The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[drfuzzy]

athrock is a Bible literalist.  One o' those people who actually believes that the entire work was, at least, divinely inspired.  Anyone who disagrees just needs to go READ this wonderful book -- in the right, prayerful state of mind.  Those of us who have read it extensively and yet disagree are just being stubborn and hate god.  The wholly babble is the only source of true intelligence and life and all that, bla bla bla.  athrock won't even consider that there might be flaws in the books, or that the stories might not have literally occurred.  Scientific facts that disagree with the god-book come from the devil.  athrock isn't here to learn anything - just to attempt to "cure" our delusions.  No true discussion can be had here.  You can't have a discussion with someone who won't even look at your evidence.

[Thumpalumpacus]

God's creation was "good", but man is a free agent, Thump. That he means he can screw up if he chooses to do so. You seem to be suggesting that God could have made perfect students who played the music God wanted played perfectly every single time without deviation. Well, He could have done that...but then we'd be robots merely carrying out God's orders according to how we were programmed. Is that the kind of artistry you'd want in a music student? Just another player piano bang out the notes punched into a roll of paper?

What I'm saying, not suggesting, is that your example is deeply flawed and you'd ought to abandon it for one that more accurately reflects the claims made about your god -- that he is perfect.

I am not saying that your god should have created perfect Israelites. I am saying that being a perfect communicator, and being their creator[/i], he should certainly be able to communicate his morality without having to take thousands of years.

Are you clear on my point now? I won't be entertaining this deeply flawed analogy any more, except to engage in mockery and shenanigans, perhaps.

I was asking about his timeless morality.

But since you brought it up, do you consider your God's expression of love by killing all but eight humans a loving attribute, really?

Perhaps. More on why momentarily.

Oh, this should be good.

First, the flood was an act of justice. The people sinned against God, and He punished them. When a killer commits a murder, we punish them. Sometimes, with capital punishment. And we don't have the benefit of being God when we exercise that authority. (I;m not even sure we legitimately have such authority, btw.)

Well, you realize that if you assign such authority to your god, while denying it to humans, that you're practicing moral subjectivity, right? Do you honestly think that morality is subject to the identity of the actor?

Now, as to your question: it may well have been an act of love. Would it have been loving to allow the sin and corruption to continue? Remember, if the people were wickedly engaging in murder, rape, theft, etc., there were victims of these acts who were suffering. By destroying the wicked, those who MAY have merited heaven would have immediately entered into the joy of God's presence. No more pain. They would have given no more thought to the horror of the flood than you would give to the sweat of a good workout at the gym after taking a hot shower.

I should think that an all-powerful god would have a more nuanced way of separating the wicked from their victims.

An act of love? Sure, if it meant that more children would not be brought into a world that would rape them, abuse them, sacrifice them to idols or even to pervert and twist their thinking to the degree that they themselves became the perpetrators of such evil deeds.

So, yeah, I can see wiping out an evil generation as an act of love because it ends current suffering and prevents future suffering.

Except that suffering is still endemic -- including slavery, to bring this back to topic.

And -- if your god didn't want children born into an evil world, couldn't he just fix that?

For an all-powerful being, he sure does have lots of limitations on his powers. It's almost as if you're pulling them out willy-nilly to explain the inexplicable.

I'm a father. If my son were to misbehave, would you think it loving if I killed him as punishment? Would you think it moral?

If so, you're the last person to be delivering lectures on morality. And if not, you've just bought into moral relativity.  

No, I would not consider YOUR act of murder to be an act of love. YOU are not God.

Ah, so you are a moral relativist. Thanks for clearing that up.

I think that's all the questions I have for you right now. I think Catholic Lady might have a question or two for you about why you don't believe in objective morality, though.

[Thumpalumpacus]

See? I stand corrected.

I also stand by the observation that your insistence on explaining away a glaring moral shortcoming of your holy book and its god character is weak and reveals you as a relativist when it suits your apologetic needs.

My insistence? 

Perhaps it is simply the insistence of atheists that God is immoral which demands a response. I mean, it's not like believers are sitting around anxiously discussing this amongst themselves.

No doubt. It's an incredibly rare believer, in my experience, who ever bothers to question the nature of the god he has been programmed to worship.

[Pat Mustard]

One facepalm is not enough.



Two may not be enough. We shall see.

[drfuzzy]

[Thumpalumpacus]

First, I want you to know that I will give your objection some thought. That might take days or weeks. But I have this simmering on my back burner now, so to speak.

I will take the occasion to pull off the lid and give it the occasional stir, so that you don't forget that the point has been left unanswered. In the meantime, and until you've given this such heavy consideration, I'd recommend leaving aside your arguments from free will.

Second, my quick response would be this:  If you say to your child, "If you clean your room, I will take you see a movie. If you don't clean your room, you will be grounded while the rest of the family goes without you." does this really limit the child's freedom to choose? Some kids might say, "Fine. I'll stay home." which sort of calls your bluff because what YOU wanted was for her to clean her room. But sure, the child might clean her room simply to avoid being grounded.

Now, what if you say to that child, "Brush your teeth, or you will get cavities or gum disease"? Is the child going to brush but only "under duress"? I mean, life is chock full of "if...then" scenarios like this, and many of them are negative. "If you do X, then Y will happen to you."

God is basically doing the same thing, though the stakes a much higher. He offers eternal life and happiness if you follow His plan, but He warns of the consequences should you choose to follow your own.

If I point a gun to your head and tell you to give me your wallet, do you have freedom of action? If you're going to argue by analogy, you should at least try to make them apt. There are obviously no life-and-death issues involved in cleaning one's room. So answer my question: If I point a gun at your head and demand your wallet, should I later be able to invokoe as defense the fact that you willingly gave me your wallet? I mean, you didn't have to give me your wallet. You could have said no.

Please, if you're going to argue by analogy, give us one where the stakes are close to the same. The gravity of the duress is directly proportional to the danger of the consequences, and attempting to compare this to a child cleaning his room is, in the most charitable interpretation, laughably short-sighted.

That doesn't follow, does it? Everyone suffers in various ways and to varying degrees. Is God responsible for all of that? Two things strike me. First, suffering bears fruit in the form of the development of our character. Frankly, it would be better to die as a noble slave than to live as a foppish prince. Removing all evil from the world would result in the loss of opportunities to learn courage, patience, forgiveness, and so on.

And a Perfect Teacher who is powerful enough to create an entire universe is incapable of passing along such lessons any other way?

This is simply one more power you've stripped from your god. I like where this is going -- pretty soon, if I keep asking questions, your god is going to have less power than the Vice-President.

Second, God has the end in mind...not the beginning.

Ah, so you know the mind of God. I see.

This life may be all we can see, but we can't even see that very well. What will happen to you tomorrow? Or next year? Your knowledge of this life is limited to the past and the present. But God see that as well as the future, and it is the eternal future that is most important.

*yawn*

When you have to resort to preaching to make your point, you've lost the argument.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Finally, God communicates perfectly that which we need to know. However, the fact that He keeps His own counsel does not mean that He is imperfect in any way.

Then clearly he didn't think we needed to know that slavery is bad, and you clearly need to concede the argument, given this admission of yours. That is the only honorable option aside from admitting his imperfection.

[Thumpalumpacus]

In some instances, the Hebrews represented incremental moral improvements; in others, they are slightly worse. But anyone who compares the laws of the Hittites with that of the Hebrews can clearly observe the latter to be far more barbaric.

The Wikipedia entry for Child Sacrifice mentions this regarding the Canaanites:

"According to Diodorus Siculus, "There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire."(Bib. Hist. 20.14.6)

Sites within Carthage and other Phoenician centers revealed the remains of infants and children in large numbers; some historians[citation needed] interpret this as evidence for frequent and prominent child sacrifice to the god Baal-hamon."


So, I dunno, Nestor. What, specifically, from your studies has given you reason to believe that the Hebrews were worse than this?

You realize he compared Hebrews to Hittites, not Canaanites, right?

[robvalue]

Drfuzzy: Haha, that's fantastic!

[Esquilax]

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.

Yes, he chose to punish behavior that he finds objectionable. According to you, he also found slavery objectionable, in that less slavery is "progress" in your view. And this isn't just a "things are too bad here, better pull the plug and start over" thing either, because this is the same god that killed Lot's wife for a singular act of disobedience; if there's one thing we can gather about the character of god from the old testament, it's that he's okay with doling out lethal punishment for everything from single, innocuous disobedience, through to comprehensive depravity. Slavery, I'm sure, exists somewhere on that scale, so my question is why god would, in your estimation, be so unable to handle disobedience that single instances of it merit the death penalty, yet opt to allow the Israelites to temper his wishes for the first time in the old testament, despite knowing the immensity of human suffering that would result? It doesn't make sense, it looks and sounds exactly like a post hoc rationalization for slavery made with the intent of considering it pruned of context for the purposes of excusing it.

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

I've been meaning to ask this, but where do you even get this idea from the text presented to you? What in the bible causes you to come to this conclusion?

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

And this?

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.

If I actually need to walk you through, step by step, why a completely preventable genocide is immoral, then frankly you join your god in being a moral monster. Do you actually need me to go that basic for you?

I'll do it if you want, but I need to hear you say the words "I don't understand why unnecessary genocide is bad, please explain it to me," first.