Why Would A Loving God Say Any of This?

I would agree that slavery is evil. As a christian, I struggle with these parts of the Bible as well. Although this doesn’t solve it for me, this quote from Tomothy Keller helps to shed some historical light on it. In addition, the Bible in several places condems slave-trading and kidnapping, which was the basis for the African slave trade.
“The ‘slavery’ mentioned in the Old Testament was really indentured servant hood and was a very different kind of institution than the New World slavery that developed in modern times. For example, Exodus 21:27 says that if you knock a slave’s tooth out, the slave has to go free. That doesn’t sound like the same institution you are thinking of, does it? Slavery in the Greco-Roman world was harsher than the indentured servant hood of Israel, but it was almost never for life (average 10-15 years in length) and slaves were paid and lived about the same as other working people. So be careful when you equate the African slave trade to the forms of slavery and servant hood you hear about in the Bible.”

LOL.. Really?  Indentured Servitude?  Last time I checked that was still slavery.

So it’s A-OK in one form, but not in the other?

Indentured servents and slaves are 2 different things the words mean 2 different things. Once again someone trying to justifiy something awful that the bible preaches!!! not u sunburned but the post above it!!

Oh, and also: When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.  (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

Sounds like real fun “indentured servitude” to get the shit beat out of you.

 As a Christian who comments here I agree with you John and with Timothy Keller’s assessment . If you look at Lev. 25:39 it outs this whole discourse into better context. Lev. 25:39 specifically introduces this discourse with “sells himself to
you” understanding that this was a voluntary economic relationship. But most on this board will respond like Stv84 did because if they took it in context they would not be able to mock it.   What most will not accept is that Christ came to change people’s hearts which if that was ever followed would end all kinds of “slavery”- physical, emotional and spiritual. The fact that during this time of history the Bible outlines regulations regarding an economic reality of the times doesn’t change that nor does it show that God endorsed slavery such as it was practiced here.  In fact the penalty for kidnapping anyone for any reason, including to enslave them was death.  Exodus 21:16.

what’s the misquote?

 So Jordan, let’s say you owed someone some money and you offered to work for that person without wages for a time in order to pay off that debt. If the English translated word for that voluntary arrangement was slavery, you would still object to it?

What is the difference between forcing someone into slavery by the sword, or by the threat of starvation. Both are not really “voluntary” now are they?

And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. If she please not her master…. Ex.21:7-8
Not really “a voluntary economic relationship” for the daughter now is it????

Also those “economic reality of the times” are either starvation of slavery, so I ask again what is the difference between forcing someone into slavery by the sword, or by the threat of starvation. Both are not really “voluntary” now are they?

Never mind that it’s simply a flat out lie that the Bible only refers to indentured servitude. It doesn’t.

Claiming that it does is simply a way to deal with one’s cognitive dissonance. The rational part of their brain knows that it’s immoral, but they have been brainwashed to believe that everything in the book is true and has to be believed at all costs

I have to admit, I love to watch the mental gymnastics that christians have to do to justify the horrific morals their supposed higher being has whenever this subject comes up (and the genocide one too). It reminds me so much of the conversations I have had with die hard southerners who claim slavery in the US really wasn’t that bad and the slaves where all treated nicely. Just a delusional fantasy to cover up for your shitty morals is all. 

@SimonPure
 If one acknowledges that those texts are simply human products of their times, then of course it’s understandable. Not right or moral, but one can understand why it was written that way.

But it makes zero sense as the product of a being that is described as omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. A truly all-knowing, all-loving god would have known that slavery was always wrong and he would have known that it wouldn’t last forever. So he could – and would – have told his people to stop doing it

That’s funny.  Let’s discuss a book with out discussing what’s in it…since that would be cherry picking.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”…eh?

Actually I said let’s discuss all of it.  That includes what is in it. What happens though is that atheists pick one verse and say “see God was immoral and evil” yet they don’t want to talk about other verses that talk about how He is loving and merciful, nor do they want to discuss how these particular verses fit into God’s oveall plan for mankind.  If you want to discuss that then it is called cognitive dissonance. Just another way to shut down the conversation by ignoring the whole and labeling those that see the whole picture.  

It’s mindboggling how supposedly intelligent people can believe such idiotic, illogical nonsense

You are the cherry-picking liar, Rwlawoffice.  Keeping reading Leviticus.  

NIV
Leviticus 25

 39 “‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. 40 They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41 Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their ancestors. 42 Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. 43 Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God. 44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

The voluntary economic relationship only applies to Israelites.  Slaves can be taken or bought from foreign lands and kept for life and given as property to your children as inheritance.  

Why do Christians get so dishonest about slavery in their holy book?  If you don’t agree with, ditch it.  If you agree with it, be honest.  In Exodus 21:16 it talks of kidnapping someone, but the same book makes exceptions for slaves, because they are property.  Why do you cherry-pick so?

 It doesn’t matter if it were practiced for thousands of years.  That doesn’t make it right in any time period.  It’s EXTREMELY fair to judge the past by present standards.  When a civilization advances and becomes more humane and better, how else can we measure today’s social and cultural successes if not by comparing them to those of the past?

”
Why should the Bible be any different, as it merely reflects the mores of its time and place?”

Sure, as atheists we can say that.  But Christians don’t believe this, and that’s the point.  

So, we are only to talk about the parts of the Bible you like then?  How about you address the parts of your holy text that are obviously evil, wrong and immoral?  

This defense is only applicable if it was written by fallible humans.  If you believe that your unchanging and omnipotent deity had a hand in writing the Bible, then your defenses  invoking the “economy reality” of the time are null and void. 

If you want people to accept that the Bible is a holy book, then you need to stop defending it with excuses that only make sense if we’re talking about purely man-made historical literature.

 I’m happy to talk about the whole Bible if you are happy to accept the parts of it that you don’t like as well and include those in our discussion.

 Ex 21:16 is pretty clear.  If you kidnap anyone (not just Isrealites) and you sell them into slavery, it is punishable by death.  If that is the case, then even among foreigners that could not be done involuntarily.

Keep in mind that this one prohibition was supposedly given to a couple of people who didn’t know the difference between good and evil. So how were they supposed to know whether they were doing something wrong?

And don’t even get me started on how god lied to them and told them if they ate it then on that day they would surely die. Which they did not.

I actually see no purpose in averaging out any collection of accounts, because I have no desire to obtain a final verdict on some individual, or book of stories. That’s for the simple-minded.

You see, individual actions can be good or bad, largely determined by the consequences. People do both good and bad, and deserve no overall pronouncement of their nature that conveniently ignores or minimizes everything else. The same can be said for books, and your ephemeral supreme being.

Slavery bad. It isn’t adjusted by ‘context’, carbon offsets, or being kind to ducklings the next day. Priests are not allowed one murder, because they’re otherwise so ‘good.’ So your plea for context and balance is being ignored.

What a convenient way to avoid a discussion of God’s true nature and yet at the same time attempting to condemn him for it.  Just what I was talking about.  For example, you, a human being  who is not all knowing claims that you do not agree with or understand why God regulating slavery as opposed to simply saying it is always bad, but He being all knowing and all just may have a reason that you don’t know.  For the people involved at that time it could have been more merciful then the alternative of another unknown circumstance   that only an all knowing being would understand. But you want to use the all knowing part when it suits you and ignore it when it doesn’t or ignore the all loving part that could explain it.

I’m responding to this in a new post do to the weird way things get formatted in long discussion on this site.

Makes it pretty clear that not all (or even most) slaves in biblical times were “indentured servants” as our resident apologist claimed. That’s why it’s so frustrating to try to have a discussion with a fundigelical; they either can’t be trusted to know the bible very well or,  those who do, can’t be trusted to be honest about it.

Captain,  If you have another source to dispute my understanding of slavery in the Israeli culture during this time frame then I would be happy to read it, but simply attacking the source is not really persuasive. 

I agree with you if a daughter is sold by her father to another to pay the debts of the family then it isn’t really voluntary for the daughter unless she agrees to it to help the family. But then when is the economic circumstances of any child their choice? These verses are clearly talking about an economic relationship because it further refers to a release of the servant in the year of Jubilee. Also, if you will read further, the maidservant, if she marries the master or the master’s son she is to be treated as a wife or as a daughter.  If she doesn’t marry the master or the son of the master then she is to be redeemed by her family. Ex. 21:7-11. She is not treated as property and under no circumstances can she be sold to foreigners.

No one is saying that the bible has ZERO good portions.  If the bible was written by humans, as atheists believe, then certainly the authors would be likely to get SOMETHING good in there.  Humans HAD learned a few good things up to that point in hisotry.  But, as humans do, they included much BAD as well as good.

If this book were actually authored by an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving being, it would have zero bad parts.  There would be nothing that COULD be cherry-picked.  It would all be perfect.  Perfect to quote, perfect to live by, perfect to emulate.  But, it’s not.  It’s exactly what you would expect if it were written by primitives.

Atheists DO want to discuss the WHOLE book, and when we do we point out that the book includes garbage like slavery, which it SHOULDN’T include.  We don’t need to be reminded that there is kindness and love depicted in the book.  Humans ARE capable of that.  It would be surprising if those attributes WEREN’T present.

But the inclusion of immoral practices invalidates the book as “divine”.  That doesn’t mean that there’s NOTHING good in it, or that NONE of its commandments should be followed.  It just means that we can’t TRUST that everything in it is automatically good.  We have to figure out good and bad for ourselves.

This is an obvious dodge.  We are talking about the Laws as laid down in Exodus and Leviticus.  Why are you trying to avoid that conversation?  The supposed nature of the God of the Bible, the loving things he supposedly did, none of it is relevant to this conversation.  If you would like to bring in other parts of the Bible to support your arguments on Exodus and Leviticus and slavery, feel free.  But don’t try and deflect the entire conversation.  

I’m not talking about any gods.  As I’ve already said, I’m talking about the morality of the Bible, not your God.

And morality does not come from deities, it comes from communal living.

I prefer to think of it this way: If “God” thought things like slavery were okay way back when, and we know without question that it’s evil and bad and all that today, then I guess we know that today’s humans are far better people than “God” ever was.  We’ve evolved; “God” hasn’t. That’s a good metaphor for religious people not evolving. Sure, they may say slavery is bad, but they still condone many things the Bible says they should condone, like homosexuality and having a woman answer entirely to her husband and daughters being used as currency by a father looking to unload them. Maybe the religious folks will continue to get fewer and fewer as more of them realize what silliness the whole mess is, and arguments like this won’t matter — we’ll all look on the Bible as the collection of fairy tales they are, written by uneducated, unknowing desert nomads thousands of years ago.  Either that, or a new sect will start up, worshiping the true stories of Mother Goose — probably constantly at war with the other sect that worships Aesop and the other sect that worship the Grimm Brothers.

 I find your comments ironic given the mental gymnastics that went in to creating this video. 

Exodus 21:1-6: Hebrew slaves are set free after 6 years, but their families remain unless they beg to remain slaves forever. Children born during this time become the master’s.
Exodus 21:7-11: Female slaves remain slaves forever unless married off.
Exodus 21:20-21: Masters are free to beat their slaves as long as the slave regains consciousness within two days.
Exodus 21:28-32: If a slave is killed, the penalty is a paltry 30 shekels. If anyone else is killed, stone the bull and owner to death.

Totally sounds like indentured servitude to me, aside from the parts where it doesn’t. ._.

 Except it wasn’t voluntary in the Bible. As Exodus 22:3 shows, slavery was used as a punishment to thieves and debtors.

 So wait. You’re criticizing atheists for not looking at the whole picture–that is, that God is said to be loving, merciful and forgiving–while simultaneously ignoring things like Exodus 23:20-33, where God orders the genocide of six nations?

Actually that verse says he is to make restitution for what he stole and if he couldn’t then he would be sold to work off his restitution.  So I guess like a thief going to prision isn’t doing it voluntarily, this would not be voluntary and would be punishment.  

Like jail??

If you don’t believe God exists, then why devote so much time into trying to prove Christianity wrong? Why not focus your attention on something a little more productive? 

 And you want to argue morality based upon the assumption that even rape, murder, torture, slavery, abortion and the demeaning of women is all perfectly fine because there must be a silver lining to it that none of us understand. Even when these issues are still very relevant in this day and age because people can point to these same parts of the Bible and feel justified that it is what God wants them to do, somehow, this must balance out to be far more beneficial in the long run. Countless billions of people throughout history, slaughtered in inhumane ways, living lives of starvation and condemnation and poverty and rampant discrimination — but God ordered it, so it must be for a good reason.

Or you could be honest with yourself and admit that “God is always perfect because the Bible says God is always perfect” is a transparent excuse to ignore a pertinent question: why would a perfect being who loves each and everyone of us arrange life so purposefully unbalanced with such horrible, contradictory messages as to create strife and war and racism and sexism and the inability to tolerate each other?

And the honest answer is always going to be “God didn’t do any of these things, not because the Bible can be construed in such a way as to justify everything God does, but because there is no such thing as an all-loving God who sees global-wide destruction, degradation and depravity as the means to an end.” Your god is a lie, and you are lying to yourself.

God may well exist, but not in these pages, and not in the way you see him.

We are all “slaves” to different things. Our country (pay taxes or go to jail) our jobs (show up or get fired) our relationships (what man hasn’t felt like a slave to his wife at some point??).  I am a “slave” of Jesus Christ and I am thankful to be one. 

I’m still waiting for someone to give me the context that explains Exodus 21:4.  My sincere apologies if either MommaJ or rwlawoffice have and I’ve missed it.  But so far as I can tell, it’s simply that women and children are chattel, and that’s that.

After all, He’s God and He can do whatever He wants.  And what He wants is good and just and loving be definition.

(and he gives us a rainbow to prove it)

Numbers 31:17-18
 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

I think you’ve missed the point. Atheists aren’t likely to criticize a being they don’t believe in. We can, however, point out to Christians that the Bible depicts God in a way that makes him seem like a genocidal tyrant. It’s not much better that he then later decided to give some people the chance not to be tortured eternally if they would profess belief in him (and his son).

We also don’t see any reason for seeking justification for actions that seem manifestly immoral. You do, of course, maintaining belief in this deity, but that is your issue to deal with, not ours.

” why would a perfect being who loves each and everyone of us arrange life
so purposefully unbalanced with such horrible, contradictory messages
as to create strife and war and racism and sexism and the inability to
tolerate each other?”

The answer to this question is in the Bible, but you don’t want to accept it. 

In this society men arranged the marriages of their daughters and their maidservants. This arrangement included a dowery for the wife.  This could not be paid by the makeservant except through additional work. For example, see the story of jacob and Laban.  he worked seven years to earn who he thought was Rachel but it wasn’t and had to work seven years more before he could leave. This would not change if the marriage was arranged while the male servant was in the service of his master. In verse 5 if the marriage was one that was not just arranged by the master but grew into love and the slave did not want to leave his wife then he would stay and not be freed from his obligation.

I hope this helps you.   

Obviously, you can buy slaves from foreign lands as long as you don’t get your hands dirty while you do it. Morality solved!

 How do you “view the bible from any view other than man?”
Do you have a pair of god-eyes?

Oh, this is fun: “For the people involved at that time it could have been more merciful then the alternative of another unknown circumstance.”

There are infinite “another unkown circumstances.” No matter what happens, there is another worse circumstance. So anything God did in the bible is forgiven by your context. Kill a child? It might have been about to be tortured and killed!

God may do no wrong here, but humans are easily capable of being better than God! That’s something a modest piece of biomass like myself can understand.

“It was man that sinned and turned away from God, therefore the world is broken.”

Hilarious.

I sincerely appreciate the effort.

But honestly that still sounds like a victim of domestic abuse defending the actions of (usually) her abuser.  “He really does love me.  He told me not to go out with my friends that evening, but I did it anyway.   He just loves me so much, it made him angry for me to disobey him.”

”
loving and merciful” is not compatible with “genocidal”, sorry.

I’ve been thinking of committing some seriously heinous crimes:  Abduction, child slavery, surprise matrimony.

I probably won’t, but if I do…

Rwlawoffice, I’m going to hire you as my criminal defense attorney.  I have never seen anyone go to such lengths to mount a vigorous, exhaustive criminal defense.  Whatever you get paid, it isn’t enough.

Dexter Callender is not an anthropologist. He’s an associate professor of Religious Studies with a PhD in Near Eastern Languages.

 That’s because you’re using a circular argument with no internal consistency to explain why a being who demonstrates no internal consistency has no internal consistency.

Which is, obviously, the only consistent thing about this argument.

You cannot point at the Bible and say “Obviously the Bible is true, because the Bible says so.” That’s flagrant lunacy. Anyone can write a book in which they demonstrate that their arguments are true by stating that they are. “What I write is true, because I have written the truth. QED, it’s true!”

(And when said book contains numerous exploits allowing the priests of God to capitalize on religious nonsense  like “sacrifice your children or pay the priests five shekels” (Exodus 13:11-16, Numbers 18:16), I call BS.)

What separates the Bible from any of the other ancient books proclaiming their divine origin? What about the Book of Mormon? The Qur’an? The Golden Verses of Pythagoras? If you want an exercise in mental gymnastics, try comparing Jesus Christ to the dozens of other mythical figures who were born on the winter solstice, killed and raised from the dead in the easter equinox, who healed the sick and the dying. Try explaining how Egypt had the story of the raising of El-Azarus from the dead centuries before it occurred in Christianity, by Horus, born on the solstice, killed and raised on the equinox, a man who walked on water, was baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist, had twelve desciples, born from a virgin named Mary, and was crucified between two thieves. This story isn’t new, isn’t original, and isn’t relevant.

No, it’s intellectual dishonesty. You’re going into an argument with the predetermined assumption that nothing, no matter how heinous it sounds, could possibly be an indication of anything but God’s divinity. If God had ordered the genocide of the people of six nations (which he did — Exodus 23), then there would be perfectly legitimate reasons to kill those hundreds of thousands of people. If he ordered the sacrifice of children, it would only be His right. If he ordered the rape and murder and torture of millions, hey, He’s GOD! He can do whatever the frig he wants to!

And considering God also supposedly has power over Hell and commits anyone who disagrees with him to an eternity of endless torment, you know what that sounds like to me? Stockholm Syndrome. God is the ultimate criminal, performing countless crimes every day, and holding the souls of Christians hostage until they break and begin to identify with Him. You don’t dare do otherwise because the alternative is unthinkable.

But the alternative isn’t unthinkable. It need not even be atheism. I’m not an atheist; I’m an agnostic nontheist who probably qualifies as a form of deist. I believe in God–or rather, in something which I refuse to quantify by the antiquated term of God, which did indeed bring about the creation of our world and remains somewhere in the cosmology of our existence. My beliefs are not mutually exclusive to science, because they encompass science. The source of all being would need tools to create a universe and would want that universe to be able to maintain itself, so it would ensure that the universe had homeostatic mechanisms — the laws of physics.

See that? All I’ve done is anthropomorphize the nature of our particular bubble in the quantum foam, and I already have a far more coherent religion than Christianity. When I die, I won’t go to Hell because there is no need of such a place. You invented it and it exists for you because you believe in it, but the moment you discard the barbaric concepts of morality that Christianity holds up as ideals, they lose their power over you. Close your gate to Hell. There’s a much better paradise out there, and it doesn’t require you to justify slavery.

 He is clearly a follower of the William Lane Craig school of insanity and sociopathy.

Will someone please think of the poor soldiers who had to carry out the genocide and were probably traumatized by doing god’s holy work

Okay.  AGAIN.  Don’t give a crap about your god.  I’m talking about the Bible as a collection of books.  Defend it or go home.

Rwlawoffice’ silence here is deafening.