Pick and Choose Fundamentalism

This example really wasn't dealing with the problem of free will, it was dealing with the fact that Hill Billy said all innocent babies go to Heaven if they die before they have been corrupted. Based on that, it seemed to me that killing the babies in that state of purity would be the best thing. This is true whether Free Will exists or not.As for repenting, whether God knew I would do it or not makes no difference on whether it works or not. He could have known I would repent falsely, so that I had no chance of making it to Heaven, so I'm still sacrificing mysekf, despite playing out a part written for me form the beginning.The question that came out of this, again regardless of free will, is whether repenting just to get into Heaven, therefore not feeling remorse, as such, but just wanting to better my afterlife's position, is true repentance. Maybe this should be a new thread.

That's actually Leviticus 19:20 not Deuteronomy, but anyways what the hell does this have to do with slavery?Prostitutes were usually not slaves in antiquity. They were usually considered a lower rung of society than the average citizen but higher than slaves. Case in point Rahab was a prostitute but had a house and grain on her roof (pretty good standard of living compared to slaves). Many prostitutes of this time were women who came from lowly origins i.e. ex-slaves, foreigners, divorcees, widows and others who were shunned by there society and took to prostitution to provide a means of living.What we do know from the passages I have listed so far is that the Hebrew god (or whoever spoke for him), condoned the practice of slavery and even selling their own daughters as chattel slaves for sex/proceation and providing domestic services i.e. taking care of the children, cooking, drawing water, entertaining guests, etc. So therefore did not God allow that a man could sell his daughter as a slave to another man in Exodus 21? And could that man do whatever he wish with that girl i.e. force sex (rape)? Have sex, etc? And did she have the right to leave her master? IS THAT NOT SEX SLAVERY? YES OR NO? Um, so infants and young children are not innocent? They should pay for the 'crimes' of their parents? So I guess if you mollest your next door neighbors child we should murder your child as an equitable reparation? Correct? Are you fucking stupid? HE ORDERED THE KILLING OF INNOCENT CHILDREN!?! Do you care whether he enjoyed it or not? Do you care whether someone who murders your child in cold blood enjoys it or not? REALLY!?! Does it really matter? The women has no choice in the matter. Either to marry or have sex with the very men who brutally killed her family! Does that make it right? We are talking about the legitimacy of a system of morality. If it is wrong now it is wrong 2000 years ago and vice versa. Your attempt to rationalize away this is ludicrous. Bullshit. She had no choice, it was up to the man not the slave woman. He had the right to send her away if she wasn't a good sex slave, that was it. You are implying things that are not in this passage. Try again. How can you say these two statements in nearly the same sentance: WTF?!? This is beyond cognitive dissonance, it is outright dillusional schizophrenia. 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

What if some ancient historian were teleported to the current century. Furiously chiseling his observations on a stone tablet, perhaps our ancient reporter would record something such as this:And it came to pass that on the eleventh day of the ninth month, the holy martyrs from the kingdom of Egypt captured several of the Great Winged Chariots and rode them through the air and they crashed into the Giant Twin Towers of the Amerikites.
And God spoke to King Bush The Lesser and commanded him to go forth and find the great leader of the Egyptian Martyrs from the kingdom of Arabia.

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And it came to pass that a mighty Army was gathered and sailed forth from the shores of America and the Amerikites were of one mind and heart, for they feared for the safety of their kingdom.

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And Bin Laden, who was the leader of the Martyrs, had journeyed to the land of the Afghan Kingdoms. The people saw his stature and they understood the wrath that the Amerikites had for him, and thus they hid him in the caves of Tora Bora and when the Amerikites rained brimstone down upon him as God had commanded them to do, the Martyrs escaped by night into the land of Pakistan. And Bin Laden was of great height he stood a full 7 cubits high!

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Wherever he went, the people hid him, for they knew that he had stirred up the false gods of the Amerikites and that the Amerikites worshiped created things.

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But King Bush was convinced that he heard from the true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He told his advisers that it was the people of the moon god that were the true idolators, for surely they wanted to crush the blessings that Jehovah had bestowed upon the Amerikites.

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Meanwhile, the King of Babylon, whose name was Saddam, helped the martyrs and the noble cause of Bin Laden, for he hated the Amerikites and the famines that they had caused his people. He feared no gods except his own advisers, and he purged the men who got too close to his throne.The point of my contrived story, written by our scribe teleported back in time, was that each culture had a view of God and wrote as if God was directly influencing them. In actuality, however...each culture is responsible for the killings, beheadings, rapes, and bombings that they do. We can no more blame God in the story than we can blame Santa Claus (who is not in this particular story )

I actually totally agree with this. This actually proves my point in that the problem I have is not with the theoretical Hebrew god of the OT (mainly because I don't believe he exists) but rather with the religious fanatics of today who try to rationalize and justify the attrocities that occur in said diety's name. Our current codes of morality that many of us on this board agree upon though still not perfect or universal are infinitely more humane and equitable than the moral codes of antiquity including those of the Biblical Hebrews.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

Not any more fair and merciful than slavery practiced in ancient Babylonia, Greece and Rome as I illustrated earlier. Bullshit, he forced many other behaviors in the Bible. For example he 'hardened' the hearts of several Biblical characters. So why didn't he just outlaw slavery all together as he did idolatry and other things he did not like? How hard would it have been to add "Thou shalt not keep other human beings as property" or the like to the Ten Commandments? Instead he says the following:

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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

D.A.Thanks for pointing out the passage about slavery in Ephesians.According to that, black slaves before the American Civil War would be disobeying God if they escaped their masters.I have only one question for Peg---I wonder how she'd view slavery if SHE were the slave?

You are claiming those verses to be commands to rape girls. I'm showing that the mosiac laws outlawed all such wrong conduct. Rape was against the mosiac law, so how is it you claim that it commands rape???it doesnt. NO> you are not reading it correctly and you are not considering the culture of the people. It was perfectly normal to sell yourself or a family member into slavery in those days. Many did it as a way to pay debts and look after their families.
In the case of a girl being sold, the buyer could not do anything to her...Isrealites were bound by the mosiac law which forbid immoral sex. So to read this verse and say that the man could 'do what ever he wanted including rape' is completely inaccurate.If the man liked the girl, he could make her his wife. That is not rape, it does not constitute rape and it was perfectly acceptable in such societies. Women accepted it and even welcomed it. Its still done today in middle eastern cultures. Indian & Chinese cultures still arrange marriages for their daughters. It doesnt constitute rape. so you ignored the part that read...
"and if she agrees" and "you must not deal tyrannically with her" and "you must allow her to leave freely" and "you must not sell her to a stranger" so now you are the judge of all ancient cultures, and modern cultures, who believe arranged marriages are a good thing.
these types of marriages seemed to have worked quite well for billions of people for a very long time. sorry, my mistake, i was thinking of a mosaic law that demanded a man who took a girls virginity must marry her, however ,this law was not with regard to rape.the point is that Gods view of rape is as something detestable. If a man raped a woman, the Mosaic law demanded that he be put to death.Deuteronomy 22:25"If, however, it is in the field that the man found the girl who was engaged, and the man grabbed hold of her and lay down with her, the man who lay down with her must also die by himself, 26and to the girl you must do nothing. The girl has no sin deserving of death, because just as when a man rises up against his fellowman and indeed murders him, even a soul, so it is with this caseSo its quite impossible for your interpretation to be correct.Do you know what the hebrew word for 'rape' is and have you checked to see if that word is used in the passages about the soldiers taking the virgins to their home???

please dont get me wrong, i in no way believe slavery was a good thing and would never wish it on anyone.It must be understood in the context of the times though. For some people, slavery was the only way to survive. It meant having a roof over ones head and food on the table.We of modern times remember slavery in terms of the african slave trade which was completely different to the slavery mentioned in the bible..... for instance, people 'chose' to be slaves in those days. The africans had no choice, they were brutalized and forced. That is not the type of slavery mentioned in the bible.Slavery in the bible meant employment, they were a part of the owners household, they often were allowed to marry the owners sons, they became part of the family...most importantly, their time as a slave was limited to 6 years, in the 7th they were to be set free. Slaves could also become wealthy along side their owners.I certainly dont link the african slave trade to the slavery that existed in ancient isreal. They are completely different kettles of fish.BTW, i am a slavei have 3 kids and a hubby!!

Again it needs to be pointed out that this is a very selective reading of the bible.

quote:

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When you buy a Hebrew slave, six years shall he serve; and in the seventh shall he go out free, for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and the children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the slave shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto God, and he shall bring him to the door or unto the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

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Exodus 21:2-6.Notice it says Hebrew slave, male at that. What about all the non hebrew, non male slaves? Even from just this slight reading you can see that they were treated differently.Slavery was and is a brutal practice. It doesn't matter how you rationalize the bible, it promotes and supports a brutal practice.Maybe it would be ok for you and your family to agree to be enslaved. Even the new testament condones and promotes the master/slave relationship.

quote:

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Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

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Ephesians 6:5-6.By the way do you know anything about slavery in the Roman times? It was not pleasant

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Peg if God is the same "yesterday, today and tomorrow," according to the bible then why does he sanction unfair practices at one point in time and condemn them in another.Let me just ask you this. Would it be OK to sell daughters off for marriage to anyone here in America for money or any other reasons?If God allowed it in ancient times then why isn't it OK now?Theists are always saying that non-believers think that morals are relative (to the time and situation) and yet that is exactly what you are saying. You are saying that god is accomodating certain customs. If god is sovereign like the bible claims, then why does he have to "kotow" down before social customs whether in ancient or modern times?It makes it sound a LOT like humans are calling the shots and god is just saying. "Ok if that's the way you do it, I'll at least give you some rules on HOW to do it." That is ridiculous. If god can give rules for how to treat slaves then why couldn't he have made rules AGAINST slavery? Again it just doesn't make sense.And don't tell me I am not reading it right. I studied the bible in a fundamentalist bible college for 4 years and taught bible classes for 20 years before coming out of my delusional state and starting to use my brain.Again, I ask you does god REALLY accomodate humans? If so, why? If he can give them the ten commandments, why couldn't he have made an eleventh--"Thou shalt not have slaves."Edited by Starflight, : Corrected typos

Oh and another thing, Peg, you have to remember that many people became slaves because of Israelite conquests. So you are saying that they are better off being slaves of the Israelites than having their families intact? In other words you are saying that since god told the Israelites to kill all their men folk (including the little boys) that they should be grateful their new Israelite masters chose to spare their lives and give them a roof over their heads? I don't know about you, but if someone killed all my male relatives, I think I would rather die than to live with their killers, much less have sex with them.Also in some passages it says that only the virgins should be spared, so in that case all the married women (young or old) would have been killed. And then there are passages about male infants being killed and of course certain instances when EVERYONE including the dogs and cats were annihilated. Nice going god! How is that being "merciful?"

Perdition,
Excellent post. Well written, even a hill Billy could follow it, clear, creative, funny. You expressed yourself. Perhaps revealing to us some of your personal nature. This could be illusionary as well but I'm so glad you decided to engage. When you apply yourself you are a pretty good writer.
My favorite line: Classic.
Just like your argument, a classic.
When I first encountered this argument in my youth, ( Apparently it would surprise you to learn that even young hill Billies sit around smoking pot and discussing such supposed profundities?)
like you I was completely take in by it's apparent logic.
And the implications. Having no real religious back ground I had no difficulty with those implications. Clearly, we got free will, so we got no foreknowledge, so no omniscience.What about omnipotence?
Yikes! Any fool can see where this leads. Can't they?
I, like you, yanked this gem out of the tool box whenever I heard someone mention foreknowledge.
Airtight. It shut them down every time.
Then one day I actually thought about it, you know, critically examined the concept.Before we attend to the argument itself, I have a question. If this argument is so powerful, so unequivocally correct, then why did you feel the need to sprinkle it with missdirection? GOD did do something about it: Genesis 2:17 " but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."I know, it's seems such a minor little thing, like your attempt to disguise the nature of GOD. Why is this deception necessary? Is it because you actually perceive the error in this argument or is it just you expressing your nature?Typically I find, when a position, for it's support, relies upon misleading, deceptive, or false statements the position itself will be found to be misleading, deceptive, or false. Let's see if that is the case here.It would seem to me that it would be reasonable, when arguing logically about something, to attribute to that thing attributes of that thing. If we are going to argue about GOD then we must, logically, attribute to GOD attributes of GOD.
So. what can we learn of the attributes of GOD? Let's start at the beginning. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.Wow, the very first reference in the bible is to time. Almost as if the author knew time was a significant issue.
Anyway, GOD created the heavens. Can we agree that that is a reference to space? GOD created the earth. Planet earth?
No.
This, Genesis 1:2 Now the earth was formless and emptyand this, Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world , from everlasting to everlasting you are God.indicates the reference is to the material of which the world is made. Matter.
So, if GOD created space and matter then GOD's existence need not depend on space or matter. To write of GOD as having a butt to sit on or a muscle to move is misleading. So is to think of GOD as large or small. GOD is non sized, non shaped. This is not such an easy concept to wrap your head around, that GOD does not require dimensions.
Time is a dimension as well and this passage, Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."would indicate that time also, is a dimension that GOD does not depend on, that time is some how different for GOD than for us. Perhaps then and now and here and there are all the same thing to GOD, I don't know, but this at least opens the door to the possibility that GOD may know the future without interfering with our ability to make choices.Of course it may be that we merely have the illusion of free will but the bible suggests otherwise. As does my experience.If GOD can create some dimensions it would seem logical to assume GOD could ,at least, manipulate other dimensions.Your argument appears to be logical but can not include all the available information, cause if it did, it might be wrong.

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The years tell what the days never knew.

No, he didn't. He knew his little lecture would fail. He told Adam, "Don't eat of this or you'll die." BUt as he did, he still knew that Adam would eat of the tree and, well not die, but be punished by God. So, God created the Universe, knowing Adam would disobey, and didn't create a different Universe in which Adam didn't disobey. He made a Universe where there was no other option but for Adam to disobey.If I know what I'm doing won't stop something bad from happening, and I know there's something I could do to stop it from happening, but I keep going along my impotent path, did I really do anything to stop it? In fact, did I let the bad thing happen by not doing what I knew would stop it rather than what I knew wouldn't? Don't I have at least a little responsibility for letting it happen when I could have stopped it, and knew it? I would argue this point as well, but maybe in a different thread. What deception? Are you refering to my anthropomorphization of God? It was an allegory to drive home the point that God could have done something, but didn't, knowing how things would turn out, and as such, nothing could have unfolded other than he created it to unfold. But the Bible could be wrong, or it could be a necessary illusion, so God, knowing we need to believe we have free will, tells us we do, knowing that we don't. Based on what the Bible implies, free will is impossible if the Bible is completely true. I don't understand what this has to do with the argument, unless free will is a dimension, but I don't see how that makes sense either. It includes all available information at hand. If there is more information out there, such that logic isn't a good way to suss out the workings of the Universe, then my conclusion might be wrong, but until we are shown that logic doesn't work, I don't see how my logic could follow from correct premises and be wrong.

Are you suggesting that God didn't know that Eve was going to eat the fruit and then convince Adam to eat it?I don't see how this event can be any different from any other event.I really don't understand what you are getting at here.

I think it must be a genuine repentance, this was one error that undermined Pascal's wager.Re a new thread. I am going to be scarce here for the next few weeks, I have a funeral on Saturday, on Monday I go to Madeira for a week, then I have an essay on the Oldowan industry in the late Plioscene due the following week. So busy times ahead.That might give HB time to read a book on an introduction to Philosophy.