The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[Thumpalumpacus]

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

I agree. Where is our conflict?

It seems to lie in the fact that you don't see the threat of eternal torment as a form of duress. It is certainly such.

"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?

We're left to assume then that your god is fine with people suffering, considering that as a perfect communicator, he chooses not to reveal his true wishes on the immorality of slavery.

"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. 

You're once more equivocating an imperfect human teacher with the Perfect Creator of All That Is; but I'll humor this last attempt of yours in order to make my point.

Are you really arguing that your god couldn't not mount a cogent case against slavery simple enough to resonate with early Christians? I can: "Slavery is wrong because it hurts people and their ability to exercise the free will that I, your Maker, have given them." Or something along those lines. We're not writing an Yngwie Malmsteen solo here; we're talking about very basic stuff.

Certainly an all-knowing God would know how to communicate with his own creations.

Does this help?

Not really. It's unconvincing given the attributes accorded the god you worship.