(June 28, 2016 at 11:03 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(June 28, 2016 at 10:56 pm)RetiredArmy Wrote: I understand you think slavery can be useful to prevent suffering.  That's really fucked-up strange backwards thinking, but you go with that.  Do you think this applies today?  If I find you starving on the street, do I get to keep you as my slave for feeding you and keeping you from dying?  I'm guessing (and hoping) you'll say no.  If it's wrong today, it was wrong then.  Morality is not a sliding scale based on the year or how many wars are being fought, or if people knew where the sun went at night.  But forget about people, we're talking about the word of your god.  He (and you, apparently) condones slavery in your holy book.  Basic human condition, human suffering, is the basis of morality, not some god that doesn't exist, and not people like you who think slavery is ok in certain conditions.

No, I do not think slavery is okay today. Why the difference? Our society has the capacity to find better solutions.

Better than God then.

(June 28, 2016 at 10:21 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(June 28, 2016 at 8:27 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: Steve I have faith in you that you have enough sense between your ears to look at what you have just written about 'the Law' and notice how absurd it is, how bizare and pointlessly nonsensical this law that the Biblical God has supposedly created, how completely detached it is from any sane notion of morality or righteousness. I know that you have the capacity to consider the contradictions in this contrived load of codswallop to potentially extricate yourself from its confusing clutches. Maybe Jesus did mean he was there to be a human sacrifice, so stop - think what you have just admitted, that your religion is a cult of humam sacrifice. You worship a God who demands that people be executed in order to achieve vicarious redemption and forgiveness. This is happening so far out from the realms of moral accountability, the idea that you can be forgiven and absolved of guilt by a human sacrifice. This is nonsensical, illogical, unethical, unthinkable except for in the minds of backward barbaric Bronze Age goat herders who had a world view so narrow they would make Miss Teen Arizona from 2007 look like Noam Chompsky. Check out the YouTube clip if you haven't seen it, it's hilarious. I pay you the compliment of assuming you don't really, deep down, believe this ancient tribal mythology to be in any way morally acceptable, let alone morally admirable or authoritative.

This tells me you know nothing of which you whine about and judge with scorn. Sorry. Don't want to waste my time having to explain everything just to have you ignore the explanation and move on to the next objection you were able to google.

The classic apologetic argument of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "La la la!"

Well, at least you're consistent.

Ah, the endless debate over slave apologetics.


Something tells me, Steve, that you might be singing a different tune if you had actually been somebody's slave during Bible times. Non-Israelite (foreign) slaves were property for life, so don't even start quoting me rules about letting people go after 6 years. That wouldn't have been a thing for you. Even if you had been a Jew, if your master could tempt you to take a wife from amongst his slaves, he could enslave you for life in the case that you don't want to leave your wife and children for your freedom.


Beyond that, your god says that when you are beaten, care should be taken not to knock out your eyes or teeth. Your master would, of course, be punished if he actually killed you...unless it took you more than a day or two to die. Then it's no longer presumed that the beating is what killed you. Probably some sin in your own life, actually.


American slavery was EXPRESSLY based on this rather savage system, and your god NEVER refutes or amends it in either testament. It is condoned and endorsed throughout the Bible. This means that anti-slavery sentiment defies the alleged word of your god very directly. If non slavery is indeed morally superior to slavery (which you say it is), then humans of today are objectively more moral than whoever wrote the Bible. If your god wrote it, that makes modern humans more moral than your god.

(June 28, 2016 at 10:41 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(June 28, 2016 at 10:26 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Can you appreciate the difficulty of having such a discussion when it begins to center around a persons belief that slavery is a mercifully logical solution to the problems presented by the killing of a persons parents or provider?  

Could have just, IDK< not killed their parents, could have taken them in as your own, could have employed them gainfully, could have made reperations from the bounty of your conquest.  

Nope, it's all red lights and partytime...mercifully, logically....... blessedly.  Amen.

So your solution was to be the pacifist nation among all constantly warring people of the middle east? The Israelites were not particularly war-like. Mostly wars were defensive in nature. They stayed put after the initial conquest for over a 1000 years--with some breaks when they were carted away as slaves.

What about the poor? The people who needed the safety net that selling yourself or family member provided over misery and possible death? You do realize that these practices were done thousands of years before and 2000 years after Exodus 21.

He's GOD! Why didn't he just appear to ALL of the people?! Why didn't he just say "Don't own people as property"?! Do you seriously think your God is incapable of finding a better solution to these problems? It's just not good enough.

(June 28, 2016 at 11:21 pm)SteveII Wrote: General Comment:

I understand that for some it is fun to take potshots at Christians and not think about things beyond your typical predictable inch deep and mile wide list of atheist objections. I know there is an answer for every one of them and[...]

...and every one of those answers is a string of convoluted ad hoc bullsh*t. Look - it's easy to make up explanations, when you're not bound by reality, or testibility of your claims. Star Wars geeks can explain pretty much ANYTHING within that piece of fiction - that doesn't make the Force, or Jedi any more real. And Star Wars are only a few decades old - religious apologists have been working  for thousands of years on the ingratiating nonsense you now regurgitate. Quite frankly - after all that time and effort - we're not impressed.

Your god seems to only be omnipotent when it suits you. He can only interfere with free will when it suits you. Your holy book is only meant to be taken literally when it suits you. It's also actual word of god only when it suits you. Words mean whatever you want them to mean - depending on what suits you. And you still haven't got a single actual piece of evidence for even the most basic of your claims, like the divinity of Jesus, or resurrection. 

All the mental gymnastic only work on people, who are already desperate to believe that they will live forever and who have absolutely no interest in learning any facts, that are contradictory to their presumed notions. And that's why religions target children, because if you were brought up without a belief in christian theology and read the bible as an adult - you'd laugh your ar*e off.

Bible is like Donald Trump - very self contradicting, likes to be on both sides, so it's just a giant mess where everybody can choose what they like and think they're right. Like for instance Trump saying he's pro-choice and then saying he's pro-life, or “If I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative.” or saying “If two people dig each other, they dig each other.” only to say “I’m against gay marriage.” or on Brexit saying "It's beautiful" with immediately saying "It was contentious and ugly" or “I see no value whatsoever in believing ignorance to be an attribute.” with "I love the poorly educated.” and so on.

Like Jesus Christ in the Bible about the poor: “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” but then contradicting himself with "Many rich people threw in large amounts [money into temple]. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on.’”

Or in other places in the Bible which are clearly against the poor like: Proverbs (14:20)—“The poor are disliked even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends.”
Proverbs (17:8)—“A bribe is a charm to the one who gives it; wherever he turns, he succeeds.”
18 Ecclesiastes (10:19)—“A feast is made for laughter and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything.”

Which all gave pretense to priests to carry golden and bejeweled crosiers and wear silken robes, swinging censers of solid gold and living in manors, preaching in churches whose estimated worth is in that of the hundreds of millions of dollars. Or too often, a televangelist will slobber: “God wants you to give until it hurts,” or “The Holy Spirit wants you to use your credit card and give us $1,000—right now!”

Or some other of the many contradictions in the Bible like that David killed Goliath: in 1 Sam. 17:41–51 it is described how David killed Goliath to contradict it little bit later in 2 Samuel 21:1 that says real killer of Goliath was Elhanan, who belonged to “The Thirty,” King David’s elite fighting cadre.

Or that God killed all living creatures that were not on the ark, to contradict itself in Numbers 13:33 saying a race of giants, called nephilim in the Bible, survived the flood. And so on and on... You can argue till the kingdom comes with this Bible assholes on what is the right interpretation, just like what did Trump really say.

(June 29, 2016 at 5:41 am)Veritas_Vincit Wrote:

(June 28, 2016 at 10:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: So your solution was to be the pacifist nation among all constantly warring people of the middle east? The Israelites were not particularly war-like. Mostly wars were defensive in nature. They stayed put after the initial conquest for over a 1000 years--with some breaks when they were carted away as slaves.

What about the poor? The people who needed the safety net that selling yourself or family member provided over misery and possible death? You do realize that these practices were done thousands of years before and 2000 years after Exodus 21.

He's GOD! Why didn't he just appear to ALL of the people?! Why didn't he just say "Don't own people as property"?! Do you seriously think your God is incapable of finding a better solution to these problems? It's just not good enough.

Would God know of a better solution: yes, certainly.

Could a nation of loosely grouped tribes create a centralized government that was capable of providing a safety net for the poor and refugee camps (with a long-term resettlement plan) for the displaced after a military campaign? Highly unlikely. 

To make your point, you can't simply say "God could have...". It is not that easy--you would have to give a plausible scenario. You also did not make the case that God condones slavery. Since the penalty of kidnapping and selling someone into slavery was death, the goal of the system was obviously not for slavery itself. The best thing for the greatest number of people seems to have been to regulate a practice that had been going on for literally thousands of years.

God was better than he made himself out to be, but Those People™ were dipshits who could barely rub two sticks together.  Again, well done.

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werdweurwe9re934832
werd989034890834938
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This looks like random letters and numbers thrown together with no rhyme or reason, but in actuality, it is an incomprehensible alternative language with its own sentence structure. You just can't understand it because of your limited knowledge. Maybeh one day in da future you will, but only when you're dead!

(June 29, 2016 at 10:14 am)SteveII Wrote:

(June 29, 2016 at 5:41 am)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: He's GOD! Why didn't he just appear to ALL of the people?! Why didn't he just say "Don't own people as property"?! Do you seriously think your God is incapable of finding a better solution to these problems? It's just not good enough.

Would God know of a better solution: yes, certainly.

Could a nation of loosely grouped tribes create a centralized government that was capable of providing a safety net for the poor and refugee camps (with a long-term resettlement plan) for the displaced after a military campaign? Highly unlikely. 

To make your point, you can't simply say "God could have...". It is not that easy--you would have to give a plausible scenario. You also did not make the case that God condones slavery. Since the penalty of kidnapping and selling someone into slavery was death, the goal of the system was obviously not for slavery itself. The best thing for the greatest number of people seems to have been to regulate a practice that had been going on for literally thousands of years.

So let me get this straight. You're saying that the best solution that the all loving, all knowing, all powerful creator of the universe can come up with to deal with people keeping slaves is to... tell them to keep slaves on his own authority, tell them who they can enslave, how they can keep them as property to be passed down, how to turn a 7-year slave into a permanent slave, and that it's fine to beat a slave with a rod as long as he doesn't die within two days. 

That's it? That's your moral law giver? That's the best he can do? 


That's just pathetic.