Morality without god

Sorry to say that's probably true of you.But of course I meant you live in a culture whose economy is not built on slavery as nomadic cultures and herding cultures were likely to be. Yes, the Christians in this country were able to bring that about finally. Yes, times had changed and it had become possible to end slavery. Why not a law against divorce? See the Sermon on the Mount. Depends. If most slaves were paying off debts, and I know some were, it wouldn't have been a good thing. True, at least in most cases one thinks of, so I can't answer this except to suggest that it was mostly for paying off debt which is something i will have to investigate some time. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's definitely true of me, since the legal code I live under forbids slavery. But they didn't have to be. It is really not necessary to own slaves to be a nomadic pastoralist. Do you suppose that every shepherd nowadays owns slaves? No, somehow they manage to get by without them.So why didn't God speak out? When was it ever necessary?"When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the [Southern] gentleman?" What? The Bible specifically describes Abraham's slaves as those who were "bought with money from a foreigner" (see Genesis 17). Besides, if God was OK with debt slavery (and there are other ways to deal with debt) he could have drawn a distinction, could he not, between that and other forms of slavery?---So why didn't God speak out? Really, you paint a funny picture of God. Your God is like a politician who has convictions, but no courage --- he'd like to propose a measure, he thinks it's right in itself, only he wouldn't get the votes for it and it might damage his approval ratings, so he figures it's best for him to sit down, shut up, and not rock the boat. But he's meant to be God Almighty, not the junior Senator from Nebraska.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

wtf?What is this revisionist history bullshit about how slavery was not so bad? This is on par with holocaust denying.If you find yourself defending slavery, you are on the wrong side of the road. You people are fucking bonkers.

Delighted to see I could respark such an interesting debate, sorry for the lag in reply but it was Paddys weekend and I am Irish - sometimes being Irish is more important than being Athiest :-) (who can resist vomiting green good dye)I'm kinda a geek, I love good stories and HATE stories with obvious plot holes, so let me just lay out all the threads of Faith's argument and make sure I have it right. You claim;-ur god has the power and the will to flood the entire Earth (where'd the water come from btw) and KILL millions of people who displease hi-is also willing to intervene in human affairs to the point of nearly wiping out all of humanity-is bothered to some extent by slavery (I really don't see that but I will accept it for the moment)BUT he lacks the power or will to stop slavery outright? It's not even made a sin but if I was him I'd bring some first born of Egypt Angel of Death stuff on slave owners..... Why didn't he? If he had power, ample opportunity and moral desire too, why not act?From my perspective the obvious answer is that he lacks one of those 3 features if not all 3 - either being lazy, impotent, immoral or of course non existent.Also saying that equality for people of all sexual orientations is Social Degradation is an absolutely repugnant statement - I have many friends who have a wide variety of sexual orientations and I would wish nothing but happiness for all of them because I love them, I have a son and if he was Homosexual I would love and accept him just the same and encourage him to seek his own happiness..... Any good and loving father would.Peace

Just picked through the debate again and figured I'd add some qualifiersAre people here seriously defending Slavery in order to support your beliefs???? That's insane - slavery is a disgrace we share as a humans (I'm Irish so I'm largely clean on this particular disgrace, but it's still a fair nasty thing globally) - I dare say if any African Americans joined this debate they'd be rather insulted by some of the comments.Secondly I wanna elaborate on my Ant comment.Morality as in a being good ad socially minded is a very obvious and nessecary biological mechanic of any social creature - it has evolved as something of great benefit to each individual as it benefits the collective. Ants are only a class 1 level of awareness (where as humans r a class 6) so we would expect their "moral drive" to appear more basic and instinctive. Our social biological mechanic ie far more advanced as is fitting our more advanced society, but it is still an essentially biomechanical evolutionary process no
Different than that seen in hive insects, flocking birds, pack hunters and primate family groups. It's a fascinating topic which is wonderful to read about and discuss but it is not magical.Further more I dare say a magical route to morality would tale some
Of the fun and accomplishment out of being human

quote:

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A slave cannot be freed, save he do it himself. Nor can you enslave a free man; the very most you can do is kill him!

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I enjoy a lot of Heinlein's work, but his books are full of crap philosphy of which this is one example.I imagine that Africans shackled in the bottom of a ship on their way to a place from which they could never return home would have felt obliged to kill themselves or allow themselves to be killed if only they could have had available an advanced copy of Double Star from which to read this pearl of wisdom. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Weren't they already slaves before the ships got there? They'd've needed the book back at "home"...

1) The Old Testament is just describing the FACTS-of-LIFE concerning patriarchs, how they think and act, and the reasoning that god put into their heads.It also tells us what the Gentiles matriarchy societies think and do.That is the Reality of the human condition.
Do you think that the gentiles did not have slaves?2) Compare the Hebrew patriarch of 1362BC to the muslim oatriarchies of today, and youwill find both are identical.
The OT is more factually descriptive of these two kinds of men/societies that it is recommending the behaviors.The SUM of the Old Testament is that God says love Him and one's neighbors.
It does not say, "OK, have slaves."Remember... the Torah is The Law, and these descriptive behaviorsof the Hebrew patriarchs is summed to just two things:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.38 This is the first and great commandment.39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Obviously the world was a rather different place hostprically, but I think the point that is being made is as follows;-morality falls into either subjective or objective-many of the laws and acts within the bible (as a whole not just OT) would be considered immoral or dubious as best-an unchanging god would not stand for dubious morality-if morality was through divinity then we would expect it to be objective-since we can see morality historically not matching up to modern morality we can assume (outside of biological and psychological data which also support this point) that morality is subjective-hence morality can exist without a divine objective guide-Boom

Standing back and asking who or what power does this describe???1) The answer seems to be Reality is this almighty power which can and does drive some species to Extinction, as did happen 40,000 years of "days and nights" ago, when only Modern man survived as he flooded Out-of-Africa and across all the world, even up to the mountain tops.2) The Reality ios that all creatures struggle to survive in some way or another. The Facts are that tigers MUST stalk herds of sheep to live. Dominant members take what they want and leave scraps for the others.Mankind has in the historical past enslaved people as a part of their System of Economic Distribution. This is rather descriptive of humans, factually.
This IS the way man lives and exists.
The Serfs of Europe throughout the whole 1000 years following the fall of Rome survived and were responsible for the survival of mankind as the toiled in the fields to produce the foods and basic essentials necessary.Rome, prior to that, was a Slavery Economy over all the Western World.4) Does God do anything about this?
YES.
He sends His son, Truth, to earth.The son asks men to THINK.
They can exist even better if they adopt another more humane Economic System of Distribution because they have 12 choices available to them.

I'm sorry but can u offer any supporting evidence of Jesus and his divine provenance - I'm willingbto debt god cause I can't prove he doesn't exist but Jesus is no where outside of the bible and his lineage is again dubiousSecondly where does he say "slavery is bad" - as far as I am aware he said not a word of the law shall be changed until the end of time, I'm paraphrasing but doesn't that mean it's still ok for Christians to own slaves??? Well not ok, I think it's grossly immoral but your god seems ok with it

Oh and since I'm asking u for evidence it seems only fair I present some moreMathew 5:18New International Version (2011)
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

The sum of what Scripture says about morals is that men msut face the Facts-of-Life with a love for them, realizing that to live in Reality equates to sanity, while they need to love their fellow men because these are partners in the task of survival.When we think about how we intend or actually are treating these other people around us, the over riding issue is whther the interaction is for the best interests of the people, in general.The slavery of Serfdom throughout the middle ages was the ONLY way that millions of people could farm the lands that were prtected from invaders by military forces that controlled the government.The transformation into Democracy is what became a horrible situation, as the Serfs at first were Share-crop owners of the land they worked, but eroded into turning Serfs into private property.To wit.
The ONLY moral is to love thy neighbor and work for his collective welfare.I believe Kant stated that as the Categorical Imperative, i.e.; "Do unto others as you would that they do unto you."Kant's first formulation of the CI states that you are to act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.

Does it matter whether Jesus existed or not?The Truth is our God, regardless that Christ made that same argument.
We seek the truth here, is our discussion.Above, I had just posted the truth as stated by Kant, the same categorical imperative that man is moral ONLY if his actions are based upon the Golden Rule.

I love the Golden rule "treat others as you would like them to treat you" it's a wonderful rule, one I would say I absent from a lot of bible teachings btw but that's beside the point I'd like to make.
There is no way in hell u can hold up the golden rule and attach it to the bible or god many many religions use it, including budism which obvious has very little in the way of a god in a traditional sense to decree it and u cant pin it on Jesus either cause Confusius (who we have vastly more historical data for) was saying it on record nearly 500 years before Jesus was born