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Men Women and Sex

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Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 9/3/2020 10:40:30 AM
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It is easy to have a certain perspective on this subject based on your gender, but also based on what book you follow. The first thing we should try to keep in mind that both genders have their own valid point of view, but that extra weight has always been given, by most societies, to the man's point of view. This doesn't mean that the man's point of view is always right. It just means that it is the most dominant. Considering the fact that we've had so many wars and so many problems I see no reason to glorify one gender over the other in terms of leadership and insight.

Understanding the bias in our perspective is what we need to help us overcome that bias. When I began second guessing the bible it was because of a simple question from my wife at the time. After that question, about how women were treated, I had to put myself in their shoes and try to read it from their perspective. Why is it that men could have multiple wives and women couldn't have multiple husbands? It comes down to an abuse of power.

Do you know what there were so many questions about divorce? It was because Moshe allowed divorce and people were ditching their old women in order to simply get new ones, younger ones. It was because they were treating their wives as possessions; like a PS3 and here comes the PS4. Now there's a PS5 on the way. Do you try to sell your PS4 or keep both? This is exactly how men were treating women. They were upgrading.

Question came up on this forum about sexual immorality.

Did you ever see a law that said a man had to be a virgin to get married? No, no such law exists. The female didn't have to be a virgin either. The difference between a female (and I have to use this terminology because often it was an older man marrying a girl in her early to late teens) who was a virgin and one who wasn't was price. PRICE.

The man had to pay the bride's price based on what her father demanded. If the father thought she was a virgin then he would set the price higher. I have my suspicions on why men in these times preferred virgins (I do not) but it's irrelevant. The fiance could have the girl literally checked to see if her hymen was in tact. If it wasn't he could "put her away" or there could even be punishment involved for the deception. But it wasn't because she wasn't a virgin, but rather because she was being "sold as" one.

It was customary for man to take in his dead brother's wife and if she had not had a child yet, to give her a child for the dead brother's sake. Another rule that benefited men, that corrupt men could take advantage of.

In the case of Onan, he told his brother's wife into his bed but spilled his seed ("pulled out") to keep her from getting pregnant, most likely so they could simply continue having sex. It says that "Onan knew that the seed should not be his" but that obviously didn't stop Onan from smashing (having sex with her).

I love this story, not because of that but because of what happened after. The father, also sleeps with her, thinking that she was a prostitute. This story proves that prostitution was entirely common and not even against the law. Why? Because it benefitted men.

https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=fornication&version=KJV

We don't even see fornication mentioned prior to 2 Chronicles. In Ezekiel it talks about playing the harlot. Of course this isn't being spoken of in a positive sense. But like I said... not illegal. It was considered a disgrace and a shame. Most of that shame belonged to the woman's family for not taking care of her financially.

The story of Onan happens all the way back in Genesis 38. In verse 13 Tamar is told that Judah was going to Timnath to shear his sheep. The question is how did she know he would be interested in having sex with a prostitute? You can't set someone up for this if they're not interested. She took off her widows garments and covered up with a vail. In verse 15 Judah sees her and thinks she's a harlot because of the vail and IMMEDIATELY, with no shame at all, propositions her. He didn't even pull out. She got pregnant and had a child by him.

It gets more interesting.

Judah sent a friend of his to go pay the woman. So how on earth could he have possibly been hiding the fact that he just smashed a harlot? He wasn't hiding this at all. Why? Because it was COMMON. It was so common that Tamar only had to throw on a vail. The Adullamite asks the men around where the prostitute was.

NOT so they could stone her for being a prostitute, but so he could PAY her.

So Judah's friend comes back and says he couldn't find her and even asked around. He replies to his friend "Let her take it to her, lest we be shamed" not shamed because he had sex with a whore but rather because he didn't pay. He didn't want to be known for cheating a prostitute out of the money she was owed.

The story gets even more interesting in my opinion.

3 months after they didn't find this prostitute someone tells Judah that Tamar is pregnant from prostitution. Judah is immediately like "nah f that. Let's burn this chick". Of course Tamar shows him the evidence that it was him and said "she hath been more righteous than I". But wait... why does he say that? Is it because now everyone knows he had sex with her thinking she was a pro? No... In his own words he says "because that I gave her not to Shelah my son"


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 9/3/2020 11:56:50 AM
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What men and women could do sexually was largely based on ownership and responsibility, not some arbitrary rule against sex outside of marriage. Of course, a family would discourage their daughters from being whores because that was an embarrassment to them. Likewise, if two young people had sex because they loved each other, that was the same as a proposal because a fiance was basically just a husband you didn't yet live with. But the parents could also break that engagement.

When there weren't parents (or at least a father) involved, then there was no bride price to be paid. If the woman was considered spoils of war, same thing. It could all be spoken of in negative terms, just because a couple was taking a path outside the normal cultural ideal. But when King Solomon was said to have all those women, not all of them were wives. Many of them were concubines.

Concubines weren't a new concept. Genesis 22, 25, 35, 36, Judges 8:31, Judges 19, 2 Samuel 3, 5.

Saul had one or more concubines. David, who the bible says was a man after God's own heart, had multiple concubines.

So make no mistake about it. Concubines weren't married. They were given rights in the household by the man, but this was "sex outside of marriage".

So what's the point?

The point I'm making is that there is no strict Hebrew/Israelite standard for who or how many you can have sex with. The more money you had the more women you could afford. And typically, unless you caught her eye and she was in love with you, then there were a lot of women who simply took these positions for reasons of financial security. There wouldn't even be 12 tribes of Israel without Jacob having sex with women he wasn't married to. The only real difference between a concubine and a whore is that a whore was a free agent and was having sex with multiple men for money. And its quite possible that many harlots simply graduated into becoming wives or concubines once they found a "john" they liked or who had enough money to take them in and off the market.

Laban practically threw Leah at Jacob because of how difficult it was for him to find her (sell her to) a husband. Women who weren't as attractive simply weren't getting picked as much and the older they got the less their chances. So you can see how a woman could get too old or not be attractive enough for the men who actually have the money to pay the bride price... so then they stay with their fathers until their father dies or something else happens and they end up having to fend for themselves.

And since everyone wasn't into marrying their cousins this also left a lot of Hebrew women out in the cold.

Their system... a system of buying women to be wives... is what created harlots. Harlots weren't doing it for fun. This was a consequences of a BAD SYSTEM which was made much worse by wars and their husbands dying in battle.

It is easy for men to judge women because the man, in Hebrew/Israelite culture, was afforded every privilege and benefit. He could have sex outside of marriage. He could have multiple wives. He could have concubines. So what was the big deal about marriage then? What was special about it?

Marriage was a status in which the wife was bound to the husband. She belonged to him and so other men had to leave her alone. It kept other dudes from stealing your PS4. If they were caught stealing your PS4 then they could both be stoned for adultery. The law had nothing to do with love or happiness and everything to do with property rights.

If your wife hates you, you still PAID for her. Under Moses, you were allowed to put HER away. I haven't seen evidence that she was allowed to put the husband away because that "putting away" is literally about putting them out of the "house" (tent/etc). Deuteronomy 24. And it was the man who owned the house. I think if it was the woman who owned everything it should have been allowed but there is simply no provision in Deuteronomy 24 for the woman to not be happy with her husband and divorce HIM. And even in verse 7 we see an almost seamless transition to talking about taking other MEN as merchandise and selling "him" not her.

Now if you consider Deuteronomy 21:10-14 then I think this gets a little murky, allowing room for legalistic people to find loopholes in the law to exploit (as if the regular law wasn't enough to their advantage).

It says that you can take a captive woman as a wife. When it says shave her head and pare her nails I would think this would be a cleanliness thing but it could also have been to try and keep her from committing suicide or even homicide. Can't say for certain. But anyway, the man was allowed to have sex with her after only a month after his people killed her parents. But you weren't allowed to sell her, assuming you had done all the steps because that means you've had sex with her. So this to me says that as long as you don't have sex with a woman you could sell her.

Why am I pointing this out?

Because I don't want anyone to think that this is somehow righteous, just, fair, or anything of that nature. It was completely unfair to women. It wasn't really that much better than regular slavery. It was just your father selling you instead of a stranger. And this system, produced women that no one wanted to pay for and so they became prostitutes. And if they did have a family to shame then it was possible that their family might murder them for it, unless they made it to concubine status... or became someone's wife. It was all about property and ownership. It wasn't about love, affection, attraction, seduction, romance, etc. It was about men having control and being able to mark their territory and murder anyone who dared to take what belonged to them. What if the husband didn't love his wife and she found a man who did love her? She should never be happy? She doesn't deserve happiness? Black Lives Matter. Women's lives matter too. I've had a wife cheat on me. But why would I want to kill the mother of my children just to keep her from being happy with some other guy? She moved on. I moved on too. No one had to die. And if I wanted her dead there would be something wrong with ME, not her. If you are that jealous, that you want your ex to die rather than see them be happy with someone else, maybe YOU are the one who is evil and should be executed. Not them.

Women are not and should never be seen as the property of men. THAT is immoral. Not having sex with people outside of marriage (legal designation of property). Slavery is immoral. Anyone telling you that you can own slaves of other nations and mistreat them as long as you don't do it to your own people? That person is immoral and should have no moral authority or credibility. Don't give me that "ancient times" stuff either. It wasn't okay then just like it isn't okay now.


Leviticus 25:44-46 ESV
As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Exodus 21:7-11 ESV
“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.


Messenger: Black Christ in Flesh Sent: 9/3/2020 11:57:48 PM
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Messenger: Black Christ in Flesh Sent: 9/6/2020 1:55:16 AM
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IPXNinja you are a very confused man. One moment you're standing on one foot, the next you're hopping onto the other, like someone standing on hot coals.

Just recently, you were arguing against creationism, saying existence in life is a result of evolution from lower forms. Now you're using the bible to validate your arguments concerning sexual habits. We all know that the twelve tribes philosophy is undoubtedly creationism and monotheistic philosophy of an etermal God. I want to understand your point of view, because if creationism is false, then the twelve tribes of israel have no basis for existence and their story is no more than a mythical folk tale.

Forgive me for drifting off topic but some things must be made clear first.


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 10/5/2020 1:44:25 PM
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BCiF: I want to understand your point of view, because if creationism is false, then the twelve tribes of israel have no basis for existence and their story is no more than a mythical folk tale.


First of all, I love you. Thank you for saying this.

Secondly, to answer your question...No, it doesn't mean the whole story is a mythical folk tale. Not at all.

What I have to say about it is very long and detailed. If you don't want to read it I understand. I wrote it anyway because I thought it needed to be said and this was a good opportunity to put it out there.

Humans are complex organisms. In one hemisphere of the brain we are very logical and reasonable. That left side of the brain is concerned with data and facts. History matters to this side of our thinking. But the other side of our thinking is creative, imaginative, writing fiction, telling stories, painting, drawing, making music.

We do not think with just one side of our brain. Consciousness is a collaboration.

When "the gods" were born they were born out of our imagination's quest for answers we didn't have and had no way of logically or reasonably knowing the facts of.


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 10/5/2020 1:45:34 PM
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Where do we come from?

That is the question humanity asked. Even today, the reason many Christians (not to pick on this religion but rather I'm more experienced debating them as to know their thoughts) believe in God because they cannot accept the alternative. Their egos... can't accept the alternative; which in their mind means having a monkey for an uncle.

It's not true. Science doesn't say we came from monkeys or apes but rather that we have a common ancestor. But evolution also says all animal life has a common ancestor. But just as you do not know who the common ancestor of black and white people is, or whether this is the same ancestor or older or younger than the common ancestor for Asians, it is the same with us and other animals. We can look back like a family tree to some extent but the answers are vague at best.

But this idea... that we weren't always human is simply too much for many people's ego to handle. They sought an alternative.

So instead of descending from a single cell organism many humans, especially those in previous times without the assistance of microscopes, thought up a heavenly father that could be the king of the universe.

This is simply the most egotistical point of view possible.

The assumption that there is a king of the universe assumes that the model of a human kingdom, which has always been plagued with corruption and slavery and poverty and injustice, was modeled after something that existed prior to Earth. But this contradicts the bible because if you recall, the Israelites wanted a king like the other nations. That's not what Moses claimed he was given.

Do you know what you need to be king?

You need wealth. However, if everyone has equal wealth, no one would be wealthy, hence no one would be king. Without the concept of land ownership, no one would be king. We project these ideas onto the gods because we humans wanted the gods to be like us. We weren't made in their image. We made them in ours.

We project our understanding of power, the very thing we are suffering under, we projected that onto the gods because we reason that someone has to be responsible for everything. We all believed in cause and effect before it was ever called that. For science, cause and effect doesn't require a person to be the cause. In religion, the cause is always a person. This is the central tenet of superstition.


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 10/5/2020 1:46:56 PM
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The sailors at sea with a man who religion says would be transported in the belly of a whale, those men were superstitious. They believed one of them were responsible for the storm but did not know who. This idea ignores any other boats that may have been in the same storm with other sailors, also casting lots (like dice), using chance to decide what to believe.

Here is the irony. Superstitious people believe science is all about chance and that's how everything came into existence. But they use the concept of chance all the time. They just hide it.

Science, doesn't use chance in the same way. Science uses "probability". Sounds the same to the untrained ear but probability is very different from random chance. In probability there are variables. Each variable represents the likelihood of something happening which is based on the environment.

So the likelihood of catching covid-19, for example, goes up and down depending on what you do and what others do around you. You can walk around in a crowd and maybe no one has it, but maybe 2 people, maybe 5. In the bible, Abraham says "peradventure there are 50 righteous". Chance. He believed Sodom and Gomorrah were too wicked as if wickedness were covid-19 and too many people had it so it must be purged. But his brother Lot was there. Did they "catch" unrighteousness? The probability was, in this point of view, that these cities were lost causes because there were too many people doing bad things. The odd thing is that in the story they all seemed to be cooperating to do evil together. I think these cities stories are myths.

Evil people do not typically work well together. Evil people fear each other. Why would it take an angel, telling Lot to leave, for him to want to go? How were his daughters able to remain virgins for so long if everyone was raping each other? Surely, Lot would have left in order to protect his children from certain misfortune. It is only the mythological presence of these angels that seem to bring out they mythological wickedness of the city. I'm not saying they didn't have wicked people. They probably had child molesters and adulterers and liars and thieves

...like every other big city.


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 10/5/2020 1:47:47 PM
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Imagine being a rural farmer, with a huge flock and many workers helping you, and people are constantly coming to buy meat from you and since they are probably selling meat to different cities they travel, trade, and tell stories.

I can imagine this. Why? Because I know big cities have a lot of people in higher concentrations. But this concentration also means that everyone isn't a farmer. So where does their food come from? They have to trade for it. So we can logically deduce the existence of these traders. So we can logically deduce that they would have contacts with people in the cities and hear stories, and have contacts with farmers, where they could share stories. Make sense? This logic is based on probability, not simply chance. You cannot say, with any degree of certainty, which trader heard which story. There is a higher probability that stories that seemed more interesting to share follow the same pattern as what we see on the news. The news is mostly stories of crimes. Crimes. Think about that. And if all you hear are stories of crimes you MIGHT start to think that those cities are bad. It doesn't at all mean that a majority of the citizens of that city are bad. Criminals are always a minority of the population. More crime is going to happen in New York than in Kansas, but is it all parts of New York? No. We don't have to look at stats to guess where the crime is concentrated.

Low income communities.

Not having land for farming or cattle or anything decreases a persons ability to survive. Obviously. They have to indirectly rely on other people for food which means they have to have the means to pay those people. If they don't they'll have to figure something out. If they cannot figure out a legal way to do it, then they will figure out an illegal way to do it. And if there is no ruler then there is no law or law enforcement. So doing illegal things doesn't carry the same consequences.

In many places superstition ruled and people simply believed that if you did something wrong the gods would curse you and calamities would befall you or your family. Remember, to them, someone was always responsible. That's why if a woman was barren or someone died from a disease or a child was born with a deformity, superstitious people blamed people. If they could not blame a person than they blamed "the gods".


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 10/5/2020 1:48:48 PM
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So when you understand superstition than many things will make sense to you. The epic of Gilgamesh is a story older than the bible. Is it related to the Noah story? Possibly. But the probability is not 100% because again... ANY calamity (which the Hebrew word for calamity is the same word for evil) is always caused by the gods reacting to humans. So in the epic of Gilgamesh the humans were "too noisy". In the bible the humans were too wicked. We know the biblical stories started with wealthy landowners who were self-sufficient. They didn't need to steal to eat. And if they were helping their children choose wives and giving them an inheritance to pay for them, then they also had a path that easily avoided things like rape. Coming into contact with less people and tending cattle or crops kept them busy enough to quiet most urges.

Again... the concentration of humans creates opportunities for both good and bad things to happen. When Israel began concentrating population in the same way, the SAME things occurred. So the reality is that they were never any different from their neighbors. Beliefs seem to keep people from doing the worst things but in reality many of the worst and most sinful people are believers.

But humans are like a garden. We all need sunlight and water to survive. If you deprive a human of love you shouldn't then assume they will grow up loving others and being kind. If you deprive a human of money you shouldn't assume they will not steal or sell illegal goods. It is human nature to survive.

Again...

Superstitious people believe people are responsible but don't have the power. So anything that happens gets blamed on the people they are offended by; thus they say those people have offended the gods. Because they, whether they realize it or not, project their own offense onto "the gods", believing the gods are offended and will act because they, in their hearts, want to do something to punish criminals. Hence, why you have so much support for law enforcement and "Blue Lives Matter". We could support law enforcement too if it was just, honorable, and righteous. But if cops are 'superstitious' in a way... believing it's not only people who are responsible... but that its most "black" people. And they can believe this because poverty plays a significant role in who will commit crimes because they see the need to commit crimes because why? Because they want to survive in a system where some people own much more than they need.

Those innocent good farmers?

The fact that they have enough cattle to sell and have so much land that they can grow extra food to sell... means they have more than they need. But since they "own" it, not one can simply take what they need without "stealing". There is an imbalance in that relationship. The person without ownership must pay all the people with ownership. It's just like the game of Monopoly. If you own none of the properties you will lose the game. It's inevitable.


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 10/5/2020 1:50:04 PM
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So that precious "king" that we all want to be? Is really the bad guy in the story because that person is hording land and resources that give him leverage on the population of people around him. But the people tolerate him because they have no choice and because they benefit from the king paying people to protect his wealth from them. In a perfect world kings would not exist because they land wouldn't be "owned" and everyone would cooperate to have the same odds of survival. That's how many African villages lived. But the problem is that poverty in another tribe... another village... lack of water or drought... famine... could make one village attack another since they can't imagine that another village would share enough with them that they would all be okay.

Scarcity and limited resources are the enemy. Because resources are scarce they are also horded. This keeps resources away from people in poverty and that's why people are starving while Jeff Bezos is making billions.

Whole governments are trying to figure out how to keep all their people alive which often leads to extreme measures and overreactions, including war. It all comes down to humanity's basic needs for food and water. Morality mutates and is corrupted from there. Once a person learns they are capable of stealing, they find that they might be capable of something worst. Then something worst. Eventually, they find that they can kill another person. And if you can kill another person then there is no other crime you cannot do. And most people would kill to survive. If you'd do it in defense... then killing someone on offense is simply self-defense from a tragically warped perspective.

But we're taught to hate the sinner. We're taught to idolize the kings. We're taught to want to walk on streets of gold and that heaven has pearly gates. No one stopped to ask why heaven would need gates in the first place. Why? Because, again, we project our own issues onto the gods because they are our creations. If we cannot imagine a world in which swords and gates aren't necessary tools for survival... then they will be necessary for our gods.

The first sword in the bible is from a mythical story. Adam and Eve were blocked from the garden by flaming swords. So this story was created after humans created swords. Heaven had gates only after humans invented gates and walls to keep humans and animals out. So of course, humans thought the gods would use physical violence to solve problems. Because they had not yet learned to use diplomacy themselves.



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