Raf

Danny Devito Ruthless People Judge Reinhold

Lauren Hutto Once Bitten Jim Carrey

My comments about bolstering were strictly about effective debating. I didn't say you were off topic. I didn't say you couldn't continue doing it. All I said is it was becoming habitual, and I called it out for what it is: an attempt to sway readers by declaring someone else's statement to be more truthful, accurate, well-researched, unbiased than it actually is. You can pay every compliment you want. And I can employ every critique I want, as long as we are both fair and on-topic. Except for your "divide and conquer" FALSE ACCUSATION, we are both being fair and on-topic.

Cool Hand Luke The Usual Suspects "Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don't they?"

Once again, you are being untruthful when you accuse me of employing a divide and conquer strategy. You are being untruthful when you feign ignorance about the basis of my statement that you are bearing falsewitness against me. You can post whatever you want as long as it is on topic. Make another false accusation against me and it will be reported immediately. Are we clear?

If you are going to call me untruthful, you'd better back it up by citing an untruth. Otherwise it is name calling and will not be tolerated. I put up with you once and let you get away with trolling the carp out of the thread, and I assure you I will not let that happen again.

Why are you reposting the exact same thing? You have consistently referred to me as having a divide and conquer strategy. That assertion is untruthful. I've asked you to prove your assertion or stop making it because it is false. Reposting the same post that doesn't address that issue is irrelevant. I am asking you to stop. Appreciate it. Good night.

I already addressed the information you asserted. Then I addressed your bolstering. Finally, I addressed your bearing falsewitness against me. Thanks for understanding.

Shirley MacClaine (sp?) Steel Magnolias Julia Roberts

http://www.bakers-legal-pages.com/cca/notes/04/R-69A17000.htm While I concede that we are not in a court of law, the basis of my comment regarding bolstering can be found in the legal field. I quoted that in full lest I be accused of removing it from its context, but to be clear: Calling something "unbiased" or an example of "clarity and good sense" doesn't make it so. In fact, the only reason you seem to have for such assertions is to bolster the credibility of what TnO posted without doing the slightest bit to confirm it, verify it, or contribute to the discussion. You're certainly welcome to the opinion and welcome to express it, as I am welcome to challenge TnO's post and call out the fallacious effect of your decision to bolster it. In other words, the tactic of bolstering does not work against me and it should not work for anyone else who may be reading.

I started the Exodus thread but haven't fed it. It's on my to-do list.

Who am I trying to divide? Please inform us all, or STOP MAKING FALSE ACCUSATIONS. By the way, thank you for quoting my post so I could go back and fix the grammatical errors.

Good point, Bolshevik. Modcat5 to the rescue.

Ah, yes, the old "lunatic, liar or lord" gambit. Except when I first heard it, there was a fourth option, and it's the one that makes the most sense. "Legend." When you realize that the gospels are not the firsthand accounts of people who witnessed these events, and that there's no supporting evidence for ANYTHING written in them, it becomes easy to see how an itinerant preacher's fate can become exaggerated to the point that the historical figure behind it can become all but lost. Imagins if all we knew about Joseph Smith, ALL OF IT, came from Mormons. We'd have a distorted history of the man. Such is the case with Jesus. ALL we know about him came from his followers. Same with Moses (who probably never existed in history). There's no independent verification for him whatsoever. No verification of a massive exodus of a million plus slaves from Egypt. None. All we know about him comes from the Bible, in which he humbly declares himself the most humble man who ever lived. Huh? (As noted elsewhere, it's highly unlikely Moses wrote Exodus, seeing as the first five books contain anachronisms that reveal a MUCH later authorship date. Anyway, kudos. Good post.

The LDS church recently came out with a compromise on gay rights issues, but their history has been decidedly anti. They want to be seen as tolerant, but they also do not believe in the legalization of gay marriage and, best as I can tell, still favor businesses discriminating against gays on the basis of the religious beliefs of the business owner. That gives the picture the poignancy and "irony" you seek. http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/27/us/mormon-church-lgbt-laws/

Inerrantist Fixed

You mean showing people how bigoted they're being by directing their bigotry back at them? Nahhhh.

Ehrman's analyses of New Testament texts are devastating to the inerrantist position.

Oh, and lest I be accused of engaging in a personal attack, let me be clear: I am objecting to an invalid form of argument that bolsters a concurring argument through praise. That is the thrust of my point. And it is not the first time Mark has done it. It is only the first time I'm calling it out (because it has become predictable)

A landlord can't keep your kid until you catch up on the rent. Just saying. Slavery v. Homelessness is another false dilemma. There are other options. Shelters, for example. Mark, what you call clarity and good sense, I call skillful evasion of key issues. I don't know why you feel the need to grade the papers of everyone who agrees with you, but it's a level of bolstering that seeks to validate an opinion by praising it. TnO writes with clarity and good sense. The NBD is unbiased. Your posts start so frequently with unwarranted praises for what others have written that the trend is becoming a parody of itself. Here's an example of evasion: TnO tells us the ebed is not a forced slave. There's another word for that. Missing: does the Torah permit forced slavery? It does. So why are we discussing the ebed? TnO tells us the ebed goes free after the debt is paid. I trust that, but where is the citation? And where is the evidence that this applies to thieves? I'm amused at the lengths you guys will go to in order to defend slavery. Rename it. Redefine it. Insist it's not that bad. IT BEATS DYING! You would never do this in defense of Allah. More later.

Think comedy

Geoffrey Rush Les Miserables Liam Neeson

I didn't say child. I said daughter. That statement is without scriptural support. Sure, that is ONE way it could happen. But "the only way?" Not what the Bible says. This is a false dilemma. I note how you juxtapose "allowing their children to die" with selling a daughter into slavery, as if those were the only two options. Giving the child up for adoption would be a much better option than selling a daughter into slavery. Note also that this verse [Exodus 21:7 ff, which I will quote in full momentarily] says nothing whatsoever about the father's motivation (escaping poverty, debt, etc). And if it IS for those reasons, it is treating the girl as the father's property rather than his progeny. There are many more options available besides "selling my daughter as a sex slave" and "letting her die." ESPECIALLY for an omniscient God who is able to say "here's how you handle this situation." For a moral person, selling the child would not even make the list of options. Here are the verses. 7 “If a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. 8 If she does not please the man who bought her, then he shall let her be bought back again; but he has no power to sell her to foreigners, since he has wronged her by no longer wanting her after marrying her. 9 And if he arranges an engagement between a Hebrew slave girl and his son, then he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but must treat her as a daughter. 10 If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing, or fail to sleep with her as his wife. 11 If he fails in any of these three things, then she may leave freely without any payment. Please read the verses again. It is describing NOTHING like a foster family. Egads. She's a sex slave. Concubine. Handmaid. Maidservant. Not an ebed, I acknowledge, but still relevant to the context of this thread. Read it. Unlike the male ebed from a few verses earlier, she does NOT get the "go free in the seventh year" clause. She explicitly does not get that. Male slaves got freedom. Female slaves did not. The master can sell her back (whether this is before or after he's "used" her is not specified, but let's be generous and presume it's before). He can't sell her to foreigners. Well, that's nice. I guess that means he can sell her to another Israelite, which sounds very much like a slave trade and nothing at all like a foster family type of situation. Now, the master CAN give the girl to his son. At that point, he has to treat her like a daughter-in-law. Well, that's nice. No, really, it is. Or the master can marry her himself (note that she doesn't seem to get a vote here. Is THAT moral? I know it was the cultural norm, but is it moral? Now, if the master marries the girl himself, AND he takes another wife, he has to... wait, what? That's... isn't that... wait just a cotton picking minute (pun gleefully intended)! Yeah, we haven't even touched on polygamy in this thread. Do you believe monogamy is more moral than polygamy? God doesn't seem to have an opinion. He's like, "Whatevs. If your culture allows it, fine. If it doesn't, well, I'd prefer one man one wife, but if you have more than one wife, I'm good with that too." o.....k....? So if the master decides to make his slave girl his wife, she stops being a slave right? Wrong. She's just treated differently. But there's a whole new rule: he has to keep feeding, clothing and banging the slave girl. Otherwise, she can go free without payment. What the bloody hell? That's what it says. Clearly. He doesn't even seem to have to divorce her. Just, go. That's not freedom for mistreatment, mind you. That's dismissal. I've used you. I'm done with you. I don't owe you jack. Begone! Fascinating. Moral? No, not by your standards. If you say it is, I just won't believe you. If you appeal to cultural relativism, you've already lost. God should be setting moral rules and laws, not submitting to cultural norms. A moral God would recognize those verses as monstrous. But they were appropriate for the culture that invented this God in the first place. No. They were what we described above. I don't believe you. And as evidence, I put forward that before you said it was not a moral outrage, you did not posit what the Bible actually said on the subject, which is certainly morally outrageous. False dilemma. We've been over that. Gee, I wonder why not. They did not have the "freedom to leave." That is a deliberate misrepresentation. They could escape, and people would not be allowed to return them. But that is not at all the same as "freedom to leave." Now it should be noted that according to some scholars, the "escape" clauses only refer to slaves from foreign lands who escape into Hebrew land. I'm not sure that is accurate, but if I come across solid citations, I'll be happy to share them. Which protections am I referring to that applied to Hebrew slaves but not foreign? For one, the freedom after six years. Leviticus 25: 44 However, you may purchase slaves from the foreign nations living around you, 45 and you may purchase the children of the foreigners living among you, even though they have been born in your land. 46 They will be permanent slaves for you to pass on to your children after you; but your brothers, the people of Israel, shall not be treated so. No Jubilee for you!

FASCINATING that you cite the verse but don't quote it. I can't blame you. It's ghastly. Here are the verses, with a bit more thrown in for context: 20 “If a man beats his slave to death — whether the slave is male or female — that man shall surely be punished. 21 However, if the slave does not die for a couple of days, then the man shall not be punished — for the slave is his property. ... 26 “If a man hits his slave in the eye, whether man or woman, and the eye is blinded, then the slave shall go free because of his eye. 27 And if a master knocks out his slave’s tooth, he shall let him go free to pay for the tooth. So let's be clear: beating the slave is FINE if the slave doesn't die or suffer serious injury. The master does not get punished for that. A few lashes on the back? As long as you don't take out his eye or knock out his tooth, you're ok. To say "they were not allowed to be mistreated" is demonstrably false. They WERE allowed to be mistreated. They just weren't allowed to be killed or mutilated. Well. That's nice. Then they would still be slaves. They would just be slaves who had run away. The notion of being able to simply "quit" is absent from the Bible. Or they were born into it. Or sold into it by their dads.

I think you could make the case that this is more moral than imprisonment. I'm curious to know whether he goes free once the debt is paid. In any event, that is not "slavery," that is making restitution after committing a crime. If he does NOT go free once the debt is paid, then we're talking slavery. But the bottom line here is that this is an example of punishment for a crime, not "slavery." I find the phrasing interesting. "Do not make them work as slaves." This already tells you that we are distinguishing between these people and other "slaves." As such, the issue under observation here is the slaves, not the people who must not be treated as slaves. We are explicilty not talking about slaves here. Yes, technically they were. But they were not to be treated as slaves. So how are the slaves treated? Why the distinction? If being a slave was so "ok," then why insure that people who sold themselves into ebeddery were not to be treated as such? Aren't you implying here that being a slave was NOT "ok," if people who sold themselves out of debt were not to be treated as slaves? As previously noted, these were NOT the only two ways the torah allowed. A child could be born into it, through no fault of his own, and held from his father as the property of his master unless the father agreed to become a slave for life, a verse whose significance you have yet to address. That these foreign born slaves were treated better than other nations would have treated them is not really relevant. The issue is that they are slaves, period, and NOT given the same protections as Hebrew slaves. More on that later, since you did ask. Fascinating verse. If a slave runs away he is not to be returned to his master. Note, it does not say "if a slave decides to quit, the master must let him go." That would be how a moral person would phrase it. But in this case, the master's perspective is missing. Why is that? And why doesn't the Bible simply instruct, "he shall be free"? It just says don't send him back. What if the master arrives to claim him? Nothing says he can't. In fact, as the master's property, the slave MUST go back. So kudos for not requiring people to return slaves, but it's hardly "freedom." So the slaves don't work on the sabbath day or the holy days. Neither do the animals. Your point?