Is God good?

You have no idea if this is how this bit of racism developed. But it is pretty clear that the racism involved preceded Darwin. As you are doubtless aware, back in the 17th and 18th century, hundreds of years before Darwin, racists justified racism and the exploitation of Negroes as the lot of the accursed descendants of Ham's son.Yes, those racists sure loved that Bible. Yet we don't condemn the Bible for the uses that racists made of it. That condemnation would be ridiculously irrational, despite the fact that we all know without doubt the source of that little bit of evil.Racists might well love a lot of things. But they are racists first. Nobody but an ignorant fool every believed that blacks actually had tails. And it is pretty clear that absent Darwin or wherever the 'blacks have tails nonsense' came from, a racist would simply grab onto some other hateful thing to say.ABE: Did your father say whether the patting on the butt stopped one the women figured out that the black soldier's had not tails?Edited by NoNukes, : Added by Edit

No one raised that point. The question was whether Darwin somehow caused or enabled racism. It's quite clear that Darwin caused racism only in the same sense that the Bible caused slavery and racism. You have no choice but to admit it for the Bible because it is well documented history. On the other hand, your story about Italian women feeling up Negro booty is just an anecdote whose connection to Darwin is unknown.That said, I'm sure that somebody did use Darwin to further their racism. Darwin himself was a racist. Neither of those discredits the theory of evolution any more than some fools take on Ham discredits Christianity. And wasn't discrediting the theory of evolution the point of your post? After all, it's not as if anyone worships Darwin. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Maybe he's instead referring to all those times that the Pharaoh agreed to let the Jews break camp only to have God himself harden Pharoah's heart and force them to stay. If we are to believe the writer of Exodus, the explanation for God's use of the plague-harden-plague sequences was for God to increase his own glory. Or viewed another way, all of those goofy statements that God allowed Adam to sin because He values free will are made a mockery of by the story in Exodus in which God makes Pharoah disobedient.Of course the typical Calvinist's out is that whatever God does is just. God is unknowable and cannot be questioned. Instead of accepting that the expression that God hardened Pharoah's heart is just a figure of speech for the Pharoah's own recalcitrant behavior, the Calvinist tells us that the answer to the question 'what is difference between good and evil' is 'it just depends'. Then the Calvinist wonders why some people snicker when the Calvinist gets into his/her practice of doling out accusations of relativism.Jar takes another tack. He assumes that the Exodus is only a story. My problem with Jar's take is that even taking the story as a myth, one might well wonder the value in a story that makes a monotheistic God seem unjust.

Some Christians were abolitionists, but some Christians owned slaves and believed that the Bible supported owning slaves. And even absent the Ham stuff, it's pretty clear that the Bible contains a number of passages that are very friendly to the 'peculiar institution'. So no, I don't think I can give the Bible credit for causing abolition of slavery. I can agree that some abolitionists were motivated by Jesus teachings to become abolitionists. But abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison found that the overwhelming number his fellow orthodox Christians were indifferent or even hostile to the plight of slaves.But you want to give the Bible credit. Surely some credit is deserved, but caused? No not really.What is undisputed is the advances in biology that have increased our ability to feed our population, and to protect ourselves from diseases that are directly attributable to the theory of evolution. That would be the real theory of evolution and not whatever distorted version it is you attribute to the Nazis'.

Do you hold the belief that slavery described in the Bible was mere indentured servitude? Perhaps you hold that belief honestly, but the truth is that the Bible describes both indentured servitude AND true slavery.Indentured servitude? Or chattel slavery?From Leviticus 25:

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45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.

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46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour

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If a man kidnaps is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that THIEF shall DIE; so you shall purge the evil from among you." (Deut. 24:7)

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Jaywill, are you trying to tell us that the verse about kidnapping one's fellow countryman is about POW's or about indentured slavery? That 'interpretation' is beyond ridiculous. Neither Exodus 21:16 nor Deuteronomy 24:7 have anything to do with POWs.In fact, let's look at Exodus 21:16 again.

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16 And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

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That "found in his hand part". Isn't that saying that simply having the stolen person is to be punished by death? What kind of POW or indentured servant is acquired by theft? Why isn't this just impressment? or kidnapping? I understand the distinction between a forced marriage and a sex slave. I just hope don't find the prescribed treatment all that merciful. Wouldn't excusing such treatment be evidence of moral relativism?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Actually, kofh2u, we are discussing verses in the Bible which present things like rape, genocide, and enslavement as instructions and orders from God.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

So you've decided to stop defending forced marriages? Good, because those forced marriages were preceded by and included rape. That's right. What you called 'facilitated them being integrated into Israelite society' is rape. I also see that you are no longer trying to label owning people and their descendants as chattel as indentured servitude. Pathetic. Get a dictionary. Double talk. If your argument were a bit better they might rise to the level of being sophistry.

The problem is not so much that the Jews did these things way back when. The problem is with their claims that God told them to do all of those things.

Why don't you tell me how you escape that conclusion. Can you produce any rabbinical writings indicating that a captive's meaningful consent was required before the marriage. Certainly none is included in the text. If you want to go beyond the text, then you should get going. I don't believe 'naked for a month' to be a correct interpretation. Perhaps you should address that demand to someone else. You truly see nothing problematic here? I think you do. Why did you select the NSRV translation here?And what kind of ceremony do you think is implied by "and after that thou shalt go in unto her"? That would be the sex under the circumstances where you killed off her family and the male members of her tribe. I don't care about the month of mourning. I do care about the the unilateral decision about who gets the honor of becoming your third wife in those circumstances. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

No, I don't believe God said that stuff to anyone.

No, that is not my job. In fact, you are not really even disputing the conclusion. You aren't even offering another position. You are simply acting like someone who wishes that the words say something other that what is in the text. That was the point of picking this particular example. You were out on a similar limb with your position that the Bible only includes indentured servitude and not slavery. You are the one that climbed out there on those limbs.I understand that the rules were an improvement over what others were doing, but you want to go beyond that and to claim that they represent some high moral code because they are written as a first person account of God speaking. Well perhaps the rules aren't moral from any reasonable modern view.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Why did you not try to access the Bible from the internet? You can find any translation of the Bible you want from an internet connected PC. I apologize for my accusation.

Fair enough. Often an urge to apologize is a gift from God. But the ability to receive apologies gracefully is a true gift. Nothing earth shattering. And it's nearly Christmas Day anyway. Time for the lifting of foot from neck!

Seriously, jaywill, if you are trying to defend the practice described in Deuteronomy 21:10-14, it seems to me that you are going down the wrong path here. The taking of women as spoils of war and marrying them "in distress" is what you are defending here and is what is objectionable.The warning not to marry in haste is certainly useful. But shaving off the woman's hair so that you are not beguiled isn't what Percy Sledge meant by 'Take your time to know her'.I note that the same comment suggests that these women were to be 'secondary wives'.

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The man is supposed to have a wife already, and to take this wife for a secondary wife, as the Jews called them.

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Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.