God will sort it out...

[thestoat]

Not married, are you?

I did have a chuckle reading that Now if any god told me to sleep with Jennifer Aniston I suppose I'd have to ... though obviously under protest. Wouldn't want him to smite me.

[Scooter]

Not really since that exception is also laid out in Leviticus. The purpose being tp provide an Heir in cases where one doesn't exist.

I get what the purpose is. But since the punishment laid out in Leviticus for marrying your brother's wife (that you will be childless) would appear to work against that goal...

Besides I thught the anglican schisim was based on Henry VIII's quest to get some strange.

I'm not sure what that sentence means, but...

He wanted a male heir. His first wife (his brother's widow) didn't give him one, so he got rid of her and married a woman he thought would give him a line of sons, which meant a break with Rome. When she also bore him a single daughter, he had her declared an adulteress (with her own brother, no less) in a show trial, which meant she had committed treason and he had her head cut off. His next wife gave him a son (albeit a sickly one) whose "reign" (he was only a child) brought about the English Reformation in earnest.

[Crackpot]

"Getting some strange" is a euphamism for having sex with someone who isn't your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend. stemming from it feeling different (strange) from what you're used to.

[Scooter]

Ah, thanks. I think he was already getting a lot of that.

But for the sons he wanted to be legitimate he had to be married. so...

[Gob]

Ah yes, I kinda understood that. To me, forcing Onan to sleep with anyone isn't a good thing, and then killing him for not doing it right is a bit harsh.

More proof that god's a woman?

[loCAtek]

Also, why didn't god "do a Mary" and give her a son anyway?

Mary was a chaste virgin worthy to bare the son of God; Onan's brother's wife ...not so much.

[thestoat]

Nice answer, Lo. I still find it hard to believe that an omniscient being couldn't anticipate the problem and an omnipotent being couldn't sort it before it happened, without resorting to rape and then murder. Though judging by the ot he wasn't averse to those and other atrocities.

[Crackpot]

If he wanted to interfere with free will sure. Still not sure where you're getting rape from, Unless, you're referring to Onan raping his brothers widow since he was screwing her under false pretenses.

What did Onan in was that he was trying to skirt the edges of the law. Pretending to obey the letter while ignoring the spirit. It's one of the biggest recurring themes in the Bible (both OT and NT) But people still do it to this day with the same abandon as Onan trying to drown anthills with his cum. Which brings us to the lesson demonstrated by Onans death:

God is not fooled and obeying the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit wont save you.

Which leads me to an interesting Catholic pondery If this passage is where they get the idea that Masturbation is sinful (which is a stretch by any means of the imagination) why is Coitus Interriptus (which is the clear case here) an approved method of contraception?

[Scooter]

Uh...it most definitely isn't.

[Crackpot]

I thought it was. my mistake.

[Scooter]

Anything that prevents a sexual act from lending itself to conception is forbidden. Thus the only approved means of birth control is so-called natural family planning - timing sexual activity to avoid fertile periods.

[Crackpot]

AKA the Rythm Method (though ithought there was another one, aside from abstinance annyhow) But I havn't been Catholic sine I was about 13 so I was never taught that stuff,

[Sean]

"I would like to thank the Catholic church personally for the rhythm method of contraception. Without which, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’m sure my father practiced it faithfully, y’know the metronome on the sideboard . . .tick . . .tick . . .tick. My father out with the mouth organ . .my mother with the tambourine “Go for it Bill, this’ll do me!” . . all the protestants along the close “There’s them Catholics shagging again . . keep the noise doon!”. Only a celibate could come up with that idea." - Billy Connolly

[loCAtek]

Nice answer, Lo. I still find it hard to believe that an omniscient being couldn't anticipate the problem and an omnipotent being couldn't sort it before it happened, without resorting to rape and then murder. Though judging by the ot he wasn't averse to those and other atrocities.

Well, save one family by favoritism; or save all of mankind by sending your own son to die for their sins? Doesn't seem an apt comparison.

[thestoat]

Well, save one family by favoritism; or save all of mankind by sending your own son to die for their sins? Doesn't seem an apt comparison.

I just believe rape and murder is always wrong. Guess you could say I disagree with god on that.

[Crackpot]

Still not getting the Rape thing and it's not so much murder but capital punishment. But I guess that depends on where you stand on the concept of the "death penalty"

[thestoat]

I suppose it does depend on how you view these things. For me, killing someone who doesn't want to sow his seed in someone else is murder, and the way I read the passage, he wasn't given a say in having sex with her (and her wishes aren't mentioned at all), thus forced upon them, thus rape. But there are others here (you among them) who understand the bible better than I so maybe there are other ways of interpreting it.

Of course, if you want plain "didn't do anything but god still murders them" stories they seem to abound in the Bible anyway. A classic is "Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants" (Isaiah 14:21) but there are many others.

As for rape, "When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house" is a nice example. That's the sort of thing we try war criminals for ...

[loCAtek]

Taking a wife is rape in your eyes? Um, they weren't 'captives' but I know many servicemen with Philippine, Japanese and Iraqi wives. I call that marriage not rape, but that's just me.

[thestoat]

Interesting, lo, I didn't think she was his wife - I thought she was his brother's wife? But that is irrelevant to my mind -

Marital rape, also known as spousal rape, is non-consensual sex in which the perpetrator is the victim's spouse. As such, it as a form of partner rape, of domestic violence, and of sexual abuse. Once widely condoned or ignored by law, spousal rape is now repudiated by international conventions and increasingly criminalized. Still, in many countries, spousal rape either remains legal, or is illegal but widely tolerated and accepted as a husband's prerogative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape

[Sue U]

As for rape, "When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house" is a nice example. That's the sort of thing we try war criminals for ...

Um, really, stoat, don't you think you should include the rest of that passage to put it in some context? After you bring her home, "she shall shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her."

Considering the standard practices of war in the Bronze Age Levant -- and many places still today -- this could hardly be called rape; in fact, this was the most humane and progressive law in the world regarding treatment of captives. You are not permitted to rape a female captive; you cannot treat her as a slave, or sell her into slavery when you are tired of her; you must remove her trappings of beauty and allow her a full month of weeping before you can take her to wife; and if by that time you're fed up with the whole prospect of marriage to her, you must let her go free.

And as far as murder of innocents goes, a highly allegorical quote from Isaiah? That's the best you can do? I would have chosen the genocide of Amalek (1 Samuel 15).