Anything Divine in the Bible?

Except that this only applied to Hebrew servents not foreign slaves as seen here (black=commands/laws regarding Hebrew servents, red=commands/laws regarding foreign slaves): According to this scripture, foreign slaves have no rights and can be kept for life and their offspring passed down generation after generation (which is EXACTLY what the southern slave owners did). So it is ok to enslave one group of people but not another? Who's morality is relative???? I would to if was brainwashed by my Christian slave masters and was only not allowed to learn how to read or write and was forced to attend Christian churches that reinforced Christian morality and stories from the Bible. Good on them! Ah, yes Philemon, the Christian slave owner of Onesimus a run-away slave and now "free" slave. It seem Paul is trying to flatter Philemon to ensure he is not to harsh with Onesimus who is returning to Philemon's care. Nowhere does Paul EVER condemn slavery, he condones it consistently throughout the NT (at least he tells slave masters to treat their slaves with some mercy which is never commanded or even suggested in the OT or even by Jesus): and Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

I was referring to your opinion about Paul calling Christians slaves of Christ.This is a moot point to someone who does not accept the Bible as being divinlely inspired and so is irrelevent to the discussion at hand. That was my point. But thanks for twisting my words, again.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Indeed. And nearly all the claimants are quite certain that their particular reading is the legitimate one, to the exclusion of those of the anti-slavery heretics. Or the pro-slavery heretics, or whatever. One would think a Divinely Inspired^TM book would be a bit more specific about what it meant.

For the short answer, please refer to my signature.There are both good messages in the Bible and bad. The material on slavery is amongst the bad stuff. Not just a little bit bad, but utterly abhorrent. Repugnant. Appalling. To paraphrase Tom Paine, it would be easier to think it the word of a demon than that of a loving and benevolent god.It seems clear to me that with such horrible advice on offer, alongside conflicting good advice (like "love thy neighbour") the Bible is a poor guide to morality. Further, there must be some other moral basis by which we judge which bits of the Bible are good and which are bad.We do not need to refer to a Bible to know that slavery is wrong. We simply know it. Unfortunately it seems that some people would rather ignore their own moral sense for fear of contradicting their favourite book.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

GM writes:You fellas really dont get it do you. I cant believe anyone is this stupid. Listen up and think about it logically. You have no way to proceed to make the above statements. They are nonsensical idiocy for anyone that claims that morality is relative. Terms which you employ only have reference in your and only your application, they are pointless when trying to advance a position of subjective morality. They may have use in a society where said action is currently acceptable and benificial to a group of people, however, they cannot be used to label or catoragize behavior as goo or bad, evil or immoral.There is not going to be any consistency in subjective, relative, human behavior that uses it self and present norms as a condition for morality.How in the world could you make an idiotic statement that there are good and bad measures in the Bible, when you have no standard to measure that statement with. It reminds me of the definition of "nothing". Nothing is what rocks dream about. By what standard are they appalling, abhorent and repugnant?It never fails to amaze me how each time I hear these types of arguments advanced from a perspective of relative subjectivity and basically nothing how ignorant they are and how obviously evasive one is when they continue to suppport a hopeless, ignorant, idiotic position, Thomas Paine notwithstanding. Then by all means please set it out for us all to see. And after you do I will set back and show contradiction after contradiction after contradiction, in not only the behavior of humans presently in the so-called social morality from human to human, but human to animals and humans in the past. No morality will work without a frame of reference and you have none because your position is stupid, idiotic from the start. Yet you sit here and claim that everyone elses is cruel, evil, bad, inconsistent and immoral.How stupid must one be to see that if you admit morality is subjective, you have no leg to stand on, muchless a platform? Your emotions, heredity and social upbringing are not a valid frame of reference to claim that others positions on anything are evil or good, including slavery or any topic you choose. Your EMOTIONS, your display in your post concerning the way in which God does this or that are groundless, pointless, ignorant, baseless, illogical and any other word that I could use to show complete, hopeless, irretrivable contradiction and fallacy.Oh by the way this is my summation before the thread closes, have a nice day. Wow.D BertotEdited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.

What do you think of Jesus Christ ?I mean as you read the Gospel of John, for example, do you get stumped on the matter of slavery so as to be distracted from what Jesus is teaching about Himself ?For example, knowing all that He taught and did, when He says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."Do you get confused about this because the matter of slavery in Leviticus is complicated? Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

No, not in the least. The matter of slavery in Leviticus and in the Epistles isn't very complicated: "if someone owns you, you better obey them" sums it up pretty well. Jesus, if he in fact existed, is not on record as ever contradicting that. And Jesus's father, assuming Jesus existed, was a flesh-and-blood man just like yours or mine, not some mystical Sky Spook that commands genocide against little kids from the Levant, and condones chattel slavery.I have no interest in going to see The Father - at very best he's a fragmentary collection of bones under the ground in Israel somewhere. Some of the moral teachings in the NT are wonderful - as good as the teachings in religions like Bhuddism, for example. I agree with lots of them. But to go back to the OP, "Is there anything divine in the Bible?" I'll say No. There's nothing divine anywhere.

"Rehash" is the word you were looking for, Bertot. I truly don't see why you bother to post if all you do is repeat synonyms for "stupid."

What do you think of how God treated the female slave of Abraham, Hagar ? Abraham's wife wanted to throw her out of the camp with her son Ishmael.Did you notice how God made provision for her? Was that horrendous?Have you read the book of Philemon? A slave escaped and joined Paul the Apostle. He became a co-worker of Paul. Paul sent him back to his master with a reminder that this was now a Christian brother and a hint that the master owed Paul his very life - so he should treat him well, like the eternal Christian brother that he is.Paul said, if he owes you anything, charge that to his account.Was that demonic and horrendous treatment of the matter of slavery ?I don't think so. My ancestors were American slaves. There songs were filled with comforting and supporting passages from the Bible to those oppressed and in bondage. I don't think they could have survived without the Bible.Slavery was a social fact in the ancient times. And God worked with Israel in a progressive way. He did not ignore some of the customs of war and social order of the surrounding nations.If I had to have been a slave, I would have prefered to be one under the Hebrews who were seeking to live under the Mosiac law. Glenn Miller fields objections and questions about slavery in the Bible at his Christian Thinktank: (copied by permission) The center of the Bible is that this man Jesus Christ is the only Person 100% pleasing to God. He is resurrected and available for us to live IN as a realm, as a sphere. We can receive this Person into our being and live a mingled and blended life with Him. "Abide in Me and I in you."The salvation that the Bible speaks of is this living Person who is totally pleasing to the Father and completely righteous is available as the life giving Spirit to come and indwell us."The last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor 15:45)This means that Jesus is alive. This means that Jesus is available to supply us with divine life. He is in a form in which He may enter into our hearts, not sentimentally but actually and spiritually. Christ can live in us and through us.You should think of this living in oneness with the living Jesus as the kernel of the Bible.Keep this in mind and go back and read the Gospel of John - In Him was life. And the life was the light of men.Don't be distracted from this central matter - receiving Christ as the life giving Spirit and abiding in Him, living in Him in a blended and mingled way of union.This should be our central focus in the Bible. I would put it in terms of transformation into the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit.Most mutations are negative in evolution. Only by some fortunate accident, supposedly, do the positive ones advance the species.Every bit of transformation from the Holy Spirit is beneficial. And every bit of transformation conforms us more and more to the image of Jesus."And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

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But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as from the Lord Spirit." (2 Cor. 3:17,18)When we receive Christ we can focus out inner heart towards Him. This causes us to be transformed into His image. We live Him out to express Him.This transformation will conform us to be brothers of the Firstborn Son of God:"Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers;

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And those whom He predestinated, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified." (Rom. 8:29,30)This regeneration, transformation, and conformation through Christ's salvation, we can fully trust in.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Thank you for the exchange. lol - was just tellin' someone this same thing. After the Jesus satisfied the intellect of the Sadducees, some other religious kooks got together ...
One of them, an expert in 'the law', tested Him ...So they sez to the guy, "Rabbi, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"The Jesus replied ...'Love the God with all your might and with all your being and with all your mind.This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it; Love your neighbor as yourself.'This Love the Jesus spoke in reference to was an unconditional Love that most all ignored.Even today, most of His emulators, and counterfeiters, walk around with 10 commandments, instead of these two.Some enjoy working harder, not smarter.The present opinion finds it hard to believe much strife would permeate reality if these two bits of Truth were continuously employed by us all.How is divine defined?One LoveEdited by Bailey, : spelling

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Mercy Trumps Judgement,
Love Weary

Again, you start with the insults. Not very Christian of you is it? Grow up Bertot. This has already been explained to you several times and I find the fact that you appear to be unable to comprehend it rather worrying.I judge things to be bad if they cause harm to others without any commensurate benefit. I use the simple principle of "Do unto others...". No ultimate standard is required.The fact that books like Leviticus are so out of touch with the modern moral Zeitgeist (including that of most Christians and Jews) amply demonstrates that your morals are every bit as relative as everyone else's.That you need to ask why slavery is abhorrent at all speaks volumes of the lack of value in your approach to morality. Any chance you might parse that mess into some kind of sense for me?What amazes me is that you have still not said whether or not you think slavery is wrong! Come on Bertot, it's not a hard question! If you can't answer such a simple moral question (doubtless for fear of the implications your answer might have for Bible-based morality) what possible value could your moral system have?Devil's Advocate has done a superb job trying to pin you down to an answer on this and all you can do is splutter, equivocate, change the subject and, in this last post, ignore the question as if it was never asked. So much for your superior morals. The delusion here is the idea that any moral system can ever be entirely free of contradiction. I doubt that it could. Yours has certainly been found wanting in this respect.I would rather acknowledge contradictions and deal with them than pretend that they don't exist as you are doing. Please show everyone where I claimed this. In fact, I claimed no such thing. You are reading whatever you want to hear into other people's words. Read that sentence back to yourself Bertot. You just called yourself stupid. Not that I'm disagreeing with you. It's just that you really must try harder if you want to debate with the grown-ups.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

I give up. You win.Slavery was great. Slaves weren't treated that badly in the Bible. God commanded and condoned ethnicide, infanticide, murder, rape, etc. No problem, I am sure it wasn't that bad. Romans crucifide people. Not a problem.You guys are right. God want's to send everyone to eternal torment and damnation. Not a problem as long as my ass is saved and I am going to heaven who cares if everyone is going to be tortured in a burning lake of fire for eternity. We should justify everything in the Bible and just learn to accept that murder, slavery, rape, animal sacrifices, killing babies is ok since God commands and condones it.What a bunch of sheep. Go have a nice life justifying your sadistic, semitic god and your morally bankrupt book. My summary is done.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

What you are doing is exactly what the slave masters of American South did - selectively quote passages to uphold their evil system.You give the impression that you are against them but you find them handy if it helps put the New Testament in a pro slavery negative light.The jist of the slavery passages is not Paul condoning slavery at all. It is Paul teaching that Jesus Christ is a prevailing supporting force of survival in ANY social environment.You do not see Paul as a social activist scheming and organizing how to overthrow the existing social order. He is not a political activist.He was supplying people who found themselves in all manner of different existing social situations to live by the resurrection life of Christ. This was a all fitting and victorious life which can blossom in all kinds of difficult situations.This Paul taught not simply doctrinally. It was his personal experience. He was a dispised Jew under the Roman imperialism. He was a persecuted Christian under the floggin whips of his own countrymen. He was a prisoner in chains in a Roman jail.Paul was teaching the Christians (not the public at large), but the Christian churches that whatever social environment they found themselves in they could be victoriously upheld by Jesus Christ.You are twisting the passages to make Paul appear to be condoning slavery. You're no better than the racist slave masters who did the same things.In fact it is at least arguable that the apostle encouraged Christians in slavery to obtian their freedom for the church's sake if they could (1 Cor.7:21)I am sure that the slave traders jumped over Pauls exhortation to give the slaves what was fair and equal:"Masters. grant to your slaves that which is just and equal, KNOWING THAT YOU ALSO HAVE A MASTER IN HEAVEN." (Col.4:1)Nice try Advocate of the Devil. But you see my ancestors were slaves in America. And we know that abolition and indeed the whole Civil Rights movement drew strength from the Bible's utterances.Paul was not a social or political activist trying to enfluence the existing social systems. What he was about was establishing communities called churches. And I do not mean physical buildings. These were communities of people from all walks of life living in brotherhood by the power of Christ's resurrection presence and life.Even his talk on slavery is not for slavery's sake. His focus is what is best for the building up of the new testament church life.His was the God of people who may be found in all kinds of situations. That is a large God. That is not a petty God. That is an all-inclusive God who can supply people in prisons, in slavery, and in other difficult circumstances within which they discover that Jesus can be contacted for salvation. [b]" Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

And you. What are you going to do. Look at your children. When it comes to the Bible you want to take them first to the book of Joshua and make sure they get a good healthy dispising attitude about God. Then when they come to the other 65 books of the Bible they'll have a good skeptical filter.Maybe you'll teach them that all they have to know about Jesus is found in the account of the conquest of Canaan.Are you going to teach your kids to hate Jesus ? You going to start them on Leviticus ?You're the Sicko dad.

Hi Jaywill, You mean this Hagar?

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Gen.16:3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

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Strangely, I don't think too highly of keeping women as sex slaves. I'm funny like that. If that took place in the modern EU or USA, Sarah and Abraham would be spending the rest of their miserable lives in jail and rightly so.Nor does Paul's grovelling before the slave owner in Philemon impress me. At no point in the story does Paul condemn slavery. This would seem like an ideal take the opportunity to just that, but no... Yes. Let us be clear. there is only one moral course of action regarding a slave; SET THE POOR BASTARD FREE! No conditions, no requests, just set him free. Anything short of that is morally repugnant. Simple. Remind me, which one of us is the moral relativist again? I'm sure that it is very comforting to think that, but you actually have no idea how they would have managed without religion. Not all slaves in America were Christian. I'm sure that plenty survived who were not. Are you suggesting that his hands were tied or something? God was free to condemn slavery. He did not. Or ore accurately, the Bible authors saw no need to condemn slavery, because they supported it. So if you were a slave and you were beaten with a rod, as you lay dying, you would be thinking "Fair enough really. Mustn't grumble."? You don't mention what you would prefer it to either.Just because you can think of greater evils it does not magically transform Biblical evil into something acceptable. There could be worse slave owners than the ancient Hebrews, but that does not make their attitudes any less dreadful. Only from a particular Christian interpretation. The OT has nothing to do with Christ. I have already said that the Bible has its good bits and John is clearly one of them. But we weren't talking about John, were we? Fair enough. I prefer to say,Mutate and Survive!Edited by Granny Magda, : Fixed dBcodes.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade