Your thoughts on religion/god/whatever you worship

[Scrotus]

Isn't that what religion is for?

I don't know what religion is for, as I stated above I'm not religious. For me that's what "church" is for.

[Wynken]

fool

No, son

Yay for attacks ad hominem. I suppose that's the respect you were whining for earlier, no?

No, your point has been that they have not existed to grant any individual power

Oh. Is that what my point was? Thank you so much for letting me know. Now that you have, perhaps you could take a break from that and actually read my words in context in order to fully evaluate the entirety of their meaning? Especially when I lay down for you, in no uncertain terms, exactly what that meaning is...

more and more it just looks like you are proving that your position demands that you be correct even though they have less to do with mine than with another's.

More and more it looks as though you assume what my point is, or will be, at the expense of sound reasoning and a proper response.

Never used the words "good enough" but in the sense that they provide answers accepted without being tested, yes. Now "incredibly" is a word on your part I don't find appropriate as simply being testable, unbedizened, and unperfumed as it is ejaculated into the world as a constant that can be recognized in the same way that Paris is in France, never mind the math (48° 52' 0" N / 2° 20' 0" E).

Did I say proper response? I'm quite certain this isn't even in English. Or, perhaps I'm just a fool who can't understand your haughty speech? Care to dumb this down for me?

I maintain that the atheist community is simply a group of people who do not acknowledge a deity. Nothing more, nothing less, no tenets of race or party, no particular education either given that anyone who does not invent or become involved with a group dedicated to a god are considered part of the nonbeliever corner. Children, British biologists, it is really a group anyone can belong to.

I have never stated otherwise, and never would as I'm quite familiar with the definition of the term a-theism. This entire side argument originated from an off-handed and patently sarcastic remark. Let me sum up my thoughts for you:

Not all theists are backwards retards
Not all atheists are super elite geniuses

Where are you getting this great understanding of the atheist inner workings...feel free to inform me how often you run elbows with atheists of any kind.

If you must know, my father is a staunch atheist, and always looking for a debate. I have thousands of posts spanning the better part of five years in several religious debate threads scattered in various forums across the net. Most of my friends are atheists or agnostic, but I don't often debate with them.

I reserve the right to tell you that you are wrong.

Wrong in the sense that the general statements I made don't apply to you, but I had already admitted as much. They weren't made about you in the first place.

No, this is going back in its box! Presupposing the existence of Eldritch Abominations, Unicorns, Leprechauns, miracles, and magic allows for all of these things to be true. I would like you to separate out how your presupposed myth is in any way different from these, or argue for all their existence. If you want to walk this road, you are going to have made some claims barring these others from existence or start accepting the idea that Vishnu sleeps in his hidden mountains dreaming up the world.

Your first sentence is absolutely false, and has nothing to do with mine. You're changing the argument here. My assertion was, in its simplest form, that an all-powerful being is all-powerful. There's nothing illogical about that. Without saying so, I see that you've opted to take me up on my invitation to attack the presupposition that such a being exists in the first place. Fine.

My answer to this is always that those and similar logical devices (such as Bertrand Russell's Celestial Teapot) remain or become logically viable only as they garner the traits of the Abrahamic God. In order to protect your claim that belief in unicorns is sufficiently similar to belief in God, you'll need to attribute to them more and more of God's traits until at some point we'll simply be arguing semantics. You say unicorn, I say God, but we're referencing the same entity...

I disagree and call that a delusion when the knowledge you possess has no physical basis that you can present. Sadly, my secular viewpoint, which allows for equally dubious but far more productive clarity, disagrees.

Look! Over your head; it's the point!

Woah, that is the first time I have ever been given this line of thought, I have seen it before, but never been graced with it at my doorstep in its paper bag and flames. You establish that life is owned, thus changing the meaning of murder to being an act whose choice is what I assume to be unknowable. This effectively sets aside the concept of morality all together and places it before a single individual. Under these terms, morality is an extension of one beings will.

I couldn't agree more. Morality is entirely subject to the objective and unchanging will of our God and Creator as He has outlined and established in the Bible.

you should explain without presupposing the existence of a god why life is inherently subject to an unpresupposed divine rule.

What you're asking for is paradoxical and nonsensical. The very belief that anything (life, morality, etc) is subject to the will of such a being presupposes its existence. I've said once that if you want to debate said existence, have at it. If you want to debate claims made presupposing God's existence than we can do that too...but it's impossible and illogical for you to assume we can do both at once in a single argument.

I was not referring to that at all, it was Numbers 31. Wonderful, this will be an education. In addition, I judge this as still a moral tale, Moses issues the order, and the issue is credited to divine command at line 31.

Perhaps you could quote me the verse wherein God or Moses command anyone to be raped because I must be missing it. Perhaps first you'd like to read the earlier segment where you told me that you don't read the Bible with any bias...

(Dude, what do you do for a living? It sounds so awesome; please tell me you are paid to write this stuff)

Oh good. I'm no longer the only one being sarcastic. Just a hobby, as I said.

You do not value human will, life or rights the same way I do, so I will not get too defensive here.

Hah. I just explained that the word "slavery" in the Old Testament isn't at all used in the manner that we understand it today. Spare me your rhetoric and actually make a point if you reject mine.

This article from http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html does well to contrast modern slavery to its various forms in Mesopotamia during Biblical times, and it sites, "the definitive work on ANE law today, the 2 volume work [HI:HANEL] (History of Ancient Near Eastern Law). This work (by 22 scholars) surveys every legal document from the ANE (by period)..."

Motive: Slavery was motivated by the economic advantage of the elite.

So, [NS:ECA:4:1190] point this out: "New World slavery was a unique conjuntion of features. Its use of slaves was strikingly specialized as unfree labor-producing commodities, such as cotton and sugar, for a world market."

In the ANE (and OT), this was NOT the case. The dominant (statistically) motivation was economic relief of poverty (i.e., 'slavery' was initiated by the slave--NOT by the owner--and the primary uses were purely domestic (except in cases of State slavery, where individuals were used for building projects).

Entry: Slavery was overwhelmingly involuntary. Humans were captured by force and sold via slave-traders.

In the ANE (and especially the OT), the opposite was the case. This should be obvious from the MOTIVE aspect--these were choices by the impoverished to enter this dependency state, in return for economic security and protection. Some slavery contracts actually emphasized this voluntary aspect!:

"A person would either enter into slavery or be sold by a parent or relative. Persons sold their wives, grandchildren, brother (with his wife and child), sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews and niece…Many of the documents emphasize that the transaction is voluntary. This applies not only to self-sale but also to those who are the object of sale, although their consent must sometimes have been fictional, as in the case of a nursing infant." [HI:HANEL:1.665]


The same, of course, can be said of Israel. For example, even in wars on foreign soil (e.g., Deut 20.10,10), if a city surrendered, it became a vassal state to Israel, with the population becoming serfs (mas), not slaves (ebed, amah). They would have performed what is called 'corvee' (draft-type, special labor projects, and often on a rotation basis--as Israelites later did as masim under Solomon, 1 Kings 5.27). This was analogous to ANE praxis, in which war captives were not enslaved, but converted into vassal groups:

And since most slavery was done through self-sale or family-sale, it was likewise voluntary (at least as voluntary as poverty allows), cf. Lev 25.44 in which the verbs are of 'acquisition' and not 'take' or 'conquer' etc.

reatment : Slaves were frequently mistreated by modern standards, and punishments were extreme.

The images we have of the Old American South are filled with mistreatments, and we need no documentation of that here.

The ANE, on the other hand, was much less severe, due largely to the differences in the attitudes of the 'master' to the 'slave'. Slavery in the ANE was much more an 'in-house' and 'in-family' thing, with closer emotional attachment. However, there were still some extreme punishments in the ANE, but the biblical witness is of a decidedly better environment for slaves than even the ANE. Exodus 21, for example, is considered by many to be unparalleled in respect to humanitarianism toward slaves...

Legal Status : Slaves were considered 'property' in exclusion to their humanity. That is, to fire a bullet into a slave was like firing a bullet into a pumpkin, not like firing a bullet into a human. There were no legal or ethical demands upon owners' as to how they treated their 'property'.

And this implied range of freedom/slavery can be seen all over the ANE. Buying and Selling, for example, can be the contractual terminology for child adoption:

"Older children were adopted by reimbursing their parents for the expenses of feeding and raising them. These transactions were recorded as if they were sales." [HILAM:131]

and slaves had very specific legal rights (can real 'chattel property' have such?):

"Slaves had certain legal rights: they could take part in business, borrow money, and buy their freedom." [HILAM:118]

"Guterbock refers to 'slaves in the strict sense,' apparently referring to chattel slaves such as those of classical antiquity. This characterization may have been valid for house slaves whose master could treat them as he wished when they were at fault, but it is less suitable when they were capable of owning property and could pay betrothal money or fines. The meaning 'servant' seems more appropriate, or perhaps the designation 'semi-free'. It comprises every person who is subject to orders or dependent on another but nonetheless has a certain independence within his own sphere of active." [HI:HANEL:1632]

Exit : Slavery was forever. There were never any means of obtaining freedom stipulated in the arrangement. In the cases of an owner granting freedom, it was generally a 'bare bones' release--no property went with the freedman.

In the ANE, although some cultures had pre-built "debt-payoff-periods" (like Israel's 6 years), "chattel" manumission was rare because it wasn’t sought after--the issues of economic security and the quasi-family relationships that developed within the household unit created little incentive to become 'independent':

[We will be semi-shocked below when we discover that manumission in Israel was either pre-scheduled (in the case of Hebrew slaves) or anytime-you-want-it (in the case of foreign slaves)…!]

You have separated your beliefs from any possible objective research to determine its place in reality or lack thereof.

Which belief would that be? My belief in Big Bang cosmology or that of evolution? How about abiogenesis? Have you ever considered that the creation account of the Bible attributes two things to the direct power of God? "God created the heavens and the earth" and the formation of the human soul. For the remainder God merely permitted nature to take its course ("God said let there be"). Look at the wording throughout...several times it states openly that, "the land produced" the various forms of life. Nature already had all that was needed for the formation of life...

No problem there, but I take it to mean you have no intention of actually attempting anything besides proving that popular misconceptions of your position are false while casually slinging slander (strong word, but I like alliteration).

What else can I do? I've conceded that I can not "prove" my position, though I do feel that there is some strength to the cosmological argument.

As far as attack, how am I attacked?

Twas simply convention my good man. I don't mean to imply that you are or should feel threatened in any way. I certainly don't.

Your next move is to admit it is badly written

Oh?

[Melancor]

God, I stopped carying after the second page.

[MetalDrago]

Over the many years I've been a member, I've learned to keep myself apart from this shitstorm of a topic. Let's just say I'm spiritual and leave it at that.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I think you missed the big upsurge of arguing about religion on the internet. Obviously it's an endless wellspring of stupid bullshit, but it was full to bursting when there was all that YouTube drama about a year ago.

Anyone who posted in this thread is stupider from having done so and I willingly include myself in that number to bring you that message.

[Saxon]

I think you missed the big upsurge of arguing about religion on the internet. Obviously it's an endless wellspring of stupid bullshit, but it was full to bursting when there was all that YouTube drama about a year ago.

Anyone who posted in this thread is stupider from having done so and I willingly include myself in that number to bring you that message.

i r dumb, i r on wagon!

[Knave]

Yay for attacks ad hominem. I suppose that's the respect you were whining for earlier, no?

No, let me correct your flailing attempt at calling fallacies like soccer players call fowls. Ad hominem only applies to the address of a person’s character in reply to the topic. Calling you a fool is not ad hominem for the simple reason that it is only a garnishment to my statements; it has no barring in my statement and is simply a term of endearment, like “son”. Calling you a fool is just playful abuse. As far as whining? Come now, dear Wynken, I don’t mean to me, I mean to my position, generalizing myself and my group to use what resembles unfounded accusations that have little to do with the point constitutes Ad Hominem. Feel free to use more, I will do my best to let you know you are correct, or I will correct you.

A good example would be along the lines of, “He is a fool, nothing he says can mean anything but the babbling words that echoes through his iron plated skull! He can never learn, will never know, and thus he is wrong!” This is Ad Hominem.

Oh. Is that what my point was? Thank you so much for letting me know. Now that you have, perhaps you could take a break from that and actually read my words in context in order to fully evaluate the entirety of their meaning? Especially when I lay down for you, in no uncertain terms, exactly what that meaning is...

In context, it’s a reply to someone else you’ve grown to blanket everything instead of simply saying you were too far onto your stump to think about getting onto another one. You want to talk semantics in order to get past your stumbling attempts at keeping up then consult your dictionary.

More and more it looks as though you assume what my point is, or will be, at the expense of sound reasoning and a proper response.

Only to save time, I’m not missing anything that matters.

Did I say proper response? I'm quite certain this isn't even in English. Or, perhaps I'm just a fool who can't understand your haughty speech? Care to dumb this down for me?

Educate yourself, take up your dictionary, and reintroduce yourself to the English language. Surely, you have knowledge of simple prefixes. I do not blame you for not knowing what longitude and latitude are. A simple Google would have done you well, or mulling over the context, but where I might be haughty, you might be lazy, so it is a moot point.

I have never stated otherwise, and never would as I'm quite familiar with the definition of the term a-theism. This entire side argument originated from an off-handed and patently sarcastic remark. Let me sum up my thoughts for you:

Not all theists are backwards retards
Not all atheists are super elite geniuses

Quite, now keep it in mind; earlier posts cast my doubt and suspicion on the part of your understanding. I am much relieved to see you now know, at least in words over the internet.

If you must know, my father is a staunch atheist, and always looking for a debate. I have thousands of posts spanning the better part of five years in several religious debate threads scattered in various forums across the net. Most of my friends are atheists or agnostic, but I don't often debate with them.

It is sad that parent and child must fight, glad you do not bring this to your friends though, it would rather ruin the party. As far as where you spend your spare time, cool, we all need our hobbies that span the larger portion of our lives. I know I do this too much.

Wrong in the sense that the general statements I made don't apply to you, but I had already admitted as much. They weren't made about you in the first place.

You see this is why our conversation swings every time I post, that was not even aimed at you. That was a statement without address, without target, without destination. It was a feather from my wing of odd phrases and tangents; I think I aimed at the posts preceding that put forward the more popular variety.

Your first sentence is absolutely false, and has nothing to do with mine. You're changing the argument here.
My answer to this is always that those and similar logical devices (such as Bertrand Russell's Celestial Teapot) remain or become logically viable only as they garner the traits of the Abrahamic God. In order to protect your claim that belief in unicorns is sufficiently similar to belief in God, you'll need to attribute to them more and more of God's traits until at some point we'll simply be arguing semantics. You say unicorn, I say God, but we're referencing the same entity...

Your first statement is a fly destined for naught but the swat of objection! The rest however is true, and it seems I have jumped the gun. However, seeing as the game has changed I shall continue on the track you have allowed us to enter. First, you do not explain why they are logically more viable as they attain the same traits as the Abrahamic God, so the statement is unfinished, or contains an assumption. Moving on, a Unicorn inhabits the mystical land Futopia, and occasionally grazes on Earth and commands earthlings to do its will with nary a dropping left behind as evidence; being magical he can do as he pleases in all affairs. How do we prove he does not exist? We do not because this is an argument for possibility, like life on the moon, or sentient sea conquering jellyfish. This is an argument for possibility, and while we cannot disprove these things without scanning all space/time/ant-space/anti-time they can’t be proven to be the work of one guy on a computer.

Look! Over your head; it's the point!

Look, in front of your face, another one!

I couldn't agree more. Morality is entirely subject to the objective and unchanging will of our God and Creator as He has outlined and established in the Bible.

That is not morality, that is obedience. (Good boy.) We are back to the existence of such a being in one part, but the next is still the composition of such a being in nature. Because it is unverifiable, there is nothing wrong in questioning how it comes to be that we assume such a being possesses absolute knowledge of right and wrong, and how such a being might then allow for the existence of evil. This can be overlooked by assuming that such a being is free to be malevolent as his will dictates.

There is always something fun about the actual distribution of the text alongside its creation.

What you're asking for is paradoxical and nonsensical. The very belief that anything (life, morality, etc) is subject to the will of such a being presupposes its existence. I've said once that if you want to debate said existence, have at it. If you want to debate claims made presupposing God's existence than we can do that too...but it's impossible and illogical for you to assume we can do both at once in a single argument.

It. Was. A. Joke. Like your sarcasm. Good to see we are already on track though, but why not debate them at the same time? It is just words, bro. I assume you are having this conversation in the attempt to break new ground, so let us talk the impossible. Let’s go there, baby. Seriously, it would be too cool see you do that! I await your meaningful reply.

Perhaps you could quote me the verse wherein God or Moses command anyone to be raped because I must be missing it. Perhaps first you'd like to read the earlier segment where you told me that you don't read the Bible with any bias...

Really Wynken? First, you use sarcasm to wound my heart, and now you are playing coy? Oh! Why was I cursed with such a playful partner! Now, as far as bias, I can assume two definitions, the one by which I come to form expectations, and the one by which I allow my vision to be colored. The first is solely human, and no one is without itif they have prior experience relating, the second allows for the change of present observations to suit previous ones. The first I am guilty of, and the second I will not assign to you.

If you need instruction, then you have gotten lost in your bible, even with an address, and, with regard to its condition, possibly a map by index. Please look again, and come back when you have found something. Of course, I have seen your problem before; the last person I tasked with the verse denounced Moses, and charged him with being a charlatan who edited the bible to attain divine backing. He still wouldn’t admit he was wrong, what great lengths some people will go!

Oh good. I'm no longer the only one being sarcastic. Just a hobby, as I said.

That was actually a serious question, I would like a job that allowed me this kind of freedom, and I was curious. I usually do not bother with online sarcasm; it takes too much energy, and most of the time no one bothers to read into it. Paranoia would likely have me seeing it in every direction, and I’d be reading every line as if it contained some hidden barb.

Hah. I just explained that the word "slavery" in the Old Testament isn't at all used in the manner that we understand it today. Spare me your rhetoric and actually make a point if you reject mine.

Nay, good sir, this is unoriginal to me, I have scented this on the e-winds before, and recognize it as the stench of sophistry on the wind. It is an attempt to suggest misconstrued words replacing the abhorrent term of slavery with the perfumed servant. Could they come and go? Were they paid? Were they branded? Did God watch the masters as they watched the slaves to ensure these laws were maintained? Were they free? Were they happy? Why the question is absurd, by your estimates, if anything had been wrong, we would certainly have heard! (Some lines attributed to WH Auden.)

That was simply a summation of your words so far on the subject, you are not disagreeing.

You may quote from this blog; I see no reason to question their credentials, their education, their mission, their goal, their collaboration, their openness. I will not that all citations given fall back onto the bible, and using the term, statistically is out of place with such a text…unless the bible contains every instance of every Israelite’s life, with quantified measures for all things stretched across a timeline measuring several centuries. The texts have doubt of their veracity to begin with.

This is not to contest the interpretations of the bible, and it does a fine job of allowing for similarities. I would urge you however to read interpretations supporting modern slavery. I am above placing large unwieldy blocks of “scholarly” texts , but I will grant three things. One which invokes many of the points offered here in in support of slavery, and the other two being the personal accounts of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince, whose slavery was not under American law, but British, and allowed them the ability to “take part in business, borrow money, and buy their freedom." I offer these with the understanding that you are attempting to justify past slaveries by juxtaposing them with modern ones, and then calling them just for being the lesser in wickedness. You will find valid evidence that even with a more, by what I take to be your term of, “biblical” interpretations of slave tradition, no shortage of cruelty.

Which belief would that be? My belief in Big Bang cosmology or that of evolution? How about abiogenesis? Have you ever considered that the creation account of the Bible attributes two things to the direct power of God? "God created the heavens and the earth" and the formation of the human soul. For the remainder God merely permitted nature to take its course ("God said let there be"). Look at the wording throughout...several times it states openly that, "the land produced" the various forms of life. Nature already had all that was needed for the formation of life...

You know what, ignore this paragraph, this is strictly for my amusement.

I really have let you run this two-thing attribution bit too far, but to the point, these are simply your interpretations, which you have molded to suit a more knowledgeable world. Much like how a theist might question with simple jabs about how an evolutionary biologist might posit some statement on the gradual change in organisms, I am going to ask, “were you there?” Why? Because I can, and from what I know of these positions I do believe you will have a hard time putting forward a better argument for evolution than you might for divine inspired evolution.

[quote]What else can I do? I've conceded that I can not "prove" my position, though I do feel that there is some strength to the cosmological argument. /[quote]

It’s cool, bro, you can choose where you go from here. You aren’t posing me with an argument, so I got no issue to wax wroth about.

Twas simply convention my good man. I don't mean to imply that you are or should feel threatened in any way. I certainly don't.

I should hope not, this is a friendly board after all, and I would never think of seriously abusing you with rhetoric, and I’m sure by all your sarcasm you feel the same way.

Oh?

Yep. :O

To all who are commenting, you are unilaterally correct. Now get you peanut butter out of my fudge if you aren’t here to party and play fool.

[Saxon]

To all who are commenting, you are unilaterally correct. Now get you peanut butter out of my fudge if you aren’t here to party and play fool.

Fighting with douchebags, man. Fighting with douchebags.

$10 says your all the way to the bus station bathroom on this one, manning the glory hole and taking payment in theological quips for this argument. Though, in reality, they have about as much substance as the hot yogurt about to hit the back of your throat.

[Wynken]

Forgive me. I started replying at 8 when I got in and it's now nearly 3:00. My responses are fragmented, as is my attention to them.

No, let me correct your flailing attempt at calling fallacies like soccer players call fowls. Ad hominem only applies to the address of a person’s character in reply to the topic. Calling you a fool is not ad hominem for the simple reason that it is only a garnishment to my statements; it has no barring in my statement and is simply a term of endearment, like “son”.

My apologies. I didn't read them to be endearing but rather as condescending attempts to question and undermine the "authority" with which I speak. Age, in particular, is often suspect on the internet.

Only to save time, I’m not missing anything that matters.

If you were in fact missing something you couldn't possibly know, for then you would surely no longer be missing it. Unless of course you were willfully negligent, which I don't believe to be the case. In any event, if you believe that I have not previously made the point that science and Christianity are reconcilable, than you have indeed missed something.

Educate yourself, take up your dictionary, and reintroduce yourself to the English language. Surely, you have knowledge of simple prefixes. I do not blame you for not knowing what longitude and latitude are. A simple Google would have done you well, or mulling over the context, but where I might be haughty, you might be lazy, so it is a moot point.

Har har. I"ll admit that I looked up the word unbedizened, though I had guessed its meaning by its context. I believe now that much of my confusion is simply because, in the first portion of that segment, you seem to be speaking of religion while I was making another jab at science by stating that it provides truths that are "good enough". I was steering us once again to evaluate the fact that the scientific method, while immensely practical, is not robust enough to ascertain absolute truth.

It is sad that parent and child must fight

Fight is perhaps too harsh a word, though I was rather upset the Christmas he bought me a copy of "The Jesus Puzzle". I mean, I'm all for studying and understanding the secular philosophies that oppose my religion, but there's something inappropriate about a gift from dad that says, "Merry Christmas, I think your belief system is retarded".

I'm thankful for the varied upbringing, though it was, and continues to be, difficult on my devoutly Christian mother. It was beneficial to know more than a single side.

First, you do not explain why they are logically more viable as they attain the same traits as the Abrahamic God, so the statement is unfinished, or contains an assumption.

Well, I had expected for you to defend your unicorn, and, now that you have, we'll follow this through to find the truth in my statement.

Moving on, a Unicorn inhabits the mystical land Futopia

Define mystical. Extra-dimensional? Or is it another planet?

[It] occasionally grazes on Earth and commands earthlings to do its will with nary a dropping left behind as evidence; being magical he can do as he pleases in all affairs.

It travels between worlds and it eats our grass, so it can certainly be measured. Likelihood and probability are of little importance in this debate, and the fact is that you're making a claim that can be empirically verified or falsified.

This is trivial but another problem is that it commands earthlings. Do any recall this?

How do we prove he does not exist? We do not because this is an argument for possibility, like life on the moon

You don't believe we'll ever verify the (in)existence of life on the moon?

while we cannot disprove these things without scanning all space/time/ant-space/anti-time they can’t be proven to be the work of one guy on a computer.

See, now this is just not true. Even if your unicorn is invisible, it can still be seen or measured in some way. Sonar, microwaves, the varied frequencies of electromagnetic radiation - and those are just standard detection techniques. Additionally, we wouldn't have to scan all of space and time, just the particular space that the unicorn is occupying at any given time. So, now the unicorn becomes immaterial (beyond the confines of our physical universe0 as well as timeless or infinite. More and more Godlike.

That is not morality, that is obedience. (Good boy.)

I posit that the two are synonymous in the current context...

Because it is unverifiable, there is nothing wrong in questioning how it comes to be that we assume such a being possesses absolute knowledge of right and wrong

Well, we're currently discussing the fact that God is "right", or that right is merely an expression of His will. Either way, it's unnecessary that He would possess or have gained a knowledge of right and wrong as we would define understanding and learning. And, since we're taking the liberty to presuppose God's existence, why rely on assumption when the Bible clearly defines the traits of our Creator.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.

Again, I would urge you to evaluate these things outwith the box secular Western thought. If God is a perfect and unchanging entity, than we should be unthreatened by morality as no more than an extension of His perfect will. Obedience becomes desirable rather than taking on negative connotations which allude to slavery or malevolent mastery.

and how such a being might then allow for the existence of evil.

Ah, the riddle of Epicurus.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

From another of my writings...

So, how can the tragedies of the human condition be reconciled with the existence of an omnibenevolent God? The simple answer is free will. God, in His benevolence, desires a personal and loving relationship with each of us, and true love necessitates the freedom to choose. If all actions were preordained, our love and devotion to God would be without meaning. Free will itself is viewed in contradiction to God’s omniscience, but I’ll save that argument for another post in the interest of remaining on topic.

There are two logically viable ways in which free will absolves God of the responsibility and blame of tragedy and disaster, though both are related. First is through the account of Adam and Eve, who wielded their freedom in disobedience. In Genesis we learn that humanity’s initial sinful act and conscious defiance introduced to the world the maladies and suffering that we know today (Genesis 3:17-19). As with all decisions, this one bore consequences.

The importance and existence of such causalities is the second premise in defense of an all-loving God. In the interest of free will, God created natural law as a set of guidelines by which all things within the universe operate. Fire burns, water drowns, impacts crush, and so on. All nature, not just human nature and behavior, is governed by consequence. These are cause and effect relationships that we acknowledge and understand, even in the context of God’s existence. However, these same physical laws also dictate weather patterns, the degeneration of living cells, and the properties of viruses and bacteria.

The simple and undeniable fact is that natural law, and the causalities established by it, are largely beneficial and could not nor should not be removed. For instance, while it can be harmful, fire keeps us warm and allows us to cook (and therefore sanitize) foods. Bacteria also perform a myriad of helpful and necessary functions. In the human body alone different bacteria are responsible for, or aid in, food digestion and the immunity to other, harmful, microbes. The convection process which is thought to be responsible for tornados and hurricanes is also necessary for heat transfer within stars including our Sun. Additionally, oceanic convection is integral in the regulation of global climate through thermohaline circulation.

These natural laws are continual and consistent, as are the consequences of human action. There is no method or force in the universe which affords selectivity of which laws are obeyed at which time. However, in His position of authority over our universe, and the laws that He has created within it, God could selectively alter or suspend natural law in order to prevent suffering. Attempt to imagine a universe with no meaningful or predictable cause and effect relationships. The practicality of science and perhaps all rational thought would be rendered useless. In addition, accountability and individual responsibility would be greatly diminished if not entirely removed as no action would be of predictable consequence.

Although we often wish for a Utopian Earth, free from pain and suffering, the reality is that such consequences are necessary. Free will is perfection, and God simply could not have designed the universe any better. He has, however, offered humanity the strength to move past the eventualities of mortal existence through the comfort of His presence and promises.

If you need instruction, then you have gotten lost in your bible, even with an address, and, with regard to its condition, possibly a map by index. Please look again, and come back when you have found something.

If the road is so clear, than why not merely show me the way as I've asked? Why tell me how straight and plain it is and then beg for me to traverse it alone? I'll tell you again that apart from misappropriated allusion or inference, there is not a single command from God or otherwise that anyone should be raped in the Bible.

Of course, I have seen your problem before; the last person I tasked with the verse denounced Moses, and charged him with being a charlatan who edited the bible to attain divine backing. He still wouldn’t admit he was wrong, what great lengths some people will go!

Bah. I reaffirm my previous estimation that rhetorical appeals to pathos will more handily win debates than witticism. You throw the word rape or slave into a debate and people freak out and abandon all logic.

That was actually a serious question, I would like a job that allowed me this kind of freedom, and I was curious.

I'm an Information Systems Administrator 8-5 and I run my own network engineering and information security consultancy on my off hours.

Could they come and go?

Deuteronomy 23:15 If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master. 16 Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him.

Yes.

Were they paid?

It depends on how you define payment. It was often used as a means to repay debt, so I would certainly say yes in that case. At other times slavery was an alternative to death during times of war or certain death as a result of having lost your family and possessions as casualties of war. Room and board for the exchange of labor should be considered payment, I think.

Were they branded?

Only willingly.

Did God watch the masters as they watched the slaves to ensure these laws were maintained?

Certainly that's beyond the point, and would entirely negate free will.

Were they happy?

This is such a silly question. In terms of willful debt repayment or being taken as a slave after having your family killed in war, I can't imagine that either would be considered ideal. Now, were they happy in relation to the alternative? That's more likely and much more meaningful to the debate.

I would urge you however to read interpretations supporting modern slavery.

If I don't believe it to be equal or even similar to "slavery" as it was practiced in ancient Israel, why would I have any interest in justifying its modern form?

I offer these with the understanding that you are attempting to justify past slaveries by juxtaposing them with modern ones, and then calling them just for being the lesser in wickedness. You will find valid evidence that even with a more, by what I take to be your term of, “biblical” interpretations of slave tradition, no shortage of cruelty.

I don't really understand where you've come up with this valid evidence. Let me state again that for the purposes of this debate we should focus on what the Bible states rather than what it does not. We're interested in Biblical Law and God's desire for humanity and not human interpretation or execution of that law. We're evaluating a socially and culturally appropriate practice in slavery. God and the Bible never command mistreatment of slaves, it merely condones the practice of slavery (as it was understood in the ancient near east) given that a set of moral guidelines are upheld. Whether or not those guidelines were adhered to is not in question here...

I really have let you run this two-thing attribution bit too far, but to the point, these are simply your interpretations, which you have molded to suit a more knowledgeable world. Much like how a theist might question with simple jabs about how an evolutionary biologist might posit some statement on the gradual change in organisms, I am going to ask, “were you there?” Why? Because I can, and from what I know of these positions I do believe you will have a hard time putting forward a better argument for evolution than you might for divine inspired evolution.

It's a horrible tactic when employed by theists...I can't imagine why you'd seek to mimic it. The question is obviously rhetorical, but I still don't understand what you expect in return. Was I there for what? Abiogenesis or Biblical authorship? In either case I fail to see why my presence is demanded by a rather literal recounting of the Biblical Creation. Is the Bible so confusing that when it clearly states, "the earth brought forth grass", that we should somehow believe that it means instead that God planted each blade by hand or even by the power of his words? My interpretation indeed. You have eyes and an aptitude for reading comprehension.

I don't know what you mean by your final sentence either. Why would I want or need to put forth a better argument? As far as I'm concerned, my original statements stand.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I threw up a little in my mouth when I read that tired "free will" excuse to the Problem of Evil. Setting aside the fact that "free will" is a questionable concept when the initial conditions are set by an all-knowing individual, "free will" doesn't address so-called "natural evil." The term's stupid, but it's the term that's used. There's no reason that a deity couldn't create a world where the natural laws didn't necessitate volcanism, pestilence, or similar natural forces. The idea that the world has to be as it is and not any other way is completely ridiculous. A God that cannot produce a better creation is unworthy of worship. "All part of the plan" or "couldn't be any better" are naive responses that justify what the speaker wishes to believe. It is certainly possible that certain elements of suffering could be reduced without upsetting the balance of natural systems. Existence has a surplussage of suffering and there is no reason that it need be that way.


That being said, I don't think that makes my position "win." I cannot believe I've been hearing these same stupid arguments for so long and I still feel the need to respond to them. People have had these same discussions for centuries and will continue to do so for centuries to come. Believers will always believe; doubters will always doubt; and there will be douchebags among both groups. Trying to say that faith is reasonable is as fruitless a pursuit as trying to disprove absolutely that which is, by its very design and definition, impossible to provide meaningful evidence for.

If religion were susceptible to refutation, it would have ceased to exist long ago, but it lurks in the shadows of the unknowable and the unprovable and will remain there in perpetuity. Our knowledge will never be sufficient to bring light to every dark corner and leave it nowhere left to hide.