The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[athrock]

So what you are saying is that God's morality mirrors that of the current human society morals.

Fascinating, that. I wonder what possible simple explanation there could be for Gods morals to reflect human morals of the time? Lol. Seriously, do these people even hear themselves??

Lol. Do you even think before you post?


God's morality was superior to that of both the ancient Israelites as well as that of "current human society".

Both the ancients as well as we moderns are challenged to meet that higher standard.

[athrock]

Personally I'm just not a big fan of the Judeo Christian Trilogy: OT; NT; Koran, nor of the ensuing fan fiction (Book of Mormon, Scientology).  So I don't easily get caught up in controversies involving the characters in those books.  Did Jehovah have a dark side?  Did Allah?  Is JC the redeemer for mankind or for the sins of his father?  Meh.  But do carry on.  I'm just saving my interest for the GoT series.  I only wish that Martin guy would get off his tookus and write the next book.

The Qur'an is part of the Judeo-Christian trilogy?

Could someone let the folks in Palestine know? This changes everything.

[athrock]

Nice try. I've just re-read the passage this morning.

The man who went into slavery was allowed to be freed, but the wife (given to him by the slaveholder) as well as any of their children remained the property of the slave owner. 

We moderns may disagree with this (see the fallacy of presentism in the OP), but the Mosaic law was unquestionably a major improvement over the codes of the ANE.

Thus, the charge that God is a moral monster simply DOES NOT STICK.

Dude, god is just a fantasy. I worked under the assumption that god exists (define the thing, the make proof of it please), only to reduce that to the absurd. Carefull, as shoehorning 'presentism' denies objective morality. Your god didn't  say simply: slavery is an abomination unto me.

Until you can find a passage in your storybook saying that, my point stands, it is a valid RA+ and said point just flew over your head. I understand why it did.

What flew over your head, apparently, is the reason why God could not simply do that.

But hey, I know you are loathe to let God off the hook. You really, really, really need to continue believing the lie that God is a moral monster.

[downbeatplumb]

Free Will is all fine and good, until you realize that God allegedly drowned 99% of the planet to get them to act the way he wanted.  When people didn't act the way he wanted them to, he'd kill them.  At the very least he could have told them "END SLAVERY NOW" and if they didn't listen, put a blight on them or something.  Or I don't know, at the very least it'd be recorded that he said it.  Jesus could have easily said it.  Jesus could have talked about the evils of sexism and racism and slavery.  But he didn't.  Apparently they were less important than a fig tree.  He certainly could have said more than "Don't hit your slaves too bad now, you hear?"  I mean Jesus would have to be omniscient, or else he couldn't know that he was god.  Which means he'd have known about what slavery eventually becomes.  If Jesus was not omniscient, then how did he know he was god?

<sigh>

No, Cecelia, that isn't exactly what happened. 

God chose to reboot the planet because mankind had gone astray. It's His computer, He wrote the program, and He can ctrl-alt-del if He wants to. The fact that He wanted to shows just how bad things had become. Later, He used a different plan - sending His son - to redeem sinners. Why no second flood? Clearly, He thought the situation was salvageable.

Now, you ask why Jesus didn't give more specific instructions. Well, this would have required that he provide a clear guideline for every conceivable issue that mankind had or would ever face. Abortion? What did Jesus say? Gay marriage? What did Jesus say? Stem cell research? What did Jesus say? A gospel the size of a set of encyclopedias wouldn't have been sufficient to hold all the possible rules and regulations we'd need to cover every eventuality. And we'd still be arguing over what a particular verse meant, how it should be applied in modern society, and whether we could really be sure that the terabyte-length scriptures weren't just a bunch of corrupted fairy tales told by "bronze-age goat herders" anyway.

Instead, He gave us two rules to focus on:

1. Love God. 
   
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
   

It's a good thing that Jesus didn't bury us with more specific rules as you demand. 

We seem to be having enough trouble following these two.

Enforced love, coz that always works[/sarcasm]

[athrock]

"Hey guys!  Slavery wasn't as bad in the bible as it was in America!  I mean you couldn't even kill your slave back then! So clearly God isn't a monster.  He had to work with the culture of the time!  You know, because god is limited by man.  This isn't because god is man-made, but because reasons.  Sure, Jesus could have said that all slavery was wrong, but that would have been unpopular, and god only does things that are popular.  Plus it might have got him hung on a cross or something.  You know the Romans.   And by saying that, he might have aided preventing the 'worse' form of slavery that was created by his own people many years later, many of whom used the bible to defend slavery.  But of course some Christians were at the forefront of the abolition movement so we'll ignore all the people who used the bible to defend slavery.  It cancels out!  So Jesus didn't need to say it.  Exodus clearly made it obvious that slavery was bad.  So clearly obvious that Christians participated in slavery for many many many many many years afterwards, but eventually gave it up."

It really does sound ridiculous when you spell it out.

Or when she wrote it, anyway. 

[Angrboda]

Certainly not to cretins like you.

I'm a stupid person, Jormungandr?

Do I not compose my sentences and paragraphs in a manner which suggests that I am of at least average intelligence? 

cre·tin
ˈkrētn/
noun
noun: cretin; plural noun: cretins

1.
informal offensive
a stupid person (used as a general term of abuse).
2.
Medicine dated
a person who is deformed and mentally handicapped because of congenital thyroid deficiency.

It was figurative usage, moron.

[downbeatplumb]

[quote pid='1184538' dateline='1453656839']


But hey, I know you are loathe to let God off the hook. You really, really, really need to continue believing the lie that God is a moral monster.

[/quote]

The fictional character god has many immoral acts assigned to it. Like Darth Vader or Voldermort in the respective works of fiction they inhabit.
The only difference is they are supposed to be seen as good by his fans for some reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhrKkva2Ow4

[athrock]

Also the fallacy of presentism doesn't make any sense.  Why shouldn't we judge the behavior of god by today's standards?  If God's morality is truly objective, then the time period by which it is judged should not matter.  If it does matter, then it is not by any means objective.  And therefore Yahweh is again, excluded from being God.  Therefore being a Christian makes absolutely no sense by this argument.  If Yahweh has limitations, then he is not any Supreme Being.

Because, Cecelia, you're not simply judging God's behavior in light of today's standards. You're fallaciously attempting to read today's standards back into God's interaction with a more primitive people. You can't do that. Not honestly, anyway.

God acted then according to what the people then could handle. And in doing so, he moved all of humanity forward TOWARD today's standards because the written account of the people of God, the Bible, has had an undeniably positive impact on mankind.

[athrock]

Careful...that sounds like an argument for the existence of objective moral values. 

Yet, your original argument denies objective morals. God changed his morals, hence changed his mind over time?  Has god evolved? Or are you trying to say we should still own slaves, as long as we abide those rules like release after 7 years.

Nope. 

God did not change. He revealed a higher standard...the next phase in the formation of the people of Israel.

They changed...slowly, incrementally, begrudgingly even...over time.

[athrock]

That doesn't mean what he did was actually "good" though, just because he did it. Especially when you consider what options he gave us.

Everything he invented, he is solely responsible for. Just saying we chose to do it is scapegoating.

You're setting up your planet with your creatures on it. Do you:

(a) Make rape and slavery possible

(b) Make rape and slavery impossible

It's perfectly possible to have "free will" but with only positive options, which cause us to be happy and not suffer.

OK, enough speculating. Let's see what actually happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDgCnoCMf9k

More Kool-Aid, rob?

You can do better than this by thinking for yourself.