Morality, slavery, murder, etc.

Great Debates
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[Genesis 22:2] Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to
the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you
about.” ]

What about the rest of the story, God stopped this before Isaac was killed - whit all the blood in the Bible, intersting that you chose this one.

Man’s idea of good and evil is not God’s.

We can’t understand it w/ our limited knowleage - this is where faith comes in.

[ If God said it was OK, would you rape, steal and kill if you could get away with it?]
because of civil laws - no. but if God commanded it that would supercede man’s law but I would need confirmation from Him.

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What sort of confirmation? If you genuinely believe God told you to rape another, you would do it? (You know, it’s stuff like this that makes me a wee bit twitchy.)

God has manifestly allowed slavery, according to the Bible, including severe beatings. Do you think slavery is therefore moral? Should you enslave others if given the opportunity and desire, assuming that you will not get caught by secular athorities?

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[What sort of confirmation?]

Depends on how I knew God asked me, maybe the wet cloth/dry ground then wet ground/dry cloth (do I have that in reverse?) - I would probally ask for something more concrete - perhaps return to life of a long since dead and burried cat

If you genuinely believe God told you to rape another, you would do it? (You know, it’s stuff like this that makes me a wee bit twitchy.) ]

IF truly God directed me to, I would not have a choice. It doesn’t matter what the civil authorities said - thy will be done.
That being said, I don’t recall God ever telling someone to rape

[Do you think slavery is therefore moral? ]
I would have to say that I can find nothing immoral about it in and of itself. I think we have grown past our need for it - but that doesn’t make it wrong.

what makes slavery wrong be? I’m not talking about the 13th here.

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Huh? I do hope you would not decide to rape someone based on natural condensation/wicking action.

Hm, what if He said: “Do not tempt the Lord thy God”–what if He wants you to have faith, not ask for miracles as proof? I don’t think Abraham asked God for a miracle before taking Isaac to be killed.

No, just infanticide and slavery, right? :wink: But I think I can make a case that he condoned rape:

[Num 31:17] Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.

[Num 31:18] But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

…and I think the obvious interpretation is they are going to have sex with the young girls, after killing their families. I highly doubt the young girls would go willingly to the beds of their captors and the killers of their entire family.

To bolster this interpretation, there’s:

[Deut 21:10] "When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hands, and you take them captive,

[Deut 21:11] and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have desire for her and would take her for yourself as wife,

[Deut 21:12] then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails.

[Deut 21:13] And she shall put off her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house and bewail her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

[Deut 21:14] Then, if you have no delight in her, you shall let her go where she will; but you shall not sell her for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

…which means basically, marry the women you captured and enslaved, but if you decide you don’t like them after you’ve had sex with them, well, let them go. [sarcasm] I’m sure the women are thrilled, and I’m sure they really wish to marry their captor, and then be thrown aside if they don’t “please” him.[/sarcasm].

Now, I’m not trying to get into a big “God is evil” argument; I’m just trying to point out that it is extremely difficult to be “moral” by the standards of most “moral” sorts–most definitely including moral Christians–if you follow the Bible blindly, without using your own moral sense and intelligence and empathy. Rape, murder of babes and slavery as acceptable? God gave you that brain for a reason; use it. Would that He had given you a heart gentle enough to understand that hurting other people is wrong, even if God says He doesn’t mind!

OK, how do you reconcile enslaving and beating of slaves with God’s other timeless, objective perfect command, love thy neighbor as thyself? If it was wrong to enslave the Jews, how can it be right to enslave non-Jews if you love your neighbor as yourself? You cannot be loving your neighbor as yourself if you kill a woman’s children or force her into marriage, or beat the person you enslave brutally.

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[Hm, what if He said: “Do not tempt the Lord thy God”–what if He wants you to have faith, not ask for miracles as proof? I don’t think
Abraham asked God for a miracle before taking Isaac to be killed.]

True but God did ask us to test him

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Love thy neighbor - could apply to not beating your slave - to treat them as you would like to be treated if the situation is reversed. You would probally like to be freed but because of the ‘human condition’ you proablly would not free them, so at least be good to them. As a slave owned (not that I have any) one might realize the importance of a slave based system and realize that to free all slaves would put mankind in a overall worse condition then they were in (sort of how I feel about some of the social programs we have now). Needing slaves doesn’t meen you have to mistreat them.

Also I heard this from my friend who was getting married, don’t know if it is true, he was relaying to the wedding party where the term best man came from. He said he researched it and came up with this:

When a man from a village (tribe) desires a woman from another village, he would encourage a raid on that village. He would get together what is now called the groomsmen to storm (rape/pillage/kill) the village. This would be a distraction. the groom + best man would work their way past the fighting men twards the bride to be. The best man would watch the grooms back as he captured her and dragged her back to the village to be his bride.

Again don’t know if the above it true, but true or not it shows how women were treated in the past and still in the present in some locations - they were property. In the Bible men and women are not equal - they are complementry
What you describes is what I believe was a normal event that happened in many societies some of which believed in false gods.

Why is it wrong to hurt your fellow man? what makes it wrong?

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If you don’t like being enslaved, and your slaves don’t like being enslaved, you should not enslave them if you love your neighbor as yourself.

Oh, sure, all the slaves were willing. :rolleyes: Christ, that’s like the pro-slavery propoganda of the 1860s. “Slaves like being slaves.” “Our economy would fall apart if we freed them.” “They’re better off as slaves than being free.” Quite frankly, you cannot enslave an unwilling person (and if they were willing, they would not be slaves, right?) and claim to be loving your neighbor as yourself.

No, but God specifically said it was OK to beat them until it was questionable as to whether they would live or die; to the point that it might take them a day or two even to get up. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself while considering it acceptable to enslave him and beat him half to death.

So? This sort of things happened among worshippers of your God, too. Aren’t Christians supposed to do what is right always? After all, you say God’s moral laws are objective and timeless. If rape and murder were acceptable to God then, shouldn’t they be acceptable now? Would you say “well, sure it says “do not steal” and “do not commit adultery”, but those are laws for a long time ago, they don’t apply to this particular time”? Why then would you attempt to justify ignoring God’s other moral laws by saying that they occured in another time and place?

Well, for me it is wrong because I care about other people and do not wish to see them hurt. For you, I guess, there is the order to “love thy neighbor as yourself”.

The point I am trying to make is that an effective morality, whether a person is religious or not, requires a certain degree of intelligence and empathy. No static code of laws, no matter how comprehensive, can possibly resolve all conflicts between various moral imperatives and human desires. You apparently do not see a problem with accepting rape, murder and slavery as moral, but you need to resolve the Bible’s apparent statements that such are acceptable with the command to love your neighbor as yourself–you simply cannot casually enslave and rape if you love your neighbor as yourself.

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1st of all how do you get those quote lines?

[ Oh, sure, all the slaves were willing.]

This is not what I said, I said that the slave owner probally realized the importance of slavery to their economy. like min. wage workers here - you don’t want to be one but we need them.
[God specifically said it was OK to beat]

Here’s where I would put in the treat others as you would like to be treated.
[ So? This sort of things happened among worshippers of your God, too. Aren’t Christians supposed to do what is right always? ]
yes we are suppose to, but that way never works. we make mistakes - this is where forgivness and clensing of sins come in - but it has to be a sin.

[After all, you say God’s moral laws are objective and timeless. If rape and murder were acceptable to God then, shouldn’t they be acceptable now?]

Gods laws evolved with time like our constution does today - parts were added as time went on effectivally changing parts. things that were ok were later rulled sinful. I think it was needed to be somewhat barbaric in early history/perhistory for us to develope properly. Once we got to a certain point God prohibited that behavior (not to say sins weren’t commited.)

[ Would you say “well, sure it says “do
not steal” and “do not commit adultery”, but those are laws for a long time ago, they don’t apply to this particular time”? Why then would you attempt to
justify ignoring God’s other moral laws by saying that they occured in another time and place?]

no nothing superceeded it

[Well, for me it is wrong because I care about other people and do not wish to see them hurt. For you, I guess, there is the order to “love thy neighbor as
yourself”.]

so your morality code is emotion based

[No static code of laws, no matter how comprehensive, can possibly resolve all conflicts between various moral imperatives and human desires.]

**** No code made by man could ever live up to this, but God not only could make such a code but defines what is right and wrong.

[You apparently do not see a problem with accepting rape, murder and slavery as moral, ]

Not exactly, for believers in (Christan) God it is immoral, for belivers in other god(s), it depends. For non belivers I see no morality - nothing is right or wrong because only such moral codes can come from a higher power. I don’t accept leagal authority as providing a moral code for the reasons I mentioned where the **** is. They can enforce certain behaviuoirs but that doesn’t make a moral code.

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You can read about how to do Vbb coding here. See “Quoting Other Messages”.

This is the slave owner being more concerned about his own profit than the welfare of his neighbor, which contradicts “love your neighbor as yourself”. You still haven’t shown how you can love your neighbor as yourself and yet enslave and beat him against his will.

Ah, but how can you have it both ways? God says “It’s OK to beat a slave, as long as he doesn’t die.” Then God says “love your neighbor as yourself.” Now, these two laws conflict; you have chosen to believe that God’s law “love your neighbor as yourself” overides God’s law “It’s just fine to beat a slave half to death.” In other words, you made a subjective moral judgment that even if God says it’s Ok to beat people…it’s really not. Now, this isn’t a bad thing; I heartily agree with your choice of which of God’s laws is the best one! But it shows that your subjective judgemnt does enter into your morality; if you could not weigh in your own heart which law of God’s was truly supreme, you would be unable to reconcile the two laws.

But God specifically said rape and infanticide were OK!

My goodness, that sounds like a flexible, situational moral code, not a timeless, perfectly Good objective one. Are you trying to say that back then, “love your neighbor as yourself” was immoral, and rape, infanticide and slavery were moral?

Um, the ten commandments were given to people before the passages I quoted. God said “do not murder” but then says “kill all the male children”.

So’s yours, dude. :wink: “Love your neighbor as yourself” is an incomprehensible moral code without love.

Well, perhaps He could, but it seems to be that He didn’t. If God’s laws required no interpretation, why did you have to use your own personal judgment as to whether it was acceptable to beat a slave, even if God said it was OK?

No, it’s not immoral for Christians, right, since God said they were OK. Or wait…are they immoral, since rape, murder, and slavery are not loving your neighbor as yourself? Hmmm…I think you’re going to have to use your own personal moral judgment to decide which of God’s laws should be followed…again.

Well, you’re displaying a distressing ignorance of nonbelievers, here. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the heart of nearly every moral system, including that of many/most non-believers (different phrasing, different emphasis, same basic thing). Therefore not only do people who do not believe in the Christian God have a moral code, it’s the exact same one as yours!

Why can moral codes only come from a higher power?

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Gaudere, you are doing a bang-up job - too bad you are most likely banging your head on a brick wall.
FWIW, I say everyone on the planet gets their moral code from the same source: natural selection.

I’m willing to bet the scenario goes something like this:

As humans evolved, those that lived in cooperative societies and had an innate desire to “love others as themselves” were more likely to survive and reproduce. Therefore, these traits have become basic to the human animal.

As society evolved, our laws (secular and religious) reflected a desire to keep society stable - laws against murder, rape, larceny, etc. clearly allow society to function smoothly and thus people can reap the benefits of cooperative group living.

During this evolution, the relevant social group was a small clan, and the prohibition on “anti-social” behavior was limited to interactions within the clan. (E.g., that’s why the Bible says murder is a sin, but instructs believers to kill enemy clans.)

We have now evolved to a point where we can extrapolate from basic social constraints (don’t kill and steal) to more abstract ideas like fundamental human rights. We also are able to include more people in our “clan” due to technology, and the combined phenomena lead to such actions as sanctioning countries who trample the human rights of their own people.

That’s it. Some people choose to believe their moral code comes from an “objective” religious source, but they use their evolving, societally-induced, relativistic (gasp!) personal morals to decide which religious edicts to follow and exactly what they mean.

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Yes, morality and empathy arising via natural selection is a a fairly well-established theory among many scientists, I believe. It makes perfect sense to me, too; the advantages of cooperation and understanding others to the continuation of the genes seem manifestly evident. Pack animals often display attributes that we would consider “moral” in humans; caring for injured, protecting others even at personal risk, etc. And like any genotype, there’s some variation; some people seem inherently inclined to be moral, some simply can’t seem to understand why it would be wrong to hurt people for selfish gain. Of course, with these fine big brains of our we can choose to become more or less moral of our own free will; also, we can intelligently determine which behaviors are most advantageous to all people and reinforce them, meaning we don’t have to wait for natural selection to encourage “better” morality.

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Because, man’s heart is inherently twisted. This so-called “empathy and intelligence” you speak of can not be taught unless man can get his heart untwisted, but he can’t do that unless he is moral in the first place. Sure, today owning chattel is “bad” but that is merely a cultural more. You can’t “prove” it is bad.

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Really? I suppose all mankind utterly lacks empathy and intelligence, then, hm? We all have twisted hearts, and cannot get them untwisted since in order to do that we’d need to have untwisted hearts. Nevertheless, I see kindness and mercy and love from many people, regardless of what deities they may or may not worship. So I cannot agree with your bitter pessimism. (Nor do I particularly desire to endure another breast-beating lecture from you about the evils of property. If you wish to witness to K2dave, go ahead, but I have heard and understood your viewpoint; I simply don’t agree with the divinity of Christ or the inherent evil of property.)

I can if one accepts as axiomatic that “what is distasteful to you, do not do unto another,” which is a widely accepted and apparently quite useful and productive belief. You cannot “prove” anything without axioms, so I do not see how the inability to prove anything without accepting a certain number of axioms has any bearing on the discussion at hand. I can certainly use axioms from both my and k2dave’s moral system to prove that slavery is bad, which is all that is necessary here. I also find it very odd that you say that you can’t “prove” owning people is bad, yet you argue vehemently that owning anything else is the greatest of evil.

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They would be, except that Jesus clearly stated that the 1st and 2nd comandment are the most important

[quote]
God specifically said rape and infanticide were OK! {/quote]

For some people it WAS ok, the rape you mentioned was not rape but marrage - brutal and illeagal by todays standards and laws but normal back then. The commandment has been interpreted to be closer to thou shalt not murder. murder is not the same as killing.

God defines morality for us. before the commandmants, “love thy neighbor” was neither moral or immoral as God chose not to define it yet.

we (humans) don’t have the wisdom to fully understand our actions and their long term implications. It is very presumptious of you to think otherwise.

while it is true that love varies from person to person - the comandment is there (i would say written in stone but don’t know where the origionals are) The emotion part only factors in later. You appear to have come up with your version of ‘love thy neighbor’ (LTN) out of your own heart and mind - if this is so, who is to say that another non believer has the same code?

Beeting is not what I’m talking about. Lets look into enslaving your neighbor. what would cause it and suspend the 13th admendment (slavery) and the 8th (cruel and unusual punishments). Maybe John didn’t have enough money to pay his taxes so he went to you saying I need $100,000 or Clinton will throw him in irons and he will be tourchered till he can pay which he has no more income so he will never be able to pay. John, my neighbor, comes to me and says that he needs 100k to avoid this and is willing to be my slave if i will pay it off. John is treating me as he would want to be treated and not asking to give him the , but willing to barter for it. Being a good neighbor I accept his offer and put him to work in the fields and don’t mistreat him. Far fetched - yes but this has happened in the past.

An easy case for love thy neighbor can be made for POW slaves also.

I take it that your reason that slavery is immoral is that you thought you should love thy neighbor?

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Deep thinkers here.

Anything is acceptable so long as the general populace believes it so. If there is a religion, and the priests believe actions are sanctioned and the populace agrees, then it is acceptable.

There was a time one could gun someone down in the streets with little fear of being arrested. The populace accepted it.

Slaves of all types were accepted for thousands of years because various religions and the populace accepted it.

Our Christian religion, taken in base context, states an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That means if you accidentally kill my child, I have the right to slaughter yours. The populace no longer accepts this.

In some religions the woman is property, owned by the man, who can be killed by the man at whim. She has no status, no right to property of her own, and is nothing more than a slave. In most nations, but not all, the populace does not accept this.

In some cultures of the past, a man could and did kill his own sons if they offended him. The populace accepted it.

In some cultures, infidelity was allowed and the populace accepted it.

With knowledge and maturity comes understanding, compassion and laws. That is why, traditionally, law makers are among the older members of the population and best educated or wise.

In times past it was perfectly acceptable in war to plunder, pillage and rape. The populace accepted it. This is not so today.

In the future, who knows. Pot might become legal, you won’t be able to sue over your own stupidity, suicide might be legal, the government will not, under any circumstances, take your land and home and basic services, like power and water might become a human right, not something to pay for.

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No, they still conflict. Say you have two laws: “Never ever steal” and “if you’re starving, stealing is OK”. Now, these laws clearly conflict; a wise-lawgiver would not create such laws. You seem to have changed your argument so that none of God’s previous laws are as important as “loving your neighbor as yourself”. This seems to discredit your previous statement “that there is no absolute ( = fixed unchangable) morality with atheist … [theists have] a written, fixed underling code inspired by God.” You have just shown that there is no fixed moral code given by God; He apparently changed His mind at some point as to what is moral and what is not.

Please attempt to explain how killing helpless male infants is not “murder”. Or how forced marriage and sex is not rape.

So a person who chose to not own slaves and loved his neighbor as himself was no more moral than one who owned slaves, beat them, killed infants and raped women?

Um, “love your neighbor as yourself” does not work unless you can love. The commandment is utterly meaningless without the emotion. BTW, the original is only written in parchment if at all; Jesus left no stone tablets. Now, if you want to know “why follow a certain moral code”, there are several reasons for both theist and atheist alike. Love (of man or of God or both). Fear of consequences/desire for reward. Conviction that the moral code is best for all. Any person may find one reason is their primarly motivator, but even them it is generally a combination of all of them that motivates a person to be “moral”.

Who indeed? Perhaps you should ask them. I must say in my experience, practically all non-believers accept “love your neighbor” as a good moral code. And if they say they accept it, they generally act that way. In my expereice, fewer non-believers than “religious” feel the need to pay vice’s tariff to virtue: hypocrisy.

Willing slavery is not true slavery. God specificially condones the capture and enslavement and beating of “enemies”, which in no way resembles the willing contract you propose. You could accept him as a servant until he pays his debt; this would be a far more moral solution than enslaving him and his children.

OK, make it.

Slavery is wrong for me because I know of no person who desires to be truly enslaved, and I do not think persons can or should be owned. As I desire to exist not as the possession of another, as do all the persons I know, I cannot morally allow a person to be enslaved against their will.

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So, God’s “fixed and immutable” moral code is temporally adjustable? When you say “neither moral nor immoral” do you mean to say that all actions God hasn’t spoken to are necessarily morally neutral? So I can tinker about with viruses until I come up with a superflu capable of killing off all humanity, so long as I don’t intend to release it, with a clean moral slate? I can try to genetically custom design my next child? Try and download my mind onto the internet? Artificially create manimals a la The Island of Dr. Moreau? plenty of other Christians would have problems with this. It seems that you and they might possibly be interpreting this moral code thing differently.

And really, you don’t see any conflict between being expressly allowed to do something and then told to live by a code that forbids doing that very thing? Are you really so invested in the idea that you are following THE perfect moral code revealed in the Bible that you cannot see that there are problems with it as written?

**
In other words, it was morally ok in their society and not morally ok in today’s society. Despite the fact that the Bible hasn’t changed. Yet our moral code is fixed and immutable as given by God. Care to try that one again? Remember, we are working from the idea that God told them it was hunky-dory to do these things, and from your idea of this fixed moral code.

**
Well, certainly we can’t ever know the future. So what? Apparently, God chose not to inspire the authors of the Bible to write a consistent, non-contradictory set of rules. At the very least they wrote a set of rules that can be used to justify practically any interpretation you care to apply to it, or so it would seem according to history. Even if you are correct that we cannot ever devise a “perfect” morality on our own, God apparently hasn’t been able to give us one either.

By the way, even if there is some ultimate objective moral code tucked away in the Bible, how presumptious of you to think we couldn’t have figured it out without God’s help.

**
And as has been pointed out before, not all believers have the same code either. If you would care to see how widely they diverge, I could provide many links to such wonderful groups as the Christian Identity. What is the difference?

What you describe is merely one type of slavery, called indentured servitude. It is willingly (in your example anyway) entered into. How would you apply your arguments to the type of slavery practiced upon blacks or the OT Jews in Egypt? There certainly was no friendly agreement entered into in these cases. These slaves were born into their fate and bore their own children into it as well, and often had no protections or guarantees under the law. How is it that you can keep a slave, much less beat one, and still be loving thy neighbor as thyself?
Really, the arguments you are putting forth so far remind me of the square peg/round hole problem solved by judicious use of a sledgehammer. You may point to the battered and splintered peg and say “See! I told you it fits!” but it really is far from convincing. Here’s a hint: try not to contradict yourself. If you do contradict yourself, rescind one of the contradictory assertions, or explain why they do not, in fact, contracidt. If you refuse to do so, you look like an illogical, hide-bound, non-thinker engaged in pointless sophistry to try and hold onto untenable viewpoints. Of course, that’s just my POV, and plenty of people today seem to get a lot of mileage out of self serving rationalizations, incompatible beliefs, and dogma.

38

You know that is not what I mean. But, people in general lack the empathy to be perfect, and their various imperfect moralities provide a slippery slope for what is right and wrong. You don’t believe in the virtue of charity, and I understand that. That you can either not understand why charity is important, or lack the empathy to see why it is right is a case in point.

Nor do I, but this axiom alone gets you no where. If fact, you can’t get anywhere in any logical system with only one axiom. But you are using other, unspoken, axioms to make your case.

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I believe and understand the importance of charity. I do not, however, interpret charity precisely as you do, or demand that it be an “all-or-nothing” proposition: either have no possessions and “be perfect”, or any attempt at morality is useless.

::shrug:: So long as the unspoken axioms are shared by the people discussing the issue, things can still be “proven”. I do not think it is necessary to elucidate in every argument every single axiom we operate under, such as the axioms that we exist, that others exist, that the world is real, etc. etc. I still am not sure exactly what your point was, to bring up the unprovability of anything without axioms.

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I don’t think I ever said that!

Not to equivocate, but as an example, if you own ten slaves and set one of them free, that could be seen as an attempt at morality, right? I wouldn’t call that “useless.”

I don’t think I said that either, but in any case: I do think any attempt at showing anything is immoral by the method you suggest is ultimately just a house of cards. What axioms do you propose for defining your empathy and intelligence requirements without which your first axiom can not be understood?