Refuting Christians with their Own Bible

[Whateverist]

It is very easy to judge preindustrial social structures from this side of the industrial revolution.

That is an interesting thing for you to say, Chad.  I think of you as defending objective morals.  If that is right then aren't you basically saying the reprehensibility of slavery didn't exist or was only a misdemeanor before the industrial revolution.  Now of course it is a capital offense but only because there exist less cruel ways to get work done.  So which is it?  Conditional morals or the bible got slavery wrong?

[Veritas_Vincit]

I mean, for you to say that I still need to make the case that God condones slavery, and you say you want a reasonable discussion? Just like previous threads you give the impression that aren't reading my posts or that you forget everything I have said in any other post.

If I make a series of analytical statement and then you answer the whole post by stating your incredulity--that is not a discussion. Here is my response again:

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. [1]

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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4]

A discussion would be if you disagree with [1], you would state the reason why without any disparaging remarks. If you disagree with my reasoning in [2] you would state specifically why my reasoning is not correct or you could purpose a plausible scenario of accomplishing the same goals without slavery. You imply that God condoned slavery and I am not sure you can draw that conclusion so address [3] and [4] and tell me why you object to that reasoning.

Ok, let's give it one more go.

[1] Could that nation of tribes get a civilization together? Yes, if that's what your God wanted. The question is, what were his choices? Option 1. is do nothing, don't intervene with their free will, watch the universe unfold but have no interaction and wait for cultural evolution to gradually give rise to ethics, since this will ultimately give rise to more successful societies. But then we wouldn't have the Bible or Jesus - or if we did, they would be false, man made delusions no having come from God even though he was there. Option 2. is give humanity moral guidance. How best to do this? Lots of ways - he could simply appear to each human being, or to whole groups at a time, and clearly explain the world and what is good and bad. There are so many ways he could achieve this, so many creative possibilities.
 
What option does he take? Neither. We are told that he takes option 3. where he chooses only to appear only to a very few humans, meaning that everyone else has to take their word for it and accept extraordinary claims on very weak evidence. He further chooses not to appear after this, meaning that as time goes on the strength of the evidence gets weaker, the message is diluted and corrupted by translation and scribal error, and the heresay evidence gets less and less believable. He only gives them a bizarre selection of very strict and narrow instructions that include barbaric behaviour - by which I mean teachings directly instruct humans to kill and [2]enslave each other [Leviticus 25:44-46; Exodus 21:2-6, 7-11 and 20-21; Ephesians 6:5; 1 Timothy 6:1-2] and consequently create a society based on injustice. 

He also leaves out some very obvious moral instructions such as to protect/not harm children. He threatens humans with wrath and pain and suffering and torture if they disobey him. At no point does he explain the concept of morality as having anything to do with the wellbeing or suffering of conscious creature, and the rules he lays down are a-moral - it isn't a moral system at all, it's a system of laws. It doesn't explain that things are wrong because they cause suffering to others, only that they will be punished - teaching that it is their own suffering that matters, not other people's. God doesn't want moral agents, he want soldiers who will 'just follow orders'. Going back to Genesis, God didn’t ever want people to think for themselves, he wanted them to live in ignorance, and punished them for curiosity which is the seed from which grows knowledge. Once humans become aware of good and evil, he doesn’t stop to explain an morality to them, he simply punishes them. And what's worse, he initially gives them a scapegoat morality based on animal sacrifice - as though killing animals has anything to do with morality or ethics? I really hope I don't have to explain what's wrong with that one.
 
What would be a reasonable characterization of these choices? Do they appear to be the intentions and actions of a moral being? A loving being? An all knowing being? No, on all counts. Moral? No, because he directly instructs immoral behaviour. All knowing? No, if he didn’t know that putting a talking snake in the Garden of Eden was a bad idea, or that first person revelation to a handful of people was a terrible way to instruct the whole of humanity of his message was a terrible idea, clearly not. Loving? When he sanctions infinite punishment for finite crimes? When he clearly does not care about the needless suffering of millions upon millions of human beings? When 5 million children under the age of 5 die every year from treatable diseases? You see, this is why I ridicule religion – because it is ridiculous, and frankly I find it insulting not only to my intelligence but to the dignity of our species.

[SteveII]

Ok, let's give it one more go.

[1] Could that nation of tribes get a civilization together? Yes, if that's what your God wanted. The question is, what were his choices? Option 1. is do nothing, don't intervene with their free will, watch the universe unfold but have no interaction and wait for cultural evolution to gradually give rise to ethics, since this will ultimately give rise to more successful societies. But then we wouldn't have the Bible or Jesus - or if we did, they would be false, man made delusions no having come from God even though he was there. Option 2. is give humanity moral guidance. How best to do this? Lots of ways - he could simply appear to each human being, or to whole groups at a time, and clearly explain the world and what is good and bad. There are so many ways he could achieve this, so many creative possibilities.
 
What option does he take? Neither. We are told that he takes option 3. where he chooses only to appear only to a very few humans, meaning that everyone else has to take their word for it and accept extraordinary claims on very weak evidence. He further chooses not to appear after this, meaning that as time goes on the strength of the evidence gets weaker, the message is diluted and corrupted by translation and scribal error, and the heresay evidence gets less and less believable. [A] He only gives them a bizarre selection of very strict and narrow instructions that include barbaric behaviour - by which I mean teachings directly instruct humans to kill and [2]enslave each other [Leviticus 25:44-46; Exodus 21:2-6, 7-11 and 20-21; Ephesians 6:5; 1 Timothy 6:1-2] and consequently create a society based on injustice.

God wants a lot of things that he does not get.
 
Your option 2 is not compatible with free will. If God appeared to each person, our choice to choose God rather than not God becomes nearly impossible. However, that does not mean he has not given moral guidance. Everyone knows the difference between right and wrong. We are born with it. 

[A] I understand your point and I assume you are talking about divine revelation all the way through the NT. However I think your point is invalidated by the fact there are 2.3 Billion Christians on the planet. It seem you underestimate the evidence that it takes for someone to believe. 

[B] Other than to assert there are "so many creative possibilities" to the type of slavery in that time you have not even suggested the details of how a system would work in a tribal culture without centralized power surrounded by similar counties that would achieve the obvious goals in Israel's version of slavery. 

BTW, you won't get any traction with the NT verses. All they do is instruct current slaves to obey their masters. Actually Philemon has Paul imploring that Philemon do the right thing by his slave.

[The Grand Nudger]

Option 2....to give humanity moral guidance....isn't compatible with free will?  Well wtf was jesus doing then..appearing to people and doling out little gems? You have what has got to be the most pothole ridden idea of christian apologism I've ever encountered. It doesn't even make it past the cursory glance, which is the entire point of apologism.

Your god could appear to me, right now...and I wouldn't give a shit, it won't change my mind on his message. Free will my ass, slaver.

[Fake Messiah]

It is very easy to judge preindustrial social structures from this side of the industrial revolution.

But it is necessary when those same bronze age societies values are supposed to govern our morality, politics and everything else. Yes bronze age societies had poor morality compared to us, that's why the Bible is so low on moral teachings because it was used to confine people to those pre-industrial social structures. Bible or Koran are no evidence of superior morality and to rely on such a document as the basis for our worldview is to repudiate two thousand years of civilizing insights that the human mind has only just begun to inscribe upon itself through secular politics and scientific culture.

[SteveII]

Option 2....to give humanity moral guidance....isn't compatible with free will?  Well wtf was jesus doing then..appearing to people and doling out little gems?  You have what has got to be the most pothole ridden idea of christian apologism I've ever encountered.  It doesn't even make it past the cursory glance, which is the entire point of apologism.

Your god could appear to me, right now...and I wouldn't give a shit, it won't change my mind on his message.  Free will my ass, slaver.

You do selectively read things don't you?

"Option 2. is give humanity moral guidance. How best to do this? Lots of ways - he could simply appear to each human being, or to whole groups at a time, and clearly explain the world and what is good and bad." No matter how you slice that sentence, that is God personally appearing to everyone. 

You would be the exception.

[Fake Messiah]

You do selectively read things don't you?

"Option 2. is give humanity moral guidance. How best to do this? Lots of ways - he could simply appear to each human being, or to whole groups at a time, and clearly explain the world and what is good and bad." No matter how you slice that sentence, that is God personally appearing to everyone. 

You would be the exception.

God could also have made his presence known by engraving the Ten Commandments in large letters on the Moon so that all people in the world can see it and not just one small tribe in the desert in the Middle East. Ancient scripture could have given us scientific evidence for God. It could, for instance, have presented information not known to humans when the sacred texts were written. These include statements like, “Thou shall use antibiotics for bacterial infections” or “Two strands entwined is the secret of life.”
Unless defined tautologically, then, the supernatural is either in principle or in practice within the realm of science. And when we consider all the failures to find it we find a big hole: the absence of evidence when the evidence should be there. Our rational response should be to tentatively reject the existence of any supernatural beings or powers.
But all the Bible was is ensuring alpha-male dominance to no surprise since it is and always has been a huge part of our animal history. Take the Decalogue as a perfect example, where the first three Commandments are inherently abject to anything not involving utter worship of the male leader, and the rest of his property. Killing, stealing, and wanting your neighbor’s wife are thrown in practically as an afterthought.
We have an excellent indication of the man-made extent of the Ten Commandments, and flagrant signs of the evolution of the human animal and the “morality” that evolved with us.

[SteveII]

 
What would be a reasonable characterization of these choices? Do they appear to be the intentions and actions of a moral being? A loving being? An all knowing being? No, on all counts. Moral? No, because he directly instructs immoral behaviour. ..... You see, this is why I ridicule religion – because it is ridiculous, and frankly I find it insulting not only to my intelligence but to the dignity of our species.

What exactly is God instructing that is immoral? He is regulating a less-than-ideal social system. He does not instruct people to get slaves. Your objection is that he does not forbid it. Then we are right back to the question you refuse to answer: how would a society (such as they had) effect the same goals without this system?

[GrandizerII]

 
What would be a reasonable characterization of these choices? Do they appear to be the intentions and actions of a moral being? A loving being? An all knowing being? No, on all counts. Moral? No, because he directly instructs immoral behaviour. ..... You see, this is why I ridicule religion – because it is ridiculous, and frankly I find it insulting not only to my intelligence but to the dignity of our species.

What exactly is God instructing that is immoral? He is regulating a less-than-ideal social system. He does not instruct people to get slaves. Your objection is that he does not forbid it. Then we are right back to the question you refuse to answer: how would a society (such as they had) effect the same goals without this system?

By changing the whole fucking system. It is God we're talking about here.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn't be the only exception Steve.  Plenty of people, supposedly, saw your god and didn't care any more than I do.  You're excusing your god for base immorality on account of something being really hard for jumped up chimps to accomplish...you realize? You're no longer denying that god is immoral, in doing that. Wold you accept that sort of excuse from a person?

"I know I shouldn't have told my squad to rape that girl......but it's really hard to change the system, and that's just who they are."

Whaddayathink...court martial or no court martial?