The Off Topic Topic

[Monoriu]

What's wrong with marrying your dead brother's wife, assuming that the marriage is consensual?

[PDH]

I think the OT says your are supposed to do it along with your present marriage...

[Eddie Teach]

What's wrong with marrying your dead brother's wife, assuming that the marriage is consensual?

It's kinda creepy.

[citizen k]

"Excuse me. Excuse me. I need some help over here."

She seems to be in a hurry.

[Valmy]

What's wrong with marrying your dead brother's wife, assuming that the marriage is consensual?

Well the Bible says:

If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.

Which makes that meme retarded since it is saying the Bible is pro this kind of marriage, while it also considers it immoral. But one should never expect meme creators to be honest about anything.

This is actually the passage Henry VIII hoped to use to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon since she was the widow of his brother Arthur.

It is rather: LOL my uninformed idiocy is so thought provoking!

[Eddie Teach]

Didn't Ruth marry her late husband's brother?

[Valmy]

Didn't Ruth marry her late husband's brother?

No. I think he was a cousin or something.

[crazy canuck]

What's wrong with marrying your dead brother's wife, assuming that the marriage is consensual?

Well the Bible says:

If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.

Which makes that meme retarded since it is saying the Bible is pro this kind of marriage, while it also considers it immoral. But one should never expect meme creators to be honest about anything.

This is actually the passage Henry VIII hoped to use to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon since she was the widow of his brother Arthur.

It is rather: LOL my uninformed idiocy is so thought provoking!

And then there is


Genesis 38:8
Then Judah said to Onan, "Sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother."

Deuteronomy 25:5
If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.


Ruth 4:5
Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man's widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property."

Matthew 22:25
Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother.


I think you should tone down the moral outrage bit 

[Valmy]

I think you should tone down the moral outrage bit 

Huh. I was going more for weary. I think you read that post with the wrong internal voice.

I cannot help but notice these things are becoming important ways to transfer political points and cultural ideas. The fact they are almost 100% lies is tiresome.

[11B4V]

What's wrong with marrying your dead brother's wife, assuming that the marriage is consensual?

Well the Bible says:

If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.

Which makes that meme retarded since it is saying the Bible is pro this kind of marriage, while it also considers it immoral. But one should never expect meme creators to be honest about anything.

This is actually the passage Henry VIII hoped to use to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon since she was the widow of his brother Arthur.

It is rather: LOL my uninformed idiocy is so thought provoking!

And then there is


Genesis 38:8
Then Judah said to Onan, "Sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother."

Deuteronomy 25:5
If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.


Ruth 4:5
Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man's widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property."

Matthew 22:25
Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother.


I think you should tone down the moral outrage bit 

Not really. The bequeathing of females as property is an outrage itself. A testament (no pun intended) to the immorality of that comic book.

[Eddie Teach]

Not really. The bequeathing of females as property is an outrage itself. A testament (no pun intended) to the immorality of that comic book.

If morality is a concept based on what people a couple thousand years into the future will think about what you're doing, it's not a particularly useful one.

[Valmy]

Not really. The bequeathing of females as property is an outrage itself. A testament (no pun intended) to the immorality of that comic book.

It is an amazing primary source from a culture that is thousands of years old. But yes let's call it a comic book.

[Josquius]

The marry your dead brothers wife (to take care of her) one is the one that I recognise the most. Maybe it's with Muslims that it holds stronger?

[Syt]

A friend of mine posted on Facebook a meme that is quite telling for the average joe's view in Germany:

(From a political satirist)
"For decades we keep mixing the same old parties in elections. I've been doing political satire for 30 years. Show me a single point in the last 30 years where the major parties changed something for the better for the majority of the people. I can't think of one."

It summarizes two views:
1. Current politicians don't care about the people but only their own and/or business interests.
2. Politics is something that happens to you, not something you participate in. For many years all big parties have been bleeding members, and politicians have a very bad public image. At the grass roots level (local councils) you often have independent local parties on equal footing with the traditional parties.

[Malthus]

Not really. The bequeathing of females as property is an outrage itself. A testament (no pun intended) to the immorality of that comic book.

It was set in an ancient society somewhat lacking a social safety net. Marriage into a clan was their equivalent of social welfare - it was an obligation, not a pleasure.

Much of the shit in the OT looks retarded and cruel - until of course one realizes that the alternative was usually worse.

Take for example the treatment of slaves. Allowing slavery is of course retarded and cruel - however, what the OT does, is allow them at least some rights; the more general alternative was to allow them none.

As a guide to modern living, the OT makes zero sense - one can no more follow it literally, than one can live in a modern society by the rules appropriate to a headhunter in New Guinea. Of course, by our modern standards, guys like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both criminals deserving of the worst punishment: if they were around now and tried to own people today, we'd throw their asses in jail, and rightly. Does that make them evil and everything they said immoral nonsense? No, because we have the ability to separate out the good stuff from the bad, to adapt what is meaningful to us, and to recognize that they were products of their times.

Mind you, that same advice goes in spade to those lunatics who actually attempt to impose "Biblical values" on the modern world - of course they, like everyone else, cherry-picks which bits they find relevant (even Orthodox Jews do this). It is a sad reflection on them, not on the OT, that they choose to impose the ancient prohibition on male homosexuality, and not (say) the equally ancient requirements for animal sacrifices at the Temple. That's their deliberate choice.