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The assumption that ‘it is wrong to impose your moral beliefs onto others’ is almost unilaterally accepted in society. Everyone knows this, only zealous religious types seem to believe that it is acceptable to try to foist their morality onto others; the concept of respecting other people’s beliefs seems to be lost on the religious.

One does not have to look far to see this assumption at work; in the Aotearoa Ethnic Network Journal atheist commentator, Ken Perrott, writes,

Non-religious people have the right to be free from interference by religious people and organisations, freedom from proselytising, and freedom from imposition of values, morality and practice. I don’t think religious people should see this as in any way violating their rights. If anything, it helps preserve the sacredness of their beliefs –imposition on others degrades a belief.

Perrott is clear; those with religious beliefs should not demand that others comply with their views on morality. This criticism is not new, we see it regularly in the media and it is equally prevalent in academia. In her book, The Abortion Myth, bio-ethicist Leslie Cannold writes,

In the United States, the feminist rejection of the moral had a strong connection to the anti-choice religious right’s promotion of itself as the “moral” voice of the Republican movement. The agenda of the Christian right is, to put it rather baldly, to make the Bible (rather than the secular U.S Constitution) the supreme law of the land. The United States religious right, like most religious extremists, believe their political beliefs are actually God’s will. ... [Feminism is opposed] to one religious group’s imposition of its rather narrow version of morality on a pluralistic society.

Cannold states that any appeals to Gods will, as laid down in the Bible, constitute an imposition of moral views onto others. Feminists such as her, she assures us, oppose such things.

I find the claim, that it is wrong to impose your moral beliefs onto others, strange. Despite widespread acceptance to the contrary, I see nothing objectionable in imposing moral beliefs onto others.

While this comment may strike many as absurd, I assure you it is not for the following reasons. First of all, to claim that it is wrong to impose your moral beliefs onto others is self-defeating. Second, the contention is subject to serious counter-examples. I’ll explain what I mean.

If it is wrong to impose one’s beliefs onto others then it follows that one is required to refrain from such impositions; further, any attempt to impose moral beliefs should be prevented. However, this claim is itself a moral belief and as we’ve just established, it is being imposed on others. Therefore the claim is self-defeating, those who defend it are attempting to impose a moral belief about not-imposing moral beliefs onto others.

As for the counter examples, consider acts such as rape, assault or infanticide. I personally believe each of these practices is wrong for me to engage in. Further, I think it is wrong for others to do these things. In fact, I even support the commission of these acts being considered a crime punishable by the state. I am sure most would agree with me. However, if it were wrong to impose moral beliefs onto others then our position on rape, assault or infanticide would be unacceptable. We would have to leave others free to choose whether they wished to rape, assault or kill children – to do otherwise would be to impose our moral beliefs onto others.

Perhaps I am being uncharitable; Perrott and Cannold and others who advocate the claim, do not object to such impositions in an unqualified manner and certainly do not intend to promote anarchy. Their objection is that it is inappropriate to impose certain kinds of moral principles upon others.

The types of principles Cannold means to catch are those she labels “narrow”. What is meant by this spatial metaphor is unclear; however, I presume she means that this is a minority religious view, held by only a small segment of society.

Implicit in this argument is the claim that a necessary condition for any principle to be advocated as a basis for rules binding on all people is that the majority accepts the principle. However, this majoritarianism modification to the claim that it is wrong to impose your moral beliefs onto others is equally flawed.

Consider a culture where the majority believes that a husband has the right to beat his wife. Would Cannold contend that in such a society criticism by a Christian-feminist minority of this practice and their advocacy of norms forbidding spousal abuse is an unacceptable imposition of a narrow religious perspective in a pluralistic society? Would it be true that in such a society public policy could not be based on the moral principle that it is wrong for a man to beat his wife?

The objection to imposing one’s “narrow” moral beliefs onto others is flawed. What is wrong is not the imposition of someone’s values but the imposition of values that are incorrect, irrational, unethical, oppressive or unjust. If the principles expounded are correct and accurately reflect justice then there is nothing wrong with imposing them onto others, even if they are religious beliefs.

I write a monthly column for Investigate Magazine entitled Contra Mundum. This blog post was published in the September 09 issue and is reproduced here with permission. Contra Mundum is Latin for 'against the world;' the phrase is usually attributed to Athanasius who was exiled for defending Christian orthodoxy.

Letters to the editor should be sent to: editorial@investigatemagazine.DELETE.com

I am now an official contributor at Social Media Law Student, a blog for law students to write on social media issues. In the invitation letter I was told "Legal professionals across the world have been using our blog and law schools are directing their students to our blog for best practice tips."

My first article is currently the lead article on the site but because it won't stay there forever so here is a permalink to it, The Right to Online Privacy v. Defamation Law. It is a short piece asking, "How far does the cyber-right to privacy extend? Does it stand when people use it as a shield to harm others, to damage their reputations? Last week Google was forced by the court to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who had defamed another."

In a previous post, God, Darwinian Evolution and The Teleological Argument, I argued that evolution does not refute the teleological argument. Also, even if it did, a lot more significant philosophical work over and above any appeal to natural selection would be needed to infer from this that theism is rationally untenable. There is, however, a second concern lurking in this area; it is that Darwinian evolution shows that evolution occurs by chance. Chance is incompatible with design; hence, Darwinian evolution shows that biological organisms were not created by God. Del Ratzsch summarises the argument succinctly,

[I]f it is genuine evolution, then the theory itself demands that the processes be governed by natural law and random chance … On the other hand, if its genuinely guided [by God], then the process must involve not chance but deliberately designed intervention.[1]

The argument has two premises,

[1] If evolution is guided [by God] then the processes must not involve random chance;

[2] Genuine evolutionary theory demands that the processes be governed by natural law and random chance.

I think this argument is mistaken. To be a valid argument, the word “chance” would need to be used the same way in both premises. The kind of chance that is incompatible with creation in [1] would have to be the kind of chance that is part of genuine evolutionary theory in [2].

Alvin Plantinga has argued that when one examines how the word “chance” is being used in this kind of argument it is evident that the word is not being used the same way in both premises and that when the ambiguity is cleared up the kind of chance that is involved in contemporary evolutionary theory is compatible with the idea that God created human beings.[2]

Let us turn to the first premise; [1] the claim that if evolution is guided [by God] then the processes must not involve random chance. This statement is true only if chance is defined a certain way, both that its existence is incompatible with the idea that God caused the event to happen (either immediately or indirectly via normal secondary causation) and that God did so intentionally and with purpose. To say then that an event occurs by random chance, on this definition, is to say the event was not caused, intended or planned by God.

The problem is that if chance is defined this way premise [2] is false; genuine evolutionary theory does not demand that mutations are not caused by chance, when chance is defined in this way. According to Eliot Sober, when the word chance is used in the context of evolutionary theory it means, “there is no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside of them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur.” Ernest Mayr makes a similar point, “When it is said that mutation or variation is random, the statement simply means that there is no correlation between the production of new genotypes and the adaptational needs of an organism in a given environment.”

Defined in the manner of Mayr and Sober, chance is entirely compatible with the idea that evolution is caused, intended or planned by God. The fact that there is, “no correlation between the production of new genotypes and the adaptational needs of an organism in a given environment” and “no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside of them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur,” does not mean that the events had no cause and it certainly does not mean that they were not intentionally caused by God.

To show that evolution occurred by chance, where chance is incompatible with divine design, contemporary biologists would need to show not just that no physical mechanism detects which mutations are beneficial and causes them and it would have to do much more than fail to produce a correlation between the “production of new genotypes and the adaptational needs of an organism in a given environment.” It would have to show that there was ultimately no supernatural cause to the process that intended evolution of human life to occur. Contemporary biology has not done this and it is certainly very difficult to see how it could do so without stepping outside the bounds of science, as currently practised, and venturing into controversial areas of philosophy and theology.

[1] Del Ratzch Battle for Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation Evolution Debate (Downers Grove IL: Intervarsity Press, 1996).
[2] Alvin Plantinga "Evolution and Design" in For Faith and Clarity: Philosophical Contributions to Christian Theology ed. James Beilby (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006) 201-217.

This post draws from parts of my paper "Does Evolution Make Belief in God Untenable?" given at the recent TANSA conference, Faithful Science? – Just How Well Do Science and Faith Get Along?

RELATED POSTS:
God, Darwinian Evolution and The Teleological Argument

Matt spoke at Thinking Matters Auckland on 28 May 2009 on Moral Relativism.

A popular view of ethics holds that actions are right or wrong only if a person or a community believes that they are right or wrong, and that it is inappropriate to apply your own standards to others. This position is known as moral relativism. In this talk Matt looks at the common arguments for relativism, argues that relativism is a mistaken view of ethics and shows how relativism fails.

In impeccable timing, this afternoon I heard the announcement that ACT MP John Boscawen’s Bill to amend Section 59 of the Crimes Act, in line with the Borrows amendment that defined reasonable force, had been drawn from the ballot.

However, John Key swiftly announced that National would not back it to Select Committee trotting out the flawed "the law is working" argument; basically, smacking is illegal but we promise to not enforce it as long as we are in government, which is somehow supposed to reassure parents. NOT. So the bill appears dead in the water.

Hopefully Boscawen will elect to delay its first reading until just before the next election.

Following on from More Evidence of Student Association Delusions of Grandeur, where I shared Auckland University Students Assocation's (AUSA) unfathomable intentions to incorporate the UN Declaration of Human Rights into their constitution, a fellow student and reader of this blog, brought my attention to today's email to all University of Auckland students which he described as "bribery now to get what they want." I must concur:

Student apathy was at its worst today when we failed to get 200 people to turn up to the quad to hold the AUSA Winter General Meeting. However, all is not lost - we are going to try again!

So come to the quad at 1pm on Thursday the 27th of August (tomorrow) and vote in favour of putting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into the AUSA Constitution! We were only about 20 people short so I cannot stress enough that YOU REALLY WILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

Even if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not your thing, we will be giving out candy! FOR FREE! Maybe even a few muesli bars for the health-conscious amongst you. All you need to do is bring along your uni ID card and flash it in favour of human rights!

SEE YOU IN THE QUAD AT 1PM, THURSDAY 28 AUGUST. DO IT.

Again I am left wondering how on earth this move can "MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE" for human rights.

Again we see the disregard for proper constitutional process in the statement "All you need to do is bring along your uni ID card and flash it in favour of human rights!" AUSA membership is voluntary, as such, possession of a Uni ID card does not mean that you are an AUSA member and are entitled to vote but they do not seem to care about this detail.

So basically you can receive material benefits if you vote the way they want you to (doesn't matter if you're not really to eligible to vote) and all this is in the name of AUSA's strong commitment to human rights.

This would be funnier if I wasn't paying for it.

The law criminalises smacking, the best and most faithful reading of the law deems any use of force for the purposes of parental correction criminal; experts in legal interpretation agree on this. The people have objected loudly and all you have done is issue a promise to not enforce the law; a promise that can only be kept for as long as you govern, a promise that offends the duty of a government to ensure that the law is enforced.

Your so called “safeguards” offer no long term protection. What happens to those safeguards in the future if the Greens hold the balance of power? Or is that what is really going on - you won’t change the law because you want it to be easy to eradicate smacking long term in New Zealand?

I am not fooled. Courts are primarily directed by the black letter of the law not promises to not enforce it made by past governments. This government has a chance to offer parents protection that a future government will find harder to undo and it will fail if these “safeguards” are all it does.

Promises to not enforce a law that criminalises smacking are not good enough. If the government does not wish for parents who lightly smack their children for the purposes of correction to be prosecuted then it must change the law now, before the possibility of a new government arises.

Regards,

Madeleine Flannagan

The Hon Murray McCully emailed me (I suspect generically) this morning in response to my first email, Dear Cabinet,. The above is a response, sent to all members of Cabinet, to Mr McCully's email to me which is pasted below,

The Prime Minister has announced that the Government is introducing safeguards to give parents comfort they will not be criminalised for lightly smacking their children.

The safeguards follow the Citizens Initiated Referendum on smacking. The referendum result reinforces the message that New Zealanders do not want to see good parents criminalised for a light smack.

To give parents comfort that this will not happen, Cabinet has agreed on a number of measures. These are:

The Police and Ministry of Social Development chief executive will lead a review of Police and Child, Youth & Family policies and procedures, including the referral process between the two agencies, to identify any changes that are necessary or desirable to ensure good parents are treated as Parliament intended. The Commissioner of Police and Ministry of Social Development chief executive will seek an independent person to assist in the conduct of the review and will report back by 1 December 2009.

We will be bringing forward the delivery of the report from the Ministry of Social Development chief executive on data and trends and the effect of the law change from the end of the year to late September/early October. The Minister of Social Development will table the report in Parliament.

The Government will invite Police to continue to report on a six-monthly or annual basis for the next three years on the operation of the law, and invite Police to include data on cases where parents or caregivers say the force used on the child was reasonable in the circumstances.

If future Police data indicates a worrying trend, the law will be changed to ensure that good New Zealand parents are not criminalised for lightly smacking.

The Government believes the law is working as intended, but we want to give parents an assurance that a National-led Government will continue to monitor the way the law is being implemented.

RELATED POSTS:

I just got this in my inbox:

AN OPPORTUNITY HAS ARISEN:
On Wednesday the 26th of August at the AUSA [Auckland University Students Association] Winter General Meeting there has been an opening to incorporate the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS into the AUSA constitution.

WE NEED 200 PEOPLE IN THE QUAD TO VOTE IN FAVOUR AT THE WINTER GENERAL MEETING!
WEDNESDAY 26th AUGUST at 1pm.

WHY IS THIS NECESSARY AND IMPORTANT?

The Universal Declaration is a common statement of mutual aspirations - a shared vision of a more equitable and just world. By incorporating this into its constitution, AUSA would commit itself to these human rights norms. If you care about people and their rights, make sure your voice is heard on this issue.

PLEASE COME ALONG! Don't just assume that enough people will turn up without your effort - you REALLY will make a difference!

Now one wonders what AUSA think they will achieve by incorporating the UN Declaration into their association? The mind boggles. They wrote "By incorporating this into its constitution, AUSA would commit itself to these human rights norms." What does this mean or rather what do they think it means?

Maybe they think that students won't have human right protection without this move.
Maybe they think that they, a student association, are a body in the nature of a state or that they perform a public function that places them on par with a state but even if that were true they would be obligated to uphold Human Rights regardless of whether it was in their constitution or not.
Maybe they hope that incorporating it will make them into a state.
Maybe they think that by them incorporating it into their constitution that action will, like some kind of butterfly effect, improve the human rights of people in other countries.
Maybe they want to make a big gesture so they can feel all warm and fuzzy... it is raining in Auckland today so maybe that is it.

Either way it seems a fairly pointless way to spend an afternoon especially if they think they can achieve it with "200 people" turning up; they need 200 members to turn up if they want to amend their constitution. AUSA despite their compulsory funding is the only university students association in New Zealand with voluntary membership - I received the call to come and I am not a member. It is almost tempting to turn up and see if they intend to check those voting are in fact members or not.

I wonder if they know that the UN Declaration of Human Rights calls for Freedom of Association? Something that, if they had their way, they'd undermine in a heartbeat with a return to compulsory membership.

The Top 10 New Zealand Christian Blogs for July 09 are as follows:

Rank. [previous top 10 rank] Blog MandM (Half Done - Tumeke)

To obtain our stats we run searches on Half Done's July 09 NZ stats and Tumeke's July 09 NZ stats for openly Christian blogs then we average those blogs scores to obtain their overall scores. If you think your blog should make our rankings make sure you are listed on both Tumeke and HalfDone's rankings as an identifiably Christian blog.

Here are the top 10 NZ Christian blogs based on Tumeke's NZ blog stats for July; these stats are used in the calculations for the MandM top 10 NZ Christian Blog rankings for July 09:

I am a mother of 4; I am currently doing the last few papers of my law degree at Auckland Uni, I voted “no” in the referendum, I voted for you to govern at the last election. I am sure you are getting a lot of emails, however, as you deliberate as to how to respond to the results of the recent referendum, please take a moment to consider my thoughts.

It used to be clear in New Zealand that a light smack for the purposes of parental correction was lawful. Then s59 of the Crimes Act was amended.

Whether a light smack was lawful or not became confusing. Experts in legal interpretation agree that, as worded, the new s59 could be read either way. I have been in the same room as John Key and I have heard him concede that the new s59 was poorly worded. I have sat in the same room with Sue Bradford and heard her give contradictory answers, as to whether she intended to make smacking illegal or not and whether it is or not. When I read the law, even with my legal training, I cannot decipher it clearly – I can run conflicting arguments as to what it means. Small wonder the populace was confused.

The government would not listen. A referendum was successfully called and the result is in, 88% of those who voted want it made clear that a light smack is not illegal; had the entire voting population voted I doubt there would have been a significant variation in that majority and I doubt that you doubt the truth of this. The majority of voting adults in this country feel very strongly about this issue and they have sent you a message.

Now not for a moment do I expect you to simply follow the whim of the majority; as MPs I helped to elect you to parliament because I expected you to do what you, hand on your heart, truly believe is right and I recognise that sometimes that might mean standing against the majority. That said, in considering what is right, I would hope you would rely on solid research, well reasoned arguments and consider the concerns of the people you represent. If you ignore the referendum message or pretend you do not understand it, you will not only become the epitome of what was despised about the government before you but more importantly you will leave us confused as to what the law is.

The state has a duty to ensure that the law is clear enough for the citizens to be able to understand it; if it is not then it is not just to demand their obedience to it. It is not enough to issue a clarificatory statement or guidelines to the public, police and relevant state agencies as to what the law really means as that affords us, the citizens, no certainty as to what it might mean in the future when you may no longer be governing us. If I find myself before a court or investigated by the police or a state agency it is the black letter of the law I should be able to reach for to know whether I stand on the side of guilt or innocence not some pamphlet or tv campaign or media release.

You didn’t write this law, you tried to save it, yet it still came out poorly drafted; now you have the power to make the law clear. In doing so I would hope you would consider the peer reviewed studies that differentiate between a light smack and abuse which show the former is not child abuse as this would enable you to listen to the referendum result and act on it.

With great respect for the very tough job you do and many kind regards,


Madeleine Flannagan

RELATED POSTS:
Fisking Margaret Mayman: The Flawed Moral Theology on the Smacking Referendum
Fisking Ian Hassall: The Arbitrary Ethical Reasoning on the Smacking Referendum
No Defences Permitted for the Accused
MandM Smacking Label

One command in the Old Testament which is frequently lampooned by sceptical readers is Leviticus 20:9,

If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.

Some contend that that this passage commands the courts to execute small children who swear at their parents. Given such a command would be harsh and disproportionate, it is inferred the Old Testament here teaches something unjust and absurd.

There are several assumptions behind this reading of the Old Testament. First, it assumes the text is referring to the actions of children. Second, it assumes that the word “curse” refers to “swearing” at someone. Third, it assumes that the text constitutes a command to the courts to execute those who do this, which it is intended that the courts will carry out.

In a previous series, Capital Punishment in the Old Testament, I have addressed the third assumption; I noted that capital sanctions in the Old Testament were probably not intended to be carried out by the courts, rather they served an admonitory function and in practice the courts substituted capital punishment for a monetary fine to be paid to the victim. I also think the first assumption is questionable, though in this post I will not pursue this line of argument, instead I want to address the assumption at hand, the idea that “cursing,” when this word is used in the Old Testament, refers to swearing at someone.

The Hebrew word translated “curse” here is qalal which basically means to “despise or treat with contempt.” By itself this is somewhat vague and context is needed to determine what exactly it refers to. In their commentary on Exodus, Jonathan Walton and Victor Matthews note, “Contrary to the NIV translation, studies have shown that the infraction here is not cursing but treating with contempt. This is a more general category and would certainly include the prohibition of 21:15 which forbids striking a parent.” They go on to note that the commandment is intended to ensure, “that each subsequent generation provide their parents with the respect, food and protection they deserve.” The studies Walton and Matthews refer to are comparative studies of the Pentateuch with other ancient near eastern legal codes, which provide interesting information about the cultural and legal context into which the Old Testament spoke. Walton and Matthews note how “contempt for parents” was understood in ancient near eastern codes such as the Code of Hammurabi and various Sumerian laws. According to the case law of the time, contempt for one’s parents involved such things as disowning them when they were old and physically assaulting them; it was considered a serious legal matter.

This understanding of the word “curse” is borne out by its use elsewhere in scripture. In the proto-history flood story God states, “I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.” Here “curse” is clearly not God swearing at the ground; the idea is that God treated the land with contempt by flooding it.

In Gen 12, God tells Abram, “I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Here again the issue is not merely swearing; the word curse is antithetical to the word bless and the context tells us that Abram will bless all nations, this blessing involves bring salvation to the Gentiles. When the word “curse” is being used here then the idea is of people who express contempt for Israel by trying to harm them.

Perhaps the clearest example is seen in a similar context which occurs only a few verses before the one in Leviticus 20:4, this is the use of the word “curse” in Lev 19:14, “You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the LORD.” Here cursing the deaf is condemned; the word translated “curse” is the same word used in Leviticus 20:4 and the context, grammar and genre are sufficiently similar to suggest the word is being used the same way. Yet it is evident, I think, that the word “curse” here does not mean swearing; the reason for this conclusion is that the command to “not curse the deaf” occurs alongside another command to not “put a stumbling block in front of the blind.” Given a blind person cannot see, putting a stumbling block in front of them could cause them to trip, fall and injure themselves. Hence, what is being condemned is an attempt to cause a person an injury. Hence, the command to “not curse the deaf” occurs alongside a command to not attempt to injure the blind.

What makes this significant is that, frequently in Hebrew literature, writers will use a method of parallelism whereby two clauses are placed side by side that have a similar meaning. It is clear from an examination of Leviticus 19 that a type of parallelism is being utilised in this chapter, consider the following examples from the immediate context,

10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.

12 Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

13 Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him. Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.

15 Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

16 Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the LORD.

18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

In each instance above what is prohibited in the first half of the verse is the same type of action which is prohibited in the second half. In fact, in most cases what comes in the second half explains and illuminates what is forbidden in the first half. In v 10 what occurs side by side are gleaning and taking all the grapes from ones field leaving none for the poor. In v 13 defrauding is a kind of robbing and it is evident that the issue is withholding pay. In v 15 showing partiality to the poor is condemned then favouring the wealthy is too. In v 16 spreading slander is condemned alongside endangering a neighbours life (the concern with slander relates to the bearing false witness in a capital crime, which allows us to see the parallel here). In v 18 bearing a grudge and taking revenge are juxtaposted. The immediate context then suggests that when two commands occur side by side in the manner they do in v 14 that the commands address the same basic fundamental issue. Treating the disabled with contempt (cursing them) involves actions such as attempting to injure or harm them.

Two other lines of evidence suggest this; the first is the command in Leviticus 20:9, which is a repetition of the same command in Exodus 21, “If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.” It is interesting to see the context that this law occurs in,

Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. However, if he does not do it intentionally, but God lets it happen, he is to flee to a place I will designate. But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from my altar and put him to death. Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death. Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death. Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. "If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however, he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed. “If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his silver.” If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." If a man hits a manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the eye. (Ex 21:12-26)

The command to, “put to death” a person “who curses his father or mother,” occurs in the midst of a series of commandments that all deal with violent assaults on other people. All the immediate verses deal with contempt expressed in violence in the form of assault, kidnapping or homicide. Clearly, the kind of contempt being expressed here is, if one takes the context seriously, more than simply a verbal insult.

The second and perhaps for Christians, more important line of evidence is that Christ himself cites this passage. In Matthew 15 Christ is challenged by the Pharisees as to why he does not follow certain oral traditions about washing. His response is to go on the counter attack,

Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father ' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. (Matthew 15:3-6)

Here Jesus cites the command about not cursing one’s parents and applies it not to swearing but to attempts to escape the duty to provide for one’s aged parents by devoting the money to the temple. Jesus contends that traditions that sanction such subterfuge violate the command to not curse one’s parents. He clearly understands the command in terms of contempt and in terms of the kind of case law Walton and Matthews refer to. It is worth bearing in mind that in an ancient society like this, with no state superannuation, failure to provide for one’s parents in their old age could have terrible results. Hence, far from being unjust or absurd the commandment is quite understandable.

[1] Jonathan Walton and Victor Matthews “The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Genesis Deuteronomy” (Downers Grove Il: Intervarsity Press) 112.
[2] Ibid 113.