The curse of the forbidden fruit.

Moz · Sep 30, 2019

Subduction Zone said:
My statistic was for the U.S. Christians only. Other countries do not have so many ignorant Christians. Their Christians tend to be better educated than ours.

Hi
your statistic was a sample of total population not of US christians i just checked.... If i had of used that i would have used 8000 000 000 instead of only using the number of christians in the world so i think that only ten percent was actually quite consevative,, ,, but whatever the number it is definitely more that "some people"
Peace

Subduction Zone · Sep 30, 2019

Moz said:
Hi
your statistic was a sample of total population not of US christians i just checked.... If i had of used that i would have used 8000 000 000 instead of only using the number of christians in the world so i think that only ten percent was actually quite consevative,, ,, but whatever the number it is definitely more that "some people"
Peace

Are you sure? Please link it. The one I am thinking of was.

But I do agree, one can always find people that do not think things out.

Deeje · Sep 30, 2019

Moz said:
Hi
Not sure what Patriarchs were loose? Care to elaborate on who the guilty suspects were?

Their are few.. well of the big names we have Abraham knocking of his wifes maid and then multiple wives after Sarah dies.Lot and the incest thing. Isaac seemed pretty cool but Jacob, what a scamp, Sisters as well as their maids. Judah, the tribal leader who would produce the messiah stopped on his travels to see what he thought was a hooker but turned out to be his daughter inlaw. That is why i think the sexual aspect of the fruit was not the main focus of Moses audience but more the concept that being in covenant with God makes one feel protected and secure and to loose Gods protection leaves you naked to the world.

Personally, I think that the whole sexual sin concept stands up because sexual sin needed God's laws to identify it and stamp it out. Penalties were imposed...sometimes death. It was serious stuff. I can't really see the protected and security thing being the real application, but that is just my opinion. The Bible leaves that open to speculation.

God tolerated concubinage in Israel for a time but he also had laws to regulate everything. Apparently many men in Israel didn't live very long and the females outnumbered the males so much that the men were permitted more than one wife. It gave the women a family and children and the security that females in those times simply did not have without a marriage mate. It was a concession, I believe.

As for Lot.....the "incest" committed broke no laws because there were none written at the time. Neither of Lot's daughters were reprimanded over their attempt to keep the family line going when no other men were within cooee of where they were living in the mountains after fleeing the city. Their motives were not evil but honorable. They even knew that their father would not consent, so they got him drunk.

Marriage among family members was common back then....Sarah was Abraham's half sister.
It wasn't Jacob's idea to marry sisters, he was tricked into that arrangement. The girls' father was his Uncle, (Rebekah's brother) which made the sisters his first cousins. And don't forget that Cain must have married either his sister or a niece. Incest was not outlawed until the law of Moses. Handmaiden's were given to husbands to bear children for the extended family. Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham as a form of surrogacy.

The sexual laws come in with Moses, before that they had principles derived from the stories that they must have had from their Fathers , Joseph obviously extracted his morality from some knowledge of the Eden story, but not from the example of his own Father or Brothers it seems.

Yes, Joseph was acutely aware of the gravity of taking his Master's wife even before the law was written. He said it was a sin against God.

Also the tying the nakedness primarily to sex as the main idea has a definite catholic flavour... it's a church father thing that has hung around for way to long i think. See this is what i mean.......

Covering up their reproductive parts was a natural response, so I wonder what that accomplished in their minds? Perhaps keeping nasty thoughts at bay? . They were a married couple,, married in the site of God literally.... sex between man and wife need involve no nasty thoughts and this little wedge gets hammered into the concept of sex being the original sin and we end up with 1500 years of christendoms sexual tyrany over the family.

Yes, I am aware of the concept, but the Catholic twist is not what I am suggesting. Sex was not original sin but simply a large part of the concept of sin according to God's law. It constituted a very detailed part of the Law. No denying it. It was certainly not the only manifestation of sin, but it was their first realization when sin was initiated in their experience. Humans fell in many ways, but the transmission of life was a sacred thing to God. It was among the most serious of offenses.

Jesus when he was on earth gave the final step in this sexual progression when he basically rescinded Jehovah's pressure relief valve of divorce by consent. Finally, 4000 years after Eden ... Jesus laid out what would be the Christian standard.....one man and one woman and no divorce except for immorality.

Yes, Jesus brought everything back to the way it should be. Christians therefore have no excuse to transgress God's laws in anything. They are spelled out so that there is no ambiguity as to what we should and shouldn't do. We are to "hate what is bad and love what is good"....but first we have to know the difference from God's perspective.....the whole basis of the fall in Eden.

JJ50 · Sep 30, 2019

Sexual wrong doing is abusing children, or adults who haven't consented to sexual activity, otherwise I don't have a problem with it unless a person is cheating on their partner gay or straight.

night912 · Sep 30, 2019

Deeje said:
If you understand the scenario as it played out, (using other scripture) you will see that satan was a "covering cherub" in the garden of Eden. (Ezekiel 28:13-15) He was right there observing everything that was transpiring. He was harboring ambitions about being a god and he knew that humans could possibly worship him as a being of superior power to themselves......all he had to do was separate them from their God and paint him in a bad light.

Adam had waited a long time for his mate, and that is why satan targeted the woman....she was the newer and less experienced of the two and he approached when she was alone. He cunningly planted a seed of doubt about the motivation of the Creator in connection with his command concerning the forbidden tree that he had claimed for himself whilst giving the humans access to every other tree. It was a small test of their respect for what belonged to Him and his generosity should have been enough to tell them that he would withhold nothing good from them.

The woman knew about God's command because she recited it back to him...Adam had taught her the most important command....but the seed of doubt was watered by the fact that the fruit looked good to eat and so when the devil lied to her about the penalty, she fell for it, just as he had hoped she would. Now when Adam came along, and she offered him the fruit, he had two choices....knowing full well the penalty, he should have refused, but it would have meant losing the mate he had waited so long for....

.....or he could join her and suffer the same fate. Adam was the target all along, but the devil used the woman to bait a trap for him. He divided Adam's loyalties and conquered him. "Divide and conquer" is a successful ploy used against an enemy even to this day.

The woman was deceived according to the apostle Paul....but Adam was not. (1 Timothy 2:14) That is why it is 'through the man that sin entered into the world'. (Romans 5:12)

The penalty applied because there was no excuse to disobey their rightful Sovereign. Its the same today if people think that God will not hold them to account for their actions. Its not as if he left them in any doubt about what he requires of his human creation.

All actions have consequences......we choose the action, we choose the outcome. Its that simple.

As I said, you've interpreted it using the knowledge of how the story ends. But still didn't answer about evil of disobedience and lying. If they know that disobedience is evil, then they would not have doubt it. And it doesn't matter if there was doubt or not. If they had foreknowledge of good and evil, they would have known that disobedience is evil.

If you know that murder is evil, do you still have doubt that it is not?

ImmortalFlame · Sep 30, 2019

Moz said:
Hi
Would you include those who are not Literalist but believe it all to be the inspired word of God in the definition of literal beleivers.

I would say no. For me, a Biblical literalist is someone who believes not only that the Bible is the inspired word of God, but someone who also believes that all of the accounts given in the Bible (Biblical creation, flood, seven plagues, etc.) constitute descriptions of actual events rather than fables designed to impart a specific message.

Moz said:
Then hundreds of millions isn't to outrageous a guess i think. Allegorical interpretations still adhere to divine authority with its wicked god so when jj50 was saying that some beleive i'm pretty sure she would lump them in as well.
Peace

I'm not certain how JJ50 would define the term, but I assume it would be similar to mine. Mind you, it may still be difficult to make all that many claims about the number of literalists, as even by my definition there will be still be some who believe many (if not all) of the Biblical accounts to be true, but would still find some smaller aspects of the Bible to be more allegorical, so someone who is a "total" Biblical literalist may not even exist.

Deeje · Sep 30, 2019

night912 said:
As I said, you've interpreted it using the knowledge of how the story ends. But still didn't answer about evil of disobedience and lying. If they know that disobedience is evil, then they would not have doubt it. And it doesn't matter if there was doubt or not. If they had foreknowledge of good and evil, they would have known that disobedience is evil.

If you know that murder is evil, do you still have doubt that it is not?

Do you understand free will? They had choices. They both knew that disobedience carried a heavy penalty, but each chose it for their own reasons.

The woman was convinced that what the devil said was true. He appealed to selfishness, as he always does. He eliminated the penalty in her mind. She seemingly had no immediate ill effects, so when she offered the fruit to her husband, he too had choices.
The devil set her up to bait her husband and it worked.

They were intelligent and could evaluate their options and contemplate the consequences, as we all can. They each chose badly and expected the consequences of their action, never once expressing remorse or asking forgiveness. There was no basis to forgive them. The penalty was carried out as God's justice demanded. They eventually died...and so do we.

night912 · Sep 30, 2019

Deeje said:
Do you understand free will? They had choices. They both knew that disobedience carried a heavy penalty, but each chose it for their own reasons.

The woman was convinced that what the devil said was true. He appealed to selfishness, as he always does. He eliminated the penalty in her mind. She seemingly had no immediate ill effects, so when she offered the fruit to her husband, he too had choices.
The devil set her up to bait her husband and it worked.

They were intelligent and could evaluate their options and contemplate the consequences, as we all can. They each chose badly and expected the consequences of their action, never once expressing remorse or asking forgiveness. There was no basis to forgive them. The penalty was carried out as God's justice demanded. They eventually died...and so do we.

Your dodging what is being discussed here. We're not talking about freewill here. It's about their knowledge of good and evil.

But on the side, why do you think the serpent was the devil?

Deeje · Sep 30, 2019

night912 said:
Your dodging what is being discussed here. We're not talking about freewill here. It's about their knowledge of good and evil.

I am not dodging anything. I am merely telling you what Genesis says. Free willed beings have choices, otherwise God's command and the penalty were meaningless.

Satan was a free willed being who also made choices. It is all about free will. It's not about what they knew, but about what they did about what they knew. Their sovereign Creator gave them one negative command and they disobeyed it in full knowledge of the consequences.

But on the side, why do you think the serpent was the devil?

He is identified by Jesus as the original serpent in Eden. (Revelation 12:7-12)

Moz · Sep 30, 2019

JJ50 said:
Sexual wrong doing is abusing children, or adults who haven't consented to sexual activity, otherwise I don't have a problem with it unless a person is cheating on their partner gay or straight.

Hi
I agree, but i base my belief on something other than you obviously. By what standard though can you say that there is such a thing as a sexual wrong. The natural world teaches the exact opposite. I have to separate my dogs when my girl comes on heat... her brother and father fight over who gets to jump her. Cheating on your partner.... isn't that an oppressive sanction imposed by the patriarchal hierarchy based on the outmoded religious idea that a man and woman commit to each other to the exclusion of all others. Rationally should we not follow the animal model and spread our genes as far as we can.

Where do you get the idea that it is wrong to cheat on your partner?
Where do you get the idea that abusing children is wrong?
Where do you get the idea that rape is wrong?
Where do you get the idea that wrong even exists?

Peace

Milton Platt · Sep 30, 2019

How did they even know what death was? What example did they have?
They lived amongst a functioning ecosystem.... animals die, insects die, vegetation dies.
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It seems you are just introducing a new word (disobedience) to dodge the good v evil question.
That's a bit unfair. . Disobedience got them chucked out of the garden and Gods protection and they were subject to the good and evil choices that they now had to make. Hence the tree becomes the tree of good and evil.
Is disobedience to god's commands good or was it evil?
If you go to the Hebrew you can easily switch out "good and evil" for "chaos and order." And if we rephrase your question in that light it is....
Is disobedience to god's commands order or was it chaos?
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You are supposing that the "good and evil" bit is the key
I think that the "you shall not eat of it " is the key.
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I'd love to do the slavery thing i know the subject very well but the problem is that the discussion is never done within the context of the Bible... it is always "If he's a good God why didn't he ban slavery outright for everyone across the planet" not allowing for the fact that the Biblical God can not step into His creation and dictate terms for ALL mankind.... refer back to the garden.
But the Biblical God does keep one family line and through this line steps back into history at the end and he rectifies the situation.

Buddah , Allah, Zues or some of the Mesopotamian gods had the theological room to have made universal pronouncments of that sort but they never did.
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My post got too long and the system required me to shorten it, so I deleted all the text from your previous post in order to leave mine intact. I hope I haven't made it too difficult for you to follow.

"They lived amongst a functioning ecosystem.... animals die, insects die, vegetation dies."

Yeah, I can accept that......I was going off of what another Christian had told me...that there was no death before the fall. Your version makes more sense. LOL The other Christian had insisted that there was no death, then, that everything in the garden was sustained by god and that there was no need for death. It was a fun discussion. I had lots of questions and I think he viewed me as hostile in the end. Which was not my intention. For instance, in his scenario, did humans have digestive tracts before the fall, and if so, why.

"The story of the tree is a story of disobedience.... it was not a magic tree that gave some sort of metaphysical jolt of enlightenment"
Yes, that is your original claim. And it is why we are having this conversation. What in the context of the story demonstrates that the author did not intend a literal meaning? Wasn't trying to be unfair. In fact, I agonized for a bit before pointing out that you seemed to be using disobedience instead of good and evil. The problem is that disobedience in the context of this story would be considered evil by most Christians. If you contend that it is not evil to disobey a command from god, then why the punishment?

Yes, disobedience got them thrown out of the garden. Never questioned that. But they did not know that it was evil to eat until they ate. Even if you don't take it as a literal tree, you have to accept that they didn't know until afterwards.
Again, is disobedience evil or not evil? Or is disobedience to a god amoral, then?

Why substitute the words chaos and order for good and evil? What makes the knowledge of the difference between something that is orderly and something that is not orderly a bad thing?

My argument with regard to slavery in the Bible is not that which you have presented, exactly, and I have never heard an atheist make that particular argument. Which is not to say that it has never been made by an atheist. Being an atheist does not exempt one from making bad arguments.

I make a similar argument, but don't extrapolate to the entire planet, since at the time, almost the entire planet had no knowledge of this particular god or his edicts. I can see how one would extrapolate it, however, since Christianity (as opposed to Judaism, which is what the Old Testament was about, does in fact insist that the entire planet should live by the edicts in the Bible. But let's don't complicate a simple concept.

More simply put:

I agree that context is important.
In what context is it moral to own another person as personal property, beat them when you wish as long as they don't die within a couple of days, and pass them down to your heirs as property? In what context is it moral to go to another nation and buy people?

Now, I have had Christians tell me that it was necessary that god had to regulate it because it was already being done and was going to be done by humans. Apparently, god was not sufficiently strong to overcome this problem, or even just mention that it was a bad thing. But be that as it may, the only truly moral regulation of slavery is the complete prohibition of it.

Is it sensible that this god could tell his people not to eat shellfish or mix fabrics, but could not bring himself to say that they can't own people?

Murder was already happening....what was god's regulation of it? Don't do it.
Stealing was already happening...what was god's regulation of it? Don't do it.
Adultery was already happening...Don't do it.
Fornication? Don't do it.
And on and on with prohibitions from doing things considered immoral. But not slavery.....not so much

God didn't regulate murder by telling the Israelites how do murder people
He didn't regulate adultery by telling them who to do it with.

In short, either slavery is immoral or it is not. Outlining how to do it is either moral or it is not. I contend that it is immoral to own a human being as personal property. I also contend that it is immoral to set up a system of regulations which promote slavery in any way. Your god apparently did this. Indentured servitude for fellow Israelites? Yes, I think that is immoral also.

Well, I violated my own declaration about the slavery question, didn't I? LOL You are not required to go off down that rabbit hole and lack of response from you will not be taken as capitulation. I was just distinguishing myself from the more nebulous arguments you have apparently been given by some others.

Moz · Sep 30, 2019

Milton Platt said:
My argument with regard to slavery in the Bible is not that which you have presented, exactly, and I have never heard an atheist make that particular argument. Which is not to say that it has never been made by an atheist. Being an atheist does not exempt one from making bad arguments.

I make a similar argument, but don't extrapolate to the entire planet, since at the time, almost the entire planet had no knowledge of this particular god or his edicts. I can see how one would extrapolate it, however, since Christianity (as opposed to Judaism, which is what the Old Testament was about, does in fact insist that the entire planet should live by the edicts in the Bible. But let's don't complicate a simple concept.

More simply put:

I agree that context is important.
In what context is it moral to own another person as personal property, beat them when you wish as long as they don't die within a couple of days, and pass them down to your heirs as property? In what context is it moral to go to another nation and buy people?

Now, I have had Christians tell me that it was necessary that god had to regulate it because it was already being done and was going to be done by humans. Apparently, god was not sufficiently strong to overcome this problem, or even just mention that it was a bad thing. But be that as it may, the only truly moral regulation of slavery is the complete prohibition of it.

Is it sensible that this god could tell his people not to eat shellfish or mix fabrics, but could not bring himself to say that they can't own people?

Murder was already happening....what was god's regulation of it? Don't do it.
Stealing was already happening...what was god's regulation of it? Don't do it.
Adultery was already happening...Don't do it.
Fornication? Don't do it.
And on and on with prohibitions from doing things considered immoral. But not slavery.....not so much

God didn't regulate murder by telling the Israelites how do murder people
He didn't regulate adultery by telling them who to do it with.

In short, either slavery is immoral or it is not. Outlining how to do it is either moral or it is not. I contend that it is immoral to own a human being as personal property. I also contend that it is immoral to set up a system of regulations which promote slavery in any way. Your god apparently did this. Indentured servitude for fellow Israelites? Yes, I think that is immoral also.

Well, I violated my own declaration about the slavery question, didn't I? LOL You are not required to go off down that rabbit hole and lack of response from you will not be taken as capitulation. I was just distinguishing myself from the more nebulous arguments you have apparently been given by some others.

Hi
Well there is much to unpack here. Forgive me if i jump around a bit ....... but to start i think we have dug into the "good evil" thing enough and i thank you for stretching my thinking on the subject. i appreciate your position and will leave it there.
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Christianity (as opposed to Judaism, which is what the Old Testament was about, does in fact insist that the entire planet should live by the edicts in the Bible. But let's don't complicate a simple concept.

I understand how you can see it this way in the context of the geo/political history of the last 1700 years but in reality true christians are not concerned with imposing their beliefs on the "world" .

Their rules are for believers only. A declaration by the christians to ban slavery would have had no effect on the Roman system. They still would have been slaves and under civil compulsion to remain slaves. The christian advice on slavery was very pragmatic in the light of circumstances. If a slave, try and be a good one, if a slave owner be a good one. There really is not much else they could have done.
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The conduct of imperial christianity i agree was reprehensible and rightly should be condemned. Christian Emperors could have changed things i guess... but they were not really christian in anything but name really.
The "political christianity" today that wants to make Laws is likewise not a representation of what Jesus actually taught.
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In what context is it moral to own another person as personal property, beat them when you wish as long as they don't die within a couple of days, and pass them down to your heirs as property? In what context is it moral to go to another nation and buy people?

A couple of things here. I know a lot about this subject, history is my real passion, and you are somewhat biased by the American guilt thing i think. The enlightened Americans actually adopted the worst model of slavery that ever existed. Race based chatel slavery is not the norm. OK penal slavery was horrible in every case but that was tied in with criminality, justice and retribution and jails today are probably not a huge improvement
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The Russian serfs of 1860 are probably a better example to look at than the chatel slavery of 1860 America. The serfs were somewhat ambivalent about their new found freedoms. Millions of them were dismayed at the upheaval of what they considered the natural order. Peasantry throughout the ages, which was another form of slavery, is also not as dispicable a way of life as it seems from the outside if the accounts of the actual people are anything to go by. As long as their is food, shelter and clothing then all this "moral" crap about being owned went right over their heads.

Roman domestic slavery was actually one of the most liberal manifestations of the practise. You could make money for yourself, you had rights, you could even buy slaves yourself. You had a day off, you could buy your freedom. Yet most "freedmen" stayed on with their former master and folded into the patronage system, another form of slavery really but with some scope for individual advancement.
Given the moral code that christians subjected themselves too it would seem that a slave owner who became a christian would have been under a strong compulsion to be fair and kind or he would have been expelled from the faith. A slave who became a christian had a harder lot i suppose but what could they do?
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Apparently, god was not sufficiently strong to overcome this problem, or even just mention that it was a bad thing. or even just mention that it was a bad thing.

And here is the cunard that stymies any serious discussion of this subject within the context that scripture lays out.
See here even you come up with the line.......Apparently, god was not sufficiently strong to overcome this problem, You can rant at the Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims if you want...... their gods claimed the authority to be able to set the rules for mankind but the Bible God has only His People and has no RIGHT to make the other nations do ANYTHING.
God, in the Bible account, has stepped out of History except for one family that he chooses as His people, he has left mankind to prove that they can make their owns choices.
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On the old testament stuff........ every single society in the ancient world had a mechanism for "voluntary slavery" and while you may not like the concept it was an essential safety valve for those who had no other option. No polity on the planet solved this economic conundrum until the industrial revolution.
The "war slavery" was the same thing. Their was NO mechanism for captured soldiers anywhere in the ancient world other than slavery or death. If you have an alternative i would love to hear it.
Yes enslaving them is wrong... killing them is wrong.... but just letting them go seems to not be a realistic solution.
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And on and on with prohibitions from doing things considered immoral. But not slavery.....not so much
You have just defeated an Assyrian force in battle and captured 20 000 hardarse Assyrian footmen armed to the teeth and well trained. Your village, family, livestock and all you own is only a couple of miles from the battle field.... the prisoners are yours to deal with but you can not feed them you don't have that kind of resource, you can't "lock them up somewhere, they'll just starve... what do you do?
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And on and on with prohibitions from doing things considered immoral. But not slavery.....not so much
See how this keeps slipping in.... If your God was strong enough or Good enough he would do something.
I promise you that AFTER he takes control of the planet again, that's at the END of the book by the way, then i guarantee you that the idea of people owning people will not exist ever again
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God didn't regulate murder by telling the Israelites how do murder people
Fair enough........However.... having looked into this subject deeply and across the myriad manifestations and types of slavery that have existed...... it seems pretty clear that if you were to be unfortunate enough to be enslaved at any time in history then you should hope that is was by an Israelite or a christian. If you can show me how the regulations in the Bible are not an attempt to mitigate the worst excesses of slavery i would be interested in your thinking
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promote slavery
This is another hyperbolic statement. The God of the Bible did NOT send his people out to conquer and enslave other peoples..... if you know your history then you should know that it was Ashur, Marduk, and that lot who were out for slaves. Voluntary slavery was allowed as a form of social welfare, war slavery was just the unfortunate consequence of being in the ancient world.

Peace.

night912 · Sep 30, 2019

Deeje said:
I am not dodging anything. I am merely telling you what Genesis says. Free willed beings have choices, otherwise God's command and the penalty were meaningless.
You are dodging it. Again, we're not talking about freewill here.

Satan was a free willed being who also made choices. It is all about free will. It's not about what they knew, but about what they did about what they knew. Their sovereign Creator gave them one negative command and they disobeyed it in full knowledge of the consequences.

He is identified by Jesus as the original serpent in Eden. (Revelation 12:7-12)
No he wasn't.

Milton Platt · Sep 30, 2019

"The enlightened Americans actually adopted the worst model of slavery that ever existed."
Completely irrelevant. We are discussing slavery in the Bible.
Are you going to tell me there is a moral form of slavery? Whether there are varying degrees of immorality between one form of slavery and another is not even an argument. Slavery is either moral or immoral. It is a binary choice.

"A declaration by the Christians to ban slavery would have had no effect on the Roman system"
So what? the Christians banned murder and adultery with out regard to whether it would affect the Roman empire. Why would god care about the Roman empire? Either slavery is moral or immoral. Whether it affects the Romans or not is of absolutely no consequence. But you are also ignoring that there were Romans who were Christian....does that make slavery moral for them?
Besides, we were talking about a set of laws set forth for Israelites. At the time, there were no Christians.

"The Bible God has only His People and has no RIGHT to make the other nations do ANYTHING"
Then why do Christians preach their religion to people who are not of the Jewish faith? Or that are not at least already Christian? The Christian religion (and Judaism) would die out if it wasn't. But, I didn't know that god's "rights" were limited. Who limited them?

"God, in the Bible account, has stepped out of History except for one family that he chooses as His people, he has left mankind to prove that they can make their owns choices."
Then Christians should do the same? They should not "Spread the gospel"? But if people are to make own their choices, should they not be informed choices? Should they not be told that slavery is immoral? If not, then why tell them adultery or murder is immoral?
If he has stepped out of history, there should be no miracles, no answered prayer, etc. Because after each supposed occurrence of any of those, they become a part of history.

"Every single society in the ancient world had a mechanism for "voluntary slavery" and while you may not like the concept it was an essential safety valve for those who had no other option"
I dispute the claim that every single society had a mechanism for voluntary slavery (that is actually a bit of an oxymoron). You would be hard pressed to demonstrate that. However, even if I accept that assertion, that does not make it moral. How many nations must accept a particular immoral human condition before it becomes moral, anyway??? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? The answer is NONE. There is no number of nations that can magically change a fundamentally immoral act into a moral one.But I am not talking about "voluntary slavery". Lets concentrate on involuntary slavery to keep it simple.

"You have just defeated an Assyrian force in battle and captured 20 000 hardarse Assyrian footmen....etc. This is a non-sequitur. If this is a valid reason for slavery, then the United States should by now have enslaved England, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Mexico (yes, we invaded Mexico) and a number of other nations. I will counter with this bible passage instead of making up another hypothetical:
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
So here we see not only the purchase of people to use as slaves (as opposed to taking prisoners of war), but obvious racist inclinations. No invading armies in sight.
Also, are you not aware that god commanded his "people" to invade other nations and literally wipe them off the face of the earth? Even their livestock??? Except of course for virgin girls, whom they could take for themselves? What do you suppose Israeli soldiers would want with young virgins? It doesn't take much imagination.

This is another hyperbolic statement. The God of the Bible did NOT send his people out to conquer and enslave other peoples....
Really? Want to reread the Old testament?

“This is what the Lord Almighty says... ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” (1 Samuel 15:3)

"Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us – he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” (Psalm 137:9)

They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men ... Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho. Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded ... Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves. (Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you. (Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

"it seems pretty clear that if you were to be unfortunate enough to be enslaved at any time in history then you should hope that is was by an Israelite or a christian."
So I would be more fortunate if I lived in a time when the Israelites bought me as property that they could pass to their heirs and my wife and children would become slaves as well that could be inherited? I would be fortunate that my Israeli owner could beat me with a rod and as long as I survived for a couple of days before finally dying from my injuries, he would not be punished for beating me?
There is NO good slavery. Period.

In conclusion, I just want to point out to you that so far in your posts, only offered excuses for the immoral edicts of god with regard to slavery, and have not once tried to offer evidence for why it was moral for god to sanction slavery and not condemn it. That is the crux of the problem. Slavery is immoral, no matter the reasons. If you are only going to offer excuses for why god did something immoral, then you are automatically admitting that he did indeed do something immoral.

EDIT: Just realized you had mentioned Roman slavery as somehow a nicer form of slavery. Is that the form of slavery god sanctioned? No. It is a rather poor defense of god to point out that the Romans had a more moral system than he did. You might want to rethink that one.

You know, I almost deleted all of this and just drop the thread. I begin to feel like I'm almost brow-beating you. But then maybe it would be unkind not to point out that your arguments do not even begin to hold water in regard to god's stance on slavery. If you continue to use these on other atheists, some will not be so kind in their rebuttals, and I will have played an indirect part in that by not having told you.

Deeje · Oct 1, 2019

night912 said:
You are dodging it. Again, we're not talking about freewill here.

LOL....apparently humans can't have free will and make choices because....?

What was the basis of their choices? They knew evil existed as an equal opposite of good....but they had never experienced it. They were designed for a good life and if they had obeyed their God that is all they would have known. But disobedience introduced a whole new set of circumstances and the fallout would affect everyone living. To 'know about' something is not the same as experiencing it.

If there was no free will, the command to abstain from eating the fruit and a stated penalty if they did, is meaningless....you don't get that?

Satan was a free willed being who also made choices. It is all about free will. It's not about what they knew, but about what they did about what they knew. Their sovereign Creator gave them one negative command and they disobeyed it in full knowledge of the consequences. That was a choice.

He is identified by Jesus as the original serpent in Eden. (Revelation 12:7-12)

Click to expand...

No he wasn't.

LOL again.....Revelation 12:7-9...
"And war broke out in heaven: Miʹcha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him."

This "dragon" is the "original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan". Seems pretty clear to me. :shrug:

JJ50 · Oct 1, 2019

Deeje said:
LOL....apparently humans can't have free will and make choices because....?

What was the basis of their choices? They knew evil existed as an equal opposite of good....but they had never experienced it. They were designed for a good life and if they had obeyed their God that is all they would have known. But disobedience introduced a whole new set of circumstances and the fallout would affect everyone living. To 'know about' something is not the same as experiencing it.

If there was no free will, the command to abstain from eating the fruit and a stated penalty if they did, is meaningless....you don't get that?

Satan was a free willed being who also made choices. It is all about free will. It's not about what they knew, but about what they did about what they knew. Their sovereign Creator gave them one negative command and they disobeyed it in full knowledge of the consequences. That was a choice.

LOL again.....Revelation 12:7-9...
"And war broke out in heaven: Miʹcha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him."

This "dragon" is the "original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan". Seems pretty clear to me.

The book of Revelation contains some really crazy fairy tales. I wonder if the author of that book was off his head on alcohol or a drug when he wrote it? It beggars belief that any one can take it seriously.

night912 · Oct 2, 2019

Deeje said:
LOL....apparently humans can't have free will and make choices because....?

LoL .... apparently you dodged it again and use use straw man as a respond.

Deeje said:
What was the basis of their choices? They knew evil existed as an equal opposite of good....but they had never experienced it.

You still haven't shown that they knew evil. Repeatedly dodging won't help your argument .

Deeje said:
They were designed for a good life and if they had obeyed their God that is all they would have known.

So now you're saying that they didn't know evil.

Deeje said:
But disobedience introduced a whole new set of circumstances and the fallout would affect everyone living.

Yes, it does introduce an even bigger mess. I'll explain later.

Deeje said:
To 'know about' something is not the same as experiencing it.

And if you don't know what something is, how would you know that you are experiencing it.
So, they've been experiencing being naked their entire life and didn't know that they were naked.

Deeje said:
If there was no free will, the command to abstain from eating the fruit and a stated penalty if they did, is meaningless....you don't get that?

Straw man again? LoL. You are free to use a straw man over and over, but it's meaningless in regards to supporting your argument.

Deeje said:
Satan was a free willed being who also made choices. It is all about free will. It's not about what they knew, but about what they did about what they knew. Their sovereign Creator gave them one negative command and they disobeyed it in full knowledge of the consequences. That was a choice.

Eventhough you have the freewill to keep rambling, it's meaningless in regards to supporting your argument.

Deeje said:
LOL again.....Revelation 12:7-9...
"And war broke out in heaven: Miʹcha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him."

This "dragon" is the "original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan". Seems pretty clear to me.

Hahaha

Actually what's pretty clear is that realizing that you were wrong and couldn't accept it, so you changed the bible, changed the bible verses. So to save yourself from the embarrassment, you changed what was written in the bible. That's blasphemy. Every action have consequences. So I'll show you, here's what you said...

Deeje said:
He is identified by Jesus as the original serpent in Eden. (Revelation 12:7-12)

(Revelation 12:7-12)
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, 8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

See, you changed "old" and replaced it with "original." Just because you are talking about the devil deceiving, doesn't mean that you can pretend to be the devil and device others. Next, no where does it said that the devil was the serpent in Eden. Then, comes the punishment part. So what you're saying is that, the angel known as the devil pretended to be a serpent, and lied to eve. Then god instead of punishing the angel known as the devil, he punished a serpent and all of its offsprings to be on their belly and eat dust from the earth. So the species of snakes were punished for something they didn't do.

Seems pretty clear to me. :shrug:

Deeje · Oct 2, 2019

night912 said:
Actually what's pretty clear is that realizing that you were wrong and couldn't accept it, so you changed the bible, changed the bible verses. So to save yourself from the embarrassment, you changed what was written in the bible. That's blasphemy. Every action have consequences. So I'll show you, here's what you said...

Really? Blasphemy now?

I know exactly what I said.....

According to Strong's Concordance, the word you highlighted means...."
STRONGS NT 744: ἀρχαῖος
ἀρχαῖος, -αία, -αῖον (from ἀρχή beginning, hence) properly, that has been from the beginning, original, primeval, old, ancient"

That being the case "the original serpent" is a legitimate translation and makes reference to satan the devil as the serpent that seduced Eve.

night912 said:
See, you changed "old" and replaced it with "original."

As I just showed you, both mean the same thing. It relates to the beginning.....original....old.....ancient.....

Next, no where does it said that the devil was the serpent in Eden.

I believe you have that all wrong. Perhaps a bit more research may help?

Then, comes the punishment part. So what you're saying is that, the angel known as the devil pretended to be a serpent, and lied to eve. Then god instead of punishing the angel known as the devil, he punished a serpent and all of its offsprings to be on their belly and eat dust from the earth. So the species of snakes were punished for something they didn't do.

If that is the way you want to read it....that is up to you. If you have your own definition of the events in Eden you are welcome to them....I'll just accept the Bible account as it is written.

sooda · Oct 2, 2019

Deeje said:
Really? Blasphemy now? I know exactly what I said.....

According to Strong's Concordance, the word you highlighted means...."
STRONGS NT 744: ἀρχαῖος
ἀρχαῖος, -αία, -αῖον (from ἀρχή beginning, hence) properly, that has been from the beginning, original, primeval, old, ancient"

That being the case "the original serpent" is a legitimate translation and makes reference to satan the devil as the serpent that seduced Eve.

As I just showed you, both mean the same thing. It relates to the beginning.....original....old.....ancient.....

I believe you have that all wrong. Perhaps a bit more research may help?

If that is the way you want to read it....that is up to you. If you have your own definition of the events in Eden you are welcome to them....I'll just accept the Bible account as it is written.

The Garden of Eden story may also be understood as an allegory about the transition from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists. The sin of Adam and Eve was no longer trusting in God's providence .

That would explain why God rejected Cain's offering.

night912 · Oct 2, 2019

Deeje said:
Really? Blasphemy now? I know exactly what I said.....

According to Strong's Concordance, the word you highlighted means...."
STRONGS NT 744: ἀρχαῖος
ἀρχαῖος, -αία, -αῖον (from ἀρχή beginning, hence) properly, that has been from the beginning, original, primeval, old, ancient"

That being the case "the original serpent" is a legitimate translation and makes reference to satan the devil as the serpent that seduced Eve.

Yes, it's "old" or "ancient" not original. Original is not one of the definition.
So let's replaced the words and see which translation makes more sense.

1. And the great dragon was cast out, that beginning serpent, called the devil....

Now compared it with....

2. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil....

Number two clearly makes more sense.

Deeje said:
As I just showed you, both mean the same thing. It relates to the beginning.....original....old.....ancient.....

Of course, a lot of words have more than one meaning. It's how the word is used in context, is what's important.

Deeje said:
I believe you have that all wrong. Perhaps a bit more research may help?

I know you believe that I'm wrong, but that fact is, what believe is wrong. And yes, a bit more research will help you.

Deeje said:
If that is the way you want to read it....that is up to you. If you have your own definition of the events in Eden you are welcome to them....

No, I don't have my own definition, I'm just reading what is written in the bible.

Deeje said:
I'll just accept the Bible account as it is written.

Maybe you will some time in the future. As of right now, you don't accept the bible as it was written. That's apparent from your response of changing words, and using things from what is in the "book of revelation" to define things that is written in the "book of genesis."

Btw,
Where was it written in the bible, specifically in genesis, that said Adam and eve knew evil but did not know the experience of evil before eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Or did you just made up that definition on your own?

So, are all the snakes in the past and today the decendents of the devil? Was the devil fight on his belly when he fought Michael? Or did god cursed the devil to move around on his belly after he was cast out of heaven? Or perhaps the angels were a race of serpents? I'm just wondering because after doing a bit of research, I found these verses from genesis.

14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

I need your honest answer to those questions because your answer is part of the ongoing research on whether I should use my heel to bruise the head of a snake or not whenever I come across one.

Can't be too careful when it comes to hurting a decendent of the devil.

The curse of the forbidden fruit.

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