Refuting Christians with their Own Bible

[Veritas_Vincit]

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.

1) Why does it matter that we choose God?
2) If God telling everyone what he wants them to do messes with free will then why tell anyone? Telling a handful is a terrible idea. Surely God would know that revelation is only evidence to the person it is revealed to? I don't believe UFO crazies for exactly this reason!
3) Your point about 2.3billion people believing it is irrelevant as more than that used to believe the world was flat and the sun went round it. They were wrong.
4) If we are born with morality why do we need the Bible?
5) If you're telling me your God couldn't think of a way for humans to live without slavery, and couldn't think of a way to tell them, then he's an idiot because anyone alive on the planet today could do that.
6) Stop going back to the NT - you can't have one without the other. Jesus said all the old stuff still stands, he says it in the sermon on the mount.
7) God could have said Slavery was wrong. He didn't, which is bad enough, but he actually endorsed it, which is immoral. None of this 'cultural context' or 'indentured servitude' gets you anywhere except where you really don't want to be - rationalising slavery. Have you ever considered how similar the dynamic between God and man is to that of an abusive relationship?

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Again, regulating, not commanding. 

I think we've found the problem, because this is not a fair reading of the scripture. God INSTRUCTS people to take slaves. He tells them to do it. He is NOT just regulating it. He is CONDONING it. According to God slavery is allowed. Making love between two men, not allowed, death penalty for that. Shellfish? Mixed fabrics? Not ok. OWNING humans as property? Yes, and you can beat them too as long as they don't die within 2 days.