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2012-01-27
Exodus 22:7-8 deals with the theft of goods being held for you by someone else, but it does so in a pretty piss-poor manner. We begin with yet another scenario: if a man gives his neighbor money or goods for safekeeping, but the goods are stolen, and the thief isn’t caught, then suspicion goes to the person who was holding the goods. He must be brought before the judges who will decide if he stole the goods or not.
Okay, this makes sense, if I have my stuff in a storage unit, the guy holding the key is always going to be a suspect, but I have some serious reservations with how they go about finding the guilty party.
There is basically no talk of jurisprudence here. Is there a jury? Will there be qualified lawyers defending the accused? Did the local law enforcement send in their crime scene investigators to get a forensic analysis? Is there an appeal process? You mean to tell me that the local judges are the sole decider of the man’s guilt? How could they possibly be qualified to reach the truth without any of the aforementioned skills? Not to mention a legal system controlled by a small group of judges pretty much guarantees an abuse of power.
Now, a rational person would simply argue that the legal system is always a work in progress. It started out very basic and lop-sided with sexism, racism, and all-around bigotry (like we see in the bible). However, over the centuries we’ve gotten better at making it fair for everyone. We keep the majority rule, but we never forget minority rights. But this march towards progress is not what we’re talking about here.
If the believers are right in their claim that these laws are commanded by the perfect creator of the universe, then these laws should also be perfect. We shouldn’t be seeing all these ambiguous scenarios, we shouldn’t see all these inequalities in justice among the sexes, and we most certainly shouldn’t see laws that condone slavery! The fact that it’s so obviously not perfect tells us that either the bible is wrong, or, if there is a perfect god out there, he doesn’t care that the bible is misrepresenting him in such a superfluous manner.
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