|
Author
|
Topic: Anything Divine in the Bible?
|
bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4208 days) Posts: 2347 From: United States Joined: 10-06-2007
|
Re: If God Were Human Would He Want a God Like Him?
I will leave it up to her whether she wants to eat meat, be a vedgetarian or vegan. To me it makes no difference. Her choice will not affect our relationship in any degree. Bingo, just the attitude I took with my 3 daughters. All 3 chose to eat meat and are agnostic deists who accept evolution.
There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002 Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
|
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1960 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: 12-05-2005
|
Re: Abolitionists Use of the Bible
Why is the American southern slave system so evil and the Hebrew slave system not? Objective scholarship shows that there are several different models of what we call slavery in the Bible. I think we could say that some were worse than others and that still what I am most familiar with as US Slavery is also a perticular brand: Glenn Miller's comments are helpful (copied by permission) Does God Condone Slavery? From G. Miller Christian Thinktank http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html
I am a child of the Western World, and a native of the rural American South. The word 'slavery' is such a powerful vortex of images, meanings, cries, and grief to me. Any technical discussion of any type of forced labor or corvee becomes immediately inflamed when the word 'slavery' is attached to it, and I suspect that many others share this association. Scholars in the ANE have often abandoned the use of the general term 'slavery' in descriptions of the many diverse forms of master-servant that are manifest in the ancient world. There are very few 'true' slave societies in the world (with Rome and Greek being two of the major ones!), and ancient Israel will be seen to be outside this classification as well (in legislation, not practice). ... Scholars in Cultural Anthropology are sensitive to this as well, and point out that New World slavery was quite unique, historically: "Scholars do not agree on a definition of "slavery." The term has been used at various times for a wide range of institutions, including plantation slavery, forced labor, the drudgery of factories and sweatshops, child labor, semivoluntary prostitution, bride-price marriage, child adoption for payment, and paid-for surrogate motherhood. Somewhere within this range, the literal meaning of "slavery" shifts into metaphorical meaning, but it is not entirely clear at what point. A similar problem arises when we look at other cultures. The reason is that the term "Slavery" is evocative rather than analytical, calling to mind a loose bundle of diagnostic features. These features are mainly derived from the most recent direct Western experience with slavery, that of the southern United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The present Western image of slavery has been haphazardly constructed out of the representations of that experience in nineteenth-century abolitionist literature, and later novels, textbooks, and films...From a global cross-cultural and historical perspective, however, New World slavery was a unique conjunction of features...In brief, most varieties of slavery did not exhibit the three elements that were dominant in the New World: slaves as property and commodities; their use exclusively as labor; and their lack of freedom..." [NS:ECA:4:1190f] Generally, in the ANE, these 'fuzzy' boundaries obtain as well. "Slavery" is a very relative word in our time period, and we have to be very carefully in no auto-associating it with more 'vivid' New World examples. For example, in the West we would never say that the American President's Cabinet members were his 'slaves', but this term would have been applied to them in the ANE kingdoms. And, in the ANE, even though children/family could be bought and sold, they were never actually referred to as 'slaves'--the property aspect (for such transactions) did NOT define explicitly the notion of 'slavery': "Freedom in the ancient Near East was a relative, not an absolute state, as the ambiguity of the term for "slave" in all the region's languages illustrates. "Slave" could be used to refer to a subordinate in the social ladder. Thus the subjects of a king were called his "slaves," even though they were free citizens. The king himself, if a vassal, was the "slave" of his emperor; kings, emperors, and commoners alike were "slaves" of the gods. Even a social inferior, when addressing a social superior, referred to himself out of politeness as "your slave." There were, moreover, a plethora of servile conditions that were not regarded as slavery, such as son, daughter, wife, serf, or human pledge." [HI:HANEL:1.40] Accordingly, I think--to avoid the inflammatory associations that naturally occur for Westerners when something is referred to as 'slavery'--it wise to carefully set out the structure of what we consider 'slavery' today, and compare that to the OT institution of 'Hebrew slavery'. New World slavery differs substantially from most ANE institutions labeled 'slavery', which themselves differed at significant points from OT slavery. We will try to make these distinctions clear, when they are relevant to the discussion.
You: Talk about relative moralism! I am not the one trying to rationalize an evil system of slavery, even if it is in the Bible and condoned by your god. My contribution to the Moral Law matter was to highlight what I understood the theist's criticism was of the Atheistic view. That is that there is a weak basis and foundation for his moral attitude. Read over what I wrote.
Slavery in any form is evil and wrong which is why the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights ratified in 1948 by 48 countries declared this among many of the declared rights for ALL human beings: Article 4 writes: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Still, I think it is important to discern different types of master-servant relationships in Ancient Near East and in Hebrew culture. Miller continues comparisons of modern SLAVERY to ANE forms:
Accordingly, I think--to avoid the inflammatory associations that naturally occur for Westerners when something is referred to as 'slavery'--it wise to carefully set out the structure of what we consider 'slavery' today, and compare that to the OT institution of 'Hebrew slavery'. New World slavery differs substantially from most ANE institutions labeled 'slavery', which themselves differed at significant points from OT slavery. We will try to make these distinctions clear, when they are relevant to the discussion. With this in mind, I want to set out the basic elements associated with historical slavery, as practiced in America before the American Civil War, and to offer some general contrasts with ANE slavery (I will look at OT slavery later in the article). (This is not meant to be exhaustive, but simply to highlight the aspects of the institution that strike our sensibilities today.) Motive: Slavery was motivated by the economic advantage of the elite. So, [NS:ECA:4:1190] point this out: "New World slavery was a unique conjuntion of features. Its use of slaves was strikingly specialized as unfree labor-producing commodities, such as cotton and sugar, for a world market." and Britannica: "By 1850 nearly two-thirds of the plantation slaves were engaged in the production of cotton...the South was totally transformed by the presences of slavery. Slavery generated profits comparable to those from other investments and was only ended as a consequence of the War Between the States." (s.v. "Slavery") In the ANE (and OT), this was NOT the case. The dominant (statistically) motivation was economic relief of poverty (i.e., 'slavery' was initiated by the slave--NOT by the owner--and the primary uses were purely domestic (except in cases of State slavery, where individuals were used for building projects). The definitive work on ANE law today is the 2 volume work [HI:HANEL] (History of Ancient Near Eastern Law). This work (by 22 scholars) surveys every legal document from the ANE (by period) and includes sections on slavery. A smattering of quotes will indicate this for-the-poor instead of for-the-rich purpose for most of ANE slavery: "Most slaves owned by Assyrians in Assur and in Anatolia seem to have been (originally) debt slaves--free persons sold into slavery by a parent, a husband, an elder sister, or by themselves." (1.449) "Sales of wives, children, relatives, or oneself, due to financial duress, are a recurrent feature of the Nuzi socio-economic scene . A somewhat different case is that of male and female foreigners, called hapiru (immigrants) who gave themselves in slavery to private individuals or the palace administration. Poverty was the cause of these agreements . " (1.585) "Most of the recorded cases of entry of free persons into slavery [in Emar] are by reason of debt or famine or both . A common practice was for a financier to pay off the various creditors in return for the debtor becoming his slave." (1.664f) "On the other hand, mention is made of free people who are sold into slavery as a result of the famine conditions and the critical economic situation of the populations [Canaan]. Sons and daughters are sold for provisions . " (1.741) "The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement [Neo-Sumerian, UR III] was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy . There are also examples of self sale. All these case clearly arose from poverty; it is not stated, however, whether debt was specifically at issue." (1.199)
In another post I would like to compare some of the Levitical laws and compare them to what I know about slavery in the US. I see some significant differences. But another section of Miller's discussion of slavery in the Bible:
Entry: Slavery was overwhelmingly involuntary. Humans were captured by force and sold via slave-traders. This was true both for the Islamic slave trade and the European trade. So, Britannica: "Slaves have been owned in black Africa throughout recorded history. In many areas there were large-scale slave societies, while in others there were slave-owning societies. Slavery was practiced everywhere even before the rise of Islam, and black slaves exported from Africa were widely traded throughout the Islamic world. Approximately 18,000,000 Africans were delivered into the Islamic trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trades between 650 and 1905. In the second half of the 15th century Europeans began to trade along the west coast of Africa, and by 1867 between 7,000,000 and 10,000,000 Africans had been shipped as slaves to the New World.... The relationship between African and New World slavery was highly complementary. African slave owners demanded primarily women and children for labour and lineage incorporation and tended to kill males because they were troublesome and likely to flee. The transatlantic trade, on the other hand, demanded primarily adult males for labour and thus saved from certain death many adult males who otherwise would have been slaughtered outright by their African captors." In the ANE (and especially the OT), the opposite was the case. This should be obvious from the MOTIVE aspect--these were choices by the impoverished to enter this dependency state, in return for economic security and protection. Some slavery contracts actually emphasized this voluntary aspect!: "A person would either enter into slavery or be sold by a parent or relative. Persons sold their wives, grandchildren, brother (with his wife and child), sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews and niece . Many of the documents emphasize that the transaction is voluntary. This applies not only to self-sale but also to those who are the object of sale, although their consent must sometimes have been fictional, as in the case of a nursing infant." [HI:HANEL:1.665] This might also be seen from the fact that war/violence was NOT a major source of 'real' slaves in the ANE (nor OT). For example, even though there were large numbers of war-captives in the ANE, they were generally NOT turned into slaves, but rather into tenant-farming, serfs: "Within all the periods of antiquity, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Persian, and other Oriental rulers carried away great masses of captives from their victorious battles. But only an insignificant part of them was turned into slaves; all the others were settled on the land as palace and temple serfs . .The question arises, why the masses of war prisoners were not enslaved. Slavery was the optimal form of dependence, and very often there was no shortage of prisoners captured in war. Besides, there were no legal or ethical norms preventing these prisoners from being turned into slaves. But this happened in a negligible percentage of cases, while the overwhelming majority were settled in places specially set aside for them, paid royal taxes, and carried out obligations, including military service." [ABD: s.v. "Slavery, ANE"] "War is only mentioned as a source of slavery for public institutions. The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy . There are also examples of self sale." [HI:HANEL:1.199] The same, of course, can be said of Israel. For example, even in wars on foreign soil (e.g., Deut 20.10,10), if a city surrendered, it became a vassal state to Israel, with the population becoming serfs (mas), not slaves (ebed, amah). They would have performed what is called 'corvee' (draft-type, special labor projects, and often on a rotation basis--as Israelites later did as masim under Solomon, 1 Kings 5.27). This was analogous to ANE praxis, in which war captives were not enslaved, but converted into vassal groups: "The nations subjected by the Israelites were considered slaves. They were, however, not slaves in the proper meaning of the term, although they were obliged to pay royal taxes and perform public works." [ABD, s.v. "Slavery, Old Testament"] And since most slavery was done through self-sale or family-sale, it was likewise voluntary (at least as voluntary as poverty allows), cf. Lev 25.44 in which the verbs are of 'acquisition' and not 'take' or 'conquer' etc.
All from Does God Condone Slavery? From G. Miller Christian Thinktank http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
|
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1960 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: 12-05-2005
|
|
Message 363 of 406 (491423)
12-15-2008 10:00 PM
|
|
|
Miller speaks to a comparison of master / slave rape in the New World Slavery with incidents of master / slave sexual recorded in the OT. Copied by Permission from http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html A questioner believes that the Hebrew slave was subject to the raping whims of the master. [She ...] "may be raped at the master's whim until she becomes engaged": I can see how this might have been done under New World slavery, but this is a serious misunderstanding of the social realities of the ANE/Biblical world, on several counts. (1) If this girl were EVER to be engaged to someone, her virginity had to be demonstrable! If the owner EVER wanted to the 'free of the economic responsibility' for her--for good reasons or greedy reasons-- he had better protect her virginity flawlessly. (2) There were HUGE marital complications between regular wives and concubines--and not just about inheritance! The rivalries described in the bible between Rachel and Leah, the prohibitions about marrying a woman and her sister, the problems between Sarah and Hagar, and the rivalry/taunting of Hannah all illustrate the realities of inter-family conflict over sexual 'exclusivity' and/or 'preference' of one wife over/by the husband. This provides a strong argument against some 'accepted practice' of sex between a male owner and a girl slave (assuming the master was married). (3) one of the earliest points of visibility into this possibility gives us indication that the practice was quite the opposite: Sarah had to 'give' the Egyptian servant Hagar to Abraham, before he could have sex with her (Similarly with Rachel and Leah's female servants)--if the 'master' could have raped all he wanted, this recorded practice makes no real sense; (4) Households struggled to survive in that world--everybody had to pull together. There was simply not much room for animosity, subterfuge, abuse, and/or 'sabotage'. Ancient, small, households simply did not have enough "excess resources" with which to make up for the "lost productivity" which historically has been entailed in slave-abuse. (5) Societies (especially many ancient ones) have strong honor/shame value structures, and the culture orients almost everything in support of those structures. Honor is good; shame is bad--and both exists on spectra. This is true in the biblical world, as well as in the ANE. Rape was considered a crime throughout the ANE, which varied in consequences from capital punishment (e.g, stoning an adulterer), vicarious punishment (not in the bible, but elsewhere in the ANE a man who raped someone else's wife had to give HIS wife to the offended husband for HIM to rape/abuse!!!), down to simple fines and religious requirements. But in all cases it was seen as 'shameful' and NOT as something "neutral" and especially not something "honorable". Even without some explicit penalty in the law codes, even "small" instances of sexual violation would have been (a) easily known!; and (b) a source of lowered honor-status for the perp. The way that social values exist on spectral lines (and not simply "yes" and "no" bifurcations) argues that some shame was attached to even 'smaller', less community-destructive acts such as slave-rape.
|
bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4208 days) Posts: 2347 From: United States Joined: 10-06-2007
|
|
|
Message 364 of 406 (491429)
12-15-2008 11:14 PM
|
Reply to: Message 363 by jaywill
12-15-2008 10:00 PM
|
|
The point is that the Slaveholders in the US drew the wrong conclusion from the Hagar episode & the Leah & Rachel episodes. They assumed that it was perfectly legal to force themselves onto their female slaves. Abraham took Hagar as a wife of lower esteem which was perfectly legal at the time so did Jacob. The Slaveholders did not take their slaves as wives. It is similar to the reason that Blacks were segregated for so long even after slavery was abolished. The Line " Cursed be Canaan" is referenced since they thought that Blacks were the descendants of Canaan.
There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002 Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 363 by jaywill, posted 12-15-2008 10:00 PM | | jaywill has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 370 by jaywill, posted 12-16-2008 10:42 AM | | bluescat48 has not replied |
|
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1960 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: 12-05-2005
|
Re: If God Were Human Would He Want a God Like Him?
Your gift for understatement is showing itself again. "Not ideal"? Are you kidding? The story describes what would now be considered a grotesque criminal act and you call it "not ideal". Do you not see how patronising and insulting this is to all those who have been forced to endure the indignity of slavery? Do you know for a fact that Hagar was not the kind of ANE slave who sold herself into slavery?
Miller wrote above: In the ANE (and OT), this was NOT the case. The dominant (statistically) motivation was economic relief of poverty (i.e., 'slavery' was initiated by the slave--NOT by the owner--and the primary uses were purely domestic (except in cases of State slavery, where individuals were used for building projects). Do you have proof that she was wrenched away from her land and family as the millions of kidnapped African's of US slavery? I don't think you can prove that Hagar's servitude was not initiated by her. And if it was according to frequent ANE custom, poverty is usually less than ideal than finacial independence. Prove from the text that Hagar's slavery was of the same type as the kidnapped African native.
me: Somehow I don't think you care about any of that but are rather intrigued by what scandelous information you can derive from the story. You: Let us be quite clear. you brought up the Abraham/Hagar story, not me. In Re: If God Were Human Would He Want a God Like Him? (Message 339), you said;
Let me be clear also. You seemed to have blinders on when the story continues with God's gracious provision to the cast out slave. It doesn't support your idea of God as the Heavenly Slaver. So I brought it to your attention. Don't just stop with what Sarah did to her. Go on to notice how God provided for her.
jaywill writes: 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? You asked and I answered. If you are going to start casting accusations of unfair play simply because my answers do not appeal to you, I suggest that you stop asking me questions.
It is not matter of simply my taste in answers. I will point out the shallowness of your interpretations.
me: The Bible records many things which could be considered scandelous. I try to discern the difference between what the Bible teaches and what the Bible records as having happened. I don't think it is teaching that everything that happened is what ought to have happened. you: So when the text portrays God as bestowing special favour upon genocidal murderers and rapists, is there any moral message or is it simply reportage? In the case of Hagar, the special favour is upon the mistreated slave. And in the more general case, innocent blood shed in the Good Land was cause for Divine displeasure rather than favor: " ... innocent blood may not be shed in the midst of your land, which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, and the guilt of blood be upon you." (Deut. 19:10) As for rape, I see no Divine command whatsoever to commit rape. I do notice this portion concerning a captive woman: "When you go out to fight against your enemies and Jehovah your God delivers them into your hands and you take them captive, And you see a beautiful woman amon the captives and desire her and would take her to your self AS A WIFE; You shall bring her within your house, and she shall shave her head, trim her nails. And take her clothes of captivity away from her. And she shall dwell in you house and mourn her father and mother for a full month. And afterward you shall go in unto her and be her HUSBAND, and she shall be WIFE to you." (Deut. 21:10-13) That doesn't come across to me as "Thou shalt go in and rape the women" that you and other skeptics want to find in the Bible. Then God made provision for the situation where the man decides he doesn't really want to be the woman's husband. And if [after a time] you do not delight in her, you wshall let her go WHEREVER SHE WISHES. But you must not sell her for money; you shall not deal with her as a SLAVE, because you have humbled her." (v.14) This is not the command to go in and rape captive sex slaves. If the woman is beautiful and to be desires the capture may have her for a wife after she is shaved and mourns her family for a month, under his support and provision. The alternative to many ancient women of conquered societies was a life of starvation or prostitution to avoid it. The subsequent provision for a wishy washy husband who changes his mind is that he shall NOT treat her as a slave. And this is provision for a weak man not a command to marry and divorce. I see this as a divine instruction about what to do when a certain situation occurs and how the Hebrew man is to act. I see it as limitation and control. Skeptics want to find "Thus says God, go rape captive women." Its not there.
You asked me what I thought of Gen 16 ad Philemon. I answered. Just because you do not like my answers does not mean that I am seeking scandal for its own sake. It not just a matter of my personal taste about your answer. It is a matter of the superficiality of your interpretations. Your bias is obvious.
You picked out two scandalous stories, seemingly with in the belief that they were somehow morally uplifting. Don't blame me if I fail to be as impressed with them as you are.
Don' blame me if when you read on a little further and a little deeper your point shows up as bogus. Paul was not groveling before anybody. And God even performed a miracle to save Hagar. He doesn't do those things lightly or without significance.
jaywill writes: That's naive. I don't think the lusty master was looking that far down the road. All of which tends to make the Hagar affair less like the typical sex slave. You: You miss the point. That it is atypical is immaterial. If someone is kept as a slave and forced to have sex with owner, it is reasonable to describe their situation as sexual slavery.
I didn't see where it said she was forced. I see that Sarah had to give her to Abraham first to be a wife: "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no children, and she had an Egyptian female servant, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, Because Jehovah has prevented me from bearing, please fo in to my female servant, perhaps I will obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So .... Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her female servant, and gave her to Abram her husband TO BE A WIFE." (Gen. 16:1-3) Probably Hagar regarded this promotion from a servant to the WIFE of a wealthy man and prophet like Abram to be a step up in life rather than a demotion. That is implied strongly in the following verse:
[b]"And he went into Hagar [his other WIFE], and she conceived; and when she wsaw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes." (v.4) She realized the huge leap in her status. She was able to bear a son to the patriarch when Sarai her mistress was not able to. If you insist that she was forced, it is purely speculation on your part. My wager is that seeing her status go from servant to wife of the patriarch was a welcomed promotion. I think the evidence points that way.
You made the comparison to American slavery. The slave trade explicitly did "think that far down the road", as did Abraham and Sarah. Black women were routinely raped and part of the purpose of this (apart from control and general cruelty) was so that they would bear children. Slaves with some white ancestry were held at a greater value, due to their supposed greater intelligence and suitability as "house Negroes". The deliberate impregnation of women for this purpose was a standard part of the trade. Probably, Granny, this was an afterthought of how they could utilize a situation which was getting out of hand. I don't think the lustful slave owner initially calculated that much. He knew he had a lot of supposedly "sub-human" females which were at least human enough to allow him to indulge his greedy lust on any given night.
Abraham differs from this set-up only in that he was interested in keeping the child as his own rather than selling it. As a point out though, the comparison does not apply here, since white slave owners were generally not interested in bringing up black babies as their own.
When I read the autobiograpy of Sojourner Truth I was stuck by the incident she discribed as the taking away of one of her children. She pleaded with the master's wife not to allow her baby to be taken away. The white woman said "Why are you making such a fuss about a little nigger?" Sojourner Truth said she prayed to God and asked God to take vengence for her for the incident. Some time latter, the same white woman's daughter who had been married was brutally murdered by her deranged husband. When the news came to the woman her mind snapped. She went mad in Sojournor's arms crying out over and over again the name of her daughter. Sojourner Truth said that she learned from the incidedent the she had to be real careful about asking God to take vengence on someone. This may be a remote point except that what Sojouner learned about God she got from the Bible. She apparently didn't share the hopelessness of assuming that God was on the side of Slavery and the slave owners no matter what. He came in and judged harshly, severly.
me; And again, it was not a good situation for Hagar, in case you think I am trying to portay it as so. you: Unbelievable. "Not a good situation". Shocking understatement once again. If you think these stories are "not good", why did you bring them up at all? What point are you trying to make if not that the Bible has some good bits about slavery?
My points right now: 1.) Though the word "slavery" has a strong association because of my experience in America, I don't automatically transfer its associative content to every place it appears in the Bible. When the comparison is appropriate to American chattel, Darwinian style racist slavery I'll notice it. But if the situation is somehwat different, I wish to take note of the difference. 2.) There is no command to rape women from God to the nation of Israel. There is no command to have sex slaves. Some skeptics of the Bible are sounding a false alarm.
And you accuse me of naivety. SHE WAS A SLAVE! Do you really imagine that Hagar would have been consulted? How quaint. Do you honestly think that if hagar had said "No thanks" Sarah would have replied "OK, sorry to have bothered you!"? Okay, let's say she screamed at the thought of being Abraham's wife. Let's say she was dragged kicking and screaming into the tent and raped. Let's assume that that is what happened. Let's imagine that she hated being a slave of Sarai and hated even more having to marry Abraham. Given that, what does that say about what the Bible TEACHES? Is it saying this ? "Go out and do likewise". Is it saying this ? "Now if you want to be a good Commandment keeping Jew or Christian you have to do what Abraham did. Get yourself a female slave and marry her along with your wife and have a child by her." Could you show me where the Bible is holding up Abraham's experience in this incident as a model for behavior? I said that after the scheme was hatched and the desired child was born, God does not appear and speak again to Abraham for another 13 years. There is a long period of silence. When God does come back to speak to him Abraham is so relieved at the end of this cold shoulder from God, that he falls on his face: "And when Abram was ninety-nine years old, Jehovah appeared to Abram and said to him, I am the All-sufficient God; Walk before Me, and be perfect. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for Me My covenant with you ..." (17:1-2) This is after a 13 year period of silence. The chapter goes on to explain how Abram so much wanted God to accept Ishmael as the promised offspring. But God will not have it so. He rejected Sarai and Abram's scheme. He doesn't need there help. He can make the barren Sarai to have a child. He was clearly not pleased with what Abram had done. There is no "Thus Sayeth God, Abram, Go rape thy slave." That's what you're looking for and its not there. Instead there is the Divine displeasure. Even if Hagar was forced, there is no hint that God commanded it or was pleased with it. So you have no case. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
|
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1960 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: 12-05-2005
|
|
|
Message 366 of 406 (491433)
12-15-2008 11:53 PM
|
|
|
Abraham the Model
Now the Bible does hold up Abraham as a model of FAITH. But the incident with Hagar was an example of his lack of it. He learned to have faith. That is the point. He wasn't born with it. He learned the hard way and became the father of faith. Along the way, some of his failures were recorded as a backdrop upon which the faith he eventually arrived at is contrasted.
|
Dawn Bertot
Member (Idle past 102 days) Posts: 3571 Joined: 11-23-2007
|
Re: If God Were Human Would He Want a God Like Him?
Huntard writes: Once again, I fail to see how these two things are related. Which is what I'd tell them. As for why some think an eagle's eggs should not be taken for food, is because we have many alternatives to it from non threatened species. And why some people think abortion is ok is because they think people should have a choice wheter or not to have a baby, given certain circumstances. DA writes: Thanks for pigeon holing me and skewing this way off topic Bertot the Great. Who say's I don't have a platform? My platform is I think the Bible is man made not created by some pretend supreme being in the sky. DA writes: I don't eat eagles eggs. Do they taste good? I am thinking it is illegal since many eagles are endangered species though. You do realize that most of the chicken eggs we eat are unfertilized eggs (no baby chicks) right? Even if you get fertilized eggs from a farm refigeration stops embryo development. Is their something supposed to be immoral about eating eggs? You know what the chickens normally do with eggs that never get fertilized? They eat them! DA the Navy dude, hows it going holmes? Believe me it was not my intention to take you off topic, I am sorry if you think that was my purpose. I certainly dont mean to sound superior here, because I am not. I dont want to sound condesending either, yet as I read your responses above, to my questions it is obvious to me that you are still very simplistic in your thinking in these matters. Matters such as, subjective, objective, relative, moral, immoral, evil and the application of them against logic and logical contradictions and implied, direct and indirect implications. It took me a while as well to understand the implications of the positions I held and the things for which I contended.
Bertot, you have basically INSULTED the entire United States military institution by saying that it condones slavery as the draft. You have personally insulted millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who were drafted and served in WWI, WWII, the Korean, and the Vietnam Wars. I have NEVER, EVER heard anyone seriously (jokingly maybe) equate the military as slavery except by those who have never served and persistently scorn or deride it. I now seriously doubt you were in the military if you think that the military was nothing more than slavery. You called me a hoot and I think that is funny. I would say kindly that you are a child in your understanding. Trust me I was in the military and retired out of it. Hwever, as regards you implication that I have insulted anyone, misses the the point exacally, as I indicated. In the Warren-Matson debate, on the existence of the God of the Bible, Dr. Matson called God a logical monster, to which Dr. Warren took great offense. Dr. Matson said this was not an attack on Gods character but a direct implication of the arguments that flowed from those premises. Ofcourse he was wrong and Dr Warren soon dismissed any idea of God being illogical. But Dr Matsons implication was misunderstood perhaps. Ofcourse while he meant no offense, he like yourselves had no platform from which to make such a statement. Do you see what I am saying? Now it is in that same context that I make the statement that the draft is for all intents and purposes slavery, it is. Slavery is just a term to describe a situation or state of being, you can not apply only one definition to its meaning. The conditions and terms of the draft equate nearly perfectly to a slavery situation, the same as a captive of war or a criminal. Both are against peoples will AT TIMES and there are consequences if you try and leave against the will of those in charge. No insult was intended or given. You simply need to step out of your simplistic thinking and think in logical terms, concepts and ideas. For example I was not talking about eagles eggs or the military personnel directly, but using it as an example to demonstrate a logical point. You and Huntard dont seem to understand the implications of holding and having standards against a relative moral position. So be it. Jaywill is proceeding in a fine fashion as he usually does and I will be happy to let him proceed with the direct Biblical approach, from which he is so masterful. Thanks for the exchange. D Bertot Edited by Bertot, : No reason given. Edited by Bertot, : No reason given. Edited by Bertot, : No reason given. Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.
|
Granny Magda
Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: 11-12-2007 Member Rating: 3.8
|
|
|
Message 368 of 406 (491438)
12-16-2008 2:35 AM
|
Reply to: Message 365 by jaywill
12-15-2008 11:43 PM
|
|
Re: If God Were Human Would He Want a God Like Him?
Are you going to bother to respond to Message 352 jaywill? I would particularly like an answer to one question that you have twice ignored; If you were a slave whose master had beaten him with a rod, would you, as you lay dying think it fair treatment? Would you take comfort in knowing that that Exodus mandated that your tormentor go unpunished? I will get onto your miserable woman-hating apologetic for rape, kidnapping, war crimes and slavery when I have time, which for today, I do not. Mutate and Survive
"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
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 365 by jaywill, posted 12-15-2008 11:43 PM | | jaywill has not replied |
|
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1960 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: 12-05-2005
|
Re: More on Slavery...
Granny writes:
My perspective is that of someone who believes slavery to morally repugnant. From that perspective it is easy to see that Paul is appallingly uncritical of slavery. I don't think Paul "believed in Crack Cocaine Usage" because there is no epistle explicitly rallying Christians against it. I don't think Paul "believed in slavery" because there is no explicit epistle dedicated to political activism opposing it. But to be fair, we do have some instructions of Paul as to how a Christian brother should conduct himself should he become a Christian while in that status. I knew a man who taught his teenage sons what to do if they should ever be lost in a distant city. That was not his teaching them to go there. It was his instructions as to what to do should they go there and have no clear transportation back home. Yes, Paul wrote a letter to a slave owner telling him to receive back Onisumus his run away slave. Granny objects that is proof of Paul believing in slavery. But if Paul really believed in slavery the tone of the letter would have been like this:
Now Philemon, this here slave Onesimus has become a Christian. We already beat him with a whip with 39 lashes. When I send him kicking and crying back to you in chains with Roman soldiers, make sure you beat him good. In fact you can kill him for all I care. We don't allow slaves to come to any of the church meetings I have established you know. But what do we have from Paul ? Paul himself is a prisoner of Jesus Christ. He has to act according to the love of his own Master (v1). He repeats again for emphasis that he himself is Christ's prisoner (v.9). It is not a matter of what he personally wants or what Philemon wants. It is a matter of what the Lord Jesus Christ wants of His captives. Onesimus is Paul's child (v.10) spiritually begotten by Paul while Paul was in Roman chains for preaching the gospel. He wants the slave owner to treat the run away slave as Paul's own spiritual child. Since the implication is that Philemon the master himself, also was converted by Paul, this would amount to Paul asking Philemon to treat him as he himself would want to be treated. Paul finds this run away slave USEFUL to him. Excuse me Granny, but to be considered useful to a man like the Apostle Paul I would consider a huge honor. The fellow apostles who co-worked with Paul, risking their lives for the ministry, were USEFUL to Paul's life and work. Paul recommends this slave as his own co-worker, and a useful one. His sending Onesimus back was just like him sending Titus or Timothy or Luke to Philemon. Philemon was to receive him as a co-associate of the Apostle Paul. Paul's sending the slave back was his sending his own heart - "Him I have sent back to you - him, that is, my very heart -." (v.12) The word can be translated "bowels". In other words Paul's deep inward feelings and emotions. How is Philemon to receive the run away slave? He is to receive him back as a Christian brother with whom they will enjoy eternal life forever together: "For perhaps for this reason he was separated from you for but an hour, that you migh fulle have him forever, NO LONGER AS A SLAVE, A BELOVED BROTHER, especially to me, and how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord." (v.16) Now when Paul said that this runaway was now useful to him and to Philemon he was not refering to worldly usefulness. He was refering to his usefulness in the spread of the gospel, the building up of the churches, the building of the kingdom of God. This is the association that Paul had with the slave master Philemon. Their friendship was around the work of Christ in the new testament ministry. Housewives, bankers, farmers, soldiers, prisoners, slave owners, slaves, empoyers, employees, etc they were Paul's associates in the furthering of the Gospel work in their various stations of life. Paul's direct work was preaching salvation and forming local churches. We so not see him rallying Christians for political resistence in the modern sense of activism. But in his work to establish what he called the one new man in Christ, he taught that the social statuses and classes could not exist.
" ... since you have put off the old man with his practices and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto the full knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbariabn, Scythian, slave, freem an, bu Christ is all and in all." (Col. 3:9-11) Here Paul does not say sentamentally, "There should not be" as to imply "We really shouldn't behave that way with social class distinctions." No he emphatically says that "there CANNOT BE" these class conflicts in the new testament church. That's right. We have to make a choice. Either we want class distinctions or we want the church of Jesus Christ. If we want class distinctions such as SLAVE and FREE MAN, then we cannot have the church. But if we want the Lord's church then we have to let go of SLAVE / FREEMAN. The new man is something that the Christians are being renewed into by transformation. In this transformation from the Holy Spirit they are putting on the new man. The new man is one new man created in Jesus Christ Himself. In the realm and sphere of Jesus Christ the living Person, He created one new man breaking down old Adamic social classes and national and ethnic divisions of enmity:
"But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have become near in the blood of Christ, For He Himself is out peace, He who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition, the enmity, Abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments in ordinances, that he might create the two in Himself into one new man, so making peace, And might reconcile both in one Body to God through the cross, having slain the enmity by it." (Eph. 2:13-16) This spiritual transformation by the indwelling life of Christ is what Paul turned the slave and the slave owner over to. His teaching was to be renewed in the transforming Holy Spirit, ie, that is to PUT ON THE NEW MAN, the ONE NEW MAN.
"And be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality." (Eph, 4:23,24) Paul was a political or social activist. But as a byproduct of the life transforming power of the Gospel, he was building up the one new man which renewed the minds from the old concepts of social status and class distinctions. This would include slave / master class warfare. There could not be these enmities in the new testament church which was the one Body of Christ and the one new man. Granny continues:
In one instance! How much more would it have nullified the negative effects of slavery had he said "Slavery is wrong. Not just a bit wrong, but very, very wrong. Don't keep slaves. God doesn't like it."? The emphasis of the Apostle is on bringing people into the experience of Regeneration http://www.regerated.net . He feeds them with the living Christ. He leads them to grow in this new divine life to be renewed and transformed. He plants the life of God into people. He waters this life. He teaches and shepherds them that they may be builded up into what he calls the church, the one new man, the Body of Christ. As they have their minds renewed by Christ more and more there CANNOT be the old social barriers of SLAVE / MASTER - SLAVE / FREEMAN, Greek vs Jew, Male vs Female, rich vs poor, barbarian vs Scythian (which is even MORE barabarian). These barriers come down in Christ. Saturation with Christ is his Gospel message and work.
He does not see fit to take this opportunity. His aim is not patching up the world. His aim is building up communities called churches. The church is the EKKLESIA. It is those CALLED OUT ONES. Paul is not the social activist coming to place bandaids on a corrupt world system. He is preparing communities in the world which are not of the world. Some who come into this community will be slaves when they come. Others will be masters when they come. They must all be built into the Body of Christ, the One New Man. These churches becomes testimonies to the world of where men and woman live in divine harmony together. They express Christ. They are the salt of the earth said Jesus. Salt only prevents the food from becoming totally rotten. Paul is not the activist to fix your godless Christ rejecting world for you. Paul is preparing churches. And at most these will act as a salt to keep society from completely rotting until physically returns to the earth. But the church is in the realm of the living Jesus which the world at large rejects. In working to build up a living organism in Christ in which there CANNOT be the old class stuggles, ie, slave and free, Paul is destroying the effect of the evil social system with those in the Christian church. These churches are to be a light on the hill, the salt of the earth. Here is testimony of living in the will of God. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
|
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1960 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: 12-05-2005
|
The point is that the Slaveholders in the US drew the wrong conclusion from the Hagar episode & the Leah & Rachel episodes. They assumed that it was perfectly legal to force themselves onto their female slaves. Abraham took Hagar as a wife of lower esteem which was perfectly legal at the time so did Jacob. The Slaveholders did not take their slaves as wives. It is similar to the reason that Blacks were segregated for so long even after slavery was abolished. The Line "Cursed be Canaan" is referenced since they thought that Blacks were the descendants of Canaan. Thanks. I got it. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 364 by bluescat48, posted 12-15-2008 11:14 PM | | bluescat48 has not replied |
|
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3120 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: 06-05-2008
|
|
|
Message 371 of 406 (491453)
12-16-2008 10:58 AM
|
Reply to: Message 362 by jaywill
12-15-2008 9:18 PM
|
|
Re: Abolitionists Use of the Bible
Jaywill, Your and other Christians attempt to justify slavery in the Bible is appalling. So I guess by your logic the Hebrews were not slaves in Egypt then? Why can you not accept the FACT that your god ordered and condoned enslaving people according to your own Bible. Here is my rebuttal for "Does God Condone Slavery" defending the Hebrew slavery system:
Scholars in the ANE have often abandoned the use of the general term 'slavery' in descriptions of the many diverse forms of master-servant that are manifest in the ancient world. There are very few 'true' slave societies in the world (with Rome and Greek being two of the major ones!), and ancient Israel will be seen to be outside this classification as well (in legislation, not practice That is blatantly false. Systems of slavery abound in the ANE (Ancient Near East), not just in the Romans and the Greeks civilizations as attested to much of the manuscripts recovered from that time period. The real question is not whether these were "true" slaves or not, but what type of slaves where they and how did they become slaves? Maybe this will shed a little light on the subject of the Hebrew slavery system and show that the Hebrew practiced a similar type of slavery as their other Semitic neighbors including the Babylonians and Assyrians:
pg. 18-19 "The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity" by Dr. William Lin Westermann, classics professor at the University of Wisconsin, Cornell University and Columbia University writes: A recent discovery of Aramaic papyri from Syrene in Upper Egypt has been made in the Charles Ewin Wilbour collection of the Brooklyn Museum. It contains three documents that deal with slavery as it operated in the well-known Hebrew colony at Elephantine in the second half of the fifth century B.C. The information which they offer upon the Semitic-Hebrew type of enslavement is presented here because of the sharp contrast which it establishes between the enslavement structures of the Greek politics of that time and that of a distant Hebrew community of the Diaspora... In the Sayce-Cow edition of the earlier purchases of the Aramaic group of the papyrus cited as K is an official record of a division between two brothers of property inherited from their mother. These brothers were members of the long-established Aramaic-speaking Hebrew military colony at Elephantine. Of these two, one was to receive in full ownership a slave who bore the thoroughly Egyptian name of Petosiris. The slave mother of this Petosiris responded to the equally Egyptian name of Tebo. Important for the comparative relation of Greek slave practice with the Hebrew system of that period is the statement in the record version of Sayce-Cowley papyrus K that the male slave, Petosiris, was marker upon the right wrist with the letter yod, written in Aramaic. This mark had been tattooed upon the slave's wrist first by the Hebrew woman, the mother of the two heirs, and again with the same sign by the son who was relinquishing the slave to the ownership of his brother. From this single document two observations can be made regarding the slave system of the Hebrews resident in this "fortress of Yeb" (Elephantine). The slaves of this isolated Hebrew community, so far as the evidence carries us, were Egyptians, by name at least. This observation, although it is based solely upon the lack of evidence of slaves of Hebrew extraction, is in line with the accepted conclusion applying to the Semitic enslavement type that membership in the religious community and tribal brotherhood precluded actual enslavement under the ownership of a coreligionist (a person of the same religion). The second observation is positive. The marking of slave, whether by tattooing or branding, was a feature of the Semitic-Oriental slave practice. It was not characteristic of the Greeks. The important differences between the Hellenistic attitude upon enslavement and that of the Hebrews residing in Upper Egypt and the lesser similarities between them which emerged are here presented. Both the divergences and the likenesses between the two systems apply, when viewed in the large, to the general Semitic-Oriental slave practice as contrasted with that of the Greeks... All slave systems grow around the hard core of a few similarities, deeply imbedded as the central ideas of the structure. These include the right of complete ownership of one human being by another, with control by the master of the physical powers and the mobility of the slave. Ideologically the slave has no individuality, no legal personality apart from that of his owner, no legal personality apart from that of his owner. Customarily, in the eyes of the law the slave has no male parent. Around this central core of likenesses there is an overlying growth of differences which are, in their nature, determined by political, economic and other environmental factors. These factors may be climatically or otherwise physically determined, or they may, in some cases, be accidental in character. Borrowings and transferences of ideas and practices from a neighboring slaveholding community may, or may not, play their part in the growth of any slave system. Slavery in the Ancient Middle East was clearly a master-slave relationship just as much as it was with the black slaves of the south. Conditions varied for these slaves dependent on the character of their slave masters, nothing more. Some slave owners were more civil to their slaves than others. However all incorporated the sense that slaves were not much more than property without any inherent rights and subject to the laws of ownership and transference of property. Nowhere in the Bible does it call for the abolition of slavery. And no where does it say that slaves have any rights bestowed on free people. Does the reason why they were put into slavery have any bearing on the right for freedom that human beings should naturally have? Who cares why there were enslaved. Does it really matter? Does it make it right to enslave people because they are poor? To strip them of any rights and rule over them as their masters? To treat them as property not as human beings and treat them as chattel slaves (Leviticus 25)? To treat their women as sex slaves and beat them without mercy as long as you don't kill them (Exodus 20:20-21)? Since this form of slavery was so ok with you, why is it not ok that the Romans, Greeks, Babylonians, Assyrians, or Egyptians enslave people? So why is it not ok to reintroduce slavery back into American society if it was ok in Abraham's time? You talk about moral relativism yet you are enacting religious moral relativism in which horrendous atrocities were committed in the past by your god, yet why is it not ok that they be committed now? Here is example of religious moral relativism from Christianity Knowledge Base | Fandom: " It was not only acceptable, but morally required of God to 'wage war' against the ungodly people around the Israelites. Sin isn't tolerated by God." and "God approved of slavery in this instance only because it was His hope that those who became slaves of the Israelites from foreign nations might 'be saved.' Even though they would lose their earthly freedom, God hoped that they would gain eternal freedom by coming to know Him, which is far more important." This pitiful attempt to justify your god commanding the Israelites to slaughter, pillage, rape, and enslave their enemies along with your continuing justification for this behavior is religious moral relativism, plain and simple. Otherwise why are you not practicing it today? If God told you to make me your slave would you do it?
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
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 362 by jaywill, posted 12-15-2008 9:18 PM | | jaywill has not replied |
|
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3120 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: 06-05-2008
|
Re: If God Were Human Would He Want a God Like Him?
Bartot writes: DA the Navy dude, hows it going holmes? I am not your "holmes" and I seriously doubt you were ever in the military. Doesn't your god tell you "Thou shalt not lie".
I dont want to sound condesending either, yet as I read your responses above, to my questions it is obvious to me that you are still very simplistic in your thinking in these matters. And you wonder why I think you are a condescending religious prick.
Matters such as, subjective, objective, relative, moral, immoral, evil and the application of them against logic and logical contradictions and implied, direct and indirect implications That isn't even a complete gramitically correct sentance. What are you trying to say?
It took me a while as well to understand the implications of the positions I held and the things for which I contended. And you don't think it did for me either?
I would say kindly that you are a child in your understanding. And I would say kindly that you are fucking idiot. Your point?
Trust me I was in the military and retired out of it. Sure and pigs fly.
In the Warren-Matson debate, on the existence of the God of the Bible, Dr. Matson called God a logical monster, to which Dr. Warren took great offense. Dr. Matson said this was not an attack on Gods character but a direct implication of the arguments that flowed from those premises. Ofcourse he was wrong and Dr Warren soon dismissed any idea of God being illogical. Sounds like Dr. Matson was spot on. Good for him. And why was Dr. Matson wrong? And what does this have to do with the discussion on slavery?
Do you see what I am saying? No, and I no longer care what you have to say. You insult me and then you expect me to acknowledge anything you have to say? Fat chance. All you have succeeding in proving to me is that you are self-righteous religious nut.
Now it is in that same context that I make the statement that the draft is for all intents and purposes slavery, it is. Slavery is just a term to describe a situation or state of being, you can not apply only one definition to its meaning. The conditions and terms of the draft equate nearly perfectly to a slavery situation, the same as a captive of war or a criminal. Both are against peoples will AT TIMES and there are consequences if you try and leave against the will of those in charge. No insult was intended or given. You simply need to step out of your simplistic thinking and think in logical terms, concepts and ideas. The draft and slavery on not the same. Draftees have personal rights and freedoms that slaves do not as I outlined previously. Slaves have no rights whatsoever and are treated as property and owned and serve at the whims of their slave masters. I assure you that I have been providing clear and logical evidence for all my arguments. If you can't understand it you may want to check your own intelligence level.
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
|
AdminNosy
Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: 11-11-2003
|
Manners!
If the debate continues in this vain the thread will be closed.
|
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1960 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: 12-05-2005
|
Re: More on Slavery...
Granny,
If "they" decided against slavery, it was due to their own consciences. God created the human conscience. And God's word convicts and reminds man's conscience.
You cannot give the bible credit for their conversion since it provides contradictory messages on slavery and is (on balance) in favour. Some historical objectivity will point out that Christian theology played a part. I would not say that Judaism or Buddhism could not have also done so. I think it is futile to suggest Bible theology had nothing to do with Abolition. This would be secular revisionism of the American history.
They must have had some extra-biblical means of telling good biblical advice from bad biblical advice, whence extra-biblical morality.
In other words there was some Moral Law somewhere against which they could measure things and tell that they were crooked. This had to be stronger than a vague sense of someone's tastes and preferences like "I prefer Vanilla to Chocolate". This gets back to something I have not spoken to much but I think Bertot has addressed. I would only say that if there was a Moral Law to inform the conscience, there should be Legislator responsible for it. The collapse of the slave trade I would account to a number of social activist writings many of which were enfluenced by Bible Theology. I would not exclude non-religious moral reasoning. But its inclusion I would say was due to a sense of a transcendent Moral Law and thus a Law Giver, a divine Legislator. Moral laws are not physical things. So I would reject that materialistic atheism was its source. Dirt, molecules, chemicals do no, IMO, constitutes such things as moral decision of right and wrong.
He provided for her so well that she was a slave who was raped by her owner. Nice job. I hope he never decides to provide for me. Back to the alledged rape again. A slave was given by her master to a rich patriarch to marry as a wife. When she bore a child which Sarah the other wife was not able to do, she considered herself higher than Sarah in the social scheme. The evidence implies she considered the marriage to the husband of her mistress as a social promotion. But I admit that I do not know that she forced into sex. But I seriously doubt it. Either way. The scheme, the plan, did not originate with God. You may be mad that the institution that allowed Hagar to be a slave of Sarah in the first place should be blamed on God. But I think that is weak. The shortage of everything came about because of the curse on the earth. And the curse on the earth came about because of Adam's disobedience to God. What I am interested in how and what God does to bring in a salvation to man and the earth.
You:
Nonetheless, this is not about me trying to make God look bad. The Bible accomplishes that perfectly satisfactorily.
I consider that just ignorant slander.
The point that I am making is that; a) The Bible's promotion of slavery is incompatible with it being the divine word of an omnibenevolent deity.
I haven't been at all convinced of your so-called divine promotion. And with a similar amoun of twisted bias I could imagine a case against marriage as forcing women into a slave situation.
b) The fact that the Bible promotes slavery whilst modern Christians abhor it refutes suggestions that Christian morality is based on the Bible.
I showed that Paul was PRO the One New Man. He was FOR The church. And the nature of the Church makes it so that there CANNOT be the social class divisions. If you want to say that there are a lot of abnormal churches, I would agree. But that does not effect the teaching and it does not effect that there are many churches in victory over the social class struggles. I look for the overcoming ones which help my faith. I don't hunt for the ones which will give me reasons to doubt the gospel.
jaywill writes: My ancestors were American slaves. {snip} I don't think they could have survived without the Bible. Granny writes: you actually have no idea how they would have managed without religion.
They could manage without religion. Many of them, however, could not manage without Jesus Christ. Jesus is not a religion. Jesus is a living Person.
jaywill writes: Yes I do. It is my father's area of expertise. He has an honorary doctorate in the field of the history of Black people in the US and Carribean. Your appeal to paternal authority is irrelevant. You do not know that your ancestors would not have survived without religion, for the very simple reason that you are not able to go back in time, take away their religious beliefs and rerun the last two centuries.
Having grown up in the atmostphere where these things were discussed and lectured and spoken of much may be irrelevant to you. Regardless, Jesus who rose from the dead is a living Person and not a religion. The living Person Jesus saw many of them through. You can see it in their songs. Some who didn't believe got through also. Some by the prayers of believers and yes some probably on their own. Maybe even some decided to Mutate and Survive for all I know. Just the same, we are thankful to Jesus for what He did within some of them and in the country as a whole. We believe that God is in control.
You have no way of proving that they would not have survived without religion. That some slaves survived without religion does prove that it was, in theory, possible.
Once again. Jesus is not a religion. Jesus us a living Person. It is like this. If the law of gravity is a law, then it is not just a law in the science class room. It is a law everywhere. Right? If there is a God, He is not the God of religion. He is the God of reality.
The matter of slavery is not as simple as you would like to make it. No, it is very simple. Slavery is completely and utterly wrong. For you to state that implies a Moral Law. I derive from that a transcendent Moral Legislator a Law Giver. I think God would be the one responsible for your sense of some absolute Rightness against which you view the wrongness of slavery. I don't think your Moral Rightness somewhere informing you the slavery of any sort is wrong, is material. I don't think it evolved. And again your painting a broad brush stroke on slavery which ignores that some forms are worse than others.
It is always wrong. There are no extenuating circumstances under which it is less wrong. You and I both know this to be true.
I am pro the One New Man like Paul where there cannot be Greek and Jew; circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all. (Col. 3:11) I am for co-working with the Apostle to develop this realm in a living Person Jesus, where there is no possibility of these social conflicts because Christ must be given more and more room to fill all and all. The maturation of this entity, the church, at least in a remnant of overcomers, will bring the Lord Jesus back to this earth. He is the desire of the nations. So if you don't want to bring Jesus back and if you are not interested in being filled with Christ for the building up of the church the One New Man, I am not that much impressed with your moral outrage at slavery. I think that if you really cared you would give yourself over to be saturated with the Spirit of Jesus Christ and be built up into His mystical Body as a constituent of the One New Man.
The only reason that you seek to create a gray area around this is because you are unwilling to admit that the bible is just wrong about slavery. Your reticance may be explained by the fact that such an admission undermines any claim of biblical authority or Bible-based morality. I think your motivation is to convince yourself that you're not so bad and are not yourself a slave of sin in need of Christ's salvation. By arguing that you're against all slavery and God isn't you hope to rationalize that you have no need to be justified from your own sins by a faulty God. My way is to allow the Bible to rise above me. I let God rise above me. I humble myself under the mighty hand of God. I believe that in due time he exalts those who humble themselves under His righteous plan of salvation. I have a gut feel that it is ludicrous to assume there is another umpire or a higher standard than God Himself. I am not one thinking that there is no God. That to me is completely absurd. So I don't think Granny will sit God down and teach Him a thing or two about how to be God or what is morally acceptable. I don't think there is a higher Umpire who will join up with Granny to scold God and straighten Him out. And I think the last word belongs to Jesus Christ who is God become a man. My bible didn't stop with Leviticus or even Philemon. All in all against the whole Bible, I think you have no case.
You did not answer my question. I would suggest that you would not be content to be kept as a slave and beaten with a rod. Of course not. But there are quite a few things which I have undergone in my over fifty years of life here. And in some of them I GAINED more Christ in my being befause I did not pass through them ALONE but with Jesus. I want to gain Christ. I will use everything to that end. All my cicumstances and situations, the comfortable and the miserable, I want to learn to secret to GAIN more and more and more Christ's nature in the fabric of my being. But of course I would not go out of my way to be in an unpleasant slave master situation. I am thankful that I was born when I was born. But I have other trials to go through. And I want to gain Christ in them. I want to be saturated with Christ and conformed to His image. I want to build His Body and be a constituent of His kingdom by being conformed and transformed by His indwelling Spirit. "The last Adam became a life giving Spirit." (1 Cor. 15:45) He is giving and supplying me with divine life. Sometimes my situation forces me into that divine life. There is no way out but UP. I have to go now Granny. Jesus loves you.
I would further suggest that when your molester went unpunished, the fact that Exodus mandates his getting off scot free would be of little comfort to you. I would say that your sense of moral outrage in such a circumstance would be far from biblical. I don't have time to look up your reference. But no one in God's creation is getting away with anything. It is all recorded. It will all be played back to the sinner. But the good news is that it can ALL be erased with the blood of Jesus. And then His divine life can come into us and transform us and build us up into the One New Man where there cannot be social class warfare. But Christ is all and in all. No more cracks about my brain falling out.
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 377 by Huntard, posted 12-16-2008 12:40 PM | | jaywill has replied |
|
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3120 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: 06-05-2008
|
|
Message 375 of 406 (491458)
12-16-2008 12:11 PM
|
Reply to: Message 373 by AdminNosy
12-16-2008 12:00 PM
|
|
Re: Manners!
Sorry, will play nice with Bertot. I promise. 
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
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 373 by AdminNosy, posted 12-16-2008 12:00 PM | | AdminNosy has not replied |
|
™ Version 4.2