The question I ask Xtian evangelists...

[ojc02]

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The outdated ethics in the Bible are what modern Christians still support. My brother and I had this conversation. He is a born again. He said that if God supported slavery 'he must have his reasons.'

(he was also okay with the rape of slaves since that too was in the Bible.)

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Wow, that's seriously disturbing... I thought even the most fundamental of Christians just swept that stuff under the rug... Well, at least he's being consistent, but man, he needs some help...

[kurto]

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The outdated ethics in the Bible are what modern Christians still support. My brother and I had this conversation. He is a born again. He said that if God supported slavery 'he must have his reasons.'

(he was also okay with the rape of slaves since that too was in the Bible.)

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Wow, that's seriously disturbing... I thought even the most fundamental of Christians just swept that stuff under the rug... Well, at least he's being consistent, but man, he needs some help...

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He believe I'm the one who needs help.

I'm still chuckling over the conversation. At least once a year he tries to show me the light. (I usually avoid the conversation because it annoys the whole family but its his duty as a Christian to save my soul.)

So he asks me what problem I have exactly with the Bible. I said its sexist and supports slavery and rape.

He laughed at me. No it doesn't. "I thought you read the Bible?" I said to him. He looked at me with this self-assured look.

I read him a bunch of verses. You could see he was speechless.

"You can't take verses out of context." I asked him to put it into context. He started to say that those were the rules of man. blah blah blah.

"I'm sorry, I thought you said the Bible was the word of God?" He pauses. It is.

"So, these verses about slavery... the word of man or God?" He thinks real hard. "God"

I then showed him how you could rape a slave so long as you sacrificed an animal afterwards. Then I showed him the verse where after invading a land and killing the men you could force a woman to be your wife.

"Things were different then." he says.

"But the Bible is still the unchanging word of God, right?"

"Of course."

"So if I invade a country I can rape a woman and force her to be my wife."

Looooong pause. "Yes."

"Let me get this straight. So you support this? Your fine with the Bible allowing forcible rape and slavery?"

"Yes. God must have his reasons."

It was a fun thanksgiving.

[She]

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you cannot reasonably transport modern ethics to a world of 4 or 5 millenia ago.

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We're not talking about modern ethics. We're discussing God's moral standards. If God is the same yesterday, today and forever, could you please show me how this doesn't apply??

OP - Great question! I am anxious to find out if there will be a logical response.

(The only thing I can think of personally, is where in the NT Christ states that God "allowed" divorce because of the "hardness of man's heart" even though it wasn't his origional plan. I have no idea if this is a similar issue or not.)

[RayBornert]

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This is funny...

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so there was the servant/master institution which was really their version of employee/employer relationship except that they all lived in rather close proximity with each other much more like a family.


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Kind of like modern day work relationship...except that when you get hired, its because the corporation slaughters your family then forces you into bondage. And its very much like your family... subtle differences like: Your dad can rape you at any time and whip you so you can't stand for a day. And, of course, your kids can also be sold and you can be given away.

Ray-- this is what the Bible says is okay. This is the religion and the Book that Christians swear is the word of God. The age is irrelevent since Christians still believe its all true.

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kurt,

all of the abuses you describe are still present with us today even without slavery.

i'm not defending the old testament definition of god within our modern culture; i'm defending their definition within the culture in which they lived. i dont agree with those who want to drag the old testament definition into modern times. feel free to indict those types of fundamentalists as you will and be sure to point them toward my comments. at the same time i want you to be sure and not indict a 4k year old culture for creating a definition of god that allowed them to survive even to this very day.

they all faced life and death propositions almost on a daily basis (much like we dont). i'm reminded of the frank herbert novel - dune - wherein the sand people are said to have been very severe with their children in training them to not cry aloud by the time they reached the age of 2; the reason was that a single crying child could potentially wipe out an entire village of their people due to the harsh world in which they lived, if that child were to give away their position. the novel stops short of suggesting that the culture was willing to put a child to death if the child could not be trained; yes it's fiction but it serves the point rather well. harsh environments will produce hardened cultures able to survive.

i am in total agreement with you in that we dont need to worship a mount st. helen god to prevent that volcano from spilling it's wrath upon the north west again.

i want you to have mercy upon those that are still unable to find the freedom to explore a better definition of god.

ray

[kurto]

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all of the abuses you describe are still present with us today even without slavery.


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But, if I was an abuser, I could find peace of mind knowing that what I did was okay as far as my faith is concerned.

Certainly the abuses exist... but most of us agree that they are wrong. Yet, they are okay according to the Bible. That is our point. For those who use the Bible as their measure of morality, they would have to agree that having slaves is okay, rape and marriage by force is okay, etc.

I take it you are not a Bible literalist so the issues don't perplex you. But if you were one of the many who thinks the Bible is the absolute word of God and quote scripture to justify things like attacking gays and such, then you would also have to agree that slavery is okay, rape is allowed, etc.

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i'm not defending the old testament definition of god within our modern culture;

[/ QUOTE ] The problem is most Christians still follow the God as defined by the Old Testament... more accurately, they are what I call "Pick and Choose" Christians-- they pick the parts of the Bible they like and ignore the parts they don't like. Most don't support slavery or stoning people... that would be barbaric. But they decide its still okay to hate gays or oppose science when it contradicts with their eons old texts.

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i want you to have mercy upon those that are still unable to find the freedom to explore a better definition of god.


[/ QUOTE ] I agree with you. (and I also enjoyed Dune! Though its been well over a decade since I read it) Though how better to educate those unable to explore a better definition of God then by confronting them with the ignored passages of the text they claim to follow?

[txag007]

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Do you support slavery?


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No.

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If not;
Was your omniscient God wrong?

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No.

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Mistaken?

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No.

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Did he have a change of heart he hadn't realised he was going to have?


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No.

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This paragraph is basically the 11th commandment

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No, it's not.

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Was it wrongly recorded by the human scribe, was the author mistaken?

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No. And no.

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If so isn't it likely the previous 10 contained mistakes too?

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No.

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Thats pretty damn important when placing the success of your entire life project of getting to heaven on correctly following Gods rules isn't it?


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That's not my life project, and that's not how the Bible says that you get to heaven.

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It is certainly evidence that we either should condone slavery or that the original author/source of the quote was not omniscient.

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No, it isn't.

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So would you accept that Christians have cherry picked the passages from the Bible that they liked (not forgetting the fact that these were the best bits cherry picked from a much bigger pool of text), essentially ignoring their only reference to the word of a God that they claim to hold in such high regard?

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No, I wouldn't.

[madnak]

You're very good at denial, txag.

[vhawk01]

The next time someone asks me if I'm a hypocrite I'm just gonna say no. And then if they show me how I'm being a hypocrite I'll just say, Nope, that doesn't make me a hypocrite. Txag, are you sure you didnt want to end your post with "I'll leave it to others to expound."

[txag007]

The quoted passage doesn't say what you think it says.

[arahant]

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So the bible is inappropriate to use as a guide for modern life?

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Actually, if you read what he wrote, he doesn't seem to have much a problem with slavery. I think the next step should be asking about stoning adulterers, and after that, maybe a call to the authorities. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]