(January 24, 2016 at 7:28 pm)athrock Wrote: You can roll your eyes all you want, but I'd say no. Slavery under the guidelines established in the OT was not (to God, apparently) as perverse as the killing of innocent children who were sacrificed to idols.

Say, that reminds me: are you ever going to get around to explaining why god's moral opinions matter one jot? I asked this days ago.

Quote:I mean seriously? One the one hand, the Canaanites were heating up these metal statues of their gods and then placing children onto the arms of these hot statues, and you could hear and smell the sizzling of their flesh. That's perverse.

On the other hand, slaves who were well-treated by their owners could live a long life...have a wife and children. Beats being killed in battle or being thrown into debtors' prison, doesn't it? That's not perverse, dude. That's humane.

Do I seriously need to explain to you how one thing being worse does not make another thing okay?

Quote:And you're going to argue that these two things are morally equivalent???

Please say no.

No, but I am arguing that they're both morally repugnant. Not equally, but it seems highly arbitrary to set the bar at child murder alone.

(January 24, 2016 at 7:42 pm)athrock Wrote: Or a GOD who is simply not like you and whose thoughts are not your thoughts.

Ooh, you're reduced to the "mysterious ways!" argument from ignorance! Nice!

Quote:And here we come to the nub of the issue: God has done something that you don't like, so you don't like God.

If you were God, you would have done things better. He was such an idiot.  

I'll bet if you were a Catholic, you would SO much smarter than the pope, wouldn't you?



You DO know that your superiority complex is actually hiding fears of inferiority and inadequacy, right?  

Oh, you're doing this again? Don't want to engage with the words I said, so you're just going to passive-aggressively insinuate that I'm super prideful and also a dumb-dumb?

I think everyone can see how this doesn't come close to refuting what I actually said.

(January 24, 2016 at 8:08 pm)athrock Wrote: No, it's FULLY true that kidnapping others into slavery was prohibited. (And here I'll insert what appears to be the obligatory eye roll to say, "You're such an idiot.")  

So, to be clear: you can't kidnap people into slavery, but you can enslave people who were kidnapped. Ever considered going into law, with that kind of double-speak rolling around in that head of yours?

Quote:The acquisition of people who were ALREADY slaves would have been a blessing for them, because the Israelites were commanded by God to treat their slaves better than other nations treated them. Now, get real...we both know that being a slave sucked, but if you had to choose, you would have wanted to be the slave of a benevolent owner rather than some pagan Hittite. Wouldn't you?

Listen, I don't consider Hebrew owners benevolent, when god had to specify "okay, so you can't beat them to death, alright?" If they were benevolent that wouldn't even need to be said: what that suggests to me is that Hebrew owners were barely restrained from the worst of their impulses. A "benevolent" person doesn't feel the need to own slaves at all, let alone require, for example, lengthy rules for how and why they can be turned into sex slaves.

Quote:No, to BEGIN with, you can apologize for implying that I was telling a half-truth when it is obvious here that I make a clear reference to the differences between Hebrew and non-Hebrew slaves. Jerk.

Nah, that's cool. You'd have to have not peppered your OP with half truths, for that.

Quote:Racist slavery? Yeah, that's my problem. Forget about the Africans taken to America against their will...no, what really gets me going is the thought of some Canaanites toiling in the noon-day sun, singing those old Amorite spirituals. "Go down, Sihon, let my people go..."

Yes, I'm mocking you. Could you tell?

You're mocking me, but you've failed to insert any content into your mockery that actually refutes what I said. Fairly bland, overall: don't mistake scoffing for an argument, athrock.

Quote:Emotional blackmail? Lame...the slaves had the choice to say no, dude.

Seriously? Would you say that a person offering the choice of "you can either be my slave against your will for the rest of your life, or I'll keep you from your family that you love forever," is offering a moral choice, or an immoral choice? And what would you say about a book that explicitly suggests that this choice be undertaken in order to trick people into lives of slavery?

Quote:Oh, so now they're not JUST slaves, but sex slaves, to boot. Ooooooh.

No, dude, they were legit wives and bearing sons to their husbands accorded them with great honor. You really, really need to read the OT again. The NT more, of course, but the OT again just to get the cobwebs out.

I must say, any respect I may have had for you previously has been lost costly. In one post. Not that you care, but damn.

Do you really think your bald assertion counts shit for dick with me? No, man: what we have here are slaves (not specific people, but a blanket generalization across the entire set) that are either bought without concern for their pasts and may in fact be kidnapped into slavery, or prisoners of war (the Israelites had a bad habit of taking the virgin women from those they conquered as wives) or sold into debt bondage or for marriage. Their consent to any of this isn't brought up once in the entire bible.

And despite all this, you're actually willing to assert that every single female slave, despite having no control over who bought them or who those buyers gave them to, were universally stoked to have sex with them, sight unseen? That's literally your position here? And you're talking about losing respect for me?

Quote:Yep. Kinda sucked to be on the wrong side of history, didn't it?

Heh, "they had god on their side so fuck everyone else," eh? And you're here asserting this god is moral?

Quote:Riiiiiight. By providing the exact verse, I was hiding it. Please tell me you're not an attorney or someone who has to make logical arguments for a living.

I'm not going to play games with you, dude: you provided the verse and then only explicitly mentioned the happy, smiley bit of it that suited your argument. You omitted completely the bad bit.

Do you, incidentally, have an actual argument to excuse the bad bit? Or are you still unable to tell the difference between snark and a real response?

Quote:I had the same reaction, to be honest, but this is too little too late for you, I'm afraid. Your previous points were insignificant, and this one is a trifling.

Condescension is not a rebuttal, athrock.

Quote:Precisely. PRECISELY. Do you have evidence of any ANE code requiring better?

So, the tu coque fallacy, then?

Quote:Which is why at the end of the day, you have to admit that the Mosaic Law raised the bar for the treatment of slaves.

"A slightly better horrific moral injustice," is not exactly the best case to make for a supposedly morally impeccable god, dude.

Quote:You had nothing. (and you want to take on WLC?)



Oh, and  

Given that you're apparently so terrified of my argumentation that you won't even present your favorite WLC bit for me to address, it seems I've got more than you're willing to admit. Those with an actual point to make don't have to inflate their nothingy responses with all this bluster.

(January 24, 2016 at 6:39 pm)athrock Wrote:

(January 24, 2016 at 4:54 pm)Mancunian Wrote: Railing? [emphasis added] What the fuck are you on about?

(January 24, 2016 at 4:54 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: Indeed they did [rail] [emphasis added] because there are some people that still believe in childish fantasy and live their life as though it was real!
And when these people get together they can have a real impact on the actual world based on delusion.

Well, which is it, guys?

Did they rail or not? 

I think they did but that is my only opinion based on readings many years ago.
I am willing to accept that I could be wrong.

(January 24, 2016 at 6:14 pm)athrock Wrote:

(January 24, 2016 at 4:52 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: Except with threats of eternal torment and the constant demands for love like a hard to please girlfriend.
I mean have you seen the ten commandments! so needy.

Shallow words spoken like a high school underclassman.

Try to go a little deeper than the crap you've picked up from forums like this and Reddit.

Explain why this is not so. It is how it looks.
It starts at 5 minutes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCnQQLUJHb8

(January 25, 2016 at 8:55 am)athrock Wrote:

(January 25, 2016 at 4:52 am)Nihilist Virus Wrote: There is no commandment, "Thou shalt not rape."  There is no commandment, "Thou shalt not fornicate."  There is no commandment, "Thou shalt not molest children."  

So please explain how one would not be Biblically justified in taking a gentile girl of age 7 or so from a conquered nation as a slave, raping her over the course of 49 years for your own amusement, and then setting her free on the 50th year.

Biblically?

Oh, geez, I dunno...maybe:

Luke 6:31
31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

I was not expecting a complete joke of an answer.

We are talking about slavery and you drop "Do unto others..." like a fart in an elevator.

Should I just go around blowing people then? After all, that's what I would have them do to me.

You heard him, folks. #blowmeforjesus

In all seriousness, answer the damn question with integrity or stop calling yourself an apologist. If "Do unto others..." was at play then I can only assume that Joshua and his band of genocidal barbarians wanted someone to commit genocide on all of the Jews. Was Hitler secretly working with God then?

I'll be the first to admit I can't find the words to make good points like many of my friends here, but I CAN detect bullshit and asshattery when I see it. Why is it when the religious people on here are up against a wall, they are yhe first ones to resort to insults, but then have the nerve to cry persecution when they are challenged in the slightest? I see good debating followed by the throwing of the first insult by a christer.

Now I suppose the staff will be getting accused of throwing their weight around because the christers aren't getting their way. What crap.

The free will argument is bullshit. Plain and simple. Your god can't have it both ways. You can't say what his plan is if you say he gave us free will. That sort of reasoning doesn't make sense. And Christians resort, when all else fails, to accusing atheists of hating god. News flash:

I am not an atheist because of any hatred towards God. I can't hate something that doesn't exist.

I'm pretty confident other atheists feel the same. Even if they don't, I wish Christians would stop assuming to know how atheists feel and what they think. We aren't stupid by any means. So knock it off with that already.

If your god was real, I'd tell him to his face what a piece of shit I thought he was. Then he would know how I felt. If he came to me and said that I must follow him or die, option two sounds so much better than bowing down to a narcissistic, cowardly, small minded, hateful, arrogant, misogynistic turd burglar who threatens innocent children, allows rape and slavery and has the power to eradicate everything evil in the world, but refuses to do so. Yep, death is the better option.

Oh, and just to add insult to injury, I would sit in front of him while eating a meat lovers pizza, sporting my new hair cut and wearing jeans and a silk shirt.

(January 25, 2016 at 10:51 am)athrock Wrote:

(January 25, 2016 at 10:30 am)Nestor Wrote: No, but since you're the one who brought up the specific issue of child sacrifice as a quasi-defense for the grotesque theology and law of the Old Testament, I figured you'd at least acknowledge Yahweh's direct use and sanctioning of it.

Sanctioning?

Nestor, you need to read more of the OT.

God's struggle with Israel was that they kept going back to the old gods, the old ways. He never told the Israelites to sacrifice their children.

Okay, let's read it together, and try not to be dishonest about what it plainly states:

"I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."

I'm sure if those were the words of Baal, you'd object to my use of the terms "sanctioned by their Lord."

(January 25, 2016 at 10:51 am)athrock Wrote: On second thought...just stick with the New. Understanding justification should give you more than enough to think about. 

I think the concept of human sacrifice, and a penalty for unbelief, are deeply flawed and morally primitive doctrines that only highly confused people whose moral intuitions were deluded by religious storytelling could find meritable.

(January 25, 2016 at 3:29 pm)Nestor Wrote:

(January 25, 2016 at 10:51 am)athrock Wrote: Sanctioning?

Nestor, you need to read more of the OT.

God's struggle with Israel was that they kept going back to the old gods, the old ways. He never told the Israelites to sacrifice their children.

Okay, let's read it together, and try not to be dishonest about what it plainly states:

"I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."

I'm sure if those were the words of Baal, you'd object to my use of the terms "sanctioned by their Lord."

(January 25, 2016 at 10:51 am)athrock Wrote: On second thought...just stick with the New. Understanding justification should give you more than enough to think about. 

I think the concept of human sacrifice, and a penalty for unbelief, are deeply flawed and morally primitive doctrines that only highly confused people whose moral intuitions were deluded by religious storytelling could find meritable.

God is saying there that he allowed the Jews to commit atrocities as a punishment (innocent children dying is apparently incidental). It is not saying that God ordered it or even liked it.

In fairness, Mr. Technical is flat wrong, though, when he says, "He never told the Israelites to sacrifice their children." God did tell the first Israelite to do this, and then later famously revealed it was a test... although, if YHWH finds child sacrifice so abominable, you'd think that Abraham should have failed the test. But no... the test is about obedience... which actually means that if we can find a scripture of God ordering child sacrifice, our theologian friends will stretch their hands back through time to change their own arguments. They don't believe in any principles at all... just in a whimsical deity who smites you one day and blesses you another.

(January 25, 2016 at 3:47 pm)Nihilist Virus Wrote: God is saying there that he allowed the Jews to commit atrocities as a punishment (innocent children dying is apparently incidental). It is not saying that God ordered it or even liked it.

No, it does not say God "allowed" the Hebrews to murder their firstborn... that would be contrary to any active participation by God. Instead, it says explicitly that God gave them bad statutes and "polluted them in their own gifts," which involved the sacrifice of children.