| richardhutnik said: The Bible also makes mention of divorce. Does the fact it does mean God approves of divorce? Just because they are rules doesn't mean the conduct under those rules are approved. And just so long as you give letter of divorce to a woman, that means the divorce is ok? In no way do you argue that just because some law is written on a subject to address an issue, that means that God approves of something. It doesn't mean you are morally good either. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19&version=NIV
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Exactly. It says in those quotes that God does not like divorce. This is not the same as raping. There is nothing which says rape is a sin or that God frowns upon rape.
Besides, it's common fact that if you're actions don't go against the Bible, then you're, by default, morally good. Since raping (and taking care of the victim later) doesn't go against the Bible, then, by the default, we should assume that it's morally good.....
....But You are right that the bible does not say if raping is approved or disapproved. So let's look at the possibilites of both, since we cannot know for sure.
1. If raping is approved, then the bible is just flat-out immoral.
2. If raping is disapproved, then that's not fair to people. It's not fair that there are actions that God disapproves of, that isn't in the Bible. How would the people know if raping is right or wrong? Christians moral code is directly from the bible. And from the bible, the only thing they know about raping is what they must do after raping someone. They have no idea of if raping is good or bad. So, if raping is disapproved, then that's just not fair to Christians, because it's impossible for them to know beforehand.
If raping is wrong. Then there are an infinite amount of potential actions that are also wrong, which aren't mentioned in the bible.
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A bit of a side-bar: If the Bible doesn't say if rape is wrong or not, then how do Christians know if rape is wrong or not? A common argument by Christians against atheists is that atheists don't have one objective moral code. They say that we atheists form subjective moralities and that we cannot know if our morals are correct. Well, if you ask Christians what there stance is on raping, their answer will probably always be "raping is wrong." But they would have no basis for this morality because the Bible never says "raping is wrong" (it doesn't say either way). So, these Chritians would actually be hypocrites, because they're forming morals from their own self. This isn't strictly relavent; I just thought it was interesting.
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Another point: The bible is the word of God. The Bible tells people how to live there lives. There shouldn't even be room for ambiguity concerning something as powerful as rape, especially considering rape is mentioned multiple times.
