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It’s morally wrong to steal, and has been since the beginning of civilization. “Though shalt not steal” - Ten Commandments “If a man has stolen goods from a t

It’s morally wrong to steal, and has been since the beginning of civilization. “Though shalt not steal” - Ten Commandments “If a man has stolen goods from a temple, or house, he shall be put to death; and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to death.” - Code of Hammurabi Private property is the foundation of civilization and pretending theft doesn’t matter undermines the basis of our world. All theft is wrong.

deleted 4y ago
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mschuster91 4y ago
And yet, even the Bible has provisions for poor people [1]: > “If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. 25 If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain. [1] https://www.bibleserver.com/ESV/Deuteronomy23%3A25 https://www.bibleserver.com/ESV/Deuteronomy23%3A25
- afiori 4y ago
  I feel like this particular verse would not support reselling 300k worth of stolen baby formula on ebay.
falcor84 4y ago
While I agree that it's morally wrong to steal, you lost me at "All theft is wrong". I think there's a deep reason why stories about moral (or at least mostly ambiguous) thieves are so prevalent. Two major examples are Robin Hood and more recently Andor, both about stealing as a way to rebel against an overwhelmingly powerful and negative authority.
- t0suj4 4y ago
  People love retribution, especially when group of people they identify with benefit. It does not matter whether the cause for said retribution is real or not. You sleep easier when you don't know what happens to the people who won't receive the shipment a robbed grain merchant cannot pay for.
einpoklum 4y ago
Bible laws are imposed rules of violent hostile overlords, not the foundation of civilization. Although you could argue that the way civilization has evolved, those kinds of rules _are_ its foundation :-( I might agree that all theft is wrong, but - as Proudhon aptly put it: La propriété, c'est le vol ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft!
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Disagree a bit here. The Bible and other religious texts were not necessarily decrees by "hostile overlords", they were the back-then equivalent of what we would call a Constitution these days - the foundational rules of society. Particularly what Christians call the "Old Testament", the Jews the Torah and whatever Muslims call the foundations prior to Quran today... it's essentially the same text, the same rules. It's micro-managing every aspect of their lives to the same degree modern laws do - everything from a basic criminal code (Ten Commandments) over food safety laws (e.g. the ban for Jews and Muslims to eat pork) and employment regulation (work-free Sabbath) to providing answers to specific legal questions (inheritance, paying damages for livestock or raped women) and prescribing religious rituals. Even how to properly wage war was written down there... all of that was stuff the old tribes learned the hard way or decided upon and documented. For the Quran, a good example for that is the love of Prophet Muhammad on cats - the tribes learned that cats keep grain storages free from pests! The problem is that over the millennia, the original context of these rules being tribally discussed and agreed-upon laws or some of these being the documentation of dispute resolutions got lost, and dogmatic / religious interpretations took favor, leading to entrenchment of rules that no longer made any sense (e.g. the mentioned pork ban or ridiculous interpretations of the work-free Sabbath). Additionally, some of the contents got lost or modified in translation - the best example is the "72 virgins" that await a Muslim martyr in heaven, which may very well have rather meant "vine grapes" [1]. FWIW, the Christian "New Testament" can also be seen as a reform-oriented amendment of the Torah. Religious texts make way more sense when viewing them as "this is the collection of hundreds or thousands of years of tribal knowledge, order and jurisprudence", which is (IMO as an atheist) the only way these texts should be interpreted as. And yet, it still makes sense to also see the part of the rules and regulations that haven't gotten outdated as a foundation of how even our modern societies should look like (e.g. parts of the Ten Commandments, Jesus' teachings on how to view and help the poor and discriminated). [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/opinion/martyrs-virgins-and-grapes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/opinion/martyrs-virgins-a...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mschuster91 4y ago

And yet, even the Bible has provisions for poor people [1]: > “If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. 25 If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain. [1] https://www.bibleserver.com/ESV/Deuteronomy23%3A25 https://www.bibleserver.com/ESV/Deuteronomy23%3A25

afiori 4y ago
I feel like this particular verse would not support reselling 300k worth of stolen baby formula on ebay.

falcor84 4y ago

While I agree that it's morally wrong to steal, you lost me at "All theft is wrong". I think there's a deep reason why stories about moral (or at least mostly ambiguous) thieves are so prevalent. Two major examples are Robin Hood and more recently Andor, both about stealing as a way to rebel against an overwhelmingly powerful and negative authority.

t0suj4 4y ago
People love retribution, especially when group of people they identify with benefit. It does not matter whether the cause for said retribution is real or not. You sleep easier when you don't know what happens to the people who won't receive the shipment a robbed grain merchant cannot pay for.

einpoklum 4y ago

Bible laws are imposed rules of violent hostile overlords, not the foundation of civilization. Although you could argue that the way civilization has evolved, those kinds of rules _are_ its foundation :-( I might agree that all theft is wrong, but - as Proudhon aptly put it: La propriété, c'est le vol ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft!

mschuster91 4y ago
Disagree a bit here. The Bible and other religious texts were not necessarily decrees by "hostile overlords", they were the back-then equivalent of what we would call a Constitution these days - the foundational rules of society. Particularly what Christians call the "Old Testament", the Jews the Torah and whatever Muslims call the foundations prior to Quran today... it's essentially the same text, the same rules. It's micro-managing every aspect of their lives to the same degree modern laws do - everything from a basic criminal code (Ten Commandments) over food safety laws (e.g. the ban for Jews and Muslims to eat pork) and employment regulation (work-free Sabbath) to providing answers to specific legal questions (inheritance, paying damages for livestock or raped women) and prescribing religious rituals. Even how to properly wage war was written down there... all of that was stuff the old tribes learned the hard way or decided upon and documented. For the Quran, a good example for that is the love of Prophet Muhammad on cats - the tribes learned that cats keep grain storages free from pests! The problem is that over the millennia, the original context of these rules being tribally discussed and agreed-upon laws or some of these being the documentation of dispute resolutions got lost, and dogmatic / religious interpretations took favor, leading to entrenchment of rules that no longer made any sense (e.g. the mentioned pork ban or ridiculous interpretations of the work-free Sabbath). Additionally, some of the contents got lost or modified in translation - the best example is the "72 virgins" that await a Muslim martyr in heaven, which may very well have rather meant "vine grapes" [1]. FWIW, the Christian "New Testament" can also be seen as a reform-oriented amendment of the Torah. Religious texts make way more sense when viewing them as "this is the collection of hundreds or thousands of years of tribal knowledge, order and jurisprudence", which is (IMO as an atheist) the only way these texts should be interpreted as. And yet, it still makes sense to also see the part of the rules and regulations that haven't gotten outdated as a foundation of how even our modern societies should look like (e.g. parts of the Ten Commandments, Jesus' teachings on how to view and help the poor and discriminated). [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/opinion/martyrs-virgins-and-grapes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/opinion/martyrs-virgins-a...