Why does god want to cut off women's hands?

[Esquilax]

You're confusing less righteous with more moral.

I can see how, having drunk the kool aid to the point where slavery is okay with you, you'd proceed to think that death on such a grand scale is righteous. You're really doing wonders for your credibility amongst those of us who don't want to be genocide apologists.

It's also what many abolitionists had in mind. The question is, which side had better support? Considering the prohibition against kidnapping and selling into slavery, and the order to accept escaped slaves as free people, the Southern position as not Biblical. If they were following the law, they should have killed the slave traders, and then accepted their slaves as free people.

It's not really a matter of who has the most support. The fact is, in your supposedly perfectly written book of morality, which you yourself described as righteous earlier in your post, slave owners could find justification for their actions at all.

Why is it that on this one issue, that just so happens to be so very beneficial on the writers of the bible, does god suddenly become this compromising, powerless figure? At every other turn in the old testament he's slaying people left and right, but when it comes to writing the rules that might make it a little harder for a certain kind of person to conduct their business, suddenly he can't just give a commandment or anything. Why is that?

It's almost like you're being forced to give ad hoc rationalizations for totally immoral practices to keep your beliefs safe from interference!

I haven't argued that there was perfect protection for the slaves. There admittedly wasn't.

Why is a perfect being giving imperfect protection? Especially since he cares so much about the welfare of slaves, and wants the practice abolished, if he got his way? I mean, it's just those mean old hard hearted humans forcing him to compromise on his deeply held anti-slavery position, after all. Surely he could at least give the poor slaves a little more than "don't kill them right away."

That makes no sense, as it's considering damage to one's own slave, and considering the previous verse discussed.

Yeah, these clearly angry and violent people would never snap and harm their slaves in a fit of rage. There would be no need to safeguard the pawns of this practice, so vital, apparently, that even god himself couldn't outright abolish it, to the functioning of the society. Yes.

Where do the Sabbath laws require going to church?

If you're going to be this obtuse, then fine. But I'll also add that there's a certain cultural indoctrination implicit in forcing your slaves to obey the same religious practices that command them to be slaves in the first place.

There isn't any reason for it.

That sound is the whistle of sarcasm, flying right over your head.

False dichotomy. Before, you mentioned regulation and change. Now, "there's slavery" is all there is to it.

I mentioned regulation and change in the context of how it's a weak excuse. The rest of my post was given over to explaining how slavery, in any context, at any time, is immoral.

You're making an appeal to emotion. You do understand that, right?

Some anvils need to be dropped, John. Especially since it's the year 2013, and you are making excuses for slave owners.

OK, I thought about it, and I don't see it as a good argument for slavery.

The next step, is justifying your interpretation over theirs. I've got no dog in this particular fight, because I think the entire book is crap. But how are we to tell who here is presenting the interpretation that conforms to not only what Paul was intending, but also god?

So that Philemon could do the right thing voluntarily, as Paul explains:

14 But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.

And if he didn't? What then? The guy owned slaves, it's fairly clear his moral compass is severely askew.

If someone today came to you and explained that they had been enslaved and had escaped, would you return them to their owner in the hopes they would set them free on their own? If not, why on earth are you accepting it from someone else?