BD
I am glad that you acknowledge polygamy was "normal" for the old testament including it's writers. Most christians deny this or try to explain it away with some creative contextualisations. - such as your assertion that new testament Hebrews had deviated from their polygamous norm of Gods law given to their patriarch Moses with the 10 comandments.

The next step for you is to acknowledge that Exodus 20, the 10 commandments, is followed by Exodus 21, rules for justice in polygamy. Exodus 21 is part of the law that god gave to Moses and begins with "these are the other laws that you must obey".

So it is interesting that you don't want to discuss polygamy but I am sure the 10 commandments are an important art of your world view. Why do you embrace some of god's laws and reject others outright?

So if I was to identify an old lost value in need of restoring from modern liberal misinterpretations of scripture, it would have to be polygamy..

May I suggest that your christianity is a human made illusion and construction every bit as much as marxism, feminism or post-modernism. It certainly has nothing to do with biblical morality.

And if I am correct that your morality is just a social construction, my answer to your question about how to force a young person to adhere to a social construction is irrrelevent as I would encourage them to seek the truth and make up their own mind.

I know this may be dissapointing for me and other bible believers if the young people in my life choose to have sex with one partner at a time instead of embarking on holy polygamy, but I guess I cant force the bible down their throat.

King Canute,
How do you define truth? How do young people with no life experience recognise what is true? Without education society would result in anarchy. That is why law is defined in social values. Violation of those social laws brings social penalties.

What is wrong with defining social values as viewed by principles of what is best and healthiest? That is exactly what was intended by the laws laid down by Moses. It was based in best social behaviour 'love of neighbour' and best health practise as they knew at the time.

I work with young people on the street and I can tell you they will do exactly what they feel is best for them at the moment. Their judgment is based on how they feel, not on what is universally socially best practise. I can tell you young people will do exactly as they please without thought of social consequences. Id behaviour must be educated and modified. Your last statement is a nonsense as the young people on the street have no conscience about sexual loyalty and threats to their health.

Quote, "And if I am correct that your morality is just a social construction, my answer to your question about how to force a young person to adhere to a social construction is irrrelevent as I would encourage them to seek the truth and make up their own mind...I know this may be dissapointing for me and other bible believers if the young people in my life choose to have sex with one partner at a time instead of embarking on holy polygamy, but I guess I cant force the bible down their throat.

Hi Philo,

I do not try and define truth, I try to perceive it, in the full knowledge that my perception will be biased, innacurate and certainly no absolute enlightenment. The attempt to define truth, and then argue about that definition is the same problem as universities, as per the issues of this thread. - the outcome of the argument is irrelevent to the truth.

The closest thing I can get to truth is, through meditation, purging all social constructs from my consciousnes, even for a limited time, and considering what is left without trying to define it.

This is different to post-modernism which appears to suggest that any illusion is as good/bad as any other but since illusions are all we have we may as well embrace the one that feels most comfortable.

Christianity however embraces some illusions as absolute and then promotes them as universal. this is no more the truth than other constructs that dominate the consciousness of acedemics and university departments.

May I respectfully suggest that your low view of the capacity of young people is because you meet them in prolonged crisis (I assume a lot from your streetwork comment here). This is the same as Freud generalising his findings of his rich neglected neurotic clients to a universal sexual dillema.

Healthy young people learn morality from before they are born, these people can make good decisions about anything. When the person, young or otherwise is subjected to stress, anxiety and unfortunate lifestyle circumstance, their capacity for clear decision making is very much limited, especially if in the context of substance abuse cycles which many young people on the street are in. The solution is not strong moral guidance (which happens naturally anyway) but in improving social conditions and mental health resources to the marginalised.

King,
Society needs defined social values to operate within. The examples of societies that have good and tested values have strict parential educational codes that are accepted by the whole of that society; Eg Japan, pre-Mao China. When everyone does what he individually feels is right we have anarchy and social disorder. That is part of the social problem we have in Australia today, not everyone follows the social codes.

There is a glaring hole in your argument. When did you loose your pre-birty knowledge of morality that you then had to find it by meditation?

First you state: "The closest thing I can get to truth is, through meditation, purging all social constructs from my consciousnes, even for a limited time, and considering what is left without trying to define it."

Second you claim: "Healthy young people learn morality from before they are born, these people can make good decisions about anything."

Tell me what morality you learned before you were born?

When most babies are born they are totally self absorbed and unconscious of others except milk and wampth. What happened to their knowledge of awareness of allowing mother some time for herself?

Morality is learned by observing example and parential correction of the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. I have the care of 21 infant children in my home and I can say good behaviour did not happen naturally from birth, it was taught.

Dear Kanute

Lets be clear on one thing. Polygamy was not set forth as a 'law'.

It was accommodated within the wider social law in the historical/social context of the period. So, I guess we have to concede that a man having multiple wives is not quite the abhorrent thing it is often made out to be. Though, having said that, I see not a single example of a 'happy' polygamous marriage in the Old Testament. If you can find one, please share it with me.

One thing we can see from the matter of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar.
Sarah was Abraham's 'wife'. Hagar was her handmaiden. When Abraham went into Hagar and she conceived, God reminded Abraham that he would have a child through his 'real' wife, Sarah.

The only command of Exodus 21 are in the form of ‘IF’ a man.... he must not mistreat”
Clearly polygamy was not described as an ‘abomination’ as are bestiality, incest and homosexual acts.
The most I will say of the practice, is that it was a social necessity for survival at that time in history where many men were killed in battle, and multiple wives gave the opportunity for less men to produce more offspring.

To reject polygamy on the basis of the New Testament teaching is neither in contradiction to any ‘Law’ of the old testament, nor being ‘selective’ as you say.

Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, so in Him we see its full and true meaning.

The Divine law not a human social construct. Nor do I believe we can ‘force’ young people to follow it. All I’m saying is that we need a ‘framework’ to guide us all.
Neither Marxism, Feminism, Atheistic humanism nor post modernism has a framework with an enduring foundation.

Individual renewal in Christ is the best answer to social ills. It will cause us to be ‘fully human’ and live as we were intended to do.

Rob, threatening eternal damnation as a motivating force for social compliance is wrong. Informing people of its reality is not.

Gregory, like our "King" Johnnie too, gets it all confused when he says ..... "They lack the free will to make decisions and choices and must simply play out the hand that their class or gender or race has dealt them. Trapped within their gender, class and race they are to be de-humanised, considered not as individuals in their own right but as representatives of their particular group."

I suspect that we humans share many unconscious yearnings and that the freedom to follow our intellectual curiosities is one of the greatest. However, if we consider that we live in co-evolution with what our brains produce then our greatest potential lies in better learning how to learn where the true diversity is diversity of thought, of perspective and of creativity. Rather than assuming that our minds are like savings banks that we or someone else, just make deposits to, we need to actively find true diversity which includes an ability to adopt a framework of perspectives that can be inquiring, analytical, critical and evaluative. We can still have the "me" only, or the group or the ethnicity or the environmental, with some use of imagination, intuition and empathy.

Adopting a framework of perspectives is a means of diversifying away from the superiority of an “order” that masks the contradictions, subverts the degree of provisionality, cloaks the instabilities, blinds us to the fragmentary, and numbs us to the incoherent.

Why not celebrate fragmentation, provisionality, chaos, ambiguity, skepticism, conflict, vastness, disorientation, questions, confusion and incoherence? By all means challenge minds with reason, free inquiry, dignity, participation and imagination.