The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[robvalue]

You keep forgetting athrok, our position is that he's fictional.

He's not real.

We're only entertaining your beliefs that he is real, and the consequences for you on your own beliefs.

I don't think you're at all interested in honest debate, so I'm not going to waste any more time.

[Cecelia]

"Hey guys! Slavery wasn't as bad in the bible as it was in America! I mean you couldn't even kill your slave back then! So clearly God isn't a monster. He had to work with the culture of the time! You know, because god is limited by man. This isn't because god is man-made, but because reasons. Sure, Jesus could have said that all slavery was wrong, but that would have been unpopular, and god only does things that are popular. Plus it might have got him hung on a cross or something. You know the Romans. And by saying that, he might have aided preventing the 'worse' form of slavery that was created by his own people many years later, many of whom used the bible to defend slavery. But of course some Christians were at the forefront of the abolition movement so we'll ignore all the people who used the bible to defend slavery. It cancels out! So Jesus didn't need to say it. Exodus clearly made it obvious that slavery was bad. So clearly obvious that Christians participated in slavery for many many many many many years afterwards, but eventually gave it up."

[robvalue]

God made slavery possible, and he knew that it would happen. Therefor, god made sure slavery was inevitable.

Trying to make excuses for an all-powerful being doesn't wash. If he wants things a certain way, then they are that way.

Free will is no excuse, since we have precious little of it anyway. We don't have the opportunity to do hardly anything that we could possibly imagine, including exploring the ~100% of the universe that is here "for us". We have to bust our guts and go mental just to get to the nearest crappy rock.

Yet we all have the option to grab and rape a kid.

This is not a reasonable set of options for someone who cares about human happiness. In what way does offering rape of kids do anyone any good? If it was never possible, never something we'd ever even think of, who exactly would miss it? God would, presumably. And while the kid is being raped, he loses his free will.

[robvalue]

Double post.

[Cecelia]

Free Will is all fine and good, until you realize that God allegedly drowned 99% of the planet to get them to act the way he wanted. When people didn't act the way he wanted them to, he'd kill them. At the very least he could have told them "END SLAVERY NOW" and if they didn't listen, put a blight on them or something. Or I don't know, at the very least it'd be recorded that he said it. Jesus could have easily said it. Jesus could have talked about the evils of sexism and racism and slavery. But he didn't. Apparently they were less important than a fig tree. He certainly could have said more than "Don't hit your slaves too bad now, you hear?" I mean Jesus would have to be omniscient, or else he couldn't know that he was god. Which means he'd have known about what slavery eventually becomes. If Jesus was not omniscient, then how did he know he was god?

[Whateverist]

Personally I'm just not a big fan of the Judeo Christian Trilogy: OT; NT; Koran, nor of the ensuing fan fiction (Book of Mormon, Scientology). So I don't easily get caught up in controversies involving the characters in those books. Did Jehovah have a dark side? Did Allah? Is JC the redeemer for mankind or for the sins of his father? Meh. But do carry on. I'm just saving my interest for the GoT series. I only wish that Martin guy would get off his tookus and write the next book.

[robvalue]

Right. This is all make believe. It makes no difference to me, at all.

But clearly it matters to some theists, who feel the need to justify their beliefs. I'm happy to mentally spar with them, as long I feel they're at least trying to be honest about it. If they're not, and we're not even talking about something real, it's an utter waste of time.

[LastPoet]

While morality remains subjective, to us humans, we have arrived at the point that to us is morally wrong to own another human as property. Huge step huh? Tell me CL, what says in that obsolete politics book about the wife and kids of the slave that is released? You can't just cherry pick the stuff written in there that confirm your beliefs. Take it as a whole.

Nice try. I've just re-read the passage this morning.

The man who went into slavery was allowed to be freed, but the wife (given to him by the slaveholder) as well as any of their children remained the property of the slave owner. 

We moderns may disagree with this (see the fallacy of presentism in the OP), but the Mosaic law was unquestionably a major improvement over the codes of the ANE.

Thus, the charge that God is a moral monster simply DOES NOT STICK.

Dude, god is just a fantasy. I worked under the assumption that god exists (define the thing, the make proof of it please), only to reduce that to the absurd. Carefull, as shoehorning 'presentism' denies objective morality. Your god didn't say simply: slavery is an abomination unto me.

Until you can find a passage in your storybook saying that, my point stands, it is a valid RA+ and said point just flew over your head. I understand why it did.

[Mr.wizard]

"Hey guys!  Slavery wasn't as bad in the bible as it was in America!  I mean you couldn't even kill your slave back then! So clearly God isn't a monster.  He had to work with the culture of the time!  You know, because god is limited by man.  This isn't because god is man-made, but because reasons.  Sure, Jesus could have said that all slavery was wrong, but that would have been unpopular, and god only does things that are popular.  Plus it might have got him hung on a cross or something.  You know the Romans.   And by saying that, he might have aided preventing the 'worse' form of slavery that was created by his own people many years later, many of whom used the bible to defend slavery.  But of course some Christians were at the forefront of the abolition movement so we'll ignore all the people who used the bible to defend slavery.  It cancels out!  So Jesus didn't need to say it.  Exodus clearly made it obvious that slavery was bad.  So clearly obvious that Christians participated in slavery for many many many many many years afterwards, but eventually gave it up."

It really does sound ridiculous when you spell it out.

[Cecelia]

Also the fallacy of presentism doesn't make any sense. Why shouldn't we judge the behavior of god by today's standards? If God's morality is truly objective, then the time period by which it is judged should not matter. If it does matter, then it is not by any means objective. And therefore Yahweh is again, excluded from being God. Therefore being a Christian makes absolutely no sense by this argument. If Yahweh has limitations, then he is not any Supreme Being.