Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Do you honestly see how wrong it is to falsely accuse someone of supporting slavery? I never did any such thing. Telll me, if you are only give a choice between two evils, does that mean you support or defend the evil choice if you pick the lesser of two evils?
Tell me, do you think this verse is approving slavery?
" Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh." - 1 Peter 2:18-25
I see it as only instruction on how to act in your current situation. That is not defending or supporting. It is no different than a high school teacher being firmly against war yet telling her students that they need to do their duty and register for selective service.
What does "in reverent fear of God" mean to you?
What would you do, if say, the Muslims enslaved you?
As I recall we showed the parts you missed out (like a Hebrew enslaving a Hebrew for life - you stopped at 'I love my master') and showing that a foreign slave was Never let go, and indeed here that the epistle in No way condemns slavery or even shakes its' head over what can't be changed -yet. It tells the slaves to put up with it and not a word of condemnation.
And I pointed out that foreign slaves were frequently either prisoners of war or voluntarily sold themselves to be slaves as a means to escape poverty. See once again you overlay modern society. Options were limited. That was just a reality. It is silly to think that people back then had all kinds of career choices and means to make a living or survive. Your thinking is just too simplistic for a complicated issue. You think God should just say hey stop doing it, it's wrong. Again, God permitted divorce. He didn't approve of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
No Jeff, and I hope you'll change your mind about going there. Flounce off or stay and battle it out, it's up to you. I'm just saying that it won't be a win for you.
Well, maybe you'll save your face, but at the expense of the religion you purport to be defending. But for quite a few Christian apologists, that seems to be their order of priorities.
That's like trying to win at tennis vs a brick wall. I already know it's a lost cause with your caliber of atheist. Nothing I say will ever make the atheist admit they are wrong. They NEED God to appear evil to prop up their hollow belief in non-belief. The fact that you have to use terms like "flounce" only disintegrates your credibility with me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
Well, how about the way God dealt with Pharaoh -but in reverse; Unharden the hearts of the slaveowners, just as he dealt with Paul and turned him. No problem with free will there. God could have done that any time he wanted.
If he existed, that is. Otherwise we'd just have to wait for Humans to work it out for themselves.
Moderator cut: We're not saying people are spiritually dead.
Last edited by mensaguy; 04-04-2019 at 05:11 PM..
Reason: Spiritually dead? You really thought that was OK?
Jeffbase, no one is going "seek to escape poverty" by becoming a perpetual slave to ancient jews with a religious rule that any foreigner you enslave is perpetually your property and so are his children and his children's children.
There was nothing good about that slavery, and nothing good about a God that would support it and instead be jealous and focused on statues, and angry at nonviolent prostitutes but not at violent or nonviolent slave owners.
That's great I think. I think the more people move away from religion the better. I have always felt the concept of religion to be bizarre. There are thousands of religions, not all of them can be true, but all can be false.
And you haven't explained to me how freeing slaves so they can starve and die and cause the entire society to collapse is the right moral thing to do.
Answer my question first. Please tell me how you would eliminate slavery immediately and successfully while preserving free will. Also please share with proof how immediately changing a social economic structure perfectly and always integrates with every other nation using the former structure.
I await your detailed response.
Gee, I don't know but when slavery was abolished in the USA, the former slaves somehow worked it out.
Easily and without hardships, no. but it happened. Much better as freemen than the servitude they had lived under
And you haven't explained to me how freeing slaves so they can starve and die and cause the entire society to collapse is the right moral thing to do.
Answer my question first. Please tell me how you would eliminate slavery immediately and successfully while preserving free will. Also please share with proof how immediately changing a social economic structure perfectly and always integrates with every other nation using the former structure.
I await your detailed response.
Slavery was never big in many of the ancient civilizations according to Wikipedia. It claims that only around 4200 slaves existed in early Egypt, a far cry from the million or so claimed by the OT. Of course so many numbers were exaggerated in the Bible and non Biblical sources back then that the actual numbers don't matter. Did ancient Egypt collapse with the Hebrews going free according to the Bible? Did Iceland collapse inthe early 1100a upon banning slavery or Europe from late 18th to late 19th centuries?
Do you have evidence that civilizations required slavery to survive? Do you know how common or important slaves were back in Biblical times? Probably the only thing you know is that slavery was mentioned in the Bible and that you must find ways to defend slavery in the Bible even though you know that slavery is wrong. At least you are better than some Christians who claim that if G9d did not condemn slavery then it must have been moral.
If God did not openly condemn slavery then his laws and rules cannot be absolute morality. All he had to state was owning other people is wrong. That you twist and turn parts of the Bible, facts and what other posters write shows that you know that slavery is immoral but that you must make it that your Bible condemns it too. The verse you posted did not do that..
This is a battle you will never win as it requires you to defend a very large contradiction. On the one hand your claim that the Bible is inerrant and the sourse of our humanity and morality and on the other hand it regulates but does not actually condemns slavery. I have never heard yet of a solution to this contradiction.
As far as any atheists owning slaves,they were wrong to do so. Atheists who treated other races or women as second class citizens were also wrong or if they do so today are still wrong. I have discovered that some of my actions and thoughts in the past, although we're mainstream at the time we're wrong. I've change and grew. I could still be wrong about how I treat others including livestock and if shown otherwise I will adapt. Folks like yourself are stuck with any baggage left from your Bible as you cannot accept that God could ever have been wrong.
This is why no one takes you seriously, Jeff. What mocking is being done? Why do you have to play the victim here, when you were asked a legitimate question, yet you had to, once again, deflect.
That is not honest debate.
This is not a debate. This is an example of the cheap bullying tactics you guys use against Christians.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
but when slavery was abolished in the USA, the former slaves somehow worked it out.