A Bunch of Reasons Why I Question Noah's Flood Story:

[robocop (actually)]

So it's okay to be immoral if you're teaching people something? it's okay to command people to murder babies if you're teaching people something?

This just gets worse and worse.
Where is your moral compass?

I suppose it's better to take the women than kill them. They would probably take the women anyway.

That's another thing. When you have a vice like gambling or smoking, and you pray about it when you don't really intend to quit, how is your prayer supposed to be answered?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Did you see my post about what slavery was like then? I'll bet most people would approve.

I seriously doubt that.
I don't approve.

Why do you? Because you have to. Because your Bible says so. It's obvious you don't find it moral. And yet you defend it?
See how beliefs can be harmful and dangerous?

 

[robocop (actually)]

Because it's irrelevant and completely avoids the point.

The slavery outlined in the Bible is the owning of human beings as property. Slaves who were "taken from the heathens that surround you." They are slaves for life. "You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly." (Leviticus 25:46).

Come to think of it, that does sound an awful lot like slavery "in the 1800s," but worse.

But whether it was different really doesn't make any difference. The Bible (or in your opinion "God") clearly endorses the owning of human beings as property.

I don't believe you're listening.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I suppose it's better to take the women than kill them. They would probably take the women anyway.

That's another thing. When you have a vice like gambling or smoking, and you pray about it when you don't really intend to quit, how is your prayer supposed to be answered?

How about not taking them at all?

Or better yet, how about your God not commanding them to take women as sex slaves in the first place?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I don't believe you're listening.

That would be you. Hence your lack of responses to the actual content of my posts.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Oh, so God wasn't in charge?

God allows people to act on their own, duh.

 

[robocop (actually)]

That's not a response to my post.

Because you don't believe anyway so there's no point to this conversation.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Taking the Heathen as slaves... better than killing them and how else can they keep them under control?

 

[robocop (actually)]

How about not taking them at all?

Or better yet, how about your God not commanding them to take women as sex slaves in the first place?

God wanted the Israelites to have a home because of people like Abraham and their neighbors worshiped idols so He had them take over them.

 

[robocop (actually)]

That would be you. Hence your lack of responses to the actual content of my posts.

If you choose not to believe, what's the point of this conversation?

I have chosen to believe.

 

[SkepticThinker]

God allows people to act on their own, duh.

We're talking about commandments that supposedly come from God.
Duh.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Because you don't believe anyway so there's no point to this conversation.

I agree that there is no point having a conversation with a person who can't be bothered to think through the consequences of their belief system and who has sacrificed their humanity in deference to some immoral God in an ancient book.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Taking the Heathen as slaves... better than killing them and how else can they keep them under control?

Where is your moral compass?

 

[SkepticThinker]

God wanted the Israelites to have a home because of people like Abraham and their neighbors worshiped idols so He had them take over them.

Oh okay, so it's perfectly fine to take women as sex slaves because somebody needed a home?
Yikes.

 

[SkepticThinker]

If you choose not to believe, what's the point of this conversation?

I have chosen to believe.

That makes it even worse, imo.
Why have you chosen to believe in such immoral things?


I haven't been convinced, so I can't believe.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Where is your moral compass?

My moral compass is on the same level as yours.
I can accept that primitive people did not have as good of morals.
You are the one trying to twist that into forcing me not to believe in God, when modern belief in God just helps people to be good. People don't try to have slaves today because it was in the OT, and if they do they know they are bad.
God does not change - God is not a liar - people are very bad - but God's commandments are interpreted by different civilizations.
God told the Israelites to do bad things for specific reasons. He could either command them to do what they were going to do anyway, or command them to live by 2021 standards when they definitely wouldn't. God might as well just be in charge of the thing. He's God... it doesn't tarnish Him.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Even today, Israel has to do things that are considered very bad to survive.

Better that than get wiped out, and the ancient Israelites did things to not get wiped out.

 

[SkepticThinker]

My moral compass is on the same level as yours.

No, it isn't. You are defending slavery.
I would never defend slavery.

I can accept that primitive people did not have as good of morals.

We're not talking about primitive people. We're talking about (supposed) directives from God.

You are the one trying to twist that into forcing me not to believe in God, when modern belief in God just helps people to be good. People don't try to have slaves today because it was in the OT, and if they do they know they are bad.

I'm not trying to get you to stop believing in God. I'm trying to get you to critically analyze the consequences of the belief system you are espousing here. Because our beliefs inform our actions.

According to the Bible (aka God), slavery is fine and dandy. There are instructions as to where I can get my slaves, how long I own them, how I can treat them, etc. The Bible (and in your opinion, God himself) endorses the immoral act of slavery. And you're defending it. You are defending an immoral action. And then you claim that "modern belief in God just helps people to be good." Well, not if they're following what that God supposedly laid out for them in the Bible. What is really going on there is that modern people understand that slavery is actually immoral, despite the God of the Bible telling them that it's okay. In other words, they've surpassed your God's morality. Thankfully.

If I wanted to have a slave today, and I followed the instructions supposedly set forth by God in the Bible that you follow, would that be immoral, or moral?

God does not change - God is not a liar - people are very bad - but God's commandments are interpreted by different civilizations.

You've claimed that God's morals actually do change earlier in this thread. Now you say they don't. Despite what the Bible says about slavery.

And if God is not a liar, then how come "he" said slavery is okay?

God told the Israelites to do bad things for specific reasons. He could either command them to do what they were going to do anyway, or command them to live by 2021 standards when they definitely wouldn't. God might as well just be in charge of the thing. He's God... it doesn't tarnish Him.

Oh okay so it's okay to be immoral if it's for good reasons.
Can you even hear yourself?

2021 Standards? Are God's standards not timeless?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not sure the broken commandments were different.

If you fully understood some of those "Commandments" you might not say that. Number Ten basically bans cheeseburgers. That is the "Do not boil the kid in the milk of its mother".. And in case you are having weird thoughts "kid" means "young goat" in that context. No children being eaten here..

 

[F1fan]

I am not for the kind of slavery in the 1800s and why would I just dump 1000s of years of tradition?

You are for slavery, period. That you might not think race is a good reason for slavery is irrelevant. You don't condemn slavery and that is a crime against humanity.

You've already admitted you don't want to be a slave, but have no problem enslaving others. That is immoral. And if your religion can't help you rise above this, then it's a failed and obsolete religion.

Do you think the secular laws in the USA and other First World nations that ban slavery are wrong? Are these bans (that exist due to legal and broad human rights) wrong in God's eyes?