my clothing checked to make sure it doesn’t contain both linen and wool. I think there are thematic reasons for the content of the Decalogue that don’t necessarily correlate with level of importance.

    I was talking about how Christians, specifically the ones I grew up inundated with, view the Ten Commandments as compared to the other stuff. Certainly there are people who take everything literally, but in Sunday School the Ten Commandments were shoved in our faces from day one, presented as Really Really Important, and if I hadn’t gotten bored during the sermons as a child and picked up and read from the Bibles they had scattered around with the hymnals, I probably never would’ve found out about the rest of the directives God gave to the Israelites. With the exceptions of certain things such as the homosexuality prohibitions, Christians tend to focus on the Ten Commandments and ignore everything else.

  50. If you look at the context, I was trying to explain where VD may be coming from.

    It’s ambiguous. I spent a good five minutes studying your critique of my logic and trying to figure out precisely what you were calling a logical flaw, and hit on what I thought was most likely. Upon rereading, nothing changes except it’s VD’s theory, not yours, that I’m calling “bullshit.” If I’m still missing the logical flaw, by all means point it out to me.

  51. And for future reference, David, you are badly misunderstanding my beliefs… your concept of God IS NOT REAL TO ME.

    In the handful of comments I’ve made to this post, I’ve said very little about my conception of God. Are you reacting to posts you’ve read on my blog? Otherwise, I really don’t know where you’re coming from.

    I’m reacting to the fact that it’s your concept of God—not mine but someone else’s. From a pluralistic perspective, everyone’s version of God is acceptable, and applicable to God and to them but not applicable to everybody else, each of whom has their own concept of God that is applicable to them. If you and I look at a glittering diamond from opposite sides of the room, you’ll see some facets light up and sparkle, and I’ll see different facets light up and sparkle. This is how I view God, as one being with a zillion or so faces, names, and personalities, one or several for each person and always exactly what they need. The other faces are always focused elsewhere, on someone else.

    What I picked up from your comments here, is this:

    So what you’re saying is, you decided that God “is not worth worshipping”

    For me to have decided that “God is not worth worshipping,” as you worded it, I would have had to believe that “God” is only what the Christians I grew up with think He is. THAT is what is not real to me. And if that’s not your view of God, which might be the case, it is the view I inferred from your definition of my change of beliefs. I did not decide that “God is not worth worshipping,” I decided that “God is worth worshipping because God is something other than what these people say he is.” Basically, I will not worship God based on the belief that He is like that, nor on the idea that He exists. I will worship God based on the belief that She is (for me) like I want/need Her to be.

  52. Kyra, I apologize for the oversight in the “he” pronoun. I am accustomed to using it as a generic singular, and haven’t quite gotten used to “s/he.” Didn’t mean to slight anybody.

    On the subject of the Ten Commandments, any number of things can be justified by selectively choosing certain portions of scripture. The “big picture” is what detractors of the Christian faith (and some of its adherents) miss. Christ Himself summed up the Law into two simple guidelines: love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind (the first three commandments); and love your neighbor as yourself (the last seven). There is no room for rape to be included as an acceptable practice under those guidelines, within or without marriage. God doesn’t give a “wink and nod” to abuse of any sort. The attempted codification of the Ten Commandments was one factor that led to the burdensome Jewish law that Jesus actually ridiculed on a few occasions, pointing out that the intent of the Pharisees had become to provide loopholes for their own “pet” activities. This isn’t unlike someone in the present day cherry-picking Bible verses to justify his or her actions (or to condemn those of another). The Ten Commandments is a set of precepts, not intended as a specific list of “dos and don’ts,” and as such is more all-inclusive and all-encompassing than any codified system could be.

    Understand, however, that the only use of the law is to condemnation. No mortal can keep the law, so everyone is in need of redemption, through faith in the only One who did.

    The comment was made that citing the “thou shalt not steal” commandment as forbidding rape was akin to contending that women were property. This is not at all the proper understanding of that concept. The idea is that if a woman is raped by someone other than her husband, he’s guilty of adultery. If a man rapes his wife, he’s stolen something from her (whether you want to say it’s “sex” or “dignity” or other intangible), so he’s guilty of theft. Again, abuse isn’t overlooked in God’s law, regardless of the efficacy of secular laws designed to stop it.

    One big problem with our perception of God is that we tend to view Him as one of us. To some degree, any understanding of His nature must be based upon our nature, otherwise we have no basis by which to grasp His qualities. This type of characterization has its limitations, however. One must accept that as fallen creatures, our concept of any emotion or personal quality is flawed. Therefore, when we see that “God is love,” we mustn’t limit our understanding of that quality to what we can know as humans. God’s love is beyond our complete comprehension, and it’s of a purity that we can’t completely grasp. In other words, don’t put God in a box with ideas like “action ‘x’ doesn’t look like love to me, so God can’t do it, because He’s a loving God.” Discipline doesn’t look like “love” to a five year-old, but it is a necessary part of a parent’s love.

    One more thing: Reading the comments and the linked article, I didn’t find the original reference to “god-ordained rape.” Where did that come from?

    In conclusion, many of the sentiments echoed here aren’t original or unique, as they stem from the perversion of the message of the Bible by sometimes ignorant, sometimes willfully misleading, members of the clergy. I pray daily for a return to the proper understanding of Scripture in the Church, because until the Church gets its act together, it can’t reasonably expect to exert any meaningful influence upon society. and I don’t personally know of a single Christian denomination that seems to really “get it.” Maybe one day there will even be a book written that addresses “all the things you’ve been told about the Bible that just ain’t so.” I feel really deep sympathy for those who have been turned off to Christianity by a bogus representation of the faith, but in a way I feel even more sympathy for those who are responsible–I believe their price to pay will be far greater.

  53. He may be a member of MENSA. Which should tell you something about MENSA.

    Don’t be in awe of MENSA members when it is obvious that they are making no sense at all. They can solve puzzles, but that doesn’t mean that they can reason from the facts.

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