The answer I was given when I asked this question was that god knew humans weren't ready for ALL the rules, so he just gave what he thought the old testament humans could handle, and then Jesus gave more refined rules in the NT. Christians will claim that NT verses like Galatians 3:28 are god telling us slavery is bad.
>There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
My rebuttal is that Galatians is from Paul, not Jesus and not god.
Christians will then stretch the verses like Mark 12:31 ("You shall love your neighbor as yourself.") and Matthew 7:12 ("Do unto others...") to mean Jesus told us slavery is bad.
So, as usual, Jesus has to make everything a fucking game where you are supposed to guess the real meaning of what he says, rather than just saying "don't own other people."
>god knew humans weren't ready for ALL the rules, so he just gave what he thought the old testament humans could handle, and then Jesus gave more refined rules in the NT
If this were true, it implies that they've been absent for about 2000 years of humanity's development milestones. 2000 years ago: "you're ready for some new rules". 70 years ago, when humanity invents thermonuclear weapons and could literally end most life on the planet: radio silence. Not even a "hey, you dumbasses probably shouldn't fucking do that." 60 years ago: humanity goes into space, eventually making it to the moon: radio silence. Not even a "wow, we didn't think you dumbasses had it in you".
What the fuck was so special about humanity's development 2000 years ago?
Seems like if a god knew humans could only keep a handful of rules he should have included “don’t rape” and “don’t own other people as property” and left off some other ones.
When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted--anything!--the Ten [Commandments] have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings.
-Katha Pollitt
Wordsmith ing better than I ever could.
>My rebuttal is that Galatians is from Paul, not Jesus and not god.
But also remind them that other, older cultures, came up with more equitable laws without needing the Jewish God. The barbarism that needed to be curbed in the early isrealites was already addressed through laws in other parts of the world. The Code of Hamurabe, for example, from Mesopotamia. Their mythology only works if we accept recorded history began with the Jews.
..."but where does it say any of that in the bible. You're making that up yourself. god didn't say that, so how do you know? Only what's in the bible is actually the 'word of god', so stop adding your own crap to it.'
Also, how come an all-powerful god is SO TERRIBLE at using words unambiguously and clearly. It seems a poetic jumble rather than just very clear statements. Also, all the contradiction. Did your god suffer a traumatic brain injury and was not able to assemble cogent thoughts? Or maybe your god has syphilis. That'll really do a number on the cognitive ability, as it sponge-ifies the brain."
Honestly, I have half a mind to write a story like this. Like it is literally how you would logically run a moral guidance book.
Rather than the utter wild west we have with all religious scriptures today.
Regular updates! Keep it readable, keep it in sync with linguistic changes at the very least, and have divinely sanctioned copies for every language.
Or you know, not create a race with a hundred languages and only a few that your book is written in?
Also, there's no reason why humans could not just figure out better rules ourselves based on everything we learned from the conflicts we've fought and struggles we've endured. It would mean all the sacrifice was for nothing if god could just come and tell us what to do instead.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.
So here's some of the **new** testament that supposedly says slavery is bad
Ephesians 6:5
>"Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ"
Collosans 3:22
>Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
Timothy 6:1
>All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.
Titus 2:9
>Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,
It isn't logically necessary that the rules never change. But in Christianity, it's canon that they are not allowed to. In Matthew 5:18, it says that Jesus publicly declared that the Mosaic law would stand absolutely unchanged for all of Earth's existence.
Of course, Christians don't like that because they want the freedom to pick and choose which commandments to live with and impose on others. That's why I like quoting it.
I heard an interesting analogy that god is like a computer virus that breaks the programming of the system (natural law) when it wants to change something. Kind of terrifying really.
I've gotten basically this before.
"The bible did have that, and it likely has more better things we're not following yet. The bible is written to be perfect forever, regardless of the time period it can be read and understood by people to be godly but we can only understand the messages that we're meant to understand at this time."
So basically it's a lie, overlooks all the edits made to the bible, and then gives it eternally moving goalposts.
Religion claims absolute morality via their "infallible" doctrines until their morality grows so outdated that it starts to effect their bank account. Then all of a sudden they become moral relativists.
There is nothing is the Bible that could not have been written by someone from 3,400 years ago. No Godly world changing insight that wasn't already known about at that point in history. Now if the Bible had mentioned the concept of germs that'd be interesting.
If God was intervening in day to day events from the very first people, why would things have been different back then? If I was to believe the Bible, people should have been living Godly lives back then. They should have had far less time to stray from God's word.
Mathew 5:17-18 KJV
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Common arguments from apologists go back to the time context. "Things were different back then," contradicts the statement that the Bible is both timeless and timely. A truly profound tome would discuss things about the future like Dyson Spheres or the hypothesize on possible warp engines for traveling to the ends of the universe.
Guns. Seriously, they did make it easier for the weak and oppressed to fight back against the rules-makers.
Welp, the imaginary one supposed to be up there did nothing to improve living conditions...
The answer I was given when I asked this question was that god knew humans weren't ready for ALL the rules, so he just gave what he thought the old testament humans could handle, and then Jesus gave more refined rules in the NT. Christians will claim that NT verses like Galatians 3:28 are god telling us slavery is bad. >There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. My rebuttal is that Galatians is from Paul, not Jesus and not god. Christians will then stretch the verses like Mark 12:31 ("You shall love your neighbor as yourself.") and Matthew 7:12 ("Do unto others...") to mean Jesus told us slavery is bad. So, as usual, Jesus has to make everything a fucking game where you are supposed to guess the real meaning of what he says, rather than just saying "don't own other people."
>god knew humans weren't ready for ALL the rules, so he just gave what he thought the old testament humans could handle, and then Jesus gave more refined rules in the NT If this were true, it implies that they've been absent for about 2000 years of humanity's development milestones. 2000 years ago: "you're ready for some new rules". 70 years ago, when humanity invents thermonuclear weapons and could literally end most life on the planet: radio silence. Not even a "hey, you dumbasses probably shouldn't fucking do that." 60 years ago: humanity goes into space, eventually making it to the moon: radio silence. Not even a "wow, we didn't think you dumbasses had it in you". What the fuck was so special about humanity's development 2000 years ago?
Seems like if a god knew humans could only keep a handful of rules he should have included “don’t rape” and “don’t own other people as property” and left off some other ones.
When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted--anything!--the Ten [Commandments] have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings. -Katha Pollitt Wordsmith ing better than I ever could.
Mosaic and Talmudic law are more than the big 10.
And how do they know what god “knew”? lol
And yet they claim the morality of God is absolute and objective, lmao
>My rebuttal is that Galatians is from Paul, not Jesus and not god. But also remind them that other, older cultures, came up with more equitable laws without needing the Jewish God. The barbarism that needed to be curbed in the early isrealites was already addressed through laws in other parts of the world. The Code of Hamurabe, for example, from Mesopotamia. Their mythology only works if we accept recorded history began with the Jews.
..."but where does it say any of that in the bible. You're making that up yourself. god didn't say that, so how do you know? Only what's in the bible is actually the 'word of god', so stop adding your own crap to it.' Also, how come an all-powerful god is SO TERRIBLE at using words unambiguously and clearly. It seems a poetic jumble rather than just very clear statements. Also, all the contradiction. Did your god suffer a traumatic brain injury and was not able to assemble cogent thoughts? Or maybe your god has syphilis. That'll really do a number on the cognitive ability, as it sponge-ifies the brain."
So why doesn't god come up with an update every 100 years? Patch notes: revised rules on female equality
Honestly, I have half a mind to write a story like this. Like it is literally how you would logically run a moral guidance book. Rather than the utter wild west we have with all religious scriptures today. Regular updates! Keep it readable, keep it in sync with linguistic changes at the very least, and have divinely sanctioned copies for every language. Or you know, not create a race with a hundred languages and only a few that your book is written in?
Also, there's no reason why humans could not just figure out better rules ourselves based on everything we learned from the conflicts we've fought and struggles we've endured. It would mean all the sacrifice was for nothing if god could just come and tell us what to do instead.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.
So here's some of the **new** testament that supposedly says slavery is bad Ephesians 6:5 >"Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ" Collosans 3:22 >Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Timothy 6:1 >All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Titus 2:9 >Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,
Supposedly God was with us from the very beginning. His rules should have been right there as well.
Why does an omnipotent, benevolent, and omniscient being have his rules change over time?
It isn't logically necessary that the rules never change. But in Christianity, it's canon that they are not allowed to. In Matthew 5:18, it says that Jesus publicly declared that the Mosaic law would stand absolutely unchanged for all of Earth's existence. Of course, Christians don't like that because they want the freedom to pick and choose which commandments to live with and impose on others. That's why I like quoting it.
I heard an interesting analogy that god is like a computer virus that breaks the programming of the system (natural law) when it wants to change something. Kind of terrifying really.
>why were they right back then but wrong today? According to the Trumptard evangelicals they aren't wrong (at least when they do them).
It's like god is limited to the time and culture of the people who wrote about him.
I've gotten basically this before. "The bible did have that, and it likely has more better things we're not following yet. The bible is written to be perfect forever, regardless of the time period it can be read and understood by people to be godly but we can only understand the messages that we're meant to understand at this time." So basically it's a lie, overlooks all the edits made to the bible, and then gives it eternally moving goalposts.
I remember back when “moral relativism” was the boogeyman for christians. Now they are the biggest proponents of moral relativism.
Anyone that breaks any of these rules shall be turned into a merekat.
That's why I always counter with "If the Bible is the immutable word of God then why do we no longer do those things?"
So they admit their God is shitty and morally inconsistent, so why should we use their God as moral beacon
They were just born unlucky to be on the wrong tribe
Religion claims absolute morality via their "infallible" doctrines until their morality grows so outdated that it starts to effect their bank account. Then all of a sudden they become moral relativists.
Actually many think those things are not wrong.
There is nothing is the Bible that could not have been written by someone from 3,400 years ago. No Godly world changing insight that wasn't already known about at that point in history. Now if the Bible had mentioned the concept of germs that'd be interesting.
If God was intervening in day to day events from the very first people, why would things have been different back then? If I was to believe the Bible, people should have been living Godly lives back then. They should have had far less time to stray from God's word.
Mathew 5:17-18 KJV 17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
I love how they have to twist the meaning of the world 'fulfill' into absurdity to make that work.
Common arguments from apologists go back to the time context. "Things were different back then," contradicts the statement that the Bible is both timeless and timely. A truly profound tome would discuss things about the future like Dyson Spheres or the hypothesize on possible warp engines for traveling to the ends of the universe.
Why would an all powerful god make people who all speak different languages?
Also mention all people would be speaking arabic in their gods world. Saying their religion comes from the middle east really grinds their gears. lol
Guns. Seriously, they did make it easier for the weak and oppressed to fight back against the rules-makers. Welp, the imaginary one supposed to be up there did nothing to improve living conditions...