The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[athrock]

I see. How can I say this more clearly...

1. God could force His will upon us since He is more powerful than we are, but if he did so, it would result in our loss of free will because we would would be coerced into serving him. Given the frequent objections to any and every mention of hell as a "threat", I'm surprised you are not more sensitive to this.

2. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He does not change. Neither does His morality. This does not prevent Him from revealing his will to us progressively.

3. If we look back at some past instructions that God gave to Israel, we cannot fall into the trap of judging His actions as falling short of our present understanding of morality.

Now, I've tried more than once, but if this is still insufficient, please re-state your objections.

You've ignored the point that a choice made under duress is not "free".

You've ignored the point that if your god is perfect, then by definition so should be his revelation ... and creations such as students of his morality, for that matter.

You've ignored the point that a timeless objective morality should not look any different from any historical vantage.

Until you address those objections, your "argument" -- if I may dignify it as such -- is vapid. Not to mention that said "argument" is merely a set of unfounded assertions.

Over to you.

Not intentionally. Promise. I'm a bit peeved at a few other posters, but not you. So let's continue.  

"You've ignored the point that a choice made under duress is not "free"."

I agree. Where is our conflict?

"You've ignored the point that if your god is perfect, then by definition so should be his revelation ... and creations such as students of his morality, for that matter."

God's revelation IS perfect, but that doesn't mean that He gives it to us all at once, does it?

"You've ignored the point that a timeless objective morality should not look any different from any historical vantage."

I don't play the guitar, but I'll stick with guitar analogies - at least until they completely fail me.  

As a teacher, you COULD give your student a difficult song to play...let's take one of the classics like "Free Bird" or "Stairway to Heaven"...by simply handing him the sheet music and wishing him well. Or, you could give him the chords, the riffs, whatever, a little at a time until he had all the skills in place to play the song. And the whole time when he's simply practicing chord changes without really knowing why you're having him practice them, the Song Remains the Same. (see what I did there?)

THEN you give him the sheet music, and say, "Play this." If you've put the pieces in place first, playing the solos should be easy with a little practice. 

Does this help?