Raf

Ha!

Here's my question: do you agree that it is morally impossible to free a man without also freeing that man's wife and son, and to permit that man to reunite with his wife and son only if that man agrees to be your slave for life, all while simultaneously being loving? Because if you don't, congratulations. Look right into the camera and say "I am NOT more moral than Yahweh (or AS moral as any decent person in the 21st Century)." It's easy to concede the Bible SAYS to love God in the law, and to love your neighbor. The challenge is in recognizing that the laws regulating ebeddery instead of abolishing it are presented as consistent with loving God and loving your neighbor. If you're consistent, you HAVE to say it's possible to lovingly buy own beat barter bang and sell your ebed. But it's not. Your moral standards are higher than the standards presented in the Law of Yahweh. That's why you have to come up with a week and a half of preamble before announcing that you're finally going to directly address the subject (and I'll bet dollars to donuts we're still not going to see a direct discussion for at least another week). But please. Prove me wrong.

Do I agree that the Bible says what it actually says? Um. Let me retire to consider that question. I'll get back to you. For pete's sake will you just get to the point already instead of asking patronizing questions?

Edge of Tomorrow Tom Cruise Oblivion

For the record, no I won't. The only thing I'll come away thinking is, at most, that I won or lost a debate, which is nowhere near the same thing as being proved right or wrong.

Why on earth would you issue a blanket refusal to criticize the NBD? Did someone declare it God-breathed while I wasn't looking? I don't think it is criticizing that publication to say that it is biased in favor of trinitarianism. I think that is an openly acknowledged fact. I suspect they would be offended if you tried to portray them as being open to the idea that the Trinity is incorrect.

This is getting tired. Mark, you can agree with TnO's posts all you want, but so far, by his own admission, he's not done making his point. He's saying God is love. That's wonderful. But how do you reconcile a loving God with some flat out evil laws? Because telling a man "Bye, thanks for all your hard work. Your wife and kid are staying with me because they're mine, but you can have them back if you'll be my slave for life" is pretty evil, wouldn't you agree? I mean, if this were the Koran, would we be having this discussion? TnO has not made a single point that directly addresses the verses I raised. He will, I'm sure. After a word from our sponsor, these short messages, and who knows what else. You have accused me twice now of changing the subject. I have not changed the subject. I have allowed the subject to go on a tangent based on a claim that YOU made that I refuted. Your assertion that I've changed the subject is FALSE. You need to stop repeating false assertions. I'm sure you think I'm trying to divide people, but you can't demonstrate it because it's not true. I am not trying to get you to reject the NBD based on their support of the Trinity. I am trying to get you to admit you were wrong to call NBD unbiased, and that's it. I'm not trying to get you to say they were wrong. I'm not trying to get you to say they're a bunch of idolaters. I'm not trying to get you to say they are poopyheads. I'm not trying to get you to say you've forgotten more about the Bible than they'll ever know. All I'm trying to get you to SEE is that when you called the NBD unbiased, You. Were. Mistaken. That's it. And on MORE than one occasion, I tried to bring the subject of their bias BACK to the discussion at hand, which is that they are also biased when it comes to the morality of the Old Testament God when it comes to slavery. They're no more "unbiased" than you or I. Where, in their article on slavery, is the discussion about wives and sons being held back by the owner who lets a male slave go free. That's Bible, which I quoted, not commentary, which you quoted (isn't that supposed to be the other way around? Why am I the only one quoting scripture on slavery?) Your last two sentences are non-sequiturs. You cannot say God's support for slavery was okay because Jesus saved us. Of course, you can feel free to disagree with me on that. But you'd be wrong. Please stop arguing ABOUT me. It's much more profitable to your position when you argue WITH me. Arguing ABOUT me makes you look insecure.

That is a personal attack and not a refutation of anything I've written. If you do not wish to argue FOR your position or AGAINST mine, no one is forcing you. But slandering me and making false accusations about my motives will be immediately reported. If you can't refute me, then agree with me or sit there and stew. For the record, when it comes to the Bible, I am only here to do exactly what you're doing: Share what I've come to learn and believe in the hopes that you will at least understand me and at best come to agree with me. This forum is a place of discussion, and up until that last post, you were on topic. I even learned from our previous exchange and tried to be a bit more flexible when it comes to determining whether a tangential discussion has strayed too far to still be on topic. This is gibberish. The subject I started was Are You More Moral Than Yahweh. You cited an article in NBD that supports your on-topic position. You called that the NBD unbiased. I challenged you on that, citing an example. You challenged THAT and cited another one. Instead of declaring YOU off topic, I engaged, not crossing a single line in terms of the GSC rules. How that translates to me "finding some doctrines that are not taught the same way that other people teach..." Dude, you're babbling. That doesn't even mean anything. I think anyone reading this can see that I've directly refuted points you've made, and you've responded with a cute little temper tantrum, which is no substitute for a reasoned argument.

Seriously? You think the writer of that article does not believe Jesus is God? Or that he meant something else by "The Bible thus presents Christ as altogether God..."? REALLY? You're wrong. And I personally think it's hilarious that you accuse me of reading the item out of context, promise to provide the "accurate quote", and then quote the exact same thing I quoted. CHUTZPAH! Then for you to impose YOUR anti-trinitarian bias onto the work of an obviously Trinitarian Nelson writer is extraordinary. You can't even admit that the writer of that entry believes Jesus is God? You can't admit that he means to say exactly that? The section on the Person of Christ contains numerous subheadings: The Son of Man (because the writer believes the Bible teaches Jesus is the Son of Man); The Messiah (because the writer believes the Bible teaches Jesus is the Messiah); The Son of God (because the writer believes the Bible teaches Jesus is the Son of God); Word and Wisdom (because the writer believes the Bible teaches Jesus is the word and wisdom of God); The Holy One of God (because the writer believes the Bible teaches Jesus is the Holy One of God); The Lord (because the writer believes the Bible teaches Jesus is The Lord); and God (because the writer believes the Bible teaches Jesus is God). Oh, but he's not saying Jesus is God. Are you kidding me? Why can't you admit that the writer of that article is a Trinitarian who is biased in favor of the Trinitarian viewpoint? Indeed, it would be shocking if that were not the case. Just like it would be shocking (returning to topic) if an article on slavery in the Nelson Bible Dictionary would actually take God to task for His failure to condemn the immoral practice. Why is this difficult?

They are indeed.

Returning to topic: I've already dealt with the second sentence in that quote from Nelson's Absotively Unbiased (Except In Articles That Disagree With Me) Bible Dictionary . I'd now like to look again, briefly, at the first. It's hard to tell what the writer of this article is actually trying to say here. Whatever it is, it is morally unacceptable. Is he saying the God couldn't be bothered to abolish slavery because everyone was doing it? I mean, was it God's practice to allow moral abominations so long as enough people practiced them? Isn't it the point of the law to stop people from doing immoral things that they would do if it wasn't forbidden? There's a law against boiling a goat in its mothers milk. Not only is that a law, it's one of the Ten Commandments! (Only one set of commandments is actually referred to in the Bible as THE TEN Commandments, and the law against boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk is actually one of them. Check it out. Exodus 34. It's a hoot). Must have been easy to make a law forbidding the boiling of a goat in its mother's milk. I guess Israel's heart wasn't as committed to the practice of boiling a goat in its mother's milk as it was to the practice of owning people and holding their wives and children hostage. "Since slave practices were part of the culture in biblical times, the Bible contains no direct call to abolish slavery." Shouldn't that read, "Since slave practices were part of the culture in biblical times, the Bible contains repeated direct calls to abolish slavery"? Isn't that what you would expect from the author of absolute, objective morality? "Since slave practices were part of the culture in biblical times, the Bible contains no direct call to abolish slavery." Isn't God's existence the basis for objective, absolute morality, as opposed to cultural relativism? Why appeal to cultural relativism to explain one of His apparent moral failures? Etc.

Excellent. So the article on Jesus does not mention his pre-existence in John 1? I don't have a copy. I'll take your word for it. Nah. I just bought a copy. First line in the Jesus Christ article: "The human-divine Son of God..." When Trinitarians use the term human-divine, they mean he is both man and God. That's just how they use the term. There is an entire section on "The Person of Christ," one aspect of which is "God." So, um, yeah, it's biased. Your rhetorical question to me, ["So can you see this is also bias to mention something that is not written with complete biblical terminology, while not mentioning something that is written with biblical terminology?"] is therefore moot. The article on Jesus Christ is also biased in favor of the Trinitarian position. WHICH IS FINE. I would expect nothing less. For the record: the issue of bias/lack in Nelson's Bible Dictionary is INDEED on topic in context. You used NBD to support an on-topic argument. You claimed, in using NBD, that it was an unbiased source. It is on-topic to challenge that assertion. But it is certainly a digression that could very easily go off topic. Feel free to respond to what I've posted here. After that, let's agree to drop it and get back to the topic of whether you are more moral than Yahweh (spoiler alert, you are). [This is edited. I take responsibility for any post that quotes from an earlier version of what I've posted here].

You edited after I quoted, which is fine. I've been known to do the same. To the first point in bold, when we look at the Old Testament law as regards slavery, we are not discussing God preventing something that Satan promotes. We are actually talking about God promoting something that you and I agree (I hope) is immoral. Exodus 21 does not record SATAN's laws regulating slavery. It records GOD's laws. I don't see how God "not now preventing every evil Satan promotes" is relevant to that particular issue. Please feel free to expound. To the second point in bold, I can indeed see that Jesus Christ did not promote slavery directly. I hope you can at least see that he never condemned it as an institution. I will grant that his failure to condemn it is not a moral failure in and of itself. It would have been nice. But his failure to condemn slavery as an institution doesn't add to my point. However, his non-promotion of slavery does not subtract from the fact that His Father promoted slavery (by conferring legitimacy on the institution and regulating it instead of abolishing it outright, which any person with today's moral standards would do). Can you find one place in the Bible where Jesus, Paul or anyone else says it is inherently sinful and against God's will for one human being to own another? Can you find a single verse that condemns the practice of keeping a man from his wife and son because his wife and son are your property, and the man can only stay with them by agreeing to be your slave for life? I can find a verse where God SUPPORTS that. I'm just looking for one where he condemns it. To the final sentence, the writer is begging the question. There is nothing in the gospel ethic of "love" that stands in opposition to slavery except by our standards today. Paul had a golden opportunity to declare slavery antithetical to the gospel. He didn't. That was no accident. If it were antithetical to the gospel, Paul would have said so. He didn't. Because it wasn't. Except by today's standards. However, the topic is whether you are more moral than Yahweh, not whether you are more moral than Paul. How can we say the gospel implies a rejection of slavery when slavery persisted, even among Christians, for nearly 2,000 years afterward? Only by retro-interpreting the gospel in light of today's morality can we reach that conclusion. Paul returned a slave to his master, appealing to the master to release the slave not because slavery is inherently immoral (he never even hints at such an argument) but because the slave in question was now a Christian AND valuable to Paul! We cannot criticize me for holding the Old Testament culture to the standard of today's morality while at the same time imposing today's contempt for slavery onto a first century Christian culture that never challenged the wretched institution!

Ellen Ripley Dian Fossey Dana Barrett

I'll put it this way: Since Nelson's Bible Dictionary is unbiased, its entry on the Holy Spirit is unbiased. Please read the Nelson Bible Dictionary entry on the Holy Spirit and tell me again it is unbiased (that is, that the writers are willing to give consideration to the notion that the Holy Spirit is NOT the third person of the Trinity because there is no Trinity). I'll wait.

I have no problem with you offering a biblical perspective. I just laugh that you call it "unbiased." It's not unbiased. It's apologetic. It's a Biblical perspective. A Biblical perspective is not an unbiased perspective. It's a Biblical one. And that's ok. That is not a controversial statement. Nelson wouldn't publish someone who recognized God's failure to condemn slavery as a moral lapse. That alone makes them biased on the subject. It does not invalidate a word of the article. Mark, once again you are repeating the assertion that I'm someone who "does not actually believe the bible has any real truth." That statement is false. I am politely asking you to stop making that assertion, because it is not true. Ok? Do we have a deal on that?

Lex Luthor

Fine. I choose the highlighted portion as the reason for my alleged failure to accurately portray your position, although I do not see a hint of inaccuracy in how I portrayed what you actually wrote. If my characterization of what you wrote is lacking, I submit the relevance of what you posted is equally lacking. You also gave no indication that you weren't done. I can be as patient as you need me to be. But you're trying that patience. You seem to have oodles of time to promise to get to the point, in comparison to the time you're spending actually getting there.

Last thing: calling the Nelson Bible Dictionary unbiased has to be a joke, right? I'm not suggesting it's dishonest, but unbiased? It's apologetic. It's biased by definition. Please read the Nelson entry on the holy Spirit and tell me again it's unbiased.

No

Mark, there's nothing to incite or in your post. There's also nothing to refute my observation that slavery is immoral and that God failed to abolish it when he had the chance. The prevalence of slavery in the cultures of the time coupled with God's failure to abolish it is inconsistent with the existence of a perfectly moral God giving his perfectly moral law to the people. (Consistent would be for other nations to have slaves but for the nation with a truly moral lawgiver to say no. We're going to be different. Remember, our question is not whether ancient Israel was more moral than surrounding nations of the time. It's whether your morality exceeds Yahweh's. On the issue of slavery, it does. Easily). No one is asking anyone else to blame God for allowing slavery in American law. I am asking you all to hold Him accountable for allowing slavery under HIS OWN law. And stop acting as if He had no choice but to allow it because the Israelites demanded it. That position is both unsupported by scripture and morally insufficient. If slavery is morally wrong and the Israelites demanded it anyway, all he had to do was say No! Thou Shalt Not Own People! Isn't the whole POINT of the law to let people know right from wrong? God's endorsement of slavery and his impotence in abolishing it is consistent with a non-existent God invented by people to justify their culture and practices. But again, by all means, demonstrate where I am wrong. So far, neither of you has even come close (and Mark, I think the article you posted actually supports my position overall, that Biblical slavery -- God's version of it, not man's -- is immoral by our standards).

I'll leave it to the readers to determine whether my understanding of your post constitutes a strawman fallacy, TnO. Saying it doesn't make it so. I think I have accurately critiqued what you actually said. So if I haven't accurately represented your position, it is because you have not accurately or completely articulated it. The accusations of impatience are starting to get stale, though. You've been commenting more than a week, sometimes at length, and have yet to support the notion that biblical slavery is morally acceptable. I'll be as patient as you need me to be, but I suspect the emperor is naked here. Please. Prove me wrong. But stop saying you're going to. Any minute now. After these messages.

Using your logic, you'll never be able to find fault with anything God orders, because he's always right and moral and just. THAT'S NOT THINKING. And it's not morality.

Ok, so as long as they're owning, buying, selling, holding wives and children hostage in LOVE, it's okay. Never mind that these folks were a thousand and a half years away from Jesus and Paul. They're supposed to... dude, I can't even fake it. There's nothing loving about owning a man, giving him a wife, then letting that man go and keeping his wife and kids as your property. The reason it's so easy to call that unloving and immoral is simple: it's unloving and immoral. You cannot lovingly keep a man from his wife and kids unless that man promises to be your slave for life. And you cannot morally do it either. What you've done is known as begging the question. It reaches a conclusion by assuming it to be true in the first place. God is love. Therefore, everything he does will be loving and moral. If he has rules for keeping, buying, trading, beating banging and selling slaves, they must be loving and moral rules for keeping buying trading beating banging and selling slaves. Because he's love! That's not thinking. That's making horrific excuses for horrific verses that are indefensible. You say God is love. I show you he is not. And you are so jedi-mind-committed to the "God is love" paradigm that you would rather endorse a patently immoral practice than admit that maybe, just maybe, the skeptics have a point on this one.

Seize the Day Carrying the Banner