(March 17, 2015 at 6:13 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote:(March 17, 2015 at 10:53 am)abentwookie Wrote: Well, it can be useful in debates about a wide variety of subjects. For example, if they argue that there can be no morality without the Bible, you can easily provide countless examples of extremely immoral acts in the book. ...
...at which point, they go into "when the Bible says... it really means..." and you get to listen to some fantastically obtuse interpretations, which may be so elaborate as to include a custom fanfic they've created, purely based on their imagination and ad hoc fallacious reasoning in order to work backward to their preconception that the Bible is good.
At this point, I'm guessing you don't accept their ridiculous interpretations, preferring to read what's actually on the page and favoring Occam's Razor ("the reason there SEEM to be contradictions is because there ARE contradictions and the reason there SEEM to be immoral things in the Bible is because there ARE immoral things in the Bible").
At which point they perform psychological projection and accuse you of reading the Bible with an agenda.
I've danced this dance many times.
Sure they will. However, some of these situations cannot be danced around, even by the most skilled biblical ballerinas.
If you are discussing morality and bring up the fact that the Bible blatantly condones slavery, they will respond with, "no, it is indentured servitude!" and start talking about how it is different from traditional slavery. They will claim that the "servants" were free after seven years. Fortunately, this is easy to refute.#1. Regardless of what type of slavery we are talking about, it is still the act of OWNING another human being. Ask them if they think owning another human under ANY circumstances is moral.
#2. Indentured Servitude was a form of slavery. They were property of the person who owned the contract, they could be beaten, they were not allowed to leave, they could be passed on to your children, etc...
#3. Servants were to be freed after seven years, this part is true. However, if only applied to male Israelite slaves. Slaves from other countries could be kept forever. Also, if the owner provided the Israelite slave with a wife, they could basically blackmail him into remaining permanently by holding his family hostage. Which brings us to the next point....
#4. The rule only applied to male slaves. Women were not freed after seven years. Women were also sold to be wives, which basically amounts to sex slavery.
#5. You could beat your slaves, as long as they didn't die within a few days.
#6. If they try to pull the "well, that is just the old testament!" there are few points you can make here but the most important is that the New Testament does not condemn slavery either. In fact, it specifically tells slaves to obey their masters in two different verses: Ephesians 6:5 and 1 Timothy 6:1-2.
No matter how skilled the person is at dancing around the issue, you really can't get past the first point so be sure to stay on them about that. Make them either say that owning a person in some situations is morally acceptable or it is not. If they give you the first answer then they are morally bankrupt. If they choose the latter then you have just made them admit that their perfect source of morality isn't so perfect after all.
