(January 13, 2012 at 2:27 pm)organiccornflake Wrote: God is a perfect Creaure. Modern slavery is immoral. God supports slavery... Hmmm... two of those statements seem to contradict. Therefore; something must give. You cannot read 3000 year old text through the eyes of a modern culture; surely you must realize this? You must read it through the eyes of the culture that it was written for. I have given you scripture that shows that slaves get at least one mandatory day off, are sold (or sell themselves) into slavery as a means of survival, they aren't allowed to be forcibly taken into slavery, they shouldn't ever be killed over refusing to work, if they are blinded or harmed irreversibly as a result of a beating their contract is broken and are to be set free, and that they were to be no more than lightly punished for unwittingly making a mistake. Does that sound like your slavery? You laugh that this has turned into an argument of definitions; when really that is the most important aspect.

Somewhere I read scripture which says plainly that a master is not to beat a slave so hard that he is immediately killed. If the slave dies a few days later then the master is blameless. And this is the 'good kind of slavery'?

You forgot to put that in context, whateverist. You know, the context where it's ok to own people.

That dos sort of alter one of the commandments to "Though shalt not kill - except for slaves, and even those are not to be killed quickly."

The bible says "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The slave would have deserved the beating for one of his actions. A punishment cannot be given unless justified.

(January 14, 2012 at 1:18 am)organiccornflake Wrote: The bible says "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The slave would have deserved the beating for one of his actions. A punishment cannot be given unless justified.

The most idiotic statement ever...

(January 14, 2012 at 1:22 am)Forsaken Wrote:

(January 14, 2012 at 1:18 am)organiccornflake Wrote: The bible says "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The slave would have deserved the beating for one of his actions. A punishment cannot be given unless justified.

The most idiotic statement ever...

I'm not sure. Have your read his other statements? Some pretty stiff competition there.

(January 13, 2012 at 2:27 pm)organiccornflake Wrote: God is a perfect Creaure. Modern slavery is immoral. God supports slavery... Hmmm... two of those statements seem to contradict. Therefore; something must give. You cannot read 3000 year old text through the eyes of a modern culture; surely you must realize this? You must read it through the eyes of the culture that it was written for. I have given you scripture that shows that slaves get at least one mandatory day off, are sold (or sell themselves) into slavery as a means of survival, they aren't allowed to be forcibly taken into slavery, they shouldn't ever be killed over refusing to work, if they are blinded or harmed irreversibly as a result of a beating their contract is broken and are to be set free, and that they were to be no more than lightly punished for unwittingly making a mistake. Does that sound like your slavery? You laugh that this has turned into an argument of definitions; when really that is the most important aspect.

And you and others have completely missed the biggest point of all:

One thing I've been asked frequently is how can an atheist have morals without god. Theists have made the point that god is the ultimate arbitraitor of all morality. It's why humans go to hell at all. Without god, there are no morals.

Nowadays, humans view slavery as wrong.
In the bible, this was not the case.

There is a disconnect. That disconnect is that humans are more moral than god.

I need you to think and allow that statement to sink in because there are other things as well - like gender equality, views on rape and treatment of women, philosophy, the views on what is fair and justice, and many other things that humans have evolved to be better at than what is depicted in the bible.
According to you theists, god is omnipotent and omnicient (therefore, he can't be surprised because he is 100% aware of the future) and this book that makes no condemnation of slavery or rape and has a gross inequality between the genders and states of human sexuality and yet despite the fact that this book of ultimate moral authority was written by a being with what is supposed to be omnicience, our views on the above have changed. Our morals have changed. The bible has not and god's cannot.

Therefore, there is no god.

(January 14, 2012 at 1:18 am)organiccornflake Wrote: The bible says "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The slave would have deserved the beating for one of his actions. A punishment cannot be given unless justified.

The bible says a lot of crap. Why parrot any of it back here? It seems the bible gives you support for doing anything or its opposite. So in the end, don't you just do whatever it is you want and then find the verse that justifies your whim?

"Turn the other cheek" vs "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"

"Thou shalt not kill" vs "no blame on he whose blow kills a slave as long as the slaves death is slow enough"

No one here is impressed with this sort of reasoning. Figuring out what to do, let alone what to think, based on all the shit written in the bible is a fool's mission. Man up. Try thinking toward conclusions rather than from them.

(January 14, 2012 at 9:00 am)whateverist Wrote: The bible says a lot of crap. Why parrot any of it back here? It seems the bible gives you support for doing anything or its opposite. So in the end, don't you just do whatever it is you want and then find the verse that justifies your whim?

"Turn the other cheek" vs "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"

"Thou shalt not kill" vs "no blame on he whose blow kills a slave as long as the slaves death is slow enough"

No one here is impressed with this sort of reasoning. Figuring out what to do, let alone what to think, based on all the shit written in the bible is a fool's mission. Man up. Try thinking toward conclusions rather than from them.

Stated another way: Absent a presupposition that the god of the bible exists, all you're really left with is stories recorded by bronze and iron age peoples with bronze and iron age superstitions, morality and knowledge.

Such arguments are only likely to impress the gullible or those who want to believe and are subject to confirmation bias.

Around here, biblical arguments are a non-starter.

To the DarkestOfAngels: My counter-argument to your statement is within your statement. You don't have the right to deem that your morality is higher than god's, as in your godless universe there is no moral judge. Even the moral values that have you received from a christian-culture (assuming you live in europe or the Americas or certain places in africa.)

"Though shalt not murdur" means to kill without cause.
"Turn the other cheeck" is what jesus taught, as humans no longer have the right to dish out harsh judgment, as jesus took it all.