(April 25, 2015 at 8:09 am)Chad32 Wrote: But why was it ever ok to own slaves, or rape women, or commit genocide? This is the first impression we get of your god, and the OT takes up two thirds of your book. Why should I are if he gets slightly nicer at the end when the first thing we find out about him is how vindictive, petty, and selof centered he is? I hear about how the old laws don't matter, despite Jesus saying it wasn't his intention to change any laws, yet this means that sometimes a;; of these horrible, evil things are ok to do. This desn't speak well of your god.
He is only ever slightly more progressive than the contemporary culture. Probably the best lesson of the bible is to treat others how you want to be treated, which isn't even unique or original to the bible.
Given human nature, I don't think God could have turned the post-Egyptian slavery Hebrews into a Western constitutional democracy over night. Incremental change is better than no change at all. As I said, the range of choice isn't always from good to bad; sometimes its bad and worse. With the practice of slavery, God is basically saying, "I cannot turn your hearts away the practice of slavery entirely, so if you must do this evil then the least you can do is treat your slaves humanely."
