The ERV posse on rape

It's a bit of a spectacle watching ERV's flock of betas flounder around in search of a way to substantiate their accusation that the God of the Bible condones rape in Deuteronomy 21.  Let the record show, by the way, that 'twas the ignorant commenter Jesse @16 who brought up the issue of rape, not me.
Here's the passage: 10“When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, 11and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, 12then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13“She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14“It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled her.


I paste here some relevant portions of my latest comment there.
I'd said:

Being married sort of usually implies consent to sex.
Prometheus responds:  That is repugnant beyond words. You can't believe that.
I reply:  Please provide evidence that what you intuit as "repugnant" should apply to anyone else. Is the statement "I, Prometheus, find this view repugnant" similar or identical to "This view is morally wrong"? If not, why should I care? If so, please offer your argument to that effect.
Prometheus:  Please provide evidence that what you intuit as "repugnant" should apply to anyone else.
No.  Not because I can't but because your prose is also repugnant.
Is the statement "I, Prometheus......yadayadayada    Again no.
I answer: So, no answer to my question.  Didn't think so.
Tell you what, to help illustrate, let's swap the terms a bit but keep Prometheus' "argument".

Raymond:  I believe in young-earth creationism.  It is my intuition that YEC is true and that to believe in evolution is repugnant beyond words. You can't believe that.
Prometheus:  Please provide evidence that what you intuit is true.  Please provide evidence that what you intuit as "repugnant" should apply to anyone else.
Raymond:  No. Not because I can't but because your prose is also repugnant. For, as always, you are pointlessly prolix, fatuous and florid with no interest in the fruit of discourse.

Wow!  What an impressive argument!  I mean, you even used some big words; I'll bet your 6th grade teacher would be proud.
Anytime you feel like actually trying to substantiate your assertions, I'm willing to listen.

------
Tyler DiPietro tried to answer my "If not, why should I care?"
--Because you're not an island. You live in a world with other human beings and their collective subjective opinion of you affects your life, sometimes in profound ways.

1) So what?  What's the prescriptive and normative power of the statement "you live with other humans"?
2) Maybe I'm glad to live with other humans, b/c that means more slaves to do my will.  What is morally wrong with that statement?


--In other words, a negative hasn't been proven.
Exactly!  Now you're getting it.  Maybe those who were so hasty to try to make this statement should be more careful in the arguments they use.


--As has been explained to you before, the evidence is the fact that they were ----ing war brides and the Bible never says anything about getting their consent first.

And it doesn't say anything about NOT getting it either.  You're assuming 4 problematic things:
1) You can't prove the sex was forced.  All you can make is anachronistic judgments from your comfy chair 5 millennia later.
2) You have no idea of the state of mind of the women or the men in question.
3) Deut 21 is not an exhaustive treatise on how married men are to treat their wives.  After all, these are wives, not sex slaves, not even concubines (which themselves had legal rights).  Deut 21 is dealing with redeeming some women from their self-destructive communities whom God had judged, putting these women into a situation where they could know God and have legal rights under God's Law, and by which some Israelite men could obtain wives.  You want laws governing how to deal with one's wife, look elsewhere.
4) If some men forced sex from the women in question, you have even further to go to prove this would be God's fault.  God lays down laws; it comes as zero surprise to the Christian that some people might actually --gasp!!-- sin and deviate from His Law.

In short, you've got nothing, that's been clearly seen here.  Despite all your attempts, even you had to admit that a negative hasn't been proven.
When that's all you have, maybe you should move on.

Finally, Stephen Wells chimed in:

If you don't share my premises, then at least we all know to avoid you like the backstabbing weasel you would be if you dared.

I'm devastated, shedding hot tears.  Just so you know.
Look, maybe you're not getting this - I'm after facts on these questions, not your opinions, as if you were some sort of Pope of Morality.  I don't know where you think you got your authority to make moral pronouncements that you think should prescribe and proscribe behavior for anyone else, but that's why I asked you to provide the factual basis for it.  If you can't provide that substantiation, then I don't see why I and everyone else shouldn't dismiss your judgmental attempts to tell us what we get to and don't get to do.


for rape to have occurred it suffices for even one of them to have not given consent. Nice attempt at a goalpost-shift but you're not getting away with that one.

So prove one of them didn't give consent.  It's not like I haven't asked for evidence 12 times now.


all we have to do is say: here are my standards of judgement, and by these lights, the thing is wrong.

Um, I think I knew that already - that your standards of judgment are self-referential and tautological. I'm looking for the prescriptive power, the justification of the standards you use.


This raises the terrifying spectre of taking responsibility for your own moral judgement

Prove that it is morally a good thing to "take responsibility for my own moral judgment".  Don't assume it.  Prove it.