What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

I have addressed this several times. But I can see how you may have missed it.

Yes, He was the same God. But we have to remember that the bible was not written by the hand of God. It was written by man. And though these men were all inspired by God, they are still men and not God. I good way to think of it is that the bible represents God, but does so through the filter of man. It is not completely perfect. It is not infallible. It was not directly written by God.

Once Jesus (who is God) came we were able to gain a better understanding of God. And He debunked a number of things from the OT, namely the stoning of adulterers and the law "an eye for an eye" which He addressed specifically.

Hope that helps.

This is a cop-out, the writers of the new testament were also men why should we trust anything they wrote about jesus.

They had a huge advantage. They had Jesus to go off of, who is God and made Himself man, and spoke to us directly. The OT folks did not have that.

[The Grand Nudger]

Is this the way that other nations treated the Hebrew women that were captured? 

Shitwitted raft, again.  It's very near sinking at this point.  You need to stop this, if you ever wish to accidentally happen upon a cogent point.

So, God's standards for His people WERE higher than those of the nations with whom He had no covenant.

-and still lower than mine.

[Randy Carson]

Really?  Where does it prohibit slavery in the Bible?  Didn't the Catholic church actually own slaves in North and South America?

The America abolitionist movement pitted church against church with many churches declaring slavery to be the will of god.  The earliest anti-slavery proponents were free-thinkers. http://www.freethought-trail.org/profile...use&Page=1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought  Funny it should take atheists to get the ball rolling.

As for the prohibition of slavery in the Bible, my response would be that general principles espoused in the Bible led to the elimination of slavery as it was practiced in times much closer to our own. It was the TRAJECTORY of Christianity that made this eventually possible.

You might want to learn a bit about William Wilberforce.

[Metis]

Really?  Where does it prohibit slavery in the Bible?  Didn't the Catholic church actually own slaves in North and South America?

The America abolitionist movement pitted church against church with many churches declaring slavery to be the will of god.  The earliest anti-slavery proponents were free-thinkers. http://www.freethought-trail.org/profile...use&Page=1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought  Funny it should take atheists to get the ball rolling.

As for the prohibition of slavery in the Bible, my response would be that general principles espoused in the Bible led to the elimination of slavery as it was practiced in times much closer to our own. It was the TRAJECTORY of Christianity that made this eventually possible.

You might want to learn a bit about William Wilberforce.

Odd example to post Randy, considering Wilberforce was an Anglican and was slagged off by the Catholic Church.

The trajectory that made this possible was moving away from Catholicism. Still Christian, but certainly not Catholic.

[Randy Carson]

Is this the way that other nations treated the Hebrew women that were captured? 

Shitwitted raft, again.  It's very near sinking at this point.  You need to stop this, if you ever wish to accidentally happen upon a cogent point.

When you post empty rhetoric like that, I know you have nothing substantive to say. You're just lashing out.

So, God's standards for His people WERE higher than those of the nations with whom He had no covenant.

-and still lower than mine.

And I agree with you. As a product of what has been a Christian culture for many centuries, YOU should be able to see further morally than those who did not have the benefit of clear Catholic teaching.

[Randy Carson]

I don't think you had as much trouble understanding the rule as agreeing to follow it.

You may rest assured that I agree to follow the rules.

[The Grand Nudger]

Except that I don't actually come from a christian culture....Randy..lol. Perhaps you ought to let me have my -own- standards..though, eh..rather than blaming them on christianity? It's not as though you'd be content with me laying my existence and thoughts, as they are, at the footstep of the church, implicating them for whatever horrible thing I;m about to say about the christian god....eh?

(empty rhetoric, btw? You just indicated that you understood, yesterday, why our shitwitted raft won't float. Short memory? Do you need it explained...again?)

[Nope]

Even rape, Randy?  God said that Hebrew warriors should kill entire villages and keep the virginal girls for sex toys. I've quoted that verse about three times in this very, very long thread. Why would god not just permit these things from happening but condone them? What good came of raping young girls who might have seen their entire family murdered by the same men that used them for sex?


This is from Deuteronomy, a book of god's laws.

Rape? Sex toys? Did I miss that in the passage you quoted?

It seems to me that God was very specific about how the women would be treated by the Israelites. They became wives...not sex slaves. They were permitted a period of mourning before marriage. And if divorced, she was give freedom...not slavery.

Is this the way that other nations treated the Hebrew women that were captured?

So, God's standards for His people WERE higher than those of the nations with whom He had no covenant.

Seriously? These were young girls that just saw their families brutalized and murdered. The men that took them were responsible for that destruction and the girls had to marry those same men.

So, if a group of American soldiers happen to want some, young virginal wives then they can just destroy an Afghanistan village and take the girls as their wives? God said it was okay in Old Testament times, why not now?

It doesn't matter what the other tribes taught or did. Your the one who still believes in an all powerful, all knowing, ever present deity who can see into the future and is trying to convince us that your god is not an asshole.

[Catholic_Lady]

It is part of the Christian belief to believe that God is goodness and love. So, I'd have to explain why I am Christian in the first place.

This is just my theory, but I think we all have it inside of us to instinctively know that things like love, generosity, honesty, chastity, temperance, etc... are objectively good things, and the acts that represent those things, are good acts. It doesn't mean we hold all the answers to morality, nor does it mean we can't be brainwashed into thinking killing infidels (for example) is good, but I do believe we do have a little piece of "God" inside us to help guide, as part of a human instinct.

(bold mine)

That's called serotonin.

I don't doubt that there is chemistry/biology behind it. But I still think it was planned that way by God, so that we would have some notion of objective morality.

[Pyrrho]

As for the prohibition of slavery in the Bible, my response would be that general principles espoused in the Bible led to the elimination of slavery as it was practiced in times much closer to our own. It was the TRAJECTORY of Christianity that made this eventually possible.

You might want to learn a bit about William Wilberforce.

Odd example to post Randy, considering Wilberforce was an Anglican and was slagged off by the Catholic Church.

The trajectory that made this possible was moving away from Catholicism. Still Christian, but certainly not Catholic.

Why not?  It is all dishonest anyway.  One must reject what the Bible and Jesus say in order to get to the idea that slavery is bad.  It is only through the erosion of religious beliefs that a Christian can be an abolitionist.

Of course, it is a good thing that people are and have been getting away from the morality of the Bible.  But it is completely dishonest to say that the Bible is the source of such improvements.  But you are not arguing with someone who has any regard for the truth, so you ought not expect to hear such things from him.