We were discussing Moses. Weren't we? Prove the laws we spoke of predate Moses. I went back to post 328 and forward. The argument was about religious morality and law. Not a legal religion.
You raised Moses for some unknown reason (red herring), but he was not the topic of discussion. The actual topic was the willingness of many to have laws passed based solely on a particular religious belief, in violation of the first amendment, while whining about any proposal that they feel approaches regulation of the second amendment. Are you seriously suggesting that there were no rules regarding murder before Moses?! Basing laws on one religious belief gives that religion greater authority than other beliefs. If that's too complicated for you, imagine what people would say if a law was passed requiring fasting during a timeframe that corresponded with Ramadan. The panic about Sharia law would be deafening.
Wrong. Go back and read where I came in. Someone brought up Moses and I chimed in. You tell me. Convince me that Moses was not the catalyst for our present day laws. LOL! Who is basing laws on one belief system? Did you just not say that murder laws always existed? You have made this complicated for yourself.
I see, someone else raised that red herring and you chose to cherry pick that position rather than address the actual topic of discussion: the fact that you cannot legislate morality as defined by a specific religion and claim to uphold the Consititution. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE; Jerome gives 1592 BCE, and Ussher 1619 BCE as his birth year. His very existance is debated. If any of these were accurate, it is still clear that the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi predates Moses, as Hammurabi died in 1750 BCE - at least a century before Moses was born. Under this code of laws, a judge who blunders in a law case is to be expelled from his judgeship forever, and heavily fined. The witness who testifies falsely is to be slain. If a man builds a house badly, and it falls and kills the owner, the builder is to be slain. If the owner's son was killed, then the builder's son is slain. We can see where the Hebrews learned their law of "an eye for an eye", and Moses clearly wasn't the source. Are you pretending that murder is the law we're talking about? Can you seriously assert that the sodomy laws that are routinely pushed by conservatives are not based on religious belief? Once again, dragging this conversation back onto topic, making laws based on a particular religious belief is the establishment of a state religion, and is against the First Amendment. The fact that so many people are fine with this, and yet portray themselves as defenders of the Constitution when Second Amendment issues are raised, is pure hypocrisy.
