I think perhaps we should not use 2000 year old books as the source of our morality maybe?
We already do :)
Most morals come from abrahamic religions, such as dont murder
7 comments
So if “murder” was not a crime nor immoral until 2,000 years ago, how the actual hell did ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Sumaria, China, etc. ever manage to build their vast civilizations? After all, by your “logic” all their inhabitants would have been murdering each other faster than they could get anything else done.
“Most morals come from abrahamic religions, such as dont murder”
Um, ’don’t murder’ isn’t a moral. It’s a behavior.
The law really doesn’t give a fuck if you don’t murder your fellow humans because god told you not to, or because you’re too lazy. You could believe that the entire world is a simulation and murder is just a choice you make from an invisible pull-down menu, with all the moral depth of picking a pair of socks to wear, for all the law cares.
The law just doesn’t want to deal with that behavior.
And you can’t really show that we prohibit murder because the Abrahamic religions prohibit murder. There are a lot of requirements in the Bible that aren’t laws in our land. It’s not illegal in this country to work on Sunday, or to tell lies, or to spread gossip, or to worship a god that’s not YHWH.
“Don’t murder people” predates any religion and applies in societies that deliberately disentangle themselves from religion. People determine morality and law based on what causes measurable harm to other people. It being perfectly okay to murder people under various circumstances or “if God wills it” is baked into Abrahamic religions. Abraham, famously, was instructed to kill his son Isaac by God just to test his faith. Not his morals because he was absolutely going to do it before God said psych, his willingness to put morals aside for God who would have punished him for a flat refusal to commit filiicide. Religion does not care if other people get harmed if it serves the religion’s purposes and you’ll note it’s very human very political clergy that announce what “God” wills. Abrahamic religions are as widespread as they are precisely because they were spread and others suppressed by use of violence.
While the exact definition varies between jurisdictions, murder is generally the most severe form of criminal homicide. "Thou shalt not murder” is not even incredibly basic and quasi-universal morality that no society really can survive without and that no culture, religion or movement can rightfully claim for itself - it is a tautology!
The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text, dated approx. 1792-1750 BCE and written in Akkadian. It lays out the punishments administered for various crimes, including false testimony, fraud, and murder.
It was dedicated to the pantheon of Mesopotamian gods with no mention of Yahweh.
And like the Bible, it does not question the legality of slavery.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.