The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[athrock]

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.

Actually, the Bible has had an undeniably negative impact on progress.  Slavery, Women gaining the right to vote, and Gay Marriage.  All three are things that were impeded much by the bible.  Sure, some Christians were against Slavery.  Some were for women being able to vote.  And a very few were okay with Gay Marriage.  But their opponents had stronger backing by the bible.  

And how much bad has been done in the name of the Bible because of specific things it says?  How many people were stoned for Adultery?  How many were stoned for working on Sunday?  Or eating Shellfish?

The Hebrews couldn't even handle "Thou Shalt Not Kill", yet Yahweh is said to have given them that commandment.  Yahweh couldn't have given them other commandments they couldn't handle?  Really?  And he didn't foresee any of these negative effects of what he said, and the negative impact on progress the bible created?  Surely he could have at the very least given updates to the Bible regularly, so that people would stop using it as an excuse.

Your Bible has had little to do with any of the progress we've seen over the past several hundred years.  Sure, some Christians have been involved.  But that doesn't mean the bible had any thing to do with it.  In fact your bible has impeded progress a lot.  One might even say it's been the biggest obstacle for progress.  More than anything else it convinced people that they were absolutely right when they shared those ancient values that Yahweh apparently couldn't do anything about (which doesn't scream supreme being to me at all.  Why would a supreme being be limited?)

For that matter, why open his mouth at all on many of those subjects?  If Homosexuality isn't an abomination according to Yahweh, why did he tell the Hebrews that?  Why not just leave that out, what good does it do?  What good does it do to say "Stone a woman for being raped"?  Seems like a pretty terrible thing to say.

As I noted in the thread on the Canaanites, I won't be drawn into these kinds of shotgun-style arguments, Cecelia. One topic per thread.

Thus far, I've pulled the rug out from under your beliefs that God is a moral monster because of the destruction of the Canaanite cities and because of slavery.

What should I cover next? God's alleged misogyny? Or his condoning of rape? And tell me...are you reading crappy books written by feminists or by atheists? Or feminist atheists? Maybe crappy, self-help books written by radical, feminist atheists posing as divorce counselors? Whew! What a toxic brew that would be. Bad advice doled out to needy women who are emotionally vulnerable. O.M.G.

No, I'm not inclined to waste any more time on your whining about this topic. Having shown that two of your biggest bitches against God have no basis and do nothing to discredit Him, covering the rest of your laundry list of gripes (lapped up from Dawkins, I suspect) would simply be more of the same beat-down.

I'll do a bit more mopping up with others and then call it a day.

But to you, toodles, darling.

[athrock]

Yeah, weird, isn't it?

Dawkins and Hitchens spent all that time railing against the supposed immorality of a god who doesn't even exist.

Imagine that.

Railing? [emphasis added] What the fuck are you on about?

Yeah, weird, isn't it?

Dawkins and Hitchens spent all that time railing against the supposed immorality of a god who doesn't even exist.

Imagine that.

Indeed they did [rail] [emphasis added] because there are some people that still believe in childish fantasy and live their life as though it was real!
And when these people get together they can have a real impact on the actual world based on delusion.

Well, which is it, guys?

Did they rail or not? 

[athrock]

So, taking them where they were at as product of "the times" in which they were living, God began to reveal a progressive message that was open to rejection. 

He went slowly, taking a thousand years and more, giving them as much as they could handle, punishing them when they disobeyed, rewarding them when they were obedient, until they were ready to receive the fullness of His message, the Word, the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Would you like some paper on which to write your bible?

What God revealed to them either was not moral because today we have the 'correct' moral view on such things, according to your timeless god.  Or, what god revealed to them was moral, and those Christians who oppose slavery are immoral, according to your timeless god.  Which is it?

Damn, girl. Is this really that hard? You keep trying to force a false dilemma on me, but I have already stepped between its horns.

What God revealed to the Israelites was that which they could handle at that time. And it was progress toward a higher standard. Would you care to concede that progress, btw?

Until you come up with something more, we're just repeating ourselves, so give it up.

[Cecelia]

You've yet to do anything of any real substance. You've convinced absolutely nobody of anything. You haven't proven your invisible friend as moral. If anything you've helped reinforce my understanding that Yahweh is nothing more than an invention of the Hebrew people, because his morals matched theirs. Pretty simple stuff really. The only thing you'll be mopping up is the bullshit you're spreading around here.

No surprise to see you attack feminists though. Your misogny is showing. Especially since you don't attack specific feminists, but groups of feminists. And you do it very emotionally. You want to talk about bad advice, I'd say bad advice is right up the alley of the bible. Bad advice written by goat herders who knew less about the world than a 7 year old today does.

[LastPoet]

But to you, toodles, darling.

Bye sweetiepie.

Really? Dude has issues. Why all the numbnuts land here? Oh wait...

[Angrboda]

Would you like some paper on which to write your bible?

What God revealed to them either was not moral because today we have the 'correct' moral view on such things, according to your timeless god.  Or, what god revealed to them was moral, and those Christians who oppose slavery are immoral, according to your timeless god.  Which is it?

Damn, girl. Is this really that hard? You keep trying to force a false dilemma on me, but I have already stepped between its horns.

What God revealed to the Israelites was that which they could handle at that time. And it was progress toward a higher standard. Would you care to concede that progress, btw?

Moral standards for slavery in the ancient world were all over the map. Hebrew slavery standards weren't so much a step forward as a lateral move into more of the same. And you here are trying to sidestep the immorality of your god by claiming that a little immorality isn't a bad thing so long as its justified by a small amount of progress. You haven't stepped between the horns. You've just stepped in the shit. Teaching the Israelites a slightly immoral set of slavery practices is still immoral. What 'progress' the Israelites made does not morally offset the cost to foreign slaves as well as Hebrew ones. If that isn't clear to you, I don't think you grasp the nature of morals. A good done to one set of people does not make a harm to another set of people moral.

[athrock]

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.

Funny, he seemed very keen to wipe all life on earth at some point or a few. I guess he was testing the right method to subdue those creations of it. What a moral dude huh? It changes method, yet not changing. It is timeless, yet acts over time.

How awesome is your god. Tell me more... (You don't even deserve a willy wonka meme)

You're really grasping at straws now, aren't you? Having been shown the reasons why you cannot pin the "moral monster" charge on God, you are swinging wildly...hoping that by your hyperbole you can continue the charade.

Sorry. The game is over.

[athrock]

Walking on eggshells is your characterization, not mine.

You didn't think about yours, that's sort of the difference between our respective characterizations.

But you have mixed up the punishments of some people with the forming of another people.

... Which is irrelevant to the point I was making, but okay.

God basically rebooted the planet at the flood, so that's in a class by itself.

Wow, an arbitrary, self serving redefinition with no justification for why it should be accepted. I'm suitably chastened.  

The point is that god didn't need to work within human means to effect change there, nor did he give one single shit about human free will. He just reached down and made the change he wanted by force, meaning that the excuse you're making is contradicted by the source you're citing.

Lot's wife (and the dude who touch the Ark, btw) were pegged as a warning that God is not to be trifled with.

And if god is okay with giving warnings and swinging his divine dick around, if you're accepting that disobedience to god justifies that punishment, and your position is that god does not approve of slavery, then therefore god reaching down to enforce a "no slavery" rule immediately is entirely consistent with his character.

We're still talking about them 3,000+ years later, so I think the lessons were pretty memorable. Sodom and the Canaanites were obliterated because they were perverse and needed killing.

Human slavery, apparently, is not a perverse act, then.  

I'm a bit annoyed with your failure to grasp basic concepts, so forgive me if I come across as unfeeling. I get that people were killed, but frankly, people on death row are executed routinely in the United States and in other countries. Sometimes, you just have to pull up the bad weeds so that the healthy plants can flourish.

... But slavers apparently aren't bad weeds, in your estimation? What does this have to do with anything?

So, there are three things here:

1. Zapping of individuals as a warning to others.
2. Punishment of peoples and nations which were steeped in sin.
3. The slow, methodical formation of an obstinate group of "bronze age goat herder" who eventually became the nation of Israel.  

THAT is my position.

But three is both ineffective and inconsistent with the character of god, leading to immense human suffering over the course of many, many years, in a world where you fully acknowledge that two happens. God could have- and I would argue should have, if he disliked slavery- performed dialed back versions of one and two to discourage slavery immediately, since he's apparently okay doing that for other crimes, rather than even courting three at all. You don't take a gentle tack when approaching a topic like slavery, but resort to the death penalty over looking around or touching the Ark, without a profoundly messed up, immoral sense of priorities.

That's sort of the problem. In your rush to excuse the inexcusable, you're positing a wildly inconsistent, contradictory god. Clearly you either worship a madman, or the god you're suggesting is not the one present in the book.

Sure, Ex-Lax. Show me where I lied.

Ugh, I'd hoped you'd just cop to it and save me the time, but oh well.  

There are three primary texts pertaining to the treatment of slaves in the Old Testament: Exodus 21, Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15. From these, we can extract the following specific instructions:


   Enslavement of others by kidnapping was prohibited. (Ex. 21:16)

This is a half truth, in that Exodus fully allows you to procure slaves from other nations, heedless of their actual origins prior to that point. So while active enslaving by kidnapping may be prohibited, there's a way around that by simply engaging in slave trading: so genteel!  

   A Hebrew slave was to be set free after six years of service if the slave chose freedom; they were not slaves for life (Ex. 21:2-6). Non-Hebrew slaves purchased from neighboring nations could be slaves for life. (Lev. 25:46)

So, to begin with it's interesting that you're apparently okay with racist slavery, that's nice. Secondly, you conveniently neglect to mention that the time limit on Hebrew slaves comes with a handy little escape clause for the slaver, where they emotionally blackmail the slave by giving them a wife and children (we'll set aside the sex slavery aspect of that for now) and then holding them hostage so that the male slave submits to his owner forever just to stay with them. This isn't the kind, orderly sort of thing you're cherry picking it to seem like.

   If a female slave was chosen to be a wife of the owner’s son, the owner was to treat her as his own daughter. The husband was obligated to provide her with food, clothing and sex (which would result in the blessing of children). If he failed to provide these things, she was free to leave. (Ex. 21:7-11)

So if the owner chooses to make his female slave his son's sex slave- her consent to any of this isn't even mentioned- then he has to ensure she doesn't starve to death, and somehow slave rape gets turned into "conjugal rights," though again, her consent doesn't figure into it at all. Wow, how nice.  

Oh, and also? The "free to leave" bit only applies to Hebrew women: all others are just kinda stuck.

 

Slave owners were to be punished for killing their slaves. (Ex. 21:20)

... Assuming it happens right away. If they beat their slaves so hard they linger in agony for a few days before dying of their injuries, that's apparently totally okay. Funny how that specification didn't show up here, almost like you had something to hide.

  Under some circumstances, slaves were to be set free if they were severely injured by their owners. (Ex. 21:26-27)

Yup: "If your master maims you in two highly specific places, you can go. If he maims you anywhere else, you have to stay." Golly gee, that makes up for the entire institution!  

  Slaves were to be given a day of rest. (Ex. 23:12)

During which passage it's notable that "yo, you gotta give your ox and donkey time to rest," comes first, and the basis of this passage is mainly that you should avoid working your property to death.

You people bring up the same half-passages every time, do you really think we haven't gone through and read the horrible shit in the immediate next sentences by now? Pathetic.  

Quick post to let you know that I'm going to read your post one time to decide whether there is anything I need to respond to.

[Minimalist]

God chose to reboot the planet because mankind had gone astray.

Seems like he did a pretty shitty job on the second try, too.  How can you worship such an abject fuck-up?

[athrock]

God basically rebooted the planet at the flood, so that's in a class by itself.

Wow, an arbitrary, self serving redefinition with no justification for why it should be accepted. I'm suitably chastened.  

The point is that god didn't need to work within human means to effect change there, nor did he give one single shit about human free will. He just reached down and made the change he wanted by force, meaning that the excuse you're making is contradicted by the source you're citing.

Incorrect. God chose to wipe out the pre-flood inhabitants as punishment for them and in order to start over due to the depth and breadth of the depravity of man which was the direct result of mankind's exercising its free will. In this case, God chose to punish behavior.

I mean, you can only let the kids at a slumber party roughhouse for so long before you finally have to step in and tell them to pipe down and go to sleep.

Only it was more serious than that, obviously.  

With the Israelites and slavery, God chose to mold behavior. 

Hey, slavery is offensive to us moderns today, but it was correctable. Apparently, the pre-flood inhabitants of the Earth were not teachable.

And I'll add this because it really silences critics like you and others: Because you cannot prove that God did not have a valid reason for either wiping out the Sodomites or merely correcting the Israelites, your charge of "moral monstership" is without merit, and frankly, I don't give a rat's ass how you feel about it.

You (and countless others) have TRIED to paint God as evil, but you've failed to make that accusation stick because there is nothing incompatible about God's actions in the OT and the idea of a loving God who cares for all his people. NOTHING.

The rest is just empty rhetoric. I'll keep reading solely out of courtesy.