The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[Expired]

Wow, an arbitrary, self serving redefinition with no justification for why it should be accepted. I'm suitably chastened.  

The point is that god didn't need to work within human means to effect change there, nor did he give one single shit about human free will. He just reached down and made the change he wanted by force, meaning that the excuse you're making is contradicted by the source you're citing.

Incorrect. God chose to wipe out the pre-flood inhabitants as punishment for them and in order to start over due to the depth and breadth of the depravity of man which was the direct result of mankind's exercising its free will. In this case, God chose to punish behavior.

I mean, you can only let the kids at a slumber party roughhouse for so long before you finally have to step in and tell them to pipe down and go to sleep.

Only it was more serious than that, obviously.  

With the Israelites and slavery, God chose to mold behavior. 

Hey, slavery is offensive to us moderns today, but it was correctable. Apparently, the pre-flood inhabitants of the Earth were not teachable.

*Mould*********************************************

---

Incorrect. God chose to wipe out the pre-flood inhabitants as punishment for them and in order to start over due to the depth and breadth of the depravity of man which was the direct result of mankind's exercising its free will. In this case, God chose to punish behavior.

I mean, you can only let the kids at a slumber party roughhouse for so long before you finally have to step in and tell them to pipe down and go to sleep.

Only it was more serious than that, obviously.  

With the Israelites and slavery, God chose to mold behavior. 

Hey, slavery is offensive to us moderns today, but it was correctable. Apparently, the pre-flood inhabitants of the Earth were not teachable.

*Mould*********************************************

Pre-flood, share your drugs with me.

[Divinity]

Fucking apologists defending slavery. You know why the people of Israel couldn't handle ending slavery? Because they were fucking pieces of shit, and they justified their actions through God. Because might makes right. They never spoke to any gods. They only made claims they couldn't back up.

[Angrboda]

Incorrect. God chose to wipe out the pre-flood inhabitants as punishment for them and in order to start over due to the depth and breadth of the depravity of man which was the direct result of mankind's exercising its free will. In this case, God chose to punish behavior.

I mean, you can only let the kids at a slumber party roughhouse for so long before you finally have to step in and tell them to pipe down and go to sleep.

Only it was more serious than that, obviously.  

With the Israelites and slavery, God chose to mold behavior. 

Hey, slavery is offensive to us moderns today, but it was correctable. Apparently, the pre-flood inhabitants of the Earth were not teachable.

*Mould*********************************************

---

*Mould*********************************************

Pre-flood, share your drugs with me.

In another thread he argues that it was just a local flood. Typical apologist, won't hesitate to speak out of both sides of his mouth.

[athrock]

We're still talking about them 3,000+ years later, so I think the lessons were pretty memorable. Sodom and the Canaanites were obliterated because they were perverse and needed killing.

Human slavery, apparently, is not a perverse act, then.  

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.

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.

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

Please say no.

[athrock]

But three is both ineffective and inconsistent with the character of god, leading to immense human suffering over the course of many, many years, in a world where you fully acknowledge that two happens. God could have- and I would argue should have, if he disliked slavery- performed dialed back versions of one and two to discourage slavery immediately, since he's apparently okay doing that for other crimes, rather than even courting three at all. You don't take a gentle tack when approaching a topic like slavery, but resort to the death penalty over looking around or touching the Ark, without a profoundly messed up, immoral sense of priorities.

That's sort of the problem. In your rush to excuse the inexcusable, you're positing a wildly inconsistent, contradictory god. Clearly you either worship a madman, or the god you're suggesting is not the one present in the book.

Or a GOD who is simply not like you and whose thoughts are not your thoughts.

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?  

[Rhondazvous]

You've yet to do anything of any real substance.  You've convinced absolutely nobody of anything.  You haven't proven your invisible friend as moral.  If anything you've helped reinforce my understanding that Yahweh is nothing more than an invention of the Hebrew people, because his morals matched theirs.  Pretty simple stuff really.  The only thing you'll be mopping up is the bullshit you're spreading around here.

No surprise to see you attack feminists though.  Your misogny is showing.  Especially since you don't attack specific feminists, but groups of feminists.  And you do it very emotionally.  You want to talk about bad advice, I'd say bad advice is right up the alley of the bible.  Bad advice written by goat herders who knew less about the world than a 7 year old today does.

I don't think they come here to do anything of substance. They come here and find people who know more about the bible than they do and there's really nothing they can do regurgitate nonsense in the hope of...I don't know what..

[CapnAwesome]

Actually God isn't an immoral monster, he's not even real! Imagine that.

Yeah, weird, isn't it?

Dawkins and Hitchens spent all that time railing against the supposed immorality of a god who doesn't even exist.

Imagine that.

Well Dawkins and Hitchen's normally clarified when they were talking about the character Yaweh from the bible. That's a different subject that talking about 'God' which could mean any number of things other then the Judeo Christian character.

[Thumpalumpacus]

This just shows that the book represents only the morality of the time.

No, it's still a HUGE step up in morality for those times.

Firstly, it wasn't a huge step.

Secondly, you've imputed a limitation to your god's powers. Do you think he was unable to teach the Israelites morality?

Thirdly, how can a perfect being experience progress?

[athrock]

There are three primary texts pertaining to the treatment of slaves in the Old Testament: Exodus 21, Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15. From these, we can extract the following specific instructions:

Enslavement of others by kidnapping was prohibited. (Ex. 21:16)

This is a half truth, in that Exodus fully allows you to procure slaves from other nations, heedless of their actual origins prior to that point. So while active enslaving by kidnapping may be prohibited, there's a way around that by simply engaging in slave trading: so genteel!

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.")  

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?

   A Hebrew slave was to be set free after six years of service if the slave chose freedom; they were not slaves for life (Ex. 21:2-6). Non-Hebrew slaves purchased from neighboring nations could be slaves for life. (Lev. 25:46)

So, to begin with it's interesting that you're apparently okay with racist slavery, that's nice. Secondly, you conveniently neglect to mention that the time limit on Hebrew slaves comes with a handy little escape clause for the slaver, where they emotionally blackmail the slave by giving them a wife and children (we'll set aside the sex slavery aspect of that for now) and then holding them hostage so that the male slave submits to his owner forever just to stay with them. This isn't the kind, orderly sort of thing you're cherry picking it to seem like.

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.

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?

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

   If a female slave was chosen to be a wife of the owner’s son, the owner was to treat her as his own daughter. The husband was obligated to provide her with food, clothing and sex (which would result in the blessing of children). If he failed to provide these things, she was free to leave. (Ex. 21:7-11)

So if the owner chooses to make his female slave his son's sex slave- her consent to any of this isn't even mentioned- then he has to ensure she doesn't starve to death, and somehow slave rape gets turned into "conjugal rights," though again, her consent doesn't figure into it at all. Wow, how nice.  

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.

Oh, and also? The "free to leave" bit only applies to Hebrew women: all others are just kinda stuck.

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

Slave owners were to be punished for killing their slaves. (Ex. 21:20)

... Assuming it happens right away. If they beat their slaves so hard they linger in agony for a few days before dying of their injuries, that's apparently totally okay. Funny how that specification didn't show up here, almost like you had something to hide.

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.

  Under some circumstances, slaves were to be set free if they were severely injured by their owners. (Ex. 21:26-27)

Yup: "If your master maims you in two highly specific places, you can go. If he maims you anywhere else, you have to stay." Golly gee, that makes up for the entire institution!  

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.

  Slaves were to be given a day of rest. (Ex. 23:12)

During which passage it's notable that "yo, you gotta give your ox and donkey time to rest," comes first, and the basis of this passage is mainly that you should avoid working your property to death.

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

No, you really don't.

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.

Thanks for playing. I wish I could say you were a worthy adversary, but that would be a lie.

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



Oh, and  

[athrock]

If you tell me to interpret slavery within its historical context, you are saying that this is a book written by humans. I was told this is the word of god and that the Law of Moses was inspired by god himself. Since the Mosaic Law condones slavery, then god condones slavery. I was told that god is the same today, yesterday and forever. How is this true if I have to interpret his word in its historical context rather than as his timeless message to all humans?

Thanks for joining the discussion late.

I've already covered this. Well.

Please take the time to find, read and understand what I wrote.

Here's a helpful search term: incremental.

This should be really, really easy for you to locate.