You have only to step outside monotheistic brainwashing to understand how much western atheists and theists alike operate on the narrowest bandwidth of knowledge.

If your model of religion is based on the big-3 near eastern monster-theisms, you’ll never understand non-theistic philosophical theories and practices so vigorously quashed by the hope-faith-charity crowd for the last 2,000 years.

1. Xian (Jesus’ or Pauline) “ethics” is not ethical.
2. The ethic of Confucius is superior.
3. There is no relationship between religion and morals.

Jesus’ ethic is irrational, otherworldly, and impractical. It promises much, and delivers nothing. Jesus’ “interim ethic” couldn’t outlast one generation of true believers. After all, the world was about to end. But . . . it didn’t. (Search term: interim ethic)

The fideistic irrationality of Paul of Tarsus with its anti-intellectualism, misogyny, and revenge seeking has poisoned the West for 2,000 years. After all, the world was about to end and Christ would soon return to elevate believers and damn everyone else — but he didn’t show up. (Read 1Cor1:20-30 NIV; See N. Cohn. Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come 2nd ed Yale Pr.)

Chinese culture was far luckier. From that very rational, this worldly book, The Analects [Conversations], attributed to Confucius.

Five hundred years before mytho-Jesus and hysterical Paul, Confucius was eons ahead of contemporary xian (jewish/islamist) thinking:

6:20 Fan Ch’ih asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said, “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”

Get the point? No relationship between religion, “spiritual beings” and ethics, “the duties due to men.” The latter cannot be understood in terms of the former.
(For western parallel see ER Dodds. The Greeks and the Irrational. U Cal Pr. pp. 31-32)

15:23 Tsze-kung asked, saying, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said, “Is not ‘reciprocity’ such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” [trans. S.R. McIntyre 2003]

What follows? No religion police. The Authority (that never was) is dead.

No prelate, priest, pastor, rabbi, imam is needed to dictate human behavior — submit to some state-supported interpreter of “the word” of a fictional being.

All ethics are irreducibly social. (An ethic is a cultural artifact.) Harming others cannot be generalized; otherwise, no culture could exist.

Larry Who: very well stated. Thank you!

Waltz In Exile: I really hope that we know the same person, because it’s horrible to think about that happening to more than one person. Unfortunately, it’s probably safer to assume it happens all the time. Ugh!

Sidney Carton: Again, a wonderful comment. I agree with what you said about the Pauline Epistles. One MUST understand the purpose for which a work was written in order to properly apply it’s principles! And your words about a woman as God’s child, those are so beautifully stated. I will have to make note of that for future reference.

bridgeout: You are quite welcome. I’m glad that with all of the pain that has been birthed by such misinterpretations, good things still come of it. You are driven to do the wonderful work that you do, and here I am, still fighting. I still believe we can change the world, at least for a few people.

Amber: I don’t understand how people can justify such abuses against women. I Just. Don’t. Get. It. *sigh*

As for you Sidney, “corrupt meaning”… this isn’t the meaning that is corrupt, but the scriptures themselves. There is no circumstance that exists to validate such foul and corrupt “advice”. And in your religion “god” will hold the abuser in contempt? No, he won’t. He’ll forgive him. Just like he forgives all his “children” and anyone who asks for it. No contempt, nothing to answer to… Christianity is a blanket you can do anything and get away with it because you’ll be forgiven. Furthermore, he isn’t at fault in the scriptures, the scriptures say his actions are not evil.

Notice of course how easily all the above just shifted away though. Gave BS answers to defend a bunch of BS that shouldn’t exist.

First off, the Pauline epistles, and particularly Paul’s epistles to the Corinthians are tricky to interpret and have been used for many purposes that I do not think the Apostle intended when he wrote them. Several things must be understood when reading 1-2 Corinthians:
1. The Church in Corinth was founded when the early Christian church still was deeply steeped in the traditions of Judea, yet it was now functioning in a major Greek metropolis, with different cultural, philosophical and religious backgrounds. Paul’s counsel is meant to deal with these problems, which were somewhat unique at the time.
2. These epistles include responses to specific questions sent Paul by the Corinthian saints, and his epistles respond to these particular cases with advice that is not necessarily meant for general consumption. Unfortunately, as we do not have the original letters from Corinth to consider, we are left somewhat in the dark about Paul’s meanings with some of these epistles, and therefore they have been open to corrupt meaning.

A man who takes a woman to wife, must remember that just as she is the daughter of an earthly father, she is also a daughter of God. Regardless of how her earthly father treated her or regarded her, her Father in Heaven regards her highly as one of his daughters, and will hold the man responsible in full for the way he treats her on this earth. While Divorce is an ill, as a loving and caring father, he would not want his daughters staying with a man who will only manipulate and harm her. There is no excuse for spousal abuse, any man who does so will have to answer to a wrathful God as to the manner in which he has treated his beloved daughters, I do not envy the position of such men in that day.

The result is a mishmash mess or as Spurgeon stated: “The greatest hindrance to Christianity is not the opponents of the Bible but rather its proponents.”