Johnny Skeptic

I already answered that. I said:

IF a God exists who says that killing babies is wrong, if he kills babies, he is immoral. Since the statement is hypothetical, it obviously does not say that naturalism is true. Regarding your question "How do you judge slavery immoral when there is no good or evil?," my answer is IF the God of the Bible exists, he is immoral.

If a God exists, how is he not immoral if he kills babies? How do you judge that God is good? If you think that you will get to ask all of the questions, you are mistaken. If you do not intend to answer those questions, I do not intend to reply to any of your posts.

Are you suggesting that there is not a common basis for naturalists and theists to have discussions about anything?

Since I am an agnostic, I am certainly in a position to judge that the God of the Bible is immoral, and more importantly, to judge that he does not exist. Obviously, a God who does not exist is not immoral.

sschlichter

If a parent says it is wrong to cross the street to their children, is it wrong for the parent to cross the street? Obviously not. Since God determines who is born and who dies, then it is not immoral for him to either cause to die or allow to die.

So, how do you, as a child, in relationship to God presume to judge which laws apply also to God. All you can say is that you do not beleive in God, and then you have no parent and there is no good and evil. No good and evil then the Jews were just doing what was in their common good and you cannot judge them immoral.

Johnny Skeptic

What does naturalism have to do with Mosaic law?

As I showed in my post #995, your comments about naturalism did not make any sense. Here is part of that post:

Your arguments are not valid, and your comments were intentionally evasive. What I said did not have anything to do with whether or not there is a difference between abortion and killing homeless people, which of course there is, or a difference between abortion and anything else. What I said is about naturalism compelling people to do what they do. If naturalism is true, it compels most women who have abortions to oppose killing homeless people. It is as simple as that.

Do you believe that abortion is murder?

Do you have any historical evidence that Moses existed?

What are you trying to prove in this thread, that Old Testament Hebrew laws were moral? If so, by what guidelines have you judged that Old Testament Hebrew laws were moral?

sschlichter

Don;t start ADD'ing on me Johnny. Answer the question in post #1003. Explain why a parents rules for a child are not applicable to the parent, but yet you assume God's laws apply to God and that is the basis on which you cry immoral.

You can punt and say there is no God, but then you still cannot say the Jews were immoral because their law was created for their common good, and this is not immoral to a naturalist.

Unless, you establish there is a God, then you cannot say it is immoral because you are a naturalist and there is no good and evil. The law was helpful for the Jews as you are reading their laws and not the surrounding cultures.

Johnny Skeptic

If I reply to what you said, do you intend to continue the discussions? If so, I already have a thread at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=260062 at the General Religious Discussions Forum that is titled "The God of the Bible is immoral." If you will participate in the thread, I will be happy to post what you said there and reply to it. If you refuse to participate in that thread, then you are obviously not serious about discussing the morality of the God of the Bible and I do not intend to discuss the issue any more with you.

sschlichter

ok, I will but after I return to the flood thread that you also accused me of avoiding.

Johnny Skeptic

But since I am agnostic, I have never claimed that there is no God. I have only said that IF naturalism is true, other things are true, none of which you successfully refuted.

But you yourself said that the texts make the Jews look bad, and that the main issue that you are interested in the law. Have you changed you mind?

But you already know that I am an agnostic. That means that I believe that there is a reasonable possibility that a God exists. My comments about naturalism were obviously hypothetical, and they were valid if naturalism is true.

I am not concerned with whether or not the law was helpful for Jews. Many laws helped many cultures. So what? I am also not concerned with the surrounding cultures. Why should I be? Who know how many cultures in the world might have been much more moral that the Jews were? The main reason why I started this thread was to discredit the God of the Bible, not the Jews. The buck stops with God, not with the Jews. IF, HYPOTHETICALLY, a God inspired the Bible, he is immoral. That is the issue that I am most interested in. Slavery is only one of hundreds of issues that reasonably prove that the God of the Bible is immoral, including the issues that God kills babies, and withholds additional evidence that some skeptics would accept if they were aware of it, and intends to send skeptics to hell for eternity without parole. No man can morally be sent to hell for refusing to accept evidence that he would accept if he was aware of it.

Johnny Skeptic

Good.

WVIncagold

The law with the bible changes with believers preferences as well. see shellfish and wearing different textiles together. 613 laws to be precise. I suggest you look into the reformation on the whole gods law thing being unchanged.
Prison is not slavery Equating the two is a straw man, simply because if slavery is the same why then did they have prisons during the times of slavery? Two separate conditions and its comparing apples with dogs. Nobody in prison is "owned" they are incarcerated there is a huge difference and because you can't see that shows your warped morality. their rights as citizens are suspended for the good of the people or to rehabilitate those who would do harm to others and those whom do not fit into society's laws.
with being a citizen comes certain responsibilities. Now considering that most theist want to be a subject (owned by the king) rather than be a citizen it explains the mindset.

Sheshbazzar

Of course I believe in good and evil, and have previously clearly stated that fact;
I think this stated quite clearly where I find good and evil to exist.
It is not a fault of the universe, nor of eternity,
nor of imaginary and invisible gods or demons,
but that men alone devise to do either good or evil towards one another.

The concepts of good and of evil are not dependent upon the Jewish/Christian fairy-tales, and were well known long before the Bible was written, ages before that make-believe story claims that the world was even created.

A couple of observations Steve.
A good many provably true and concise statements have been made which you have studiously avoided addressing head on.
Whether you are aware of it or not, avoiding the substantive issues of the Bibles truthfulness and reliability, while only seeking for some weak point in others, is not indicative of an individual that is seeking knowledge, or that is even really concerned with knowing what the truth is.

Although you have been doing your damnedest to avoid dealing with the facts, the facts will always remain as a standing indictment of the falsity of that religion that you are attempting to push.
This thread has been long, and even if you were to continue for another thousand posts, your tactics will not succeed in convincing anyone ethical who truly cares about the the truth, and the welfare of their fellow man.

Appropriately this thread was titled as "Slavery" because it has became a forum to expose how thoroughly a persons mind can become so enslaved to lies, that they no longer even have any care for facts, for the truth, or for what is right, or for the fact that they might well be engaged in behaviour that is detrimental to welfare of humanity.

Slavery to the big lie becomes their everything, for which step by step, they must abandon any real truth, reason and rationality, sacrificing their humanity on the altar of false religion, selling their lives an to imaginary and false god to become slaves to false religion.
Subtlety, evasiveness and deviousness is cultivated and slaved over, and soon subvert and supplant all honesty, morality, and any ethical concern for fellow man. No wonder then that some of history's worst crimes ever committed against men, and the worst wars the world has ever seen have followed in the footprints of the slaves of religion.

For over three decades of my life, from my twenties well into my fifties, I was also seduced by the Bible's promises, until being confronted with the true facts over and over and over, my conscience could no longer avoid the reality of what I would need become to continue in that slavery.
One by one the chains and shackles that had so long held me captive were broken. (my personal progress from being a fanatical believer of the most extreme sort, to my present state, is all well documented in the posts that I have made in this forum)
Life is choices, and making oneself into a slave to any religion, is always a personal choice. The chains binding these prisoners into slavery to lies are only forged from the hot air of preaching.
If your are in the chains of slavery it is only because you choose to so be bound, and to so serve.
Evil religions want and need slaves in shackles, the more the better.

The ethical question is why?
Why throw away your life to be a slave to a religion that is so obviously composed of fabrications, falsehoods and lies?
Religion has lied to you about the origins and age of humanity,
lied to you about the origins of the Bible,
lied you to about the history of the Jewish people,
lied to you about every event in the NT,
Why would you want to enslave yourself to serve a lie?

Because you want to "get into heaven"?

Your religion has lied to you in all of these things,
yet you still want to trust in it,
and believe that it is not lying to you about this?

Poor, poor, and pitiful slave.