Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[Ingledsva]

If God desires or loves slavery and is therefore evil:

- 1. Why did he supply the only foundation on which slavery can be shown unjust?

He obviously didn't. You believe this.

- 2.

Why did he suffer and die on the cross to get us into a heaven that we do not deserve and where no slavery exists?

Again, your belief, and what does the heaven idea have to do with Hebrew and Christian slavery on earth?

- 3.

Why did he make the existing practice more benevolent?

He didn't.

- 4.

Why did the majority of people who fought slavery in this country believe in him?

The majority of people that wanted to KEEP slavery believed in him - and used the bible in their arguments of law.

- 5

Why did the slaves themselves hold out hope in him beyond anything else?

Who says they did?

- 6.

When the fathers that travelled with Cortez and Pizarro etc… ran into the slave beating, 20,000 hearts ripped out alive a day crowd, in the Americas, did they say great God’s work is being done? No they said what those Godless savages were doing was diabolical and many gave their lives to stop it.

They didn't rip out 20,00 hearts a day. "Supposedly" in specific ceremonies. Bodies/skulls supporting these numbers have never been found.

Also, you need to read the accounts of what these "godly" Spaniards did to the natives. There are Monk's reports of them making the indians dig huge pits, and line them with spears. They then put starving dogs in the bottom, and threw in men, women, and children to be skewered and then eaten alive. Many such tortures are recorded.

- 7.

Why is Christ, God, and the Bible more universally associated with benevolence and love than any other concept in human history?

Again - your personal opinion - NOT FACT.

- 8.

Why did Christians give billions to charity, build hospitals by the hundreds, suffer and die by the thousands ministering in savage counties, and create public school systems?

Because they wanted to. As did, and do, many NON- Christians!!!

Until you can overturn those eight questions there is no foundation by which anyone can show God is evil.

Why you try so hard to find ways to dislike this person is a mystery (not really).

We don't believe he is real - so we are not "disliking" him.

We are showing that the God Concept in the Bible is EVIL in some of the actions your Bible says it did.

Such as personally murdering babies - such as King David's son, him Not letting Pharaoh let the people go, and then killing the First Born because he didn't let them go, the flood, etc.

This "God" is illogical.

 

[Ingledsva]

Wow! Weird posting tonight. LOL!

It wouldn't let me correct it with an edit either.

 

[haribol]

This is a great dilemma if God exists and is loving and compassionate and allows for the death of the little ones whom God creates. It is like building family and annihilating again

 

[Warren Clark]

I think some people try too hard to make God fit in these issues. Simple points are being missed and simple common sense is not being used... its so hard to have a conversation with red herrings being used.

 

[1robin]

This is pure bull. It is the same crap Christians always use to try and defend the indefensible.

The same crap indeed. Just enough about a verse is learned to produce a contention and then all explanations are resisted like the plague. I have not seen any evidence that you have checked into the original language use, the expounding of the larger context given by respected Biblical scholars, nor the allowance for the profound seriousness of God's purpose. I have downloaded and am currently studying yet another PhD’s take on OT slavery and it is far more benevolent than even I have been indicating. Why would the evil God you invented make laws concerning leaving acertain percentage of crops available for the poor or a thousand other laws like this. I will wait to finish, but one example is that in no other culture beyond the Hebrews has there ever been found a law recorded that provides for the ethical treatment of slaves. God gave runaway slaves cities of refuge to run to. I have no idea what the context the running was in but it is irrelevant. The code of Hammurabi lists the death penalty for assisting a runaway slave. I have also learned that even though slavery that existed in the New Testament was much harsher than the OT (the opposite of what I thought) it was practiced under Roman law because Rome controlled Palestine. Those verses are to communicate what a slave should do when born again or what the apostles should do. If he ran away when Rome was in charge he was most likely dead. After Spartacus, Rome did not tolerate any slave rebellion of any kind. Why is it only me that posts context and only you that yells bull and that's crap. Is it because I am the only one interested in context and you in the valued contention?

We had to smash the infants' heads against the rocks - they might have grown up and wanted revenge.

What do you have, some kind of rolodex of things commonly used to justify rejection of God but have little power unless put into forms like thi,s stripped of context. There is something else I learned a great deal about when defending a prophecy and it applies here. The OT and most of the near East and middle Eastern literature from this period is written in a form popular then called apocalyptic literature. For example in one battle with the Canaanites the Hebrew leader said he had wiped out everything that lived there, however the Canaanite texts read that Israel was no more. What the actual truth was is that Israel attacked and won but retreated. There was never a time when there were not countless Cannanites running around Palestine. This is how apocalyptic literature works. Today if I said the US kicked Saddam's tail in today’s styles it means we killed his army. The exact opposite dichotomy existed in those days. There are writings of Pharaohs that say he wiped this or that group out completely yet we know he barely won and in one case was defeated. This is a very very common complaint against people who critique the Bible with bias. You are not allowing for anything, much less common cultural language use. As for this story in particular. This is part of a judgment against Babylon who had repeatedly attacked everyone in the region including Israel doing these very things. This is not something the Hebrews were doing and is not even literal.
Clarke's Commentary on the Bible
Happy - that taketh and dasheth thy little ones - That is, So oppressive hast thou been to all under thy domination, as to become universally hated and detested; so that those who may have the last hand in thy destruction, and the total extermination of thy inhabitants, shall be reputed happy - shall be celebrated and extolled as those who have rid the world of a curse so grievous.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. That takes the infants from their mothers' breasts, or out of their arms, and dashes out their brains against a "rock", as the word (k) signifies; which, though it may seem a piece of cruelty, was but a just retaliation; the Babylonians having done the same to the Jewish children, and is foretold elsewhere should be done to theirs, Isaiah 13:16.

The attacks were actually done by people who had never even heard of these verses. Cyrus and Darius are the ones that carried out the attacks and they were Persians.

In short this is not literal. It is a common use of apocalyptic poetics, probably never happened, and the ones who attacked were unaware of these verses.

I realize you want to believe whatever it is that justifies your presupposition but when I see no evidence you are looking beyond the most simplistic understanding based on false exegesis I have little hope of resolution.

We had to keep our slaves and slaves children FOREVER, especially our female sex slaves, because they had nowhere to go, and no job. Right!

Who is we? I can't afford me much less a slave nor would I have one if I could. How many do you have?

Doesn't say "THEY" shall go free - "HE" shall go free.

That is because you did not do what I did in order to find out what God did. I looked up the original language. The word for "send him out" or "let him go" is the Hebrew Shalach: It has no gender and it means:
1) to send, send away, let go, stretch out
a) (Qal)
1) to send
2) to stretch out, extend, direct
3) to send away
4) to let loose
b) (Niphal) to be sent
c) (Piel)
1) to send off or away or out or forth, dismiss, give over, cast out
2) to let go, set free
3) to shoot forth (of branches)
4) to let down
5) to shoot

Translations are tricky things. In many cases where unclear, a nebulous "him" was inserted as a default. I will illustrate this in this way. koine Greek (NT) may be the most descriptive language in human history. We may only have one word available for the translation of 5 or more Greek words with slightly different meanings. Small inconsistencies are unavoidable.

Regardless of who is actually right, why is it you are not digging any deeper than a surface level understanding? If I was going to reject the only hope for ultimate justice, meaning, purpose, and destination I would want far better reasons to do so. You are treating the most profound concepts humans have ever debated as if they are trivial. I see someone who has chosen what they wish to be true and then set out to prove it by any means necessary.

 

[Copernicus]

The NT clarified issues concerning a system that man had previously instituted. I can agree that God does not condemn it but I have explained why that might have been the more benevolent determination...

You have tried and failed to do that. You had earlier maintained that slavery was incompatible with the Bible. Now you seem to have shifted to the position that biblically-tolerated slavery was somehow justifiable as God's "more benevolent determination." Therein lies the problem. Slavery was not a benevolent solution to anything.

I have no conflict concerning whether US slavery was wrong or not. It was diabolically wrong. I was pointing out the terrible cost of just turning a people with no home, no food, no money, and no job loose causes. Even as a rebellious southern teenager who took pride in the martial aspects of the confederate army I never the less resented the practice of slavery.

I'm guessing that you were not a black southern teenager. What you seem to be saying here is that a "diabollically wrong" practice was justified because of the effort needed to end it in a humane fashion.

I said specifically that some versions may have used slave but the verses posted didn't. It was technical issue that showed the effects of the intentions of people who intend to show God as evil...

No, you specifically chose one of the few translations that did not use the word "slave." Moreover, the other translations were created by Christians who had no intention to "show God as evil." That is an absurd claim on your part.

...I also stated why servant is a better word (it is more general and utilitarian than slave but does include slave) for the purpose those verses were given for, and that purpose was not slavery is good and God loves the idea.

And I explained why that was a bad interpretation of those passages, which is why most translators have chosen the word "slave." The context showed those passages to be clearly about slaves, not butlers. Slavery was not voluntary, and Romans greatly feared slave rebellions (remember Spartacus?), just as slaveholders did in the American South.

...It is Christianity that has provided the majority of the foundation by which slavery has been eradicated in most cases.

This is just false, and you know it. Christians used their religion both to support and oppose slavery. The best case you can make is that those using the Bible to promote slavery had an erroneous interpretation of the Bible, but you can only do that with your dubious nitpicks of how the Bible was translated and whether or not slavery was really as bad as people think.

Now this is just false. The major forces against US slavery at least were Christians acting on faith. There exists no foundation outside God by which to show slavery actually wrong. You may claim it anyway but it has no foundation without God. How can you found the sanctity of life, the dignity of man, or the equality of man beyond a mere opinion? In fact evolution is an argument for inequality between the races and its greatest proponent point black said nature is morally indifferent.

The major forces supporting slavery were Christians, who were equally fervent in their religious convictions. As for the question of where morality comes from, we have discussed that. Christians and atheists get their morality from the same source--their sense of empathy and the behavior of people they grew up with. You claim not to like Divine Command Theory, but that seems to be your only way to ground your morality. I've explained why I think religion-based authoritarianism can occasionally go wrong. All it takes is for believers to become convinced that God wants them to commit acts that would normally go against their conscience. The Catholic Church had to invent the concept of a just war in order to circumvent the prohibition on killing other human beings.

This is certainly false. Christianity, like all religions, preaches a moral code that is intended to improve conditions for humanity.

No it does not, though it certainly concerns it's self with those issues many times. BTW would this not counter you own argument. God's purpose is to bring us into the recognition of our need of him without major violations of free will. This it is easily demonstrated is enabled in part by exposure to the misery and evil our actions have and do cause. Many things that God could prevent, he does not because it apparently is his will that certain levels of evil exist. It is not his ultimate goal of course in heaven, but a means to an end that we made necessary. Do you think those hundreds of rules on dress code, sacrifice, and ritual were to maximize our happiness? They were to set Israel apart as unique. Continued below:

My position is that morality is a set of rules that govern behavior in order to ensure safe and comfortable interactions between people. All societies develop them regardless of religious belief, and religions tend to promote those practical guidelines. We do not need gods to enforce the rules. Social pressure and government institutions do that. Philosophers have spent a lot of time analyzing the nature of ethics and morality. I think that the best general grounding for morality comes from what some refer to as consequentialism. Instead of attacking atheists for lacking a moral foundation, why not address the actual foundation that many of us atheists (e.g. Richard Dawkins) accept? It is an alternative to Divine Command Theory, which, despite your denials, is exactly the approach to morality that you have been advocating. If God commands it, then it must be good.

 

[1robin]

You believe this.

No, I know it. Or at least I know the Bible contains the only framework by which the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, and the equality of man may be shown to be actually true. That is why the slaves themselves sought God more than any means in the quest for freedom and by the way it worked. Within evolution slavery is perfectly consistent.

Again, your belief

So for the sake of argument you will assume a God exists and revealed himself in the Bible as long as only verses you think are evil are concerned. Yet start balking and shifting burdens around if it is a verse that shows a level of love no man has ever exhibited. I knew when you had to respond to me, your argument would blow apart but it happened quicker than I thought. As I said If you wish to bring God into the courtroom you must bring all of the context connected to him and Christ is by far the most meaningful context. If you do not do so it is not the Christian God you are resenting.

He didn't.

Every scrap of evidence to the contrary.

The majority of people that wanted to KEEP slavery believed in him

Even if you proved that the Bible promoted slavery it is impossible to show that it even hinted that what was practiced in the south was permissible. In fact most plantation owners would have been thrown in prison under slavery rules in the Bible. At best a few thousand of those who claimed to be Christian's owned slaves, and hundreds of thousands of those who died to free them were Christians. Your bias has caused you to take the ten thousand or so and condemn God and ignore for reasons of preference the hundreds of thousands that died to free them as well as the millions that fought to free them. Then turn around and suggest I am biased. Remarkable.

Who says they did?

Well your argumentation has really come apart at the seams. Are we really down to a child's "Oh yea, who says the sun is hot". If you open an old school hymnal, a large portion of the songs in it will have been written by slaves. In fact my favorite "amazing grace" was written by a slave ship captain who found Christ and then started helping slaves from then on. The slaves were allowed "Church" as the most common privilege, even before school. I see no need to argue for what is so obvious. However if you still disagree I will let this issue settle the whole case if you will. No other single point is so indicative of who is right here.

They didn't rip out 20,00 hearts a day. "Supposedly" in specific ceremonies. Bodies/skulls supporting these numbers have never been found.

I know. It is estimated that 20,000 were killed in a certain ceremony each year. Who cares? Does this change my claim or your response. I see when you are in response mode the surface claims of no issue may be used even if sufficient. You will disagree whether 20,000 or 2000 were killed as if that makes a difference yet not allow the most common cultural language use to challenge your contentions.

Also, you need to read the accounts of what these "godly" Spaniards did to the natives.

I did not say that Cortez and his knights were Godly though they partially were. They were extremely Godly in the respect of taking down the temples of blood and building Churches and they were greedy beyond measure concerning Gold. I said or intended to say specifically their priests. An example is father Cabbot. Even when Cortez's zeil made him decide to force conversion the father told him he would not allow it and the force of his conviction stop in his tracks a man that conquered a nation of 20 million with less than a thousand soldiers.

There are Monk's reports of them making the Indians dig huge pits, and line them with spears.

I have never read an account like this though I am familiar with other atrocities they did commit. I am not defending the greedy conquistadors or even priests who acted in an ungodly way, and there was plenty of both. BTW if you were God and these Aztecs had resisted you for a thousand years, worshipped demons instead, and butchered alive tens of thousands a year what action would be unjust? Smallpox was merciful. Let me tell you how the Aztecs became to be what they were. One of their men was given the daughter of the chief of another tribe. They took that poor women and skinned her alive. They then wore her skin to the Chief's ceremony. They chased the Aztecs to an island in what was lake Texcoco and that is where they eventually built Tenochtitlan. Is there any punishment God exacted on them that was unwarranted even if he caused all the bad things that happened to them. In fact if those kinds of acts are not ruthlessly punished I am sure you would be the first to say where is your just God at? I can get as deep into the conquistadors as you wish.

Again - your personal opinion - NOT FACT.

Instead of complain about your plausible denial routine I will adjust this a bit. Why is a God as evil as you wish him to be ONE OF THE most common concepts associated with absolute good and moral righteousness. I could prove you wrong but what is the point you will just split other hairs.

Because they wanted to. As did, and do, many NON- Christians!!!

You are too intelligent or at least too crafty to have not understood the point. You say X is evil and I am saying if X is evil why is it on the other end of the moral scale on so many issues. If I was to list every moral category that exists. Christians would always be at the top. Sometime even the top is much lower than we wish but they would still be at that end of the scale. That is completely irrational given the claim that X is evil. It is quite absurd.

We don't believe he is real - so we are not "disliking" him.

If you do not actually believe he exists what is that point in calling him evil. That is like me discussing the finer points of fairy morality. It is a schizophrenic practice. I believe God does not exist and he is evil is a mouthful of what I will not say.

We are showing that the God Concept in the Bible is EVIL in some of the actions your Bible says it did.

You have shown mostly that you have a driving desire to find things that can be claimed to be evil, ignore every single method at expanding your understanding of those verses, and ignore the much more clear and vastly more benevolent verses as well as split hairs and balk at meaningless numbers to maintain your presuppositions.

Such as personally murdering babies - such as King David's son, him Not letting Pharaoh let the people go, and then killing the First Born because he didn't let them go, the flood, etc.

This "God" is illogical.

You mean the loss of a son is more than a Pharaoh and a people who worked Hebrews into the dirt by the thousands deserved. You do realize this was poetic justice for Egypt’s killing of all male children at a previous time don't you. You do realize that God is not only the lamb that takes away sin but also the Lion of Judah do you not? If God pays back evil with justice you call him evil. If he does not act you would cry where is God. You deny the sovereignty a God would have over the thing he created. You have no interest in context or cultural language use. Heck..... I am tired of typing, you make basically a heads you win tails God loses argument and resist all attempts to clarify I suppose because the contention is just too valuable.

There is nothing new in this. Jesus said: For John didn't spend his time eating and drinking, and you say, 'He's possessed by a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard New Living Translation (©2007)

Jesus came and suffered unimaginable horrors and harmed no one, in order to save yet he is rejected.

The father exacted vengeance on those who defied him interminably or caused transitory suffering on some of the beings he created before they spent eternity in glory and peace and he is rejected as well.
Christians are part bad and part good and even their testimony is rejected.
Is there anything that would overturn a desire this strong?

You did not counter one of my 8 points so far, until that is done there is no need to submit additional issues.

 

[Ingledsva]

The same crap indeed. Just enough about a verse is learned to produce a contention and then all explanations are resisted like the plague. I have not seen any evidence that you have checked into the original language use, the expounding of the larger context given by respected Biblical scholars, nor the allowance for the profound seriousness of God's purpose.

Again BULL. I always check the original languages.

I have downloaded and am currently studying yet another PhD’s take on OT slavery and it is far more benevolent than even I have been indicating. Why would the evil God you invented make laws concerning leaving acertain percentage of crops available for the poor or a thousand other laws like this. I will wait to finish, but one example is that in no other culture beyond the Hebrews has there ever been found a law recorded that provides for the ethical treatment of slaves. God gave runaway slaves cities of refuge to run to. I have no idea what the context the running was in but it is irrelevant. The code of Hammurabi lists the death penalty for assisting a runaway slave. I have also learned that even though slavery that existed in the New Testament was much harsher than the OT (the opposite of what I thought) it was practiced under Roman law because Rome controlled Palestine. Those verses are to communicate what a slave should do when born again or what the apostles should do. If he ran away when Rome was in charge he was most likely dead. After Spartacus, Rome did not tolerate any slave rebellion of any kind. Why is it only me that posts context and only you that yells bull and that's crap. Is it because I am the only one interested in context and you in the valued contention?

And the question again is - are you studying anything written by non-Christian sources?

One of the verses specifically states a Christian slave owner - which makes your original statements bull. Just because they were under Roman rule does not mean they have to do as the Romans.

What do you have, some kind of rolodex of things commonly used to justify rejection of God but have little power unless put into forms like thi,s stripped of context.

LOL! You would like to think so wouldn't you?

As I have stated many times - I studied Archaeology and Comparative Religions.

I have all my research on my computer.

There is something else I learned a great deal about when defending a prophecy and it applies here. The OT and most of the near East and middle Eastern literature from this period is written in a form popular then called apocalyptic literature. For example in one battle with the Canaanites the Hebrew leader said he had wiped out everything that lived there, however the Canaanite texts read that Israel was no more. What the actual truth was is that Israel attacked and won but retreated. There was never a time when there were not countless Cannanites running around Palestine. This is how apocalyptic literature works. Today if I said the US kicked Saddam's tail in today’s styles it means we killed his army. The exact opposite dichotomy existed in those days. There are writings of Pharaohs that say he wiped this or that group out completely yet we know he barely won and in one case was defeated. This is a very very common complaint against people who critique the Bible with bias. You are not allowing for anything, much less common cultural language use. As for this story in particular. This is part of a judgment against Babylon who had repeatedly attacked everyone in the region including Israel doing these very things. This is not something the Hebrews were doing and is not even literal.

It is quite funny to have you saying things are not what they say in the Bible- when it is usually me pointing this out, - and the mistranslations.

Clarke's Commentary on the Bible

Happy - that taketh and dasheth thy little ones - That is, So oppressive hast thou been to all under thy domination, as to become universally hated and detested; so that those who may have the last hand in thy destruction, and the total extermination of thy inhabitants, shall be reputed happy - shall be celebrated and extolled as those who have rid the world of a curse so grievous.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. That takes the infants from their mothers' breasts, or out of their arms, and dashes out their brains against a "rock", as the word (k) signifies; which, though it may seem a piece of cruelty, was but a just retaliation; the Babylonians having done the same to the Jewish children, and is foretold elsewhere should be done to theirs, Isaiah 13:16.

The attacks were actually done by people who had never even heard of these verses. Cyrus and Darius are the ones that carried out the attacks and they were Persians.

In short this is not literal. It is a common use of apocalyptic poetics, probably never happened, and the ones who attacked were unaware of these verses.

I realize you want to believe whatever it is that justifies your presupposition but when I see no evidence you are looking beyond the most simplistic understanding based on false exegesis I have little hope of resolution.

Who is we? I can't afford me much less a slave nor would I have one if I could. How many do you have?

LOL! You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote.

I was pointing out the illogical arguments THAT I HAVE HEARD CHRISTIANS USE to try to justify what the Bible says.

That is because you did not do what I did in order to find out what God did. I looked up the original language. The word for "send him out" or "let him go" is the Hebrew Shalach: It has no gender and it means:

1) to send, send away, let go, stretch out
a) (Qal)
1) to send
2) to stretch out, extend, direct
3) to send away
4) to let loose
b) (Niphal) to be sent
c) (Piel)
1) to send off or away or out or forth, dismiss, give over, cast out
2) to let go, set free
3) to shoot forth (of branches)
4) to let down
5) to shoot

Translations are tricky things. In many cases where unclear, a nebulous "him" was inserted as a default. I will illustrate this in this way. koine Greek (NT) may be the most descriptive language in human history. We may only have one word available for the translation of 5 or more Greek words with slightly different meanings. Small inconsistencies are unavoidable.

LOL! Again bull!

You apparently don't understand those extras added onto the base words.

It is definitely "HE."

Regardless of who is actually right, why is it you are not digging any deeper than a surface level understanding? If I was going to reject the only hope for ultimate justice, meaning, purpose, and destination I would want far better reasons to do so. You are treating the most profound concepts humans have ever debated as if they are trivial. I see someone who has chosen what they wish to be true and then set out to prove it by any means necessary.

I am not treating these as trivial. You just don't like the answers.

Christianity and the Bible are NOT "...the only hope for ultimate justice, meaning, purpose, and destination ..."

 

[Copernicus]

The greatest acts of genocide and atrocity were committed by the atheistic Stalin...Hitler...

I agree that it is a red herring, but it is one that you felt you had to insert into this discussion. Neither man is relevant to this discussion.

Nope, I am from the south and no lover of Sherman but what about his actions are inconsistent with military necessity. I am not talking about the slave issue. My comment on that was to illustrate the problem with simply freeing all slaves that may be one of the considerations God had to take into account. I have let this accusation go twice now but I will resent any further assertions that I in any way feel slavery in the 19th century US was anything but a nightmare.

I certainly do not mean to insult you, but I am addressing what I see as a contradiction in your argument. Sherman's March was a cowardly act of revenge against a defeated people. The slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, not Sherman's March. It has no relevance to this discussion.

What definition? The one you are borrowing from English in the 21st century or the Biblical one derived from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek? Apparently you have not bothered to look at the links I gave and I see no evidence you have looked up the context historically of the words or the practice...

I also published links for you to look at. Your links ignored the same point that you ignored--that the context of the word doulos resolved the ambiguity in favor of the translation slave.

1. There are countless times as many Bible stories, personal experience claims, and actions performed by Christians that are undoubtedly benevolent than ones that are claimed to be malevolent. Yet you claim he is evil.
2. There is no other concept in human history more universally associated with good and love than God, Christ, and the Bible. Yet you claim they are evil.
Who is stretching what again?

I believe that Christians are generally better than the God described in the Bible, but there are a great many interpretations of what that version of God is like. Most Christians are compassionate, decent people, in my experience, but my experience, however long I've lived, may still be skewed. As I've said before, people generally get their sense of morality from experiences other than scripture, although religious indoctrination does play a role for a great many. I am happy to admit that most Christian doctrines preach a far more benevolent concept of morality than that espoused by biblical literalists.

Actually, we are more human than God, and I find it quite difficult to imagine that the God you describe is anything but evil from a human perspective.

I believe what you said here accurately reflects what you think, but not what most people think. Why are countless brilliant, loving, and responsible parents dragging their kids into Church to be with a God as diabolical as you wish or say.

That is not what I believe they are doing. Most Christians, like you, believe that religious indoctrination will reinforce the moral principles that they would like their children to adopt. And most do not interpret the Bible in precisely the way that you or I do. But most will experience the age-old lament of learning that their children are not copies of themselves. Demographically speaking, young people tend to be less religious than older people. That trend will likely continue.

BTW Christians are the only ones to have any experience with God in comparison with atheists and therefore the only ones who have experience on their side. They claim God is not only good but the most loving and compassionate being possible. That is consistent with my experience. If you wish I can give you a series of events that just happened to me a few weeks ago that have no other explanation than God's love. I certainly wish I experienced God more frequently and my prayers were all answered but the experiences I have had are all on the side of my contention.

Please don't go down that path. I'm quite sure that you see everything that happens to you through the prism of your religious faith, where others like myself might see those events differently. I've already seen so many of those anecdotes. My opinion is that people are very prone to the phenomenon of cold reading, which is a form of confirmation bias. When things happen that confirm bias, people take that as evidence. When things happen that disconfirm bias, people tend to ignore and forget those things.

No it isn't, because God had the power to intervene and prevent slavery and other types of suffering. Being omniscient, he cannot claim ignorance of how people would behave. To let it all happen is a sign of depraved indifference.

This is indicative of the problem that is driving your complaint. We create a mess, tell God to clean it up and even when he mitigates the terrible effects of our actions we call him evil if he does not completely make our garbage into roses. We had a perfect world and screwed it up and blame it on him. His purpose is not to produce a world we arbitrarily decided was optimal for our selfish purposes and desires. It is philosophically and empirically that the evil our actions produce is tolerated to some extent to show us the destructive nature and consequences of our rebellion...

You are ignoring what I said. If God were just another being like ourselves, you might have a point. However, God's alleged omnipotence and omniscience contradict your argument, because they make God both knowledgeable and complicit in everything that people do. If we created a mess, God cannot claim ignorance of the fact that we would create it. He created us in the knowledge that we would. Nor can he claim an inability to prevent us from screwing things up. God is reported to have intervened in human affairs in the past, and most believers pray that he will in the future. So God's failure to set things right suggests either an inability (cancelling omnipotence) or unwillingness (cancelling benevolence) to do so.

I think I am debating something that is so valued that explanation that context and purpose have no effect. I have been reacting to your claims but now I wish you to react to mine. If you can't overturn or make consistent with your views the claims here you have no claim worth countering especially one that takes this much time.

Fair enough. Bring it on.

If God desires or loves slavery and is therefore evil:

I thought the argument was just that he stood by and let it happen while his creations engaged in it, but whatever...

1. Why did he supply the only foundation on which slavery can be shown unjust?

We have disagreed on this. The Bible does not provide that "foundation."

2. Why did he suffer and die on the cross to get us into a heaven that we do not deserve and where no slavery exists?

Excellent question. That's one for Christians to explain. As far as I can tell, the crucifixion was entirely unnecessary. God didn't need to have part of himself tortured to death in order to feel justified in letting people into heaven, nor did he need to let slavery exist before people got into heaven. The entire story makes no sense at all.

3. Why did he make the existing practice more benevolent?

He didn't. Human society has evolved in that direction, and a large part of the evolution seems to have coincided with the rise of secular government.

4. Why did the majority of people who fought slavery in this country believe in him?

For the same reason that the majority of people who fought to preserve slavery did.

5. Why did the slaves themselves hold out hope in him beyond anything else?

Because that was the religion that replaced the religion of their ancestors, after they became enslaved.

6. When the fathers that travelled with Cortez and Pizarro etc.* ran into the slave beating, 20,000 hearts ripped out alive a day crowd, in the Americas, did they say great God's work is being done? No they said what those Godless savages were doing was diabolical and many gave their lives to stop it.

First of all, the Aztecs and Mayans were not godless. Secondly, the Spanish were every bit as brutal and bloodthirsty as those they conquered, even if they didn't practice human sacrifice. They were quite savage in their destruction of native cultures. The Spanish did not shy away from torture and mass murder.

7. Why is Christ, God, and the Bible more universally associated with benevolence and love than any other concept in human history?

That rather depends on who is doing the associating. It is certainly not as "universal" as you claim.

8. Why did Christians give billions to charity, build hospitals by the hundreds, suffer and die by the thousands ministering in savage counties, and create public school systems?

The public school system in the US is entirely a secular institution. Conservative Christians appear to be somewhat hostile to the idea and are pushing for subsidies to private schools, especially private religious schools. Non-Christians also give billions to charity, build hospitals, and suffer and die in their efforts to help the less fortunate. In any case, this, like most of your points, has no real bearing on the question of whether the God depicted in the Bible should be judged evil from a human perspective.

 

[1robin]

You have tried and failed to do that. You had earlier maintained that slavery was incompatible with the Bible. Now you seem to have shifted to the position that biblically-tolerated slavery was somehow justifiable as God's "more benevolent determination." Therein lies the problem. Slavery was not a benevolent solution to anything.

Back up the truth trolley. I am pretty sure that the context within which I said slavery was incompatible with the Bible was old south US slavery. I assumed the context because when someone says "slavery" the first thing we think of is confederate stuff. Slavery in the OT testament is not even in the same realm as that type of slavery as I have exhaustively shown. I also think these facts have been demonstrated.
1. Slavery in OT times existed in every culture on Earth. It existed before God ever said a word in the Bible about it, and was the product of man.
2. God "revelationally" found the practice entrenched already, when the laws concerning it were given. Every single law improved the plight of a "slave" over previous conditions and was by far the most benevolent system of servitude known in those times.
3. OT slavery was not even in the same realm as what we think of as slavery nor in the same ball park as the slavery practiced by all other cultures of the time. It has more in common with servitude than slavery. It was almost always voluntary. Met a real social need of the day. There was no welfare or unemployment.
4. The allowance for a less than ideal practice was practical and consistent with God's purpose, consistent with the over all biblical narrative, and incompatible with the claims he is evil.
5. The alternative was for God to declare them all cut off from those servitude type relationships. It is very easy to see that this would have caused drastically more harm than good in many ways.
Summary: OT slavery was not an ideal practice. However, it was practical given freewill and arguably benevolent in the context of OT Israel's conditions.

I'm guessing that you were not a black southern teenager. What you seem to be saying here is that a "diabolically wrong" practice was justified because of the effort needed to end it in a humane fashion.

This is getting a little absurd, so I will make one final and clear attempt to illustrate my claims about 19th century US slavery. IT WAS WRONG and it did not in any way resemble OT slavery. I think where you keep getting the above idea is where I said that GIVEN slavery already existed instantly turning every slave loose at once caused more harm than other options. I said that because the same would have been even truer for Israel even though in Israel the practice was almost a need for both parties. This fact is obvious when you consider how many slaves refused to leave their masters plantations. They had no food, nowhere to go, no jobs, and dumping 10 million people like that out in the street is no good for anybody and thousands died and millions suffered because that is what we did.
In summary: IT WAS WRONG but ending it instantly was the wrong way to abolish it.
I will not respond to any claims that I am sympathetic with US slavery after this.

No, you specifically chose one of the few translations that did not use the word "slave." Moreover, the other translations were created by Christians who had no intention to "show God as evil." That is an absurd claim on your part.

No I did not. I used the verses given in the form as they were given to me. This claim is what is absurd. I copied the verses as they were posted by your side and I even said twice that other versions may have used slave in the translation. I can show this claim more absurd still. Not one Bible verse God ever revealed contained the word slave or slavery. Not a single one. Slave and slavery are English words and the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Kione Greek. Slave is a translation that may or may not be correct and was certainly not in the verses that were GIVEN TO ME BY YOUR SIDE. More absurd still, I gave the actual original word and it is a general word that means servitude of all kinds. Slavery only being one of many and not even meaning what you think at all even if used in a translation.
Continued below:

 

[Nyingjé Tso]

Vanakkam,

20,000 hearts ripped out alive a day crowd, in the Americas, did they say great God’s work is being done? No they said what those Godless savages were doing was diabolical and many gave their lives to stop it..

Waow, that's so wrong (20 000 hearts a day ? Waow, they make babies all the time and they grow up faaast ô___o) and also a complete cliche and misunderstanding of this culture. I do not support human sacrifice in general, but I do not support this horrible conquest you mention. It was nothing noble. And they weren't savages. If savage mean different, well, that's a long list.

I suggest to read about the actual history, myths, way to live and beliefs of these "savages" at last to avoid these kind of cliche that does not support what you say, but rather show your ignorance on the subject.

Those "savages", when you get interested in history and myth about civilisations different than yours (not via wikipedia or christian fundamentalists websites), you discover many things very interesting. You don't have to like or agree, just gaining knowledge and cultivate the mind, learn new things. That's cool too.

Those "savages" are still today practicing their religion (not in the same manner, but they are still) so I wouldn't insult or treat them like this without at last getting actually interested in what they have so show, or say.


Aum Namah Shivaya

 

[1robin]

And I explained why that was a bad interpretation of those passages, which is why most translators have chosen the word "slave." The context showed those passages to be clearly about slaves, not butlers. Slavery was not voluntary, and Romans greatly feared slave rebellions (remember Spartacus?), just as slaveholders did in the American South.

This is a whole new context. I assume you are speaking about slavery in the NT. When the Bible speaks about NT slavery, it is a whole new animal. It was harsh and involuntary many times. It was also Roman not Hebrew. Rome had conquered the area and enforced it's rules on the Jews by violence when necessary. They instituted this type of slavery not God. However God did not abolish it. Why? It is easily seen that if the apostles were running around setting slaves free that Rome would have killed them. Rome feared slave revolts terribly and anything that even looked like one they killed everyone associated with it. The slaves had nowhere to go to if free, they would have been fugitives and been hunted by the most powerful empire on earth. Since God's primary purpose is spiritual not Earthly he counseled born again slaves to remain where they were. Unless you can show that God should have instantly stopped every act of evil in its tracks and therefore violated freewill continuously this claim you made is meaningless. I originally thought I might be a little biased but as I have learned more and more, as usual God appears to be correct and his critics wrong, again. He acted in a practical manner and consistent with his purpose and revelation.

This is just false, and you know it. Christians used their religion both to support and oppose slavery.

I can use religion to claim no one but me has the right to live. That has everything to do with me and nothing what so ever to do with religion or God. I can kill a thousand people in the name of Copernicus. Will you accept the responsibility?

The best case you can make is that those using the Bible to promote slavery had an erroneous interpretation of the Bible, but you can only do that with your dubious nitpicks of how the Bible was translated and whether or not slavery was really as bad as people think.

I can do that with scholarly consensus. There is nothing dubious about almost unanimous conclusions.

The major forces supporting slavery were Christians, who were equally fervent in their religious convictions.

And the drastically larger force that fought and died to free slaves were Christians. You are literally letting your bias draw the conclusion from what a few thousand did and reject what almost a million did. This is appalling and obvious.

As for the question of where morality comes from, we have discussed that. Christians and atheists get their morality from the same source--their sense of empathy and the behavior of people they grew up with. You claim not to like Divine Command Theory, but that seems to be your only way to ground your morality. I've explained why I think religion-based authoritarianism can occasionally go wrong. All it takes is for believers to become convinced that God wants them to commit acts that would normally go against their conscience. The Catholic Church had to invent the concept of a just war in order to circumvent the prohibition on killing other human beings.

That is completely false. This is one of the easiest and clear arguments made concerning Christianity. I would love to get into this deeper but it will have to take place in another location and if I was you I would not do so. I can shut this morality without God concept down very quickly. First I need to know if you think anything is actually wrong or right independently of whether anyone believes it or not. If not we can't even have the discussion because your moral system isn't moral, it is convenient.

My position is that morality is a set of rules that govern behavior in order to ensure safe and comfortable interactions between people. All societies develop them regardless of religious belief, and religions tend to promote those practical guidelines. We do not need gods to enforce the rules. Social pressure and government institutions do that. Philosophers have spent a lot of time analyzing the nature of ethics and morality. I think that the best general grounding for morality comes from what some refer to as consequentialism. Instead of attacking atheists for lacking a moral foundation, why not address the actual foundation that many of us atheists (e.g. Richard Dawkins) accept? It is an alternative to Divine Command Theory, which, despite your denials, is exactly the approach to morality that you have been advocating. If God commands it, then it must be good.

I am very familiar with the intellectual gymnastics non believing moralists go through to make opinion and preference sound more sophisticated and reasonable. It does not work. Given God we have a suffecient foundation for objective moral truths that are rooted in fact not fantasy. Without God we are left with opinion and preference which can be warped and corrupted to the point we have today. Modern morality developed in the vacume left by rejecting God has produced claims that the right to kill an inoscent baby is sacred but the right to execute a convicted murderer is an abhorent evil. Moral schozophrenia is the inevitable result of rejecting the only source for actually moral, morality. That is why the most effective atheist and agnostic debaters on morality suggest honestly that morality without God is an illusion and merely a social construct based in opinion and therby no better than the extremely faulty men who invent it and completely impotent to gurantee or provide justice. In fact the concept of justice can't be grounded in natural law at all. The sceintific philosopher himself said morality without God is an illusion. Dawkins said honestly that in the end nature is indifferent and cold. I could use atheists statements alone to argue the issue. You may be happy with the survival morality model exhibited by baboons, I love humanity enough to resent it. As I said above I recommend you do not pursue this but I hope you do. Either way it will have to take place separate from the slavery issue. You can start the moral argument where ever you wish or wait until slavery is concluded and I am very close to resting my case on it. Any contentions that linger are preference and bias based not theological or historical fact based, and no weapon ever formed can affect cognitive dissonance.

 

[1robin]

Again BULL. I always check the original languages.

True or false there is no evidence of this. I am the only one who has posted original languages (first anyway).

And the question again is - are you studying anything written by non-Christian sources?

I was unaware of a previous question like this. Of course I have, but why is it necessary. I primarily use evolutionists concerning evolution. I use historians concerning history. Why should I use non Christians concerning Christianity. This is another double standard that frustrates me. I believe that even the secular NT historian consensus to be that in a general sense OT slavery was not consistent with US slavery by a long shot. Most historians of every flavor agree with the Bibles historical claims. Only in supernatural ones do they differ. Mainly because all the ones who think one way become Christians and all the ones that rule out the supernatural beforehand are not. It is a strange dichotomy involved here. Even if you could prove all Christians are biased that would make all non-Christians even more biased.

One of the verses specifically states a Christian slave owner - which makes your original statements bull. Just because they were under Roman rule does not mean they have to do as the Romans.

I was thinking a while ago that the only exit ramp left against the claims I have made was to say the Jews were not under Roman law. I see I am not disappointed. I could almost have these debates with myself. Rome did initially grant Israel much of a free hand. The time period we are discussing is about 100AD. By then Israel had rebelled many times and Rome had clamped down severely on them. They had devastated Jerusalem and even destroyed the most sacred temple in Palestine. Conditions were dread full and as usual many of the Jews decided to basically become Romans. They had done the same thing with the Greeks. The Romans had taken away all or almost all Hebrew freedom and imposed not just Roman law but Roman hostile frontier law. I am quite sure some Christians acting more on their Roman allegiance than their Christian allegiance had slaves and a few I am sure probably mistreated them. Imagine God looking down and seeing the current situation. He knew his apostles and people would run into the situation concerning slavery. He had two choices that I can see. Set them free or tell them his primary purpose was spiritual and even if they were physically locked in he would make them spiritually free and one day rectifies the situation and justice would be served. If he set them free he was turning loose a slave in the middle of a community controlled by the most hostile empire towards slavery on Earth. The refuge cities no longer existed and Rome would have killed them all and the apostles who were spreading the message of freedom. As usual what you would suggest God should do would have been a complete disaster. You must remember that since the fall God intervention is by far the rare exception not the rule. His mission is not to fix this world until judgment day. BTW without God you have no restitution and justice, just pointless misery and eventual heat death.

LOL! You would like to think so wouldn't you?
As I have stated many times - I studied Archaeology and Comparative Religions.
I have all my research on my computer.

In a rolodex on your computer. Just kidding. I was just noticing how you seem to have a machine gun full of every claim used against God I have ever heard and maybe even a new one or two. You are definitely impotently but prolifically equipped for a mission you consider vital.

It is quite funny to have you saying things are not what they say in the Bible- when it is usually me pointing this out, - and the mistranslations.

I have never claimed nor is there any reason to claim translations are perfect. That is not even intuitive or expected. Like most stuff from God it is given pure and man is left to do what he will with it. The issue of cultural language use is common in every textual debate in most religions. I find it all together rational and fitting that cutural flavor is incorporated in scripture. I do not see any problem here. BTW if you have researched comparative religion why do you seem to suggest I invented this very common and well known issue.

LOL! You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote.
I was pointing out the illogical arguments THAT I HAVE HEARD CHRISTIANS USE to try to justify what the Bible says.

If Bull and LOL were removed from your vocabulary you would have little to say, but at least it could not help but be more accurate. I showed what those verses mean and they are no help to your cause. Anything beyond that is unimportant to me.

LOL! Again bull!

Wow both in one sentence. Are you copying and pasting these words. You know the mere assertion these words are used for does nothing to make them true. I reject every claim made about the insuffeciency of my claims without good evidence and I have not even seen any bad evidence.

You apparently don't understand those extras added onto the base words.
It is definitely "HE."

You apparently don't understand that it was some later scribe who translated these verses and added "he" himself. It is not in the original verses as God revealed them. Unless you think I worship the almighty 7th century scribe I have no idea what you are talking about. The word "he" was part of what the original word Shalach was translated into. It was not gained from another word it came from that word and is not accurate. He did not exist in God's revelation. A word that meant to free in general was given. You point fails. By the way please quit using Bull. It is dishonorable, if you can't help but be offensive at least rotate the words used. I do not want to be insulted and bored at the same time.

I am not treating these as trivial. You just don't like the answers.

What answers. Bull and LOL is the core of your argumentation.

Christianity and the Bible are NOT "...the only hope for ultimate justice, meaning, purpose, and destination ..."

In comparison with no God it certainly is, in any ultimate sense of the words. Without him there is no ultimate meaning, purpose, morality, or destination. There is only transitory arbitrary meanings and the only destination is heat death. As the deplorable but occasionally honest Dawkins said very well:

“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” p.133
http://withalliamgod.wordpress.com/existence-of-god/dawkins-deluded-logic/

Thank God Dawkins is as ultimately wrong about this as he is about all his theological nonsense and even some of his biological claims. Calling God evil, if this is what is left when he is rejected it is like hating the United States' oppression, and deciding to move to North Korea to escape.

 

[CG Didymus]

3. I have studied genesis and find no reason to maintain a literal interpretation. In fact I have no idea how it is to be interpreted and without having historical narratives to compare it with we are left more powerless to understand it than the other 90% of the Bible has available.
5. So if you incorporate the fall (whatever the specifics are) that explains why things are no longer sustained in harmony.

I'd like to just focus on a couple of points, things are getting so long and drawn out. So I don't believe Genesis literally. The "fall" is from Genesis. It's a fine story. It is enough to get the point across that we can't fight against God and hope to win. He knows best and we should follow him. We are stubborn and want to do all sorts of bad things. We have free will and choose to do bad things. It's our fault then, when God, for our own good punishes us.

That's okay if we are the chosen people, but what if we lived in Sodom or Jericho? What if I was a four year old in those cities? Why didn't God love me? We didn't he reveal himself to me? Why didn't he spare me and let me be adopted by a good Hebrew family that taught me about the true and living God?

The problem most of us have is with a very literal Christian interpretation of Scriptures, because it makes things seem unfair. We talked about Native Americans earlier. When Christians came to America many native people did convert. But what about all those that lived in died without knowing about Jesus? They all, out of ignorance, worshiped a false god. By literal Christian standards, they should all go to hell. By literal Christian standards all people that don't have a "saving" knowledge of Jesus should go to hell. A Jew, right now, can follow the Torah, love God, but be doomed to hell. Same with good people from all non-Christian religions.

That is too harsh for a lot of us to swallow. But too find a kinder, gentler alternative, this means we have to reject the Christian interpretation of God and reality. Is there a better way to explain why there is evil in the world? Nature does what it does, earthquakes, floods etc. We are just in the way. Nature has no conscience. We do bad things to each other because of our "lower" animalistic nature. Killing, fighting, arguing can get us what we want, but then there is a higher nature. Kindness, love, compassion--where did all those things come from? It makes me think there must be a God.

So now what? I can be loving, kind, forgiving to others. I can respect people from all religions and see the good it has brought them. I can also see how people that truly believe their religion is right that, for them, the loving and kind thing to do is to try and convince others of this truth. But what does that do? It makes all the different religions fight and argue amongst themselves. I look at them and ask, "What are they fighting about?" It seems like they're all taking their religion too literal. It makes God and religion look stupid. It makes religion a source of even more evil in the world.

We can't eradicate evil. We can only try and contain it. We make laws and come up with rules of behavior, but we are always changing our rules. As society changes so do our rules. Can we trust the laws of any one religion? I don't think so. Religions take things too far and get too strict. I'm sure you see the rules of "liberal" thinkers as being worse, that their moral standards are way too low. But still, to think that this, the world we live in, with all its pain and suffering, is the best plan God could come up with? I don't know. It seems extreme.

 

[1robin]

I agree that it is a red herring, but it is one that you felt you had to insert into this discussion. Neither man is relevant to this discussion.

They are relevant in a moral context, but not so in a slavery context. Russia, China, and North Korea are the closest thing we have to an atheistic regime. You can't use even the secular west because Christianity has drastically influenced it all even if they have recently become secular. Nor the near or middle East for obvious reasons. The great modern atheistic regimes have also been the most corrupt, unjust, and violent empires on Earth.

I certainly do not mean to insult you, but I am addressing what I see as a contradiction in your argument. Sherman's March was a cowardly act of revenge against a defeated people. The slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, not Sherman's March. It has no relevance to this discussion.

I am an amateur historian so you have wandered into home territory here. Sherman was certainly vengeful but that was not the motive. He and Grant came up together in the West. They had heard of the cost and misery caused by McClellan and other Eastern Generals inaction and developed the opposite tactics. In short it is by far more human to wage a short and brutal war than a very long ineffective one. Stonewall wanted to raise the black flag (no prisoners and no mercy). This bothered me until I read his explanation. He said he would kill everyone but it would be over in a few months and 3.75 years of misery, poverty, disease, and death over the entire country would not have occurred. Sherman was doing a mild version of this. He went to Atlanta because it was untouched and the center of manufacturing, he killed along the way to end that mess quickly, he went to the sea to get easy resupply. The long version of this is very very complex and long but i am more than happy to supply it but not here.

Sherman ran off the slaves because they were fast going to outnumber his own Army and he did not have enough food or time to deal with them. The thing he most needed was speed and freedom to maneuver.

I also published links for you to look at. Your links ignored the same point that you ignored--that the context of the word doulos resolved the ambiguity in favor of the translation slave.

I disagree and that is why the versions your side gave me used servant. The truth is that it meant slaves and servants and it makes no difference given what I have found out and posted concerning what slavery was in the OT. See post 750 for my most efficient description of it. No matter what you call it it was an economic necessity for both sides.

I believe that Christians are generally better than the God described in the Bible, but there are a great many interpretations of what that version of God is like.

I think the first statement is about as wrong as is humanly possible but I agree with the second. God created a perfect universe and we broke it. We sinned and rebelled as fast as we could go. God worked to remedy that by coming to Earth. The most benevolent example of humanity in human history shows up and all we can do is torure and kill him. He dying on the cross forgave us as we killed him. We have poisened and screwed up the planet we inhereted. God has promised to remake it and let anyone who wants life there forever. I rest my case.

Most Christians are compassionate, decent people, in my experience, but my experience, however long I've lived, may still be skewed. As I've said before, people generally get their sense of morality from experiences other than scripture, although religious indoctrination does play a role for a great many. I am happy to admit that most Christian doctrines preach a far more benevolent concept of morality than that espoused by biblical literalists.

I am glad you have a positive impression of Christians but why would the one thing that makes them different not also be the thing that makes them good? You are making an epistemological argument and deriving an ontological conclusion. That does not work; here is a site that explains why: http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2012/04/distinguishing-between-moral-ontology.html

That is not what I believe they are doing. Most Christians, like you, believe that religious indoctrination will reinforce the moral principles that they would like their children to adopt. And most do not interpret the Bible in precisely the way that you or I do. But most will experience the age-old lament of learning that their children are not copies of themselves. Demographically speaking, young people tend to be less religious than older people. That trend will likely continue.

It is enough, who the kids believe in even if what they believe in turns out to be inaccurate. The Bible says we are born atheists (separated from God). The purpose of life is to discover the need and reality of God. Your stats bear out the Bible's claims not refute them.

Please don't go down that path. I'm quite sure that you see everything that happens to you through the prism of your religious faith, where others like myself might see those events differently. I've already seen so many of those anecdotes. My opinion is that people are very prone to the phenomenon of cold reading, which is a form of confirmation bias. When things happen that confirm bias, people take that as evidence. When things happen that disconfirm bias, people tend to ignore and forget those things.

The explaining away of a claim to experience in common with several billions of people is desperate. These aren’t UFOs seen by a few thousand. BTW I do not believe in UFOs but I think most are honest accounts of seeing things they did not recognize. This is billions of people who followed the same spiritual roadmap and claimed to have received exactly what they were promised and many have died for that truth. I am sure your pet alternate theories are true for a quite a few cases but if just one single Christian salvation experience, healing, or miracle is true then you have a problem. There exists nothing nor combination of things that can rationally account for theological experience on this level besides the reality of God. No other religion even offers this kind of thing.

You are ignoring what I said. If God were just another being like us, you might have a point. However, God's alleged omnipotence and omniscience contradict your argument, because they make God both knowledgeable and complicit in everything that people do. If we created a mess, God cannot claim ignorance of the fact that we would create it. He created us in the knowledge that we would. Nor can he claim an inability to prevent us from screwing things up. God is reported to have intervened in human affairs in the past, and most believers pray that he will in the future. So God's failure to set things right suggests either an inability (cancelling omnipotence) or unwillingness (cancelling benevolence) to do so.

That is logical impossibility. What defines personhood is an independent mind. God made man with freewill. It is not free if we can't use it to reject him and do horrible things. If I murder someone, I did it despite my faith and God has little connection to it. We are free moral agents. If you wish to saddle God with my acts, fine you may complain to him if you see him. Continued below:

 

[1robin]

I thought the argument was just that he stood by and let it happen while his creations engaged in it, but whatever...

That was the context not an argument.

We have disagreed on this. The Bible does not provide that "foundation."

The Bible contains the words sanctity, equality, and dignity of man. It is also the only foundation if in comparison with no God by which these claims have sufficient justification. Evolution justifies the polar opposite. The Bible DOES CONTAIN THESE CONCEPTS.

Excellent question. That's one for Christians to explain. As far as I can tell, the crucifixion was entirely unnecessary. God didn't need to have part of himself tortured to death in order to feel justified in letting people into heaven, nor did he need to let slavery exist before people got into heaven. The entire story makes no sense at all.

You are positing a God but excluding the context he comes with. That is exactly my complaint. If you import God in order to call him evil you must use the context in which he comes. You are completely impotent to show that that context does not justify Christ’s death. You must reject God to get rid of the context.

He didn't. Human society has evolved in that direction, and a large part of the evolution seems to have coincided with the rise of secular government.

This is not going to work. It is a fact that no known law of any another ancient culture required a master’s ill treatment of a slave to be punished. I even gave an example. The Bible records cities of refuge where a runaway slave can go and no one is allowed to take him back. The code of Hammurabi declared anyone who helps runaway slaves is to be killed. Every fact known is on my side. Slaves even had the right to settle in any area of Israel when freed. Not even a Hebrew could do that.

For the same reason that the majority of people who fought to preserve slavery did.

Your back on my turf again. The people who fought for the south had no slaves and did not care. Slaveholders were few in number and generally did not fight, like most rich people in history. The confederate army was primarily composed of poor farmers who were fighting for their states and their states right to determine their own destiny. It was an old issue derived from their ancestor’s days under King George. In fact the war was often called the second war of independence in the south. It was never called the war to keep slaves. 90% never owned one. If you wish to contend me the civil war is not a good place to do so.

Because that was the religion that replaced the religion of their ancestors, after they became enslaved.

That might explain why they tolerated it but it does not explain why they thought it, more than anything on earth justified their freedom. They literally composed some of the best spiritual songs in history thanking God alone for their freedom.

First of all, the Aztecs and Mayans were not godless. Secondly, the Spanish were every bit as brutal and bloodthirsty as those they conquered, even if they didn't practice human sacrifice. They were quite savage in their destruction of native cultures. The Spanish did not shy away from torture and mass murder.

I did not say they were. I am not defending any concept of God. I am defending a Biblical God and they did not worship him when they were killing their neighbors. They did worship him after they stopped enslaving and killing because he forbade it. The conquistadors did kill a lot of people though a vanishingly small number in comparison. Most of the deaths were smallpox related and not intentional. I was talking about what the Church fathers did that came over at the same time. I only read the Bible when I turned 27. I have been reading military history since I could read. I would not challenge me on it.

That rather depends on who is doing the associating. It is certainly not as "universal" as you claim.

Since I gave no percentage you can't possibly know if it is less. It is in fact the most often associated concept. What percentage that is I have no idea. BTW it is not important whether it is the most or not either. The fact that it so often is alone is enough to cast serious doubt on your claims. Hitler, John Gacey, and Stalin were in fact evil and they are almost never associated with good. Why has God almost always been associated with ultimate good for thousands of years if he is evil as well.

The public school system in the US is entirely a secular institution.

But it was created by Christians with the primary purpose of teaching reading so people could read the Bible.

Conservative Christians appear to be somewhat hostile to the idea and are pushing for subsidies to private schools, especially private religious schools.

Good. We need to take back the school systems we began. Since secular idiots kicked God out, our ranking has went from 1st to 10th even though we spend 8 times what anyone else does on education, gang activity in schools, school shootings, and teen pregnancy skyrocketed when secular ideas took over in the 60s.

Non-Christians also give billions to charity, build hospitals, and suffer and die in their efforts to help the less fortunate. In any case, this, like most of your points, has no real bearing on the question of whether the God depicted in the Bible should be judged evil from a human perspective.

They have no meaning only because you do not seem to get them. What secular people do has nothing whatever to do with anything. You said God was evil. I showed that his followers give unimaginable money, time, and effort to benevolent aid programs even for atheist, secular, and Islamic nations. This is the diametrical opposite of what your claims predict. What does secular giving have to do with anything. Even if it did the group containing Christian conservatives is the most charitable group on earth. Western countries that have or recently had a strong Christian influence are the most charitable nations on Earth. I have had to defend this recently so look it up if you wish. Reality refute your claims without my help alone.
So far you have not given a reasonable counter claim for a single one of my eight claims and until you can there is no need to add more information to what has been put forward. By all means try again if you wish.

 

[Copernicus]

...I am pretty sure that the context within which I said slavery was incompatible with the Bible was old south US slavery. I assumed the context because when someone says "slavery" the first thing we think of is confederate stuff. Slavery in the OT testament is not even in the same realm as that type of slavery as I have exhaustively shown.

The differences between slavery in the Roman Empire and the American South are not significant in this discussion. We are talking about a social institution in which human beings were treated as property that could be bought, sold, and abused. Slave rebellions occurred in both cultures, because slavery was not a voluntary condition. Slaves were brutalized in both cultures.

1. Slavery in OT times existed in every culture on Earth. It existed before God ever said a word in the Bible about it, and was the product of man.

The Bible was a "product of man," and your God was as much responsible for slavery as he was for the Bible. The practice of slavery only occurred in societies with stratified social groupings. It was actually quite rare in hunter-gatherer cultures, and it was condemned by some enlightened thinkers, e.g. the Greek stoics.

2. God "revelationally" found the practice entrenched already, when the laws concerning it were given. Every single law improved the plight of a "slave" over previous conditions and was by far the most benevolent system of servitude known in those times.

So you now think that God was ignorant of slavery and was taken by surprise that his creations were engaging in it? And he was powerless to stop it? That doesn't sound very omniscient or omnipotent to me.

3. OT slavery was not even in the same realm as what we think of as slavery nor in the same ball park as the slavery practiced by all other cultures of the time. It has more in common with servitude than slavery. It was almost always voluntary. Met a real social need of the day. There was no welfare or unemployment.

This nonsense borders on delusion. Slavery is defined as involuntary servitude. Slavery in the Roman Empire was not significantly different from slavery in the American South. When slavery was ended in Europe and America, there was no welfare.

4. The allowance for a less than ideal practice was practical and consistent with God's purpose, consistent with the over all biblical narrative, and incompatible with the claims he is evil.

If slavery served God's purpose, then that purpose serves as a basis for judging him evil. But I recognize that you just don't see that. This still strikes me as an excellent example of how religion can twist morality out of shape. It leads many people to see inhumane behavior as morally justified.

5. The alternative was for God to declare them all cut off from those servitude type relationships. It is very easy to see that this would have caused drastically more harm than good in many ways.

If slavery was all that good, why would the Bible be against it? You seem to shift back and forth between praise and condemnation for slavery.

Summary: OT slavery was not an ideal practice. However, it was practical given freewill and arguably benevolent in the context of OT Israel's conditions.

What nonsense. It was neither practical nor desirable "given free will." And you need to crack a real history book, not religious materials that distort history. Slavery was far from a benign practice.

...I think where you keep getting the above idea is where I said that GIVEN slavery already existed instantly turning every slave loose at once caused more harm than other options...

This is a straw man that nobody has advocated, certainly not me. Obviously, it would be a lot harder for people to end slavery than an omnipotent deity.

In summary: IT WAS WRONG but ending it instantly was the wrong way to abolish it.

Listen, I have never proposed that it needed to be ended instantly, only ended decisively. You keep using "instant emancipation" as a smokescreen to hide your real concern, which is reconciling the immorality of slavery with the actions of a putative God that could have ended it however quickly he wanted.

...I used the verses given in the form as they were given to me...I copied the verses as they were posted by your side and I even said twice that other versions may have used slave in the translation...

If you want to bother, a Google search on Ephesians 6 will show you a number of translations where "slave" is used. This is another red herring that you keep slapping around. The English word "servant" has "slave" as one of its meanings, and that is the sense referred to in verses that contain other words like "yoke", "master", and "beating". You spent quite a lot of time fussing over the translation of that one word while ignoring the meaning of the words surrounding it. "Masters" do not beat paid domestic servants. They quit their jobs, not flee from them and go into hiding.

...Not one Bible verse God ever revealed contained the word slave or slavery. Not a single one. Slave and slavery are English words and the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Kione Greek. Slave is a translation that may or may not be correct and was certainly not in the verses that were GIVEN TO ME BY YOUR SIDE...

Again, "servant" and "slave" are synonyms in those English translations. Either word is a legitimate translation into English. You yourself have referred to "servants" and "slaves" interchangeably in your posts, although you continue to pretend that there is some significant point to be made here.

 

[1robin]

Vanakkam,Waow, that's so wrong (20 000 hearts a day ? Waow, they make babies all the time and they grow up faaast ô___o) and also a complete cliche and misunderstanding of this culture.

I can almost guarantee I have researched these events much more than you have. Unless you are a Spanish expansionist or Aztec theological historian I doubt you have checked into this as deeply as I have. I did not claim or at least did not intend to claim they killed 20,000 people a day, every day. This was done on special religious ceremonial days in honor of the sun. They literally thought the Sun was "powered" by blood. The heart was thought to represent the sun. The estimates per year begin at 30,000 and top out at 250,000. 20,000 on some days is not only derived from eyewitnesses testimony and the number of skulls the Spaniards actually counted but is also verified through modern archeology. However even if only 5,000 a year, would that make them any less diabolical. They did not normally sacrifice their own people. Though, like Islam one has to wonder if it was such an honor, why not? They captured prisoners and waged war for the specific purpose of providing sacrificial people. Even their weapons were designed to wound, not kill. Their entire army was designed to capture people alive to kill later.

I do not support human sacrifice in general, but I do not support this horrible conquest you mention. It was nothing noble. And they weren't savages. If savage mean different, well, that's a long list.

It was as Noble as anything similar in history on one hand and as brutal as anything on the other. You must separate the motives and actions and see what fits with what. I however could never condemn any action no matter how brutal if it stopped people this insanely savage and blood thirsty. They went from cutting the hearts out of people as fast as they could to civil, moral, and peaceful Christians as a result of this invasion. Most of the Mesoamericans were savages but even by their standards the Aztecs were horrific. Cortex would not have conquered them if half the tribes in Mexico had not hated the Aztecs so much they willing risked annihilation to fight them. If they were not savages then there has never been any, and the term is meaningless.

I suggest to read about the actual history, myths, way to live and beliefs of these "savages" at last to avoid these kind of cliché that does not support what you say, but rather show your ignorance on the subject.

I have. A cliché isn't wrong because it is a cliché.

Those "savages", when you get interested in history and myth about civilizations different than yours (not via wikipedia or Christian fundamentalists websites), you discover many things very interesting. You don't have to like or agree, just gaining knowledge and cultivate the mind, learn new things. That's cool too.

There is actual evil and actual good on Earth. The Aztecs and Hitler’s Nazis are the two most prominent groups of the evil end of the scale. Christian nations like the 1915 -1960 US are on the other end.

Those "savages" are still today practicing their religion (not in the same manner, but they are still) so I wouldn't insult or treat them like this without at last getting actually interested in what they have so show, or say.

Have you ever been to where these people live. I traced Pizarro's route through Peru and have been to Mexico. I have stood on the slabs of rock where people were burned alive and in a room where they were skinned alive. Even most tour guides descended from the Inca I have met do not make excuses for what they did as you are doing. One I met outside of Trujillo at the mud city of Chan Chan said he was thankfull the spanish came, even though they dug up his dead ancestors and stole their gold jewlery. I literally hate revisionist history these days. It is one of the worst forces used to obscure truth and substitute preference, and it serves no one. As in all cases where proven archeology, eyewitness testimony, and obvious fact is denounced as cliché there is always a personal preference and presupposition involved. What personal connection do you have in this case that causes you to reject all of history and rewrite it the way you wish? You’re not a die hard, Neil Young fan, or an descendant of Montezuma are you ? Just kidding

 

[CG Didymus]

What personal connection do you have in this case that causes you to reject all of history and rewrite it the way you wish? You’re not a die hard, Neil Young fan, or an descendant of Montezuma are you ? Just kidding

I'm half Mexican, which by itself can contain both Native and Spanish ancestry. Another quarter is pure Spanish and the last quarter is Welsh. Going back to Spain, I could have Islamic or Jewish ancestry. Did I have ancestors that "converted" through the Inquisition? Maybe. Did I have ancestors that plundered, raped and killed the Natives? Maybe. So what are we going to do about it now? With all this talk about slavery, it got me thinking. So many of us felt enslaved by Christianity. I was Catholic and was glad that they don't have the power over people like they used to. The Church seemed irrelevant and very superstitious.

Many of the people you're arguing with, or "debating", were probably also raised some type of Christian. An important thing to know is--Why did they fall away? Unfortunately, the way God is presented and the way Christians actually live their lives pushes them away. It is easy to say that they loved the darkness more than the light or that they were "slaves" to their sin, but I think you know it's more than that. If church just ain't doing it for them and no one can answer the tough questions, then why stay? Why not look elsewhere for answers?

So why, in spite, of the "hard" questions, the unanswerable questions, do you believe? If I were to guess I'd say you probably got tired of fighting God. A life without Jesus is meaningless and empty. But still, why Christianity? Why not Buddhism or Scientology? We all are looking for answers and some degree of comfort in our beliefs. For many of us, Christianity just leaves too many "ifs" and "buts". Like if God is so good and all-knowing, why kill children. Why allow all the murder and mayhem? Did I, through Adam and Eve, really chose this? I know you have comfort in Jesus, but getting to Jesus is a tough road to take.

 

[1robin]

I'd like to just focus on a couple of points, things are getting so long and drawn out. So I don't believe Genesis literally. The "fall" is from Genesis. It's a fine story. It is enough to get the point across that we can't fight against God and hope to win. He knows best and we should follow him. We are stubborn and want to do all sorts of bad things. We have free will and choose to do bad things. It's our fault then, when God, for our own good punishes us.

That's okay if we are the chosen people, but what if we lived in Sodom or Jericho? What if I was a four year old in those cities? Why didn't God love me? We didn't he reveal himself to me? Why didn't he spare me and let me be adopted by a good Hebrew family that taught me about the true and living God?

The problem most of us have is with a very literal Christian interpretation of Scriptures, because it makes things seem unfair. We talked about Native Americans earlier. When Christians came to America many native people did convert. But what about all those that lived in died without knowing about Jesus? They all, out of ignorance, worshiped a false god. By literal Christian standards, they should all go to hell. By literal Christian standards all people that don't have a "saving" knowledge of Jesus should go to hell. A Jew, right now, can follow the Torah, love God, but be doomed to hell. Same with good people from all non-Christian religions.

That is too harsh for a lot of us to swallow. But too find a kinder, gentler alternative, this means we have to reject the Christian interpretation of God and reality. Is there a better way to explain why there is evil in the world? Nature does what it does, earthquakes, floods etc. We are just in the way. Nature has no conscience. We do bad things to each other because of our "lower" animalistic nature. Killing, fighting, arguing can get us what we want, but then there is a higher nature. Kindness, love, compassion--where did all those things come from? It makes me think there must be a God.

So now what? I can be loving, kind, forgiving to others. I can respect people from all religions and see the good it has brought them. I can also see how people that truly believe their religion is right that, for them, the loving and kind thing to do is to try and convince others of this truth. But what does that do? It makes all the different religions fight and argue amongst themselves. I look at them and ask, "What are they fighting about?" It seems like they're all taking their religion too literal. It makes God and religion look stupid. It makes religion a source of even more evil in the world.

We can't eradicate evil. We can only try and contain it. We make laws and come up with rules of behavior, but we are always changing our rules. As society changes so do our rules. Can we trust the laws of any one religion? I don't think so. Religions take things too far and get too strict. I'm sure you see the rules of "liberal" thinkers as being worse, that their moral standards are way too low. But still, to think that this, the world we live in, with all its pain and suffering, is the best plan God could come up with? I don't know. It seems extreme.

I am out of time but will get back to you tomorrow, sorry. I read the first sentences in your second post and it looks like you answered questions I made to someone else. I do not know until I review your posts if those questions apply to you yet. I also noted some very extreme missunderstandings concerning revelation, and what God requires of us in your first post but I will certainly elaborate as soon as I have time.