I sent the following YouTube video to a friend:
She sent it to her brother who responded by sending her back a rebuttal. I would love for some of you to help me with a response since I’m not knowledgeable about some of the claims the brother made, especially what the Bible really says about slavery. I believe this is the best forum for this thread as it involves witnessing and claims that may be debated.
Her response to me:
His response:
Jesus wept. Why can’t fanatics on both sides just live and let live?
His retort only applies to male Israelite slaves who were released after 6 years of service. Foreign slaves where considered personal property and where passed from father to son just like anything else.
I can totally tell that your friend’s “bro” is indeed “a very spiritual person with a strong faith in God” by the way he repeatedly insults a very young girl, calling her a “moronic cherub” and an “IGNORANT smart ass snipe.” He’s just brimming with Christian love!
In any event there’s really nothing to refute. The Bible was indeed written in a specific historical context. The OT has laws appropriate for a bronze age tribe in a time of slavery and near constant war. What is baffling is why fundamentalists like your friends brother take the whole thing as a morality appropriate for modern society. (Not all Christians are like bro.)
As far as the last few paragraphs, all bro is doing is asserting fundamentalist dogma. I’m sure he believes it, but he doesn’t give any reason why you, me, or anyone else should.
Yes. He should compare the punishment for harming Israeli slaves vs foreign slaves.
In colonial America white people sometimes went into indentured servitude, a kind of temporary slavery until a debt was worked off or money earned. Not nearly the same thing as black slavery.
BTW, there is absolutely no evidence that 3 million - or any - Hebrews wandered around the desert.
Too late!
That guy is a fucking idiot. It doesn’t actually contain much of any substance, and it’s hard to know exactly what he’s trying to rebut without seeing the youtube video, but taking a few points:
The Bible does endorse slavery as long as the slave isn’t a Jew. ndentured servitude was one form of slavery, but not the only one. The status and conditions of slaves in the ancient world ran a wide gamut from some slaves who were treated very well, and held trusted, honored positions in household to simple chattel laborors and sex slaves. The Bible treats them as property, and treats the murder of other people’s slaves as property crimes. Paul tells slaves to “obey their masters.” Some passages of the OT have God ordering the Israelites to take conquered women as sex slaves. The Bible contains no condemnation of slavery or recognition of any immorality to it. Most of it was involuntary, despite this guy’s attempt to gloss it as some sort of summer job.
I don’t know what he was responding to when mentioning Moses, but it’s true there is a fundy tradition that Moses wrote the Torah. It’s completely spurious, though.
I suppose this is the passage he’s talking about from Matthew:
"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.
(Mt. 10:34-39)
There’s also this parallel passage in Luke:
Now there went with him great multitudes: and he turned, and said unto them, “If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
(Lk. 14:25-26)
What it means is a matter of interpretation and open debate, but it’s hard to support this guy saying it’s merely a warning about persecution when Jesus is quoted as say, anyone whoes not hate father, nother, siblings wife and kids can’t be his disciple.
This guy seems like a very bitter and hostile individual. the name calling and warnings about Satan do not really merit any response and kind of speak for themselves as to his credibility (as does his liberal use of all-caps).
Well they would hardly be fanatics if they did that. They’d be falling down on the job!
It’s disngenuous to try to pretend there’s any kind of symmetry in “fanaticism” when it comes to religious believers vs. non-believers.
His response is true on at least one count. David bedding Bethsheba is definitely a story intended to condemn David’s actions and point out the immorality of them. In that story God sent Nathan to show David the error of his ways.
The girl’s point seems to be that the book isn’t appropriate for children. Well, that’s just a matter of opinion however most stories and parables from more than a hundred years ago are far harsher in language and content than most modern day children’s stories. People today are very hypersensitive to what children are exposed to and not exposed to. Sex and violence were extremely common parts of life and not something children would have been isolated from prior to the modern world.
The religious guy is fucking insane if he thinks there were “two million Jews” wandering around the desert. There is no realistic way that many Jews were around at that point.
Bullshit. Girl makes a “Hey Everybody look at me, I’m an ATHEIST (lookatme, lookatme, lookatme I r edgy n kewl n stuff” video. Posts it to youtube with all the sincerity of the oh so self righteousness of youth. Someone else responds with more drivel, from the opposite side of the spectrum. Same degree of obnoxious bullshit. May both of them die in fires (provided that neither posts here, of course). If both are or become posters here, then I condemn them equally to the maximum extent allowed by board rules.
Like I said, totally disingenuous. There is absolutely no comparison either between the video, and the vitriolic, butthurt, spittle-flecked response or between believers and non-believers in general. The disparity in the sheer number of tards on one side vs. the other is beyond any reasonable comparison.
Interesting that you call a young girl “fanatic” for saying that the Bible is not a good book for children, and then declare that she should be burned to death for saying that. You should probably build yourself a time machine and set sail for the Inquisition.
Your side is perfect and can do no wrong. Other side has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Yawn. I’ve seen this movie before…
And way to overlook that I said BOTH the girl and the responder should die in a fire.
This is bullshit. I am no religion basher. I sennd my kids to a Catholic schhool, for fuck’s sake.
Cite?
Neither deserves to be burned to death, but equating the “fanaticism” of both statements is disingenuous and false. The girl was not name-calling and accusing people of being “from Satan.”
Pointing out that the Bible contains some pretty sketchy material for kids is not “fanatcism.” Saying that anyone who questions the literal truth of the Bible is in thrall to Satan IS a fanatic. The equivalency is bullshit.
Unlike black slavery there was an end in sight, but until it arrived indentured servants often had to deal with the same forms of abuse (physical and sexual) from their masters. As with slavery there were good masters and bad ones- some indentured servants even married into the families of their master- but it wasn’t uncommon for the indentured not to survive the bad masters in both body and spirit. If indentured servants ran away and were caught they could be punished by flogging, would almost certainly have the term of their indenture extended, their master could be relieved of his responsibility to provide clothing/money/land/whatever was contracted for when the indenture was up, and branding was not unheard of (especially for repeat offenders). There was generally little sympathy or credence paid if they claimed their master beat or raped them as it was seen as plea for leniency.
Hardly a fundy tradition. That’s what I learned in Hebrew School, and my temple wasn’t even close to being fundamentalist in any sense. For instance, there was not the slightest attempt to claim that the pre-Abram part of Genesis actually happened.
I would say that teaching Mosaic authorship of the Torah is still pretty fundy, but whatever. It’s a tradition that’s not held to by any serioous scholarship.
Yeah, this was where I stopped reading. In one sentence he proves that he doesn’t actually know much of anything about the actual history of the Bible or about Biblical scholarship, so it was pretty obvious that the rest would be the usual literalist talking points.
Even with today’s technology, would it be remotely possible for 2 million nomads to live in the deserts between Egypt and Israel for 40 years without continually importing food and potable water?
You stopped reading at the end of the thread? Would you have liked to continue?