Hey! You’re break. I understand you do not wish to discuss this matter with me any further.Hi, Randy!
I concur with you… I’ve noticed that behavior with most who are anti-Catholic/anti-God–they reach for the stars then blame God for not making them easily accessible…
It’s only fair that if you make such a damning statement that you either back up that statement or retract it. Please let us know. Thanks!
Hi, Mike!
Yet instead of helping you to widen your lens my efforts many have only served to cause you grief–for this I apologize.
Mike-
You haven’t generalized the term atheist. You have misrepresented it. Atheist means to not believe there is enough evidence for any god (not just yours). You can’t just make new definitions for words to try and fix misstatements that you made earlier. By that logic I can claim to be incredibly handsome, since you’re allowing for words to mean the exact opposite of their definitions.
I am aware of the scourge of modern-day slavery. There are a great many organizations (both religious and non-religious) which work tirelessly to combat it.
I’ve already said that these things are good, but as I also said a few good things can’t outweigh the horrible things on the other side of the coin. I explained how I live next to a WIC office, and they do good things, but they don’t force the kids to work in the fields or the women to have sex against their wills. The SAME God that says don’t charge interest on loans and leave parts of the field untilled also says owning people and beating them and selling your children is juuuuuust dandy. You want me to look at the good things and completely ignore the atrocious things. There was a performer in the UK named Jimmy Savile who in his career raised over 40 million pounds for charity. He was knighted for his charitable works. Later people find out that he had molested/raped hundreds of boys, girls, and women. Should I do as you’ve done with God and focus solely on the good and not on the far worse bad?
Indeed I do. Not only that I showed several distinctions between indentured servitude and slavery. They are not the same thing and yet you keep trying to link the two.
I don’t begrudge someone wishing to leave a discussion, but I want to make sure you don’t have the mistaken idea that you’ve successfully defended God in any way, shape, or form. You have ignored those points which have repeatedly shown the faults in everything you’ve said and everything the apologist in the video you linked to said. The lost cause is trying to get direct answers to questions and points that I have made.
By who? Certainly not you. Most certainly not by the gentleman in the video you linked to where nearly each statement ranged between gross misunderstanding and outright lie. A response is not a refutation, and it’s definitely not a refutation if it involves ignoring multiple clear and salient points in my argument.
No matter how many times you state it, that doesn’t make it so. The Bible damns God in that regard.
I will continue to speak on this matter as long as I am allowed whenever it comes up. It pains me to see people try to play off what the Bible saying it wasn’t as bad as other slavery. Some people want to bask in the glory of an impotent god who isn’t quite as evil as some others, but my conscience won’t let me do the same. As I said before and will surely say again: Nothing gets Christians to call good that which is evil as quickly or as easily as when the topic is Biblical slavery.
Hi, Mike!
It’s not about political correctness it’s about the basic tenet of accuracy. Words have meaning. You can check CAF where Catholics themselves have problems with people using the term “Catholic” who don’t follow the Church. In the same way “atheist” can not be used to describe those who believe in a deity. It’s very, very simple.
That’s what I’m asking for. You made a claim the non-Christians and “especially atheists” brought about slavery. I asked you for two things: 1) Show where atheists especially brought about slavery. 2) Show that Christians were not a major factor in bringing about slavery. You have explained neither. Can you do so? If not, just say so.
Thank you, but I’m looking for accuracy not apologies.
I’ve already pointed out the passages which tell the Hebrews how to purchase foreign slaves and how inhumanely to treat them. And as I noted earlier in the thread, I didn’t say that God was telling each Hebrew to get slaves, but when you put it into the context that these instructions came while his people were wandering the desert slaveless (a point that has been repeatedly ignored) and that they had been slaves themselves for the 430 years prior (another point that repeatedly and conveniently keeps getting ignored) the fact that God is so eager to introduce the practice slavery is an endorsement of it.
Which is sad, because my standards are quite reasonable. Silence on the matter of slavery would carry more weight then giving a people a detailed structure on how to enslave. No amount of “be nice” will ever even remotely overcome not having a punishment for beating someone so brutally they die a day later because slaves aren’t people but property.
I said it to Randy, and I’ll repeat it here: A response is not a refutation. Show me where I’m wrong. Address the points I make without ignoring them.
May you look at the matter from a neutral perspective and not one where you crave a certain conclusion (God is good) and then twist or ignore all evidence against it.
We did.
Do you mean the part where he doesn’t address why God would give numerous details on how to enslave people even though they were slaveless in the desert and none of their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents on down had never owned slaves?
The response is half-baked and internally inconsistant and riddled with white washing. THAT’S why I don’t agree with it.
I’ve been there. Don’t think that I haven’t pondered the mysteries of faith, not only the Catholicism I was raised in but other faiths as well. Give me consistent rational explanations to the very valid points I’ve made ad infinitum and we’ll see about the soul searching.
Yes. The reasonable answer is that either the God of the Bible is true and is a moral monster, or the God of the Bible is not true and these rules were created by man in the guise of a deity.
…again, a person who claims to be as exact as you claim, who would not take generalization of issues but demand clear verifiable fact, should then not engage in “interpretation of text.”
So let me see if I understand. I’m a person who feels that words have meaning and it is wrong to use the exact opposite of that word as its meaning (for example, that it would be wrong to describe a believer as an atheist or someone who doesn’t believe in the tenets of Catholicism as a Catholic). Now because I have this very basic and common sense threshold as to how language works I should not be allowed to try and interpret the meaning of a text, despite the fact that a person who works within the rules of language would be far more accurate in interpreting text, right? I hope you can see why I fail to grasp the logic in what you’re saying.
I do not take it as a sign of disrespect. As I said before I don’t begrudge anyone from wishing to cease continuing a discussion, but I had hoped said discussion was going to be about the facts at hand and not ignoring those facts to focus on my alleged motives. A person looking at this thread now or in the future might not feel a strong defense for a reasoned faith has been made.
As I’ve said before (either on this thread or some other) often times when the responses to tough questions are vague and off-point they can in their own way expose tough answers.
Oh, I see.
Where does God teach the Israelites “how to enslave people”? Surely you must mean how to treat enslaved people, and yes, God did give numerous details which radically improved the lives of people on the servitude/slavery spectrum.
After years of not really believing in God, you finally left that Catholic Church at 16.
Is a PhD immune to misjudgments or deceit? I made specific points in my earlier post about how the parts where Paul Copan alleges that Leviticus 25 talks about foreign slaves gaining wealth to buy themselves out of slavery is actually about how poor Hebrews who have sold themselves to rich foreigners living in Israel can buy their way out of slavery. I also linked to a biblehub.com page with several commentaries, all of which back me up.Oh, I see.
Paul Copan, who earned his PhD from Marquette University and holds the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University, either misunderstands or is lying about what Leviticus 25 says.
It’s not a matter of finding the least evil solution but providing a good one. As I’ve taught you throughout this thread the practice of indentured servitude doesn’t align with Biblical slavery for Hebrew men (and certainly not for women and children). If God had proposed a structure which was actually like indentured servitude (ones without beatings, manslaughter, and blackmail – where children aren’t kept as bait) then we can talk. Until then a little thing like the gleaning laws don’t make up for the immoral acts approved by God.
The percentage of a text dealing with a subject is not necessarily a measure of its impact. The Three-Fifths Compromise in the United States Constitution is just a few words, but it’s a strong indication of how black people were treated in time of the document’s writing. Your boy, Paul Copan, is somehow trying to say that these transactions as laid out by God don’t constitute “buying” and “selling” and that this doesn’t mean God treats people as property.
As I’ve said before the gleaning law seems good. It’s just that you can’t have one being doing some good and a lot of evil and call him good. I already mentioned Jimmy Savile. I’ve mentioned a theoretical mayor that talked about making sure women could only be raped 6 days a week since that’s better than seven. What good is a god who says picking up sticks or accidentally dropping an ark is worthy of death, but specifically says a manslaughtering slave owner will go without punishment?
Is there a moral relativism smiley that I can use each time you defend God with it?
At no point did I say the Hebrew people did not at any time own slaves prior to Exodus 21. What I did say was that according to the Bible the Hebrews were in the desert when God gave his list of slavery rules and that they had not owned slaves for at least 430 years prior to that. Do you still do things because an ancestor from 1580 did those things? Of course not!
You see I’m one of those people that doesn’t stop pondering a subject at a certain point in my life. I’m 43 now and I’ve had serious doubts about religion for over 30 years. And even after first stating my position as an atheist when I was a teen I’ve always worked at understanding more about religion. To cease taking in evidence both for and against one’s position can lead to strange perdicaments, including trying to call an evil practice good because acknowledging the evil would run counter to that position. And we wouldn’t want that!After years of not really believing in God, you finally left that Catholic Church at 16.
This constitutes “pondering” and “soul-searching”?
If you say so…