Happy Atheist Forum

i was taught growing up in church that god was the completion of all of your wants and desires. once you get to heaven, all of your love for money, sex, power, etc. melted away in the rush of joy you felt being in the presence of god. heres the problem i discovered when i was in my late teens that began me questioning my religion.

my ultimate dream in life would be to sail the ocean with my wife and children on a 30 ft catamaran sail boat. if one day a man approached me and offered me 50 million dollars to learn to sail and navigate the ocean, buy a really nice boat and leave my life, never to return, i would not hesitate for a moment. now christianity teaches that as much as i would love to do that, once in the presence of god, i would forget about all of that and realize that what i wanted all along was to experience ultimate joy and love which the whole boat thing was merely the best means to that end that i can imagine for myself.

are you with me so far?

so if god is that great, how could lucifer, gods number one guy, spend a negative eternity (forever in the opposite direction) with this great god, and one day decide to leave him and make his own way? only two possibilities seem possible to me.

1.) god is not as great as christianity claims. maybe he sucks. maybe hes a dictator with unhappy subjects. or,

2.) god created the concept of evil, and chose lucifer, his favorite, to become the antagonist. then he created a whole universe with inhabitants given free will to choose which master they will serve.

and thats when i said f*** it! what do you guys think of this? i came up with it on my own, but im sure something like this has been brought up before. if anyone knows where, let me know. i would be interested to read about it.

What you say is most interesting. If our desires and so on will strip away as we gaze on and worship the great god, are we still ourselves? Are we not a combination of various desires, ideas and so on which people recognise as us. Look at a person you know when they get a dementia or a stroke and no longer think like they did. We even say they are not the same person. So, the ultimate removal of the things thatn make us up would mean we were really not there in any normal sense. This is rather like the Hindu idea of nirvana.

Of course, one could ask why god would want to be worshiped anyway. I suppose we have devised him in the image of a king, a tribal leader perhaps, for whom one show respect and earn trust. However one looks at it, god is a very man-made (yes it was men only in those days) creation. The biblical texts can be seen as a seeking after explanation and so I think Lucifer was invented to explain the evil people found in the world, probably without thinking quite hard enough about how the theology might work. It is either that or there is some veiled form of more than one god. The creation narrative seems to be a reworking of the the stories of Ahura Mazda the head of the Babylonian pantheon so perhaps Lucifer is a reflection of another Babylonian god. It may be the quite close to the truth.

Well, what i'd like to know is if the sexually repressed reverands who fiddled with little boys gave any thought as to what would happen to them in the afterlife, or if they just didn't care because their perverted urges were ultimately stronger than their religious convictions.
It always makes me laugh when you hear other christians just palm it off by saying 'well, they obviously weren't christian in the first place'.. Yeah, way to go... Divert the blame and stick your head back in the sand....

Quote from: "brekfustuvluzerz"i was taught growing up in church that god was the completion of all of your wants and desires. once you get to heaven, all of your love for money, sex, power, etc. melted away in the rush of joy you felt being in the presence of god. heres the problem i discovered when i was in my late teens that began me questioning my religion.

my ultimate dream in life would be to sail the ocean with my wife and children on a 30 ft catamaran sail boat. if one day a man approached me and offered me 50 million dollars to learn to sail and navigate the ocean, buy a really nice boat and leave my life, never to return, i would not hesitate for a moment. now christianity teaches that as much as i would love to do that, once in the presence of god, i would forget about all of that and realize that what i wanted all along was to experience ultimate joy and love which the whole boat thing was merely the best means to that end that i can imagine for myself.

are you with me so far?

so if god is that great, how could lucifer, gods number one guy, spend a negative eternity (forever in the opposite direction) with this great god, and one day decide to leave him and make his own way? only two possibilities seem possible to me.

1.) god is not as great as christianity claims. maybe he sucks. maybe hes a dictator with unhappy subjects. or,

2.) god created the concept of evil, and chose lucifer, his favorite, to become the antagonist. then he created a whole universe with inhabitants given free will to choose which master they will serve.

and thats when i said f*** it! what do you guys think of this? i came up with it on my own, but im sure something like this has been brought up before. if anyone knows where, let me know. i would be interested to read about it.

hmm, muy interesante. It's a good thought/hypothesis.

This reminds me of a question I've heard being asked toward Christians before.

QuoteIf you could have paradise without Jesus/God, would you be satisfied?

The idea of heaven is preferred by theists much more than the idea of God himself.

it sounds like you're asking how god could be all good and still allow evil, but you seem to want to emphasize your place in the larger scheme of things. if i've understood that much then you might be interested in reading about the "problem of evil" (as it is often called in philosophy classes). a theist response to this is called a "theodicy".

personally, i don't really believe that meeting god would be like that. there are many Christians who seem to believe in an immaterial afterlife (where the disembodied souls of "the righteous" spend eternity enjoying an abstract blissfulness known as "worship") but i don't buy that. for one thing, Jesus's idea of the afterlife seems at least as material as spiritual and also very similar, in many ways, to life on earth. so i think that for you, "meeting god" might be like sailing. maybe heaven will have a spacious ocean where you will spend eternity "catamaraning" with your family...

im not asking how god could be all good and still allow evil as i already know this answer: he cant. what i am asking is two-fold.
1.) if all feelings of joy and all desires of something more are put into me by god in order to lead me to him (which is what i was taught by the church for years), then why wasnt god the answer to lucifer's desires unless
2.) god created the possibility of evil ( since god is the only truly creative force in the universe, as i was also taught) and gave his creation to lucifer and caused him to want to jump ship(along with 1/3 of all the angels) or
3.) god isnt as fun of a guy as christians think?

its always been interesting to me, even as a christian, how the personality of god as imagined by modern christians so differs from what is in their bible.

also,i find it interesting that you have based your belief in what heaven is like for three reasons:

1.)its interesting that you believe in such a place,

2.) its more interesting that you have chosen to believe this based on what the bible claims jesus said, and

3.) its interesting how self serving your idea is.

Chances are God didn't really exist in the first place. Give the guy a break. I mean, it's not like he can repend and set things straight, y'know, due to the fact that he doesn't exist.  

okay, i can see that i misunderstood you before. you weren't talking about the problem of evil or theodicies; my apologies.

and now that i see your objection to christian belief more clearly, i think it is a very good one. many christians DO claim that god put all joy and all desires into people explicitly in order to lead us to god. without granting the entirety of that premise (since i am not sure i ever really understand why god does what god does), let me engage your question as you have restated it:

1) "god created the possibility of evil," by which you mean that god created humans and angels to do evil, or 2) "god is not as fun of a guy as christians think," by which you mean that god, in godself, is evil (i am very willing to believe that god isn't as fun as many christians believe god to be; i am also very willing to believe that he is more capable of forgiveness than many christians believe. in fact, i'm not at all sure about what exactly god is like.)

i think the first possibility is the right one; i even think you phrased it very well. god DID create the possibility of evil. god did so right from the very beginning, because god made the world good. every good thing has the possibility of evil in it, by definition. for example, god created work as a good thing, in Genesis 2:19--before evil has entered the story. but work can become evil if it becomes oppressive and exploitative (as in slavery), or if it swallows up all of someone's time (as in someone who lives for their job to the exclusion of family and friendships, etc).

but does that mean that god created evil? no--as you stated, god created the possibility of evil. god created good things (a whole world full of them) and then created human beings and gave us all the good things, to care for, to order, and to prosper as we would. unfortunately, we humans chose (and choose) to do evil all the time, and have marred or destroyed much that was good. we tell ourselves that we are as good as we can be expected to be, considering all the temptations to evil that we resist; but the truth is that none of us is as good as we were all created to be--not even those of us who profess to be followers of Jesus.

good points guys.

Whilst I can agree with your points about god leaving the possibility of evil, Strider, I'm not sure that this leads to a god of any great morals. I think it depends on how one understands god. I think the mainstream understanding of god, as omniscient, omnipotent and eternal is the right starting point.

Now if god creates the world in such a way that the creature could do nothing by worship and adore him it would not be a good world since the creature would not have free will and therefore could not do good things, (or bad things or course.) Giving people free will gives them the chance to prove themselves as worthy of life after death and so on. The snag comes in the nature of god. If god is eternal, that is outside time, and omniscient, then he can see the end of time in the same sweep as the beginning as well as everything in between. Doing so, he could see how the fate of the world and of people would work out and could see the great evils that were on the way.  So whilst we might want to say the people deliberately chose evil as against good, we would have to include god as part of the evil if he were knowing about dreadful things and yet did nothing to 'nudge' events to help. Failing to help is the same as causing the evil if you are a powerful god who could do something.

As far as teh revolt of angels and of Lucifer is concerned, perhaps we have here something of the problem personified. Perhaps we have Lucifer and co. seeing where god's inactivity was going and the evil it would cause and wanted to prevent it. I mean, even early on, when the Israelites were killing everything in site as they moved into the Promised Land one  must ask if there was not a better way to arrange things than have one group kill another over the ownership of land. That sort of solution is that of a clan chief not a loving god. maybe it is a shame that things didn't work out better and god made to do a bit more practical loving in the world!

hmm... i've heard a few versions of the myth of Lucifer's fall, but i can't find one anywhere in my bible right now.

wheels5894, you have a good point: i don't think i've given any hard evidence in this thread that god, according to the bible, is really good (or as you more eloquently phrase it, "a god of any great morals"). So let's talk about the conquest of Canaan, as carried out by god and instructed through Moses. you said,

QuoteWhen the Israelites were killing everything in sight as they moved into the Promised Land one must ask if there was not a better way to arrange things than have one group kill another over the ownership of land. That sort of solution is that of a clan chief not a loving god.

and i think you're partly right: god, in order to be moral in any way that we can understand, would need sufficient and demonstrable reasons for ordering the conquest of one land by an alien people group. in fact i believe these reasons are given in the biblical text.

Deuteronomy 12 is one place where Moses describes how and why the conquest is supposed to go down. the first thing i noticed when i read this passage is that the main point of the conquest was clearly religious in character; the most abrasive and violent language is reserved for the pagan altars, shrines, and idols, which the Israelites are supposed to "break down," "burn," "hew," and "blot out". perhaps surprisingly then, the following is the language used for the Canaanites: "the nations whom you are about to dispossess" (NRSV). other verses say drive out of the land rather than dispossess, but it comes to the same thing: the Canaanites were just supposed to leave. if this reading is correct, god was instructing the dispossession of the Canaanites and not their merciless annihilation. (also: in verses 29-31 the Israelites are: 1) instructed to dispossess (not kill) the Canaanites; 2) warned not to imitate the Canaanite religion; and 3) told that the Canaanites practiced child sacrifice as part of their religion, which we can all agree is despicable and immoral).

so an important question arises: "does the rest of the biblical record support this reading of the text?" in fact, three times the Israelites are instructed to "drive out" or "dispossess" the Canaanites for every time they are instructed to "blot them out" or "annihilate" them. to me, that shows that the Israelites were supposed to drive out the Canaanites (who we have just learned practiced religious child sacrifice). so what about that 25% where the Israelites are commanded to kill the Canaanites? those, i suggest, are the Canaanites who resist the invasion, the ones who stay and fight to protect their false gods and their immoral religion; the ones whom god instructed them to kill in order that the Israelites could practice pure and holy worship in the land god had given to them.

Well, you may be right about the 'driving them out' in terms of the texts but it doesn't really help as much as it seems. An omniscient god would have know what the Israelites would  and would have made doubly sure that the instructions were watertight. Clearly there were some problems.

Then again, the Israelites were only given the job of taking over Canaan because god had decided to adopt them - in a stroke making any other nation false and thus evil. Of course, this is a repeating pattern as first Abraham and Lot settle the land, then later Joshua and the Israelites repeat the process and then, finally, people come from Babylon for a 3rd go. In each case there seems to be chucking out / killing to be done to establish the place.

There is a lot to this but it is certainly not that simple.

indeed, it is not surprising that many times the people of god act like normal human beings--people who sin, who fall short of perfection, who disobey god, who hate and kill and destroy and blaspheme against the fingerprints and image of god in the world. that is the case in the world today and (according to the bible) has been the case since the beginning of history. what makes a difference is whether the whole revelation of god (a.k.a. the word of god) is divine (or merely human); and whether that divine revelation is good news (or bad news).

i believe that even in the conquest stories, divine (not from human origins) good news can be found. if it was normal at the time for tribes to kill each other, then a god who says "drive out your enemies" is good. if it is normal for humans to quarrel over religion, then a god who says "this is true worship and that is not" is good. if it was normal for kings to tax their subjects harshly, lead men to war, and build harems of women, then a god who says "you will be my people and i will be your god" is good.

in the case of the books of the bible we have been considering (Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua included), it might be worth considering the fact that they were very likely written during the period of the Babylonian captivity (which wheels5894 referred to in the previous post). thus they should not be read historically in the sense of being the original records of god's instructions for the conquest, but rather in the sense that scribes were looking back on the traditions of what had happened and writing those stories to emphasize theological points which would be relevant to their contemporaries (e.g. exiled Israelites were probably losing some of the purity of their religion, so scribes at that time probably wrote that god commanded Joshua to "utterly destroy" the Canaanite idols and altars, thereby emphasizing the need for purity and holiness in worship.) this explains why the polemic of conquest instructions is always--100% of the time--against Canaanite religion and not against Canaanite ethnicity.

Quotei believe that even in the conquest stories, divine (not from human origins) good news can be found. if it was normal at the time for tribes to kill each other, then a god who says "drive out your enemies" is good. if it is normal for humans to quarrel over religion, then a god who says "this is true worship and that is not" is good. if it was normal for kings to tax their subjects harshly, lead men to war, and build harems of women, then a god who says "you will be my people and i will be your god" is good.

So, Strider, are you saying that the standards of god should be judged by the standards of men in their different stages of history? Are you arguing that god, though he didn't support murder, was happy enough to see some as it showed progress. If so, then the bible is a set of moving targets that are only applicable in earlier times. I mean, there is support for slavery in the text of the Torah yet, somehow, Chrisitians manage to ignore it as it is no longer thought to be right even though it claims to be god's word.

Quotein the case of the books of the bible we have been considering (Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua included), it might be worth considering the fact that they were very likely written during the period of the Babylonian captivity (which wheels5894 referred to in the previous post). thus they should not be read historically in the sense of being the original records of god's instructions for the conquest, but rather in the sense that scribes were looking back on the traditions of what had happened and writing those stories to emphasize theological points which would be relevant to their contemporaries (e.g. exiled Israelites were probably losing some of the purity of their religion, so scribes at that time probably wrote that god commanded Joshua to "utterly destroy" the Canaanite idols and altars, thereby emphasizing the need for purity and holiness in worship.) this explains why the polemic of conquest instructions is always--100% of the time--against Canaanite religion and not against Canaanite ethnicity.

Oh, right, I get it now. The Torah was written in Babylon by men and not by men claiming to write the word of a god. These texts are human are they? If we see it like that we certainly sort out some of the problems in the texts and can see them as a slowly developing ethic. In that case we no longer have to worry about a god and out problems are solved.  

i don't think any of the original scribes claimed to be writing the word of god. they were just retelling stories that had been passed down to them. and they thought of them as just that--stories, histories, family legends. so what if they changed them a little to make them more relevant to their contemporary situation? then, hundreds of years after that, many rabbis realized that they were all teaching from the same scrolls so they decided to make it official: they would call certain scrolls scripture and others would just be regular scrolls. (or if you prefer: after inspiring the original scribes, god chose to reveal which scrolls were inspired in the original, and therefore scriptural.)

my point is that there is such a thing as too high a view of scripture. the original authors didn't go home at night and say to their family, "god dictated another ten chapters to me today!" or any such thing, because god didn't speak to them any more clearly than he speaks to us today. however, over time certain books have shown that they are useful for teaching god's story. sixty-six such books have been canonized by christians and collected to form the bible.

QuoteSo, Strider, are you saying that the standards of god should be judged by the standards of men in their different stages of history? Are you arguing that god, though he didn't support murder, was happy enough to see some as it showed progress. If so, then the bible is a set of moving targets that are only applicable in earlier times.

the bible isn't a collection of "targets" for us at all. rather it is the story of what god has done and who god is--it is not one big moral code. certainly all of the Mosaic Law is not for us to follow literally today. but by reading about Joshua's conquest you might find out that god requires purity of religion. YHWH does not want to be worshiped in the same ways that people have worshiped other gods. but you might also see that god is merciful even to those who are being judged, in this case the Canaanites; although they deserved death for participating in child sacrifices, god was content to have the Israelites drive out the Canaanites.

now, please, direct me to a passage where the bible supports slavery so that i will have to deal with it.

Mmmmmm, Strider, I'm not sure...
 
So the writers in earlier times wrote under the inspiration of god even though they did not know it and only centuries later were the things they wrote determined to be inspired by god? That is a very convenient way to put things - a less convenient one would be to leave god out as there is not evidence of inspiration and merely say the scribes and rabbis found there texts handy in establishing themselves as leaders of the nation and getting paid for it too.

We must remember that the scrolls were in a state of flux and being edited quite a bit before the final forms we know now. Take Jeremiah for example. The version translated into Greek in the Septuaguint (LXX) in c 200CE is considerably ,longer that the one found in the Hebrew Masoretic text that appears in Protestant Bibles, (Jerome used the LXX for the Vulgate). Why this is we don't know, at least we didn''t until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found and copies in Hebrew found there are in both versions. It is clear that the ancient scrolls were no preserved as one might imagine but updated when needed and certainly not seen as 'gospel'. In that case it is hard to think the scribes doing this though of the older documents as god's word.

Slavery

OK, here goes; -

QuoteHowever, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.  You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land.  You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.  You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.  (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

QuoteIf you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years.  Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom.  If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year.  But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him.  If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master.  But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children.  I would rather not go free.'  If he does this, his master must present him before God.  Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl.  After that, the slave will belong to his master forever.  (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)

QuoteWhen a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.  But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.  And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.  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.  If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.  (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

QuoteWhen a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.  (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

So, New Testament, love is the theme so surely no more slaves? Sorry but here we go...

QuoteSlaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.  (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

QuoteChristians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed.  If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful.  You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts.  Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them.  (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

OK, that's enough for now. Any comments?

Ok, not sure how we made it to slavery, but it is a very important issue and no self respecting Christian should overlook it altogether. In fact, the teaching of slavery in the bible is a hot button issue for me because it directly influenced me to reject the bible as a moral guide, or even as a caricature of god. I am interested where this will go because Strider has impressed me so far and I'm curious as to what he thinks of it.

@wheels5894: Great verses, fantastic place to start. Thanks.

Now Strider, before you respond to the problem of slavery in the bible, let me go over three common responses that I find insufficient. Yes, this is copy pasta, but it's my copy pasta, and it's relevant. It's also exactly what I would say right now in this situation, if I had not said it before.

Quote“That's the Old Testament (or Old Law) and it doesn't apply to us because Jesus came and replaced it with the New Law, which happens to be much more agreeable.”

This is the most common response I get but all it does is sidestep the issue. The problems with this response:

(1) Jesus came to fulfill the Old Law (his words), not to change it. He came to satisfy the Law, to carry it out, not to rebuke it. Jesus explicitly states that he did not come to abolish the Old Law. (Matt 5:17-18)

(2) Even if that Law does not apply to you now, it should still make you sick that your God, whose main characteristic is to abhor Sin, not only neglected to mentioned to the Israelites that it was wrong, but gave specific instructions on how to keep their slaves. He actually gave instructions on how to Sin! Any Christian knows that the Lord is not a God of making exceptions for Sin. That's not his personality at all. All Sin is equal in his eyes. Why would he kill thousands of people for making a golden cafe and never even show a hint of dissent toward the way they were treating their fellow man? What kind of God is this?

(3) God's word is eternal; his stance on Sin is unchanging and unwavering. (Isaiah 40:8) Sin is Sin! It doesn't change with culture! How silly is that? How can a Christian sincerely believe that nonsense?

Another common response I get is this:

Quote“Well, slavery wasn't really slavery back then. The slaves wanted to be slaves because they were starving and they needed work.”

This is an outright lie. There is no simpler way to put it. It's a perfect example of how Christians will make up crazy excuses to defend the validity of the Bible. Let's do some myth busting:

(1) Slavery was not voluntary. Slaves were bought and sold as property, children were born as slaves and remained slaves their whole lives. (See Leviticus 25:44-46)

(2) God gave instructions on how to beat your slave to death. As long as the slave survived the beating for 24 hours before dying, the master was in the right, because it was his property. Some versions say “since it is his money.” (Exodus 21:20-21) How could this be beneficial for a person? Who would volunteer for that?

(3) Daughters were sold as sex slaves and if they did not satisfy their masters, they could be refunded. (Exodus 21:7-11)


Another silly one:

Quote“Slavery is just something unavoidable that had to happen, like storms and famine. Because of free will, God has to let bad things happen to people.”

(This, believe it or not, it actually from the CARM website. This is what they have to offer, seriously?)

This is sidestepping the question! There is a huge difference between God letting Sin happen and God supporting Sin with his law! Storms and famine are not human acts, so they are irrelevant. Imagine if God gave specific rules on how to commit adultery. It would be entirely different from him letting adultery happen. Slavery is unavoidable? Since when does God make exceptions for Sin, the thing he hates most? If he's willing to send his child to Hell because of his unchanging stance on Sin, why would he make an exception here so that people could suffer? Why did god give specific instructions on how to sin?

I think the idea (for the Lucifer half) is that Lucifer is the greatest evil you could imagine, so his mind and "wantings" were tarnished beyond any other... so the thought is that his "capacity to enjoy god" is limited or not there, due to his evil nature...

Yes, his evil nature, which came from where? Hmm...

I don't think that christians think Lucifer regrets turning against god.. many of them believe he thinks he can still "win."

I'm currently working on a large collection of my own personal criticisms of the bible and of those who adhere to it, and what I'm wanting to do is refrain from reading any other criticisms whenever I can do it myself, and come to my own conclusions. Right now I'm in Genesis three, haha!

Sorry for plugging.

wow, you guys have obviously given this issue a lot of thought. first let me say, wheels5894, i see how the verses you have pointed out might cause you to have an objection to the goodness of the god of the bible; and dodgecity, i think i can understand why those particular responses were unsatisfactory. but now allow me to begin my response with a quote,

QuoteWe do not find one verse defending slavery, while there are numerous laws protecting the rights of slaves . . . The memory of Israel's own slavery is to be reflected in a particular sensitivity toward the slavery of others. In this respect, Israel's laws were unique in the world at this time." --Bound for Freedom: The Book of Exodus in Jewish and Christian Traditions, Goran Larsson, p. 158-9

i think Larsson is on the right track--all of the verses you have mentioned are establishing or protecting rights for slaves. in other cultures, slaves had very few, if any rights. but unlike other gods, YHWH cares about all people, even slaves--especially slaves, as you will see if you take another look at Leviticus 25,

QuoteFor [all Israelites] are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold . . . As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves . . . These you may treat as slaves" Lev. 25:42, 44, 46

it may help to know that the English word "servant" in verse 42 is the same word which is translated as "slave" several other times in this passage--they are the same Hebrew word. therefore, the master-slave relationship is found twice here. in one, god is the master and the Israelites are his slaves; in the other, an Israelite is the master and non-Israelites are his slaves. so how should an Israelite treat his slaves? in the same way his master, god, treated him--which, as he is reminded in verse 42, was to rescue him from bondage in Egypt. for another example of how Israelites are to treat their slaves with compassion, see Deut. 15:13-15.

you may also be interested to learn that your second unwelcome response ("slavery wasn't really slavery back then") seems to have been a very popular premise among 19th century christian abolitionists. however, they also liked Deuteronomy 23:15-16. some argued (with good reason, i think) that universal emancipation would have been the immediate result of these verses being implemented into law:

QuoteSlaves who have escaped to you from their owners shall not be given back to them. They shall reside with you, in your midst, in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever they please; you shall not oppress them."

this response is quite long enough already, but i want to add that i think the christian doctrine of the imago dei is also very relevant to this discussion. but being somewhat more popular for discussion than Leviticus 25, you have no doubt already heard all you care to hear about Genesis 1. cheers!

EDIT: i just realized that i didn't deal with the New Testament verses from Paul's epistles at all. my bad! if you would like me to, i would be happy to try in a future post.

finally an on-topic post.

Quote from: "chuff"I think the idea (for the Lucifer half) is that Lucifer is the greatest evil you could imagine, so his mind and "wantings" were tarnished beyond any other... so the thought is that his "capacity to enjoy god" is limited or not there, due to his evil nature...

Yes, his evil nature, which came from where? Hmm...

this doesnt do it for me. supposedly, lucifer was created by god as the most beautiful angel and placed in the highest ranking position. the story tells that lucifer was originally good, but at some point chose to turn. my question is how was this possible if god is what we are supposed to believe. if i were a christian, id be worried that this could happen to me after thousands of years of being in heaven worshiping god. one day i would just be sick of it. hopefully the option to bail is there for them like it was for satan.