God Talk: Debates and Discussions with Believers

These are actual conversations that have taken place between religious believers and myself, through forums, email, dialogue, etc. This discussion has been kept in its original format, with spelling and grammatical errors in tact.

Whitewashing Rape in the Bible

Claim: The bible nowhere denounces rape, but instead encourages it, when the Israelites are instructed to take women, young virgins, and even children as their own property (Numbers 31:17-18, Deuteronomy 20:14, Deut. 21:10-11, Judges 5:30). When captive women are violated by another man, the rapist is executed only if the woman was pledged to be married. If she is a virgin, the rapist simply pays her father 50 shekels (Deut. 22:25-29) - clear indications that infringement on property is what is punished, not rape. God additionally uses rape as a punishment for King David (2 Samuel 12:11).

Christian: How are you so retarded? You're contradicting your own case by pointing out that God used rape as punishment... That would mean that rape was viewed as a bad thing, thus confirming your opponents position and defeating your own case. Your stupidity is literally nauseating. Then you will contradict yourself on this too, you'll cry about the Israelis killing all woman and children of their enemies. So which is worse? Saving the woman or killing them?

Rebuttal: You really think that every punishment God served out was considered wrong? First of all, punishment is relative to what a person finds humiliating or humbling, and it does not follow that because the recipient considers it a punishment, the giver of that punishment also does. Case in point: a parent telling their child that they aren't allowed to play Xbox for a day. That's a punishment to the child, but it doesn't mean the parent thinks Xbox is wrong.

As a specific example, how about when Michal criticizes David and receives barrenness as a punishment (2 Samuel 6:20-23). Do you think that means that God thinks it's wrong to be barren? Or is it just the way God uses barrenness in conjunction with how it makes Michal feel that makes it punishment? Your pathetic understanding of punishment and your own scriptures is the real nauseating stupidity here.

How about saving the women without raping them? Novel idea for the Judeo-Christian god though, I know.

Christian: So in other words its not enjoyable to be raped? Or are you saying in some cases rape ok, just like xbox?... Fucking aye kid. NAMBLA would have a field day with you.

Rebuttal: Well, there are people with rape fantasies, but because those would be consensual, they are not the forced non-consenting act of sexual violation that's called rape. Semantics aside, I like how you're trying to distort my words. No, rape is not ok in some cases to me, but to your god it appears to be. Tell me, do you think all those captive virgins taken by Israelite men were... for what, a ripping good game of Yahtzee?

Atheist: Calling someone stupid when you clearly don't understand just makes you look even more stupid yourself. You did something wrong, therefore, I'm going to have your wife raped. That statement says nothing about the act of rape being wrong, only that it violates the husband's property. There's nothing about her suffering, her mental and physical pain. Nothing about the act of rape itself being wrong. As Taylor pointed out, it's only an issue of property.

Christian: Oh great, now i have a bunch of 12 year old badgering me with some of the stupidest responses i've ever seen. You're going to tell me that this isn't about rape? How is it only an issue of property? It is an issue of leadership as traditionally the man is the head of the family. You're sick for what you're saying. The law clearly defended woman's bodies If you weren't such an ignorant jackass you'd know this about Judaism.

Rebuttal: He's sick for what he's saying when you're defending the bible's bullshit about men being the head of women? The only 12 year old stupidity I see here is the person with moral standards built on bronze age myths (you, in case you miss it). Where does the law defend women's bodies as anything but the property of men? Women don't have enough claim to themselves for a man to ask them to be a wife, since Deut. 21:11-14 says a man could take any pretty captive woman he wanted. You're quite a joker!

Christian: You don't think that's true [that men are the head of women]? You don't even need the bible for this, in fact even evolution has male species as being dominant over the females. But that's neither here nor there. Why are there laws against rape if God is ok with it? Why wouldn't these instead stories of huge orgies as humans are inclined to do? You need to get your head back in reality.

Rebuttal: Yeah, males are dominant over females, except for hyenas, lemurs, black widow spiders, anglerfish, and I could go on. Even so, when we have consciousness and self-awareness that has brought us to the level we are at in the animal kingdom, appealing to other mammals doesn't fly. Equality does. There aren't laws against rape in the bible. They're laws against violating a man's property.

By the way, I love the fact that you've decided to ignore my question about what Moses and the Israelites intended to do with the young virgin women they took captive. Tells me all I need to know about your sense of "justice", "love", and "morality" that you claim to get from your god.

Christian: They intended to bring them into their society to probably marry their sons. It's just your dementia that leads you to think these means they had an orgy with them. Then you would have to ignore all the laws against fornication and adultery. I don't respond to your question because i hoped you're just being facetious.

Rebuttal: Or it could be the fact that Moses criticized the Israelites for not killing all the women who had slept with men, and then followed it up by telling them to take the young VIRGINS for themselves. You think that has nothing to do with their intentions for the women? That is some mighty fine ignorance. Laws against fornication and adultery don't apply with captives. Read your bible sometime.