Is the universe God?

[Esquilax]

Jesus himself never said that but that aside I would be interested to know why you believe slavery is wrong and why we don't still have a slave trade. I'd suggest you may have been morally and ethically influenced by something there. You don't get this kind of thing from "science".

Jesus did have a parable about slavery where he endorsed it, though. I'm aware the words I used weren't his, but they were in the bible.

Why do I believe slavery is wrong? Easy: I can observe reality. I don't want to be enslaved myself, and in an internally consistent moral model, that means that I've got to enter into a social contract where I don't enslave others to ensure that. That's the pragmatic answer, but truthfully, my nature as an empathic being means I don't actually like seeing harm come to others, as slavery does, so my moral scale places harm as an objectively immoral thing. The thing that's morally and ethically influencing me is reality, and logic.

Why? Do you need to be told slavery is bad before you can figure it out?

Not that you actually have been, of course: your bible is all smiles when it comes to slavery, so how did you come to the determination that it's bad?

They were people using God as an excuse to make some money on the side, so he kicked their ass out of there, you should approve of this.

Sorry, I don't find corporal punishment to be moral either. People besmirching your name doesn't give you license to assault them, least of all when you're- to their perspective- just some guy off the street.

Jesus and God are one and the same so I am using God as my example, it's quite handy to have the two in one like that. The Jewish prophets may have "gone too far in a few places" in their depiction/interpretation of God.

Ah, so you're picking and choosing. What's your metric for deciding what's "too far," beyond what would merely be inconvenient.

Oh, and incidentally, even accepting all that, you're okay with slavery, right?

Not that the God of the Old Testament is all wrath and judgement there's a different side to his character represented as well and an overall message that is perfect compatible with the gospels.

Just curious as to how many nonbelievers you've killed?

If you understand that Jesus is God in some way, fully God and fully man, that resolves the issue. Everyone like Jesus even the atheists have some respect for him as a moral teacher.

No actually, it doesn't: what it means is that you've now got two classes of behavior to draw your examples from, one where god is god, and the other where god is Jesus. What justification have you for ignoring the ones you're choosing to ignore?