(June 30, 2016 at 8:05 am)SteveII Wrote:(June 29, 2016 at 5:49 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote:
What would be a reasonable characterization of these choices? Do they appear to be the intentions and actions of a moral being? A loving being? An all knowing being? No, on all counts. Moral? No, because he directly instructs immoral behaviour. ..... You see, this is why I ridicule religion – because it is ridiculous, and frankly I find it insulting not only to my intelligence but to the dignity of our species.
What exactly is God instructing that is immoral? He is regulating a less-than-ideal social system. He does not instruct people to get slaves. Your objection is that he does not forbid it. Then we are right back to the question you refuse to answer: how would a society (such as they had) effect the same goals without this system?
"Your slaves are to come from the nations around you. From them, you may buy slaves."
Pretty plain to me. He's at least instructing people who mean to take slaves to buy them from surrounding nations. How kind.
So you're telling me that your all-powerful source of universal morality can take the time to forbid cross dressing, eating shrimp, wearing clothes of mixed fibers, gay stuff, and boiling kid goats in their mother's milk, but for some reason slavery was just something he had to work around until we figured out on our own that slavery actually isn't OK? Are you listening to yourself?
You serve a god whose best known feature is that he makes ridiculously long lists of tediously absurd rules and forbiddings toward an untold laundry list of behaviors, but the immorality of slavery was given a total miss in both Testaments. In fact, both testaments endorse it openly. What part of that suggests that slavery is against your god's supposed moral system? If your god really is the source of all morals, then there is literally no indication whatsoever that slavery is wrong.
Verbatim from the mouth of Jesus (retranslated from a retranslation of a copy of a copy):
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you too will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. How can you see your brother's head up his ass when your own vision is darkened by your head being even further up your ass? How can you say to your brother, 'Get your head out of your ass,' when all the time your head is up your own ass? You hypocrite! First take your head out of your own ass, and then you will see clearly who has his head up his ass and who doesn't." Matthew 7:1-5 (also Luke 6: 41-42)
Also, I has a website: www.RedbeardThePink.com
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you too will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. How can you see your brother's head up his ass when your own vision is darkened by your head being even further up your ass? How can you say to your brother, 'Get your head out of your ass,' when all the time your head is up your own ass? You hypocrite! First take your head out of your own ass, and then you will see clearly who has his head up his ass and who doesn't." Matthew 7:1-5 (also Luke 6: 41-42)
Also, I has a website: www.RedbeardThePink.com