My old friend Henry Neufeld has written a response to all of our discussion of slavery and the Bible, as I actually hoped he would. Henry is a Hebrew scholar, a Christian and the director of the Pacesetter's Bible Institute in Florida. He was among the first people I encountered online about 13 or 14 years ago, in the Compuserve religion forum, and he was a big influence on my thinking about religion. Until I met him, I really thought that all Christians were fundamentalists as that was pretty much all I was raised around. Henry showed me that are other ways to look at things.
On the subject of slavery and the Bible, he argues in favor of my exegesis but against my conclusion. Because the atrocities, including the support of slavery, was such a huge part of my leaving Christianity, this is something Henry and I used to talk about at great length. I still can't adopt his perspective myself, but it's one that I do respect because it insists on accepting what the text says rather than trying to rationalize it away. And it's important to see here, as in most cases, that there are more than two possible ways to view an issue, so I'm glad that he took the time to so eloquently express another point of view.
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That was a great post. I think Neufeld's type of Christianity/Religion is the only viable form.
I agree. People like him and Spong and others that are willing to apply their moral judgement and good sense are the people I wish Christianity would get represented by in the public eye, rather than firebreathing jerks. I'm not a believer, but I have the utmost respect for honest, measured beliefs. And if you look at the history of Christianity, you see that it's proven resillient because it's proven adaptable: every new century brings new ideas, imprints new moral readings. Contrary to what fundamentalists think progress and change are the halmark of the religion, not its antithesis. And those changes, by and large, have been for the better, both for Christians, Christianity in general, and even for us non-believers who want to be able to comfortably share the country with religious believers of all kinds.
I don't really see anything different here. In Neufeld's world the Bible merely "provides examples of someone condoning slavery." Ohhhh. Well that changes everything.
Or it's some imperfect mediary between the indivual and God. Gee, I can't imagine anyone saying that they have different ideas about what they think God is telling them and what the Bible says.
None of this is any different then the same old story we've all heard before. I'm sure Neufeld's a great guy, but I think it would be beyond stupid to think that saying "we need to avoid judging something from the 2nd millenium BCE from our 21st century CE standards" is somehow not the same thing as disregarding the blatant condoning of brutality.
I just don't see how frankly admitting it exists and summarily dismissing it is any more thoughtful or better than cherry-picking what you want the book to say. It's a horse a piece as far as I can tell...
Neufeld's Christians apologetics are, based on this single post, non-biblical. I should say I refer only to those points that I understood, because some of the writing was, for me, impenetrable.
There is at least one point I do agree with, that there is no theological significance to the difference between American slavery and Roman slavery. Whether or not slavery in the Americas gets a pass (it doesn't) is not based on the degree of its cruelty.
Neufeld writes:
"If we take the basic approach to scripture that both of these arguments are taking, and accept that if something is condoned in the Bible, then the Bible condones it, then the answer is clear and obvious--the Bible condones slavery."
This is the wrong conclusion due to a biased way of presenting the dilemma. Yes, if something is condoned by the bible, then the bible condones it. But that is meant to trap Ed's detractors into admitting that the bible condones American or Roman slavery, given that it clearly condoned Jewish slavery in the Old Testament. It omits a crucial distinction: If God commands something, it is not evil. The same act, carried out by men without the authority of God's command, can be evil.
The difference between Jewish slavery and Roman or American is quite obvious: one form was commanded by God, the other two were not. Similar to a point from another thread, Joshua's slaughters were commanded by God, the Rwandan massacres were not. God does not have to announce that genocide or slavery is evil, it is easily deduced from biblical teaching.
You do have add to the discussion one fact make any sense of it all, and it's one truth that neither non-Christians nor liberal Christians will affirm: Man is sinful and in rebellion towards God from birth (from conception, actually):
Surely I was sinful at birth, [I was] sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (Ps 51:5, NIV)
God has every right to annihilate us all, but He chose some on which to display mercy. Why? I don't know. The question is not why various "ites" were slaughtered, but why the Jews, who were no less evil, escaped God's wrath. God can exact vengeance on any man or nation without his morality impugned, but man cannot exact vengeance on his fellow man. That is the key difference among the three cases of slavery we have been discussing. It has nothing to do at all with the severity of the treatment, and everything to do with who commanded it.
Neufeld, apparently missing the fact that biblical teaching trivially places any Christian in opposition to man enslaving man, writes that Paul "failed" to condemn Roman slavery. Paul didn't have to condemn slavery. There would be no question in anyone's mind, anyone who understood Jesus' and Paul's teaching, that man-instituted slavery was immoral.
The passage Neufeld quoted from Numbers makes the point quite clearly, so I am surprised he missed it:
The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people." (Num. 31:1, NIV)
Moses didn't attack the Midianites because of personal racial hatred; that would have been evil and no different than the Rwandan massacre. He did it at God's command, therefore it was not evil. For all of Neufeld's "would this or that type" of behavior be morally acceptable for the United States, the biblically-consistent answer is obvious: No, it would be gravely immoral. Perhaps a relevant though absurdly hypothetical question is: What if God (truly) commanded American Forces to annihilate Canada, and to kill every man, woman, and child, would it then be moral for us to obey that command? Yes, in fact it would be immoral not to.
I picked Canada because I love and admire Canada. Neufeld misses the boat again by asking is any nation despicable enough that this action is moral? His question may be philosophically interesting, but theologically it is irrelevant. The despicability of the nation has nothing to do with it. We all are despicable. It would have been immoral for us, to decide as men, to kill all the noncombatants, women, and children of Germany in WWII. And it would be as immoral to refuse God's direct order to wipe out any nation, regardless of their situation. (It goes without saying that the progression of redemptive and prophetic history gives us comfort that God will never issue such terrible commands again.)
Neufeld calls actions commanded by God, as described in the example from Numbers 31, as morally wrong. This displays, for a Christian, a profound misunderstanding of fallen man's standing (or absence thereof) before a Holy God.
Again, just like for slavery, he creates what I think he views as a trap:
"So if we ask the question, 'Does the Bible condone slaughtering your enemies?' the answer must be 'Yes.'"
The statement, like for slavery, is ill-formed because it is missing the key distinction. The point should be: Does the Bible condone slaughtering your enemies? The answer: yes if God commands it, for vengeance is His, but otherwise (rather so obviously that it shouldn't be asked) no. There is no conundrum here for bible-believing Christians.
Neufeld then goes on to discuss two his diagrams. He suggests that using the bible as an intermediary between God and man is something that modern conservative Christians do. That is true, but I think by wording it the way he did he attempts to imply that such an approach is something new and radical and inherently fundamentalist. His picture on the right, as it applies to special revelation, is a picture of Christianity from day one. It must not be viewed as a pictogram of fundamentalism. Yes, fundamentalists would state they abide by the picture on the right, but so would early Christians, Reformed Christians, and many others who are not fundamentalists. Even Rome, with its sacred tradition, would include the picture on the right as a partial description of special revelation and would not accept the picture on the left as descriptive of special revelation. (They would need another picture describing apostolic oral tradition.) The higher criticisms of the bible, in which one denies biblical inerrancy while at the same time still professing Christianity, that is the new, radical departure.
However, his diagram on the left, with a bit of imagination, fits into traditional Christianity as well. It's called science. Or, in more theological terms, general revelation. The bible does indeed tell us that we can learn about God apart from the bible by studying nature, so much so that all men are without excuse. And what we learn might be supplemental, but in no way can it be in opposition to the bible.
But that is not what Neufeld means, is it? He sees the picture on the left as the approach he advocates: "directly listening to God". I've been a Christian a little more than ten years. God has never spoken to me. I would like to ask Neufeld what God sounds like, and the particulars by which he "directly listens to God."
Neufeld speculates that Paul did not renounce Roman slavery for practical reasons. I think that is total nonsense. Paul's Christian life was a testimony to impractical (from the world's perspective) living. He gave up privilege for poverty, beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and martyrdom. If he thought fighting Roman slavery would further the kingdom of God, he would have done so unhesitatingly. Like Neufeld I must speculate: I believe Paul gave little thought to Roman slavery. It was in the noise compared to what he was concerned with. He sent Onesimus back because of the strong Christian testimony he would bear. Perhaps even the better that he should return, willingly, as a slave, to make his witness more powerful. The difference between Neufeld's speculation of Paul's concern for the practicality of fighting Roman slavery and the speculation that I just offered, that spreading the gospel was more important to Paul than worrying about fighting the Roman government, is that the latter is consistent with all we know of Paul while the former is not.
I want to make a few comments concerning Ed's complaint about appealing to "vague" and general statements like "love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev. 19:18) over "clear commands" like "you are to buy your slaves from..." (Leviticus 25:44-6). I apologize in advance for the length of this post.
First, just because something is described by the Bible, does not mean it is condoned by it. For instance, the historical books (Joshua through 2 Kings, etc) describe without comment numerous actions of their "heroes" that any Jew versed in the Law would immediately have recognized as violations. Such stories were never intended to be read as self-contained units, and their blunt and even explicit descriptions of the failings of the Jewish people and leadership were meant to be evaluated according to the Law.
The point is, the Bible is not abstract philosophy or 'propositional revelation,' it is rather the authorized description of the rocky relationship between God and his people. Thus, you are completely misreading it if you attempt to interpret any particular verse or passage apart from the rest of the Bible. Despite their various authors, these books are deeply inter-textual, even mutually self-critical. For instance, it is not at all uncommon for passages in one book of the Bible to explicitly or implicitly criticize (distortions of) ideas presented elsewhere in the Bible. Examples include the Bronze Serpent in Num. 21:4-9 and 2 Kings 18:4, the Abraham story in Gal. 3:6-9 and James 2:21-4, the "Day of the Lord" in Amos 5:18-20, etc. Over and over again, the biblical authors (and the Rabbis and Church Fathers after them) evidence a willingness to reevaluate previous statements and precedents in light of the more central ideas of biblical religion: faithfulness to God, fair treatment of one's neighbor, etc.
Thus to read, and even criticize, passages like Leviticus 25 or Exodus 21 in light of "vague" commands like "love your neighbor as yourself" is not to engage in eisegesis nor to rationalize away problem passages, it is to engage in biblical religion. Slavery is "condoned" in 3 or 4 passages, love for neighbor is radically affirmed in hundreds of passages in dozens of ways. No where does a biblical author claim that "the greatest commandment" is Leviticus 25:44-6!
Now turn to back to "the Law of Moses." You'll find that here too we find development and inter-texuality. These books were not (as is so popularly believed) dropped from heaven, but developed over centuries of thinking through the application of God's commands to various situations. What that means is that just because a statement appears (say) in Leviticus, does not mean it was God's command.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying we can pick and choose which parts of the Bible we think are genuinely divine and which are not! What I am saying is that every part of the Bible must be read in light of its wider context, Leviticus 25 included. And a vital aspect of that context, which Ed seems to be unaware of (correct me if I am wrong) is that the "Laws" of Moses actually come in (at least) two varieties, which you can think of as Commands and Statutes (technically referred to as "apodictic" and "casuistic" laws).
Commands, like the famous ones in Exodus 20, come in the form: "You shall..." or "You shall not...." Now keeping in mind everything I have just said about the development and reevaluation of the tradition - these were intended as concise statements of God's will.
Statutes on the other hand, are a whole different ball of wax. They are introduced with relative clauses like "If you..." or "Anyone who..." etc, and are far more like case law than commands. They are analogous to a modern law that might say: "If a man is convicted of 2nd degree murder, the maximum sentence is...." Such laws must exist because, regardless of the 6th commandment, people still murder each other. But having such a law on the books is not at all the same thing as condoning the action it describes.
A famous example is Jesus' "reinterpretation" of Deuteronomy 24:1, which states: "If a man... gives [his wife] a certificate of divorce...." This has frequently been read as a endorsement of divorce. But Jesus' response: "You have heard that it was said [quotes Deut. 24:1]. But I tell you [don't divorce]" (Matthew 5:31-2) is not an attempt to overturn Deuteronomy, it is a reminder that statutes are different than commands. As the Markan version notes: "Moses wrote you this law because your hearts were hard" (10:5). It is the "If" that gives it away.
This is not idle, for when you consider Leviticus 25 and Exodus 21 alongside Leviticus 19, you find that the former are statutes, introduced by "if." Compare: "Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly" (Lev. 19:14), "Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the Lord" (19:16), "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord" (19:18). As opposed to: "If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or temporary resident" (Lev. 25:35; ironic that it says to help a fellow Jew as you would a non-Jew!), "If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave... your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you" (25:39, 44), "If a man beats his male or female slave..." (Ex. 21:20).
As you can see, all of the "commands" in regard to slavery appear among the statues, and thus are not commands at all. You can no more read Exodus 21:20 as an endorsement of the beating of slaves than you can read modern-day murder statutes as an endorsement of murder. By introducing each of these statements with an "If," the author is letting his readers know that what follows is not a command, but a provision. A way of saying "since men will sin, this is what needs to happen when they do."
Read in that light, two things become apparent: First, it is not only acceptable, but expected that all such statutes be read in light of the positive commands given elsewhere (such as in Leviticus 19 and Exodus 20), and all actions they describe be judged according to those "vague" and general statements. Second, what is remarkable is that so much slavery case law exists at all. In the ancient world, slaves were considered property, and the idea of writing laws regarding how one can be punished for mistreating one's slaves was (almost) unheard of. As Mtully noted on a previous thread: Would Cicero have "admonished his son to treat slaves as employees and not abuse them, if that was the norm of the time"?
Thus what is noteworthy about Exodus 21:20 is not that it permits the beating of slaves (it does nothing of the sort!), but that it stipulates punishment for anyone who beats a slave to death. Compare that to the Code of Hammarabi; it's concern with injury or death to slaves was purely economic: If you put out the eye of someone else's slave, you must pay (the owner) for the damage. There is no concern whatsoever for the well-being of the slave, only for the loss suffered by his owner. Thus, by stipulating punishment for killing one's own slave, Exodus 21 is actually making a radical departure from ancient case law by considering the death of a slave morally reprehensible in its own right. Far from an endorsement of the beating of slaves, this was the first step towards its eventual abolition.
Ed complains that there are not any explicit condemnations of slavery as, for instance, we find for divorce or pre-marital sex. I share his concern. But this should not be taken to diminish the Bible's remarkable tendency to emphasize the importance of treating one's slaves with compassion and fairness. In fact, Isaiah 1 warns that exile is coming precisely because of Israel's ill-treatment of the "the oppressed." And Paul writes in many of his letters that masters must "provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven" (Colossians 4:1). Such statements, though only rarely directly addressed to the question of slavery, are the constant refrain of both the Old and New Testaments. And they seem to have been heeded: In his letter to Emperor Trajan asking advice on "the Christian superstition," Pliny the Younger notes almost offhandedly that female slaves served as deaconesses (a position of some authority) in the Christian Church of the 2nd century.
Finally, if Cicero's admonition to treat slaves fairly is remarkable, Paul's command that Philemon treat Onesimus "as a brother" and to welcome him "as you would welcome me" is downright uncanny. And if you want a clear statement on the Bible's view of slavery, you could hardly do better than 1 Corinthians 7:22 "For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord's freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ's slave" and Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Again, I apologize for the length of this response, and I want to thank Ed for discussing this subject in such a dignified manner.
Ken Brown wrote:
Okay, and then let's look at Leviticus 25, which is clearly intended to be statement's of God's will directly expressed to Moses. The first verse begins, "And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them...". And verses 44-46 say:
This is exactly the kind of statement that you say is a direct command from God. Thus, it is a clear endorsement of slavery as permanent ownership of another human being by God. And thus, any notion that "love your neighbors" could mean that slavery is immoral is, in my opinion, quite ridiculous.
Actually there are quite abit of diverse viewpoints on both of those topics among the various groups.
This entire argument is circular.
Owning a human is wrong. Slavery is wrong. Why argue for any form of it. Is this what having to have an irrational belief matter has come to.
Ed,
Look closer: Leviticus 25:44-46 does not stand on its own. Rather, it is a comment on vs. 39-43 (just as vs. 32-34 is a comment on vs. 29-31). Therefore it, like the statements in vs. 39-43, stands under an "If" clause, and is provisional. It does not describe how things are meant to be, but makes provision for how they are (in sharp contrast to the statements in ch. 19). It simply cannot be read as a statement that you should obtain slaves from the nations around you, any more than v. 39 can be read as a statement that your countrymen should become poor, or v. 33 means Levites should sell their houses.
Admittedly, it does allow the possession of slaves as property, and I agree with you that this by itself is reprehensible (I also agree with Neufeld; such statutes are a product of their culture), but that is quite a different thing from endorsing slavery. And considering the cultural climate they were written in, Leviticus 25 and Exodus 21 represent substantial progress, even though it was (clearly) only a tentative first step.
I fail to see how two chapters of casuistic law which assume the possession of slaves and lay down strictures for how they may be treated (which, by itself, assumes that slaves are more than mere property, as no one writes laws for how you may treat your refrigerator) can be used to overturn the constant refrain of scripture that you must "love your neighbor as yourself." Nor how a full application of "the greatest commandment" (see Luke 10:25-37 on how the command to "love you neighbor" applies even to foreign enemies) would not, by necessity, rule out even this allowance for slavery.
Are you really suggesting that there is no moral progress between Hammurabi's Code, Exodus 21/Leviticus 25 and Paul's letter to Philemon? Or that such progress (continuing beyond the canon) rules out the possibility of revelation?
(Note that slavery is hardly the only issue on which we find progressive revelation in the Bible, another seemingly vital example is the possibility and nature of an afterlife, which also emerges only slowly and incompletely.)
Chance,
What did I say that could possibly give you the idea that I was defending slavery itself? Slavery is evil, it always has been evil.
My only concern is whether statements like those in Ex. 20 and Lev. 25 were intended to imply that it was not. I do not think they were so intended (for the reasons given above), and I think the much more frequent and central biblical command to love your neighbor as yourself ought to be given far more weight in determining "The Bible's view of slavery" than a couple of casuistic statutes that are never repeated in the rest of the biblical record.
Ken-
I think your interpretation really strains credulity. These laws are clearly said to come from God in the beginning of the chapter. God tells Moses to go to the people and deliver these commands to them. The fact that within those commands are a few "if" statements simply does not mean that they magically didn't come from God, especially when the text clearly indicates that all of these rules were given to Moses by God on Mt. Sinai. You say that the "thou shall" statement of verse 44 is not a command because it modifies verse 39, which begins with an "if" statement. But in fact, the "if" statements modify the "thou shall" statements, they set the conditions and terms of the "thou shall" statements and there is absolutely nothing in the text that would indicate that the "thou shall" statement setting out the command comes from God, but the "if" statement that explains how to follow the command specifically does not. The text clearly says that the entire message came from God.
Whats funny about this is the amount of time trying to argue about what a book that was written 1000's of years ago supposedly says or doesn't say when so many more important matters are to be discussed.
And simply to defend a belief founded on irrational premises. Isn't it just easier to say 'yes the bible doesn't speak a word against slavery as it was a common and accepted practice among humans for 1000's of years'. Thats exactly what you would expect an ancient book to say along with more or less generally good rules for living that humans have pondered and improved upon up to and including our current generation.
Instead otherwise intelligent people cheapen themselves and a theistic point of view by piling one rationalization and poor argument upon another.
I don't condemn the bible for not speaking against slavery. The fellas who wrote it(whoever they were) were products of their times. Owning humans was like taking a wife. A property transaction. The problem develops when people whose morality was arrived at by centuries later evolution of human philosophy try and make an irrational belief fit a morality already instilled into them by the society in which they live.
Ed,
Either I misspoke somewhere, or you have misunderstood me! I am not at all suggesting that only the apodictic laws are divine, and the casuistic merely human interpretations. The latter claim divine authority as much as the former, and you are right that it would be absurd to argue that the "if" negates that.
What I am saying is this: Exodus and Leviticus (and Numbers and Deuteronomy) offer two different types of law: apodictic commands that state the ideal, and casuistic statutes that provide further guidance for when reality does not live up to that ideal (as it so often does). Both types of law (claim to) come from God, but only the apodictic laws can be viewed as commands in the absolute sense.
The relative clause that introduces each casuistic statute is not a marker that what follows is only human (a la Paul in 1 Cor. 7), rather it is a marker that what follows represents something less than the ideal. It is a provision, included (in Jesus' words) because of Israel's "hard hearts." Because God knew they would not always live up to the ideal, he (it is claimed) made provision for that.
My point is, your claim that
is simply a misreading of the text, mistaking casuistic for apodictic law. Something that is allowed for is quite different than something that is commanded.
This still leaves the problem of why God did not include an explicit (apodictic) statement that the ideal would be no slavery at all (a serious problem in it's own right, I admit), but it remains the case that when trying to determine the biblical picture of God's ideal, you must look to the apodictic laws, not the casuistic ones. And this is precisely what the Biblical authors, Rabbis and Church Fathers have done (presumably, also under the inspiration of God). They emphasized the commands like "love you neighbor as yourself" in ever-wider contexts, to the point that Jesus could call even the despised Samaritans "your neighbor," and Paul could say "there is neither slave nor free."
Eventually, it was not Adam Smith's economics, but this kind of compassionate thinking that led abolitionists to finally attempt to overthrow slavery itself.
Sorry if I did not make that clear.
Chance,
It's only funny if you have nothing at stake. But if you consider it probable (or at least possible) that there is a God to whom we owe our existence and who takes an active interest in our lives, it is hardly silly to be concerned about what he has actually said, or (alternatively) whether his character is something a rational person would even want to emulate.
Thats actually funny. Then I guess you read all other 'sacred' texts as well. Each and every one proclaims itself to be what 'God said'. Not to mention no one sect has ever come close to figuring out what 'he' said. This is just the plain old truth. Nothing new there. But I won't go down this rathole.
The rest is just presumption 'there is a God', 'we owe our existence ', 'who takes an active interest in our lives' each and every one based on absolutely nothing rational. First one must establish Gods existence before you can makes claims onto what is owed or if such a being is indeed active. Otherwise to some degree you are playing make believe. There is no problem with that so long as one doesn't confuse the real world with a world based solely on belief.
Of course we are all free to believe as we will but my entire point is that your making your entire argument based on an irrational presupposition and proceeding from there. Whats funny is you feel there is something at stake, as if you are worried that your God is very callous. If the bible is false God could still exist, Jesus could still be God. In many ways the religion could become what many feel it was intended for, loving each other.
I agree with you on that aspect. However one must wonder how rational a person is being when they try to get in the 'mind' of an invisible being that they can't even prove exists in the first place and then speaking as if it's some kind of 'truth'. Which is of course why all religious groups talk past each other or go to war with each other. It's part of the deal.
Chance,
I don't want to go down that rat hole either, so this is the last thing I'm gonna say on it:
People don't believe in God or any other metaphysical truth-claim because they picked up the Bible (or Koran, or whatever) one day, read it through, and said: "Wow, there wasn't a single mistake in there, this must be written by God, therefore God must exist, therefore..."
We believe in God because we (believe we) have experienced him in our lives. We have prayed and seen him answer (many times). We have seen our lives and those of others changed for the better by following him. And we have found that in this particular book (despite its curiosities and problems, both major and minor) we have found answers that ring true. We have found descriptions of other people's experiences with God that fit well with and make sense of our own.
That, in short, is what leads us to consider it an important question whether this book truly is what it claims (and seems to us) to be. If that is irrational, then I am irrational.
Ken Brown wrote:
I still don't see how this cuts against my position at all. It still makes no sense that God would not say "don't own slaves". He didn't provide apodictic laws to modify premarital sex. He didn't say, "Okay, homosexuality isn't the ideal, but if you're going to do it, treat each other well." He flat out commanded that it's wrong and an abomination and you aren't to do it. The fact that there is no such command for slavery, by any measure a far more monstrous moral evil than premarital sex or gay sex or wearing mixed fabrics or virtually any other "sin" named in the Bible, is all that needs to be true for my argument to be valid.
Ed,
Actually, you have made two quite different arguments:
1. The Bible does not explicitly condemn slavery as it does so many lesser evils, therefore it could not be the word of a moral God.
2. The Bible actually commands slavery (which we know is an evil), therefore it could not be the word of a moral God.
Of the two, it is obvious that 2. is a far stronger argument than 1. If 2. were true, then the moral teaching of the Bible itself would be seriously damaged. But if only 1. is true, then at the most you have an argument from silence.
My point in bringing up the distinction between apodictic and casuistic law was to deny argument 2. My point in emphasizing the repeated biblical theme of love for neighbor (which, along with love for God, is the most central apodictic law of them all and directly undermines slavery in all forms) is that argument 1. is not enough to overthrow the entire moral viewpoint of the Bible, nor to dismiss its God as immoral.
Ken-
But your distinction just doesn't defeat my argument. The "if" statements modify the "thou shall" statements, not the other way around. God specifically commands that "thou shall" take slaves and treat them as property to be handed down to your children. The fact that he then applies "if" statements to modify that command does not negate the command. Again, there is absolutely nothing in the text to indicate that anyone then would have believed, or that it was written to convey, that the entire chapter was God's orders to them. It's a completely arbitrary distinction.
David Heddle,
How do you know which atrocities were commanded by god and which were not? Just speaking for myself, I have no way of knowing; both seem heinous to me. I hear no voices in my head telling me that certain atrocities were gods doing and others not, so I have trouble seeing where you are getting your information from here. Care to share? Are you really certain that ethnic violence in Rwanda is not god's doing? Explain.
Ken wrote:
Perhaps God only meant that we could love the people we owned.
I'm only being half-sarcastic here. Taking slaves doesn't necessariy preclude owners from loving them. Just as killing your insolent child or gay adultrous neighbor doesn't necessarily preclude you from loving them. Even doing it out of love.
Which is why this discussion (especially the comments about things only being evil if they are not either specifically commanded or specifically prohibited by God) strikes me as monstrous and absurd.
David Heddle
Hello again. I've just finished re-reading your latest post, and I'm impressed. You have a well-reasoned, internally consistent worldview, with an easy to remember absolute moral code: Obey God!
Unfortunately "well-reasoned" and "internally-consistent" is not "moral" or "safe".
Let me just make sure I have your point of view right. God, being so far above us, cannot be bound by any moral code. He is no more to be blamed for killing us than I am to be blamed for killing a Front Yard Baller in GTA:SA, and if He has given me or anyone else the permission to act as his agent or retribution, I would be blameless for any acts I commit, no mater how evil. Indeed, you claim I should be punished if I don't follow God's commands.
Is that fair? Have I mis-represented you in anyway so far?
The problem is, you haven't said how you know what God wants. Indeed, in your last discussion, you admitted you can only make assumptions about it. Let's go back and look at your post in that light. You wrote:
The difference between Jewish slavery and Roman or American is quite obvious: one form was commanded by God, the other two were not.
What you really meant was:
The difference between Jewish slavery and Roman or American is quite obvious: I assume one form was commanded by God, and I assume the other two were not.
Even better:
If God commands something, it is not evil
Becomes:
If I assume God commands something, it is not evil
Do you see how this is a dangerous philosophy? How it is almost useless in trying to lead a moral life? Indeed, it's not a recipe for a moral life: it's a recipe for breeding genocidal warriors. All it takes is one convincing priest and a few cheap magic tricks, and they're out massacring Midianites, Jews, Muslims or, yes, Canadians.
I know you yourself are a good person, and that you would condemn anyone who commits an evil act. The trouble is good people can follow evil moral codes, and I think that's what you have here.
The only way you can redeem your moral code is to move away from assertions and assumptions and into the world of fact. I'm not talking about biblical "fact" here, where you try to use your superior knowledge of the bible to persuade, berate or demand. That's useless to you because you can only assume that you know what God's will is, and if it matches up with the will he's displayed in the bible.
Just to give you a little start, why don't you tell us why you think it "goes without saying that the progression of redemptive and prophetic history gives us comfort that God will never issue such terrible commands again." Is this just another assumption? Do you have something more convincing than a particular reading of a particular book?
Let me try to be more succinct; I had troble with that in our last discussion.
Your moral code -- such as it is -- is based solely on your assumptions. That means it is perfectly mutable, and you are ever ready for God's call to commit atrocities. Until you can give us something beyond "Trust me! God will never tell me to kill you and rape your daughter." we'll stick with Nuefeld's "non-biblical" philsophy. At least we can trust him not to destroy Canada.
Duke York
Ed,
I'm not entirely sure I understand your last comment, so just let me know if this misses the mark:
Both Lev. 25:44 and Ex. 21:20 (and all the topics discussed in Lev. 25 and Ex. 21) are introduced with relative markers meaning "If" (Hebrew ki, Greek ean), clearly distinguishing them from the absolute commands found elsewhere.
This is especially clear in Ex. 21:20, where ki/eav is the first word of the verse. In Lev. 25:44 this is a bit obscured because (as I said in my first post), 25:44-46 seems to be an elaboration of 25:39-43 just as 25:32-34 is an elaboration of 25:29-31. Both stand under the "If" that introduces the previous section, and both are therefore relative. This is made explicit in the Greek translation which adds the relative pronoun "an" and uses the subjunctive in 25:44, thus specifying that the force of the construction is "those slaves which you have...."
So, while in general it is true that the "if" statements modify the "thou shalt" statements, that is not the case here. The "thou shalt" of Lev. 25:44 (which is not a true imperative in the Hebrew, which has a qal imperfect, or the Greek, which has a future indicative) follows that relative clause and thus is clearly dependent.
And again, you simply cannot read a relative casuistic statute as though it were equivalent to an absolute apodistic command. This is not an arbitrary distinction, it is basic grammar.
Leni,
Then again, perhaps the ultimate expression of love for neighbor is not that you would kill them for their sins, but that you would (be willing to) die in their place. At least, that is what we are told God did himself.
Heddle has chosen the second horn of euthyphro so there isn't anywhere else to go with that. The problem with divine command theory is that humans have no way of knowing what is commanded and what not, since the very nature of it necessitates commands be arbitrary. So this definitely is a potentially dangerous philosophy.
Ken Brown, your apologetic is interesting, however assuming that this is true, that god is merely saying "since you're going to do it anyways (even though I never told you not to), do it this way" can you explain why god would tell them to make foreigners as their slaves, rather than other jews? Even if you stick an "if" in there to get rid of the condoning problem, you're still stick with a dilemma of god essentially saying slavery of foreigners is, at bare minimum, less immoral than slavery of jews. Or is there perhaps another reason not related to morality?
"The problem with divine command theory is that humans have no way of knowing what is commanded and what not, since the very nature of it necessitates commands be arbitrary. So this definitely is a potentially dangerous philosophy."
No, it isn't dangerous. Deranged people will commit atrocities because "God told them to" independent of this view.
Ken-
I'm afraid you're still misunderstanding me. Even if you are absolutely right, that any statement that begins with "if" in the bible is not a "command" from God but merely a regulation of some pre-existing reality, it does not change the validity of my argument a bit. It still makes no sense to me whatsoever that a moral God would do it. I don't know how many different ways I can express that.
Some will, but some genuinely believe that god told them to do it. For example, Christopher Columbus, who thought he was to be another Moses. And we periodically hear about someone who murders their family because they thought god had commanded them to.
And according to Divine Command Theory, they might be right. We simply have no way of knowing other than revelation because the commands are, according to divine command theorists, arbitrary in nature. And god hasn't done the revelation thing in quite a long time, other than perhaps on an individual basis, and even then not to everyone. I've never been told by god that any particular murder or atrocity was his doing or mans, and my ears are wide open.
Ed,
We may be at an impasse.
Though obviously I don't agree, I can respect your rejection of the Biblical picture of God even if it is based on an glaring absence rather than an horrendous inclusion (and I assume slavery is not the only issue that pushed you away from Christianity).
But I do think it makes a big difference to the strength of your argument whether this is a command (as you have claimed) or merely a provision (as I have claimed). As I suggested before, it is the difference between proving a blatant contradiction and simply arguing from silence.
Matthew,
That is an interesting point and I'll have to do some more thinking on it. But I would guess it has more to do with the demarcation lines of the covenant than morality. After all, just before this vs. 35 states that "If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or temporary resident." So obviously it wasn't based on a feeling that only Jews deserved favorable treatment. In fact, 25:42 says, "Because the Israelites are my [i.e. God's] slaves, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves." I'll have to give this more thought.
But like I said earlier, statements like Ex. 21:20 and Lev. 25:44-6, while they may be a substantial improvement over other ancient near-eastern laws on the subject, are still only a first step and should not in any way be taken as the definitive statements on the Bible's view of slavery. Strangely, there doesn't seem to be a single definitive statement on the subject, and I wonder if that itself might be significant in another way (I'm just tossing this out there, don't hang too much on it!):
Perhaps this is because God's view of slavery is actually much more complex than we have assumed, and a simple "slavery is evil" would not have been accurate after all. Perhaps the reason the Bible focuses more on the good treatment of slaves than their abolition is because we are meant to be slaves, but in a sense that is radically different than what we normally think of as slavery. A freeing slavery? I'm just contemplating here, but the statement in 25:42 would fit with this, as would 1 Corinthians 7:21-23: "Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you - although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called is Christ's free man, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men."
Ken wrote:
That's a nice thought, but that isn't really what God did. Rather, he sacrificed his only begotten son. And to think we still blame Judas for doing what God needed to be done!
Further, if the brutal torture and murder of Jesus was wished by God, wouldn't the Romans then be the moral ones? Isn't that what God wanted? Not to mention he's God: Creater of The Universe. Why would he need to torture his only begotten son in order to save us when he could, I don't know, find some simpler, less painful and bloody solution?
Are you moral if you do what God wants, even if you don't know that's what God wants? What if you don't kill someone God wants really wants you to kill because you were naive enough to take the "Thou shallt not kill" commandment to heart?
Oh my. Rat hole indeed.
Leni,
This ignores the central Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which affirms that the father and son are "two persons but one being." Sure, you can reject that doctrine as a fantasy and say God affirmed child sacrifice, but then it is not Christianity you are criticizing, but a figment of your imagination.
You mean like snap his fingers and make all the evil in the world turn into puppy-dogs and flowers? And in so doing, he would not only destroy evil, but also justice and moral free will. Only the ultimate sacrifice (in Nietzsche's words "God on a cross") could both affirm the radical evil of evil, and prove the radical love of God.
Let's say: too huge and deep a topic to tackle at the end of a long day!
[Off Topic]
Ed, I have to say, after spending one day commenting like this, I am terribly impressed that you are able to maintain this kind of debate day in and day out. How do you ever get any work done in the real world? For that matter, how do you find the time to continually find so many interesting things to post, and write thoughtful and engaging discussions of them?
You've got my props!
Ken Wrote:
God didn't sacrifice himself because he can't die. And he (presumably) knew that.
He could have, for example, suffered an eternity in hell for us, instead of 3 lousy days. Now that would be radical! What is meaning of sacrifice if you know you aren't really giving anything up? What did God really lose here?
He's god. I'm sure he could think of something better than a brutal torturous death. After all, those happen every day. In any case, it couldn't have been evil, since it's what God wanted.
He could have, for example, freed all slaves and not just a few Hebrew ones.
Why would God need to affirm radical evil anyway? It's patently, trivially obvious that radically evil things happen to people who have done nothing to deserve them. If it's only to show us his love he could have done it in a thousand ways.
He could have done something to reduce suffering rather than add to it.
Anyway, it has been a long day. Sorry I keep pestering you. I think God told me to do it ;)
Leni,
Which is why to do so he would have to become human, in a sense, to revoke his own divinity. And doing that, and then even dying as a human being and going to hell (i.e. the place of separation from God) is radical. Three days or three eons would make no difference, you are talking about God himself joining the ranks of the godless (in Jurgen Multmann's words); the source of life experiencing death; the infinite becoming finite. To an eternal God, three days of death would be the same as going to hell for all eternity! This is what we are told God embraced for our sakes; the only question is whether we agree with Nietzsche that the idea is too preposterous to be true, or with the Church Father Tertullian that it is too preposterous to be false (i.e. who would have made this up? A group of Jewish peasants?).
Patently obvious, yes, but consider your reaction to that evil - would it due justice to that reality if God would have said: "Yes, that was bad what you did Osama, but in the end none of that matters 'cuz I'll just snap my fingers and everyone will be happy. No harm, no foul!" Hmmmm? Sure, evil would be taken care of, but in the process we'd have lost our humanity, and evil would not be answered, only ignored.
LOL, now don't mistake me for David! :P
Ken Wrote:
"Which is why to do so he would have to become human, in a sense, to revoke his own divinity."
If his "divinity" was revoked, then Jesus would not have known that he was part of a holy trinity, nor would he be able to perform all of the miracles which humans cannot perform. Further, if Jesus's divinity was revoked in order to become human, then his sacrifice on the cross would have been a human death instead of a divine one.
Ken wrote:
"And doing that, and then even dying as a human being and going to hell (i.e. the place of separation from God) is radical."
Yet, he obviously knew that this death was not really "dying as a human being" because he prophesized that he would return from the grave in three days. Human death does not have this benefit. When we die, we don't come back. That, is a sacrifice. If Jesus knew he would be coming back from the dead in three days i don't see much of a sacrifice here.
In addition, the bible describes Hell as a "lake of fire" not "a place of seperation from God".
Ken Wrote:
"Three days or three eons would make no difference, you are talking about God himself joining the ranks of the godless (in Jurgen Multmann's words); the source of life experiencing death; the infinite becoming finite. To an eternal God, three days of death would be the same as going to hell for all eternity!"
I don't see how this statement can be supported by knowledge. It is clearly the product of your own (and Multmann's)imagination. If Humans will be subjected to a literal eternity of Hell and Jesus was only subjected to three days of it, then his suffering is infintely less than the fate of millions of humans. Thus, his sacrifice is not infinite.
Ken Wrote:
"the only question is whether we agree with Nietzsche that the idea is too preposterous to be true, or with the Church Father Tertullian that it is too preposterous to be false (i.e. who would have made this up? A group of Jewish peasants?)."
Actually, "Jewish peasants" are not the origin of the Jesus story. The Jesus myth is at the end of a long line of pagan, divine, saviour myths which often envolved the god-to-be-sacrificed being born of a virgin under a star, performing miracles, being sacrificed, returning from the dead, etc. The jewish version (Jesus) of these (at the time) popular and widely known pagan myths is likely the product of the romans bringing trade, roads and pagan myths into that culture.
Ken Wrote:
"Patently obvious, yes, but consider your reaction to that evil - would it due justice to that reality if God would have said: "Yes, that was bad what you did Osama, but in the end none of that matters 'cuz I'll just snap my fingers and everyone will be happy. No harm, no foul!" Hmmmm? Sure, evil would be taken care of, but in the process we'd have lost our humanity, and evil would not be answered, only ignored."
But isn't this precisely what God does in Heaven? In Heaven, doesn't he essentially, "snap his fingers and everyone will be happy"? What happens to free will in Heaven? Can we no longer "rebel" against God in Heaven? If not, then where's the free will?
Caliban:
I'm not gonna get into a long drawn out debate on this stuff right now as it is quite off topic, so respond as you wish, this is the last I'm saying on it:
Again, central Christian doctrine: The hyperstatic union, that Jesus was both fully human and fully God.
That is because you are viewing this as an either/or - either he was human or he was divine; the Church has always affirmed that he was fully both.
The suffering of an infinite being would, by definition, be infinitely greater than any suffering any number (short of infinity) of finite beings could ever suffer.
That would be what is known as symbolism. Or perhaps you think the Bible also teaches that the New Jerusalem (a cube of 144,000 miles per side) will literally descend from heaven, as described in Revelation 21.
You are, of course, correct that numerous dying god myths existed in the ancient world and it is likely that these have influenced some of the ways Jesus has been described, but it is simply false that these myths were the origin of the Jesus stories, which are thoroughly Jewish and monotheistic to the core. But this is a topic that is quite involved and will certainly have to await another day.
That gets at the difference between heaven and hell (behind all the imagery): heaven is the existence of those who have already chosen to put their trust absolutely in God, hell is the existence of those who have put their trust in themselves or anything other than God. The distinction is not arbitrary but corresponds exactly with the choice between living for yourself and living for others (chaos or community), and ultimately, embracing the source of all life and goodness or cutting yourself off from it. The choice is for each individual to make, but God affirms choices made.
Sorry I don't have time for a more detailed discussion of these issues.
Ken Brown,
It is true the bible uses seemingly conflicting metaphors to describe hell (a pit, fire, outer darkness) What it never uses to describe hell is the "separation from God". This is wishful thinking. God is omnipresent--His presence will be in hell too. In fact, I would imagine that the presence of God, whom the damned hate and from whom the damned would wish to flee, will be part of the torment.
If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there (Ps. 139:8, NKJV)
No it's not. It's a different opinion decent people arrive at when they realize the bible is full of symbolism.
The 'dmaned' do not hate God. In fact the vast majority will have loved some form of him. Others will just not have believed he existed. In either event if your version of God is there watching his own creations suffer that is on him.
I feel sorry for the jews/muslims/hindus who love God but oops.
Religious arguments are so ridiculous and demeaning to decent human.
David:
Don't you see that you appear to worship, not a benevolent governor of the universe, but a (in Jefferson's words describing Calvin's God) "malignant demon spirit."
"The choice is for each individual to make, but God affirms choices made."
Right now, I see no evidence that your God or Bin Laden's God for that matter exists; though I hold abstract hope that *some* BENEVOLENT Creator does exist.
If I die and I see your God or Allah for that matter really is Supreme, and I face Him/Her/whomever on Judgment day, then, given that I will have the evidence that I need, I will choose that God, your God, if He is real.
Does that get me into Heaven. After all you said the choice is mine to make.
I fully concede that my posts are WAY off topic, but, so, i think are the statements that i felt compelled to respond to. So, (just for fun) here's another:
Ken wrote
"Which is why to do so he would have to become human, in a sense, to revoke his own divinity."
"Again, central Christian doctrine: The hyperstatic union, that Jesus was both fully human and fully God."
As far as i can tell, these two statements are utterly contradictory. It's equivalent to saying that "Jane is equally pregnant and not pregnant." Jesus cannot be "fully" human if can perfrom magic feats that humans simply cannot do (walking on water, raising the dead, etc) and have access to divine knowledge that humans simply don't have access to (the knowledge that, for instance, he is God and will rise from the dead and knows things the rest of humanity must take on mere faith.).
Also, this god-sacrifice does nothing to elleviate the evil you say it illuminates. It is clear from Jesus's words that Hell is not a punishment for people who do wicked things, but rather the place nonbelievers go after Judgement. Under Christian dogma, someone can rape and murder thousands of children, have a genuine conversion experience, be forgiven by Jesus and go to Heaven. That doesn't sound like "justice" to me. That sounds like a corrupt "old-boys" network.
Ken says:
This is a false dilemma -- the idea of a god experiencing great suffering for the sake of humans is not novel, and the idea of one doing so is no more preposterous than the whole 'god' concept itself. A bunch of Jewish peasants, integrated into the Greek and Roman world, would have had access to a vast mythology which included images such as that of Prometheus, chained and tormented for all eternity for his actions on behalf of mankind.
"To an eternal God, three days of death would be the same as going to hell for all eternity!". Why? The opposite seems more likely: three days would be less than a snap of the fingers to an eternal God. And it is equally odd to suggest that "the suffering of an infinite being would, by definition, be infinitely greater than any suffering any number (short of infinity) of finite beings could ever suffer". Why? Although I find the whole argument silly, I'm especially baffled by the 'infinite suffering' part. Just because God is supposedly infinite, does that mean everything he does is infinite? When he speaks, is his voice infinitely loud? When he creates species, does he create infinitely many? When he causes floods, are they infinitely deep? And when he suffers, is the suffering infinitely bad? But I would imagine God's pain threshold is infinitely high, so wouldn't that be a mitigating factor?
Ken wrote:
I don't want to go on here either, but it is arbitrary. There is no reason to insist that choosing God necessarily entails living, or having lived, for others. As Caliban noted, one can live a long and wretched life, commit the vilest acts of evil, have a genuine conversion, and still end up having God snap his fingers to "make it all puppy-dogs and flowers".
One can also commit the most heinous crimes imaginable and never be found out for it. Which is probably more likely. So we rarely get justice as it is! But God snaps his fingers and sends them to hell (if they haven't emraced him, that is).
Ok lunch is over. I have to go back to work now :)
Ok, I said I wasn't gonna get into this, and I'm not, but so many people have responded that I'll make a couple brief comments that apply to a good deal of the objections people have raised (and remember, neither this nor my brief responses to Caliban are in any way intended as an exhaustive statement or a detailed defense):
Many of you are assuming that admission to heaven or hell is determined by (essentially) whether you check off the right box on a theological IQ test before you die. The Bible offers quite a different picture: Jesus Christ's death is the only reason anyone can be forgiven their sins but 1. It is questionable whether you have to have heard the name of Jesus for him to save you (after all, the OT heroes never had). and 2. The NT doesn't describe commitment to God as praying the right prayer at the right time, but as a wholehearted commitment to live fully for God and neighbor, made possible by what God has already done for you.
Further, as C.S. Lewis notes, it may not be so easy as we imagine to live our entire life focused on ourselves as our only authority, and then suddenly re-orientate our entire being towards God, simply because we now recognize his as real. (Oh and David, how do you interpret the many passages that speak of the ungodly being cast out from the messianic banquet, for instance in Matt. 22:1-14? If that isn't separation from God, I don't know what would be.)
As for the apparent irrationality (perhaps I should say, the blatant paradox) of certain central Christian doctrines like the Trinity and the hyperstatic union, all I can do is echo Chesterton: I don't believe in them because I understand them, but because of what they help me understand. I believe in them as I do the sun, not because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else.
So a pretty big loophole. kinda defeats the entire Jesus is the only way party line.
It is just totally funny to watch people argue over what the NT supposedly says or doesn't say. And it's not what God wants per se, just your perception of what your Giod wants. essentially just your opinion.
There is nothing apparent about it. You are free to hold the view as am I but it is irrational.
That may be the single, poorest excuse/rationalization of an irrational thought I've ever read. That any sane human could find this convincing as a form of discussion is somewhat amazing.
Chance,
Oh really? Does anyone truly understand the quantum (is it even possible to truly understand it)? All fundamental particles are both everywhere and nowhere at once. You can change the spin of an electron indefinitely far away simply by changing the spin of its pair, without anything (apparently) passing between them. Electrons are both particles and waves, simultaneously.
No one truly understands these facts, but we know they are true because they line up perfectly with experiment. We accept them, like I accept this, because they do make sense of so much else, not because we understand them in and of themselves.
Ken Brown,
"Oh and David, how do you interpret the many passages that speak of the ungodly being cast out from the messianic banquet, for instance in Matt. 22:1-14? If that isn't separation from God, I don't know what would be.)"
Oh there is separation. The goats will be separated from the sheep. And the parable of the wedding banquet does indeed teach of a separation: some will be separated from (tossed out of) the Kingdom of God, which is what the feast represents.
And if you want to use parables rather than straightforward statements of Christ (about hell --where he never says it is a separation from God) what do you make of the parable of The rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16)? The rich man, in hell, is apparently in Abraham's presence. But not God's, according to your theory. And does the rich man beg to see God -- which he should if God's absence is the punishment he received? No, he begs to have his physical torment alleviated.
You can argue that hell will be separation from God's love, or his grace, but there is no passage whatsoever that teaches it is a separation from God's presence. And in fact, the passage I quoted Ps. 139:8 argues against that idea explicitly.
I speculate this "hell is the separation from God" notion is made up to calm nerves. We say: "hell is separation from God, isn't that awful?" and shudder like that is more horrible than other possibilities alluded to (fire.) But in our minds we are saying "Okay, if I have to, I can deal with that."
David,
The rich man in that parable is not in hell but hades, and the conversation between him and Abraham is clearly a literary device, not a statement about the nature of the afterlife.
As for Ps. 139:8, it speaks of sheol, "the grave." Hell, as a concept, was never discussed in Judaism until much later - death was seen as annihilation (see Ps. 88:10). The psalmist's meaning seems to be: "Even in death, you are with me, just as much as if I were to walk into Your throne room (heaven)." This is not a statement about hell but an early step towards the doctrine of eternal life, which would only be developed later.
Ken Wrote:
"Oh really? Does anyone truly understand the quantum (is it even possible to truly understand it)? All fundamental particles are both everywhere and nowhere at once. You can change the spin of an electron indefinitely far away simply by changing the spin of its pair, without anything (apparently) passing between them. Electrons are both particles and waves, simultaneously.
No one truly understands these facts, but we know they are true because they line up perfectly with experiment. We accept them, like I accept this, because they do make sense of so much else, not because we understand them in and of themselves."
I encounter variations of this argument/sentiment a lot from theists. It is unfounded for a variety of reasons.
In reguard to scientific claims that laypeople accept without having the specialised expertise in such fields, there is still a whopping difference between the knowledge claims of science and religon.
Anyone intrested in knowing weather or not bozons exist can sift through the data physicists use to arrive at thier conclusions. Nowhere in science does its practioners declare that one accept thier propositions on faith. They have evidence to back up thier assertions and if that evidence is weak it is quickly pointed out by other practioners.
All scientific claims are ultimitely provisional in nature. Should a new theory come along that can reconcile previous quandries with the light of new evidence, old tennets are modified, broadened or even overturned by theories with better evidence & explanatory power to back it up.
Now contrast this with the methodology in which religous beliefs are maintained. We are told that we must have faith in them despite a lack of evidence or even in face of conflicting evidence. In addition, the faithfull are further admonished to vow to believe in its dogmas no matter what evidence they might encounter against it. Time after time the NT admonishes the faithfull to take up "the shield of faith" and believe no matter what.
This is what makes the scientific endeavour rational and the religous realm irrational.
On a side note, here we have what appears to be two sincere christians who cannot come to agreement over a foundational element of thier shared faith. Why would this be? One would think that if the all-mighty creator of the universe wrote a book for its creations that was absolutely vital to the salvation of thier immortal souls, you'd think that it would be clear and unambiguous given how high the stakes apparently are (salvation vs damnation). I read a recent census of Christian religons in america that had over 20,000 differant sects listed. Does such a broad range of disagreement occur over the texts of Plato or Einstein?
Caliban,
Sheesh, here I go, getting drawn in despite my best intentions not to!
You have entirely missed the point of my example. I am not saying: "No one understands quantum physics, we just accept it on faith." I am saying: "when it comes to aspects of reality far beyond human experience, such as quantum physics and metaphysics, the human mind is simply not equipped to fully understand."
Ask any physicist, or read Feynman's famous lectures or Brian Greene's excellent books, and you'll see the difference. It's not about lay people being unable to understand, it's about the physicists themselves saying: "We know this is true because it fits with every experiment we can think to throw at it, but we don't understand how it can be true."
Likewise, when you talk about God you are bound to push up against the bounds of human language and reason, because you are trying to use finite concepts to describe the infinite. Paradoxes are simply part of the package. You can reject that package, but you aren't really talking about God without them.
That was one of the first reasons I moved away from religion (later philosophy sealed the deal for good). I rather refer to it as "the Gandhi problem." If Gandhi, of all people, goes to hell because he picked the wrong god because of the culture he was born into; I mean he's freaking Gandhi.... and Jerry Falwell goes to heaven (not that I think he shouldn't), that's a serious dilemma. Now a lot of people are easily able to avoid this by removing the absurd prerequisite that the saved must come from only the "one true religion" but a whole lot don't. So there it is, Gandhi burns in hell for eternity. That doesn't logically eliminate a god; a god doesn't have to be benevolent, but I do have a hard time believing that a being that wise has worse self-esteem than I, a mere mortal.
Ken wrote:
Yes! Give in the dark side! Ha ha ha!
Ken wrote:
Of course, while we have a large resivour of evidence to support quantum theory we have absolutely no evidence of god's existence. This is not a trivial point. While there are things about quauntum mechanics and dark matter and other aspects of the cosmos that we don't fully understand, we nevertheless have plenty of evidence to believe in those things. The same cannot be said of your God, nor any other species of the supernatural.
Considering how much we've discovered about the cosmos and our world in the past century, it may prove to be unwise for theists to rest thier god-beliefs upon current unknown spots of scientific endeavour. It seems to me that theists have a tendency to reveal in current unknowns as they seem (to me) to feel that these gaps in our knowledge provides a kind of refuge for thier god to lurk in.
Matthew,
I see no value in attempting to determine who is going to heaven or hell on an individual level, that's between them and God.
Caliban,
Please, let's not be ridiculous here; people claim to have experienced God (or a god) all the time, in every culture, since the beginning of recorded history. All you really mean is, "I personally do not believe any of those claims." So let me ask you, assuming the existence of God is a logical possibility, what kind of evidence would you consider sufficient to prove his existence?
You are absolutely right. Yet I fail to see how I am guilty of that, unless you are still misunderstanding the point of my quantum physics example. If so, then let me make it clear: 1. It was an analogy, not a proof for God. No where did I say "God is real because we don't understand quantum mechanics." 2. The analogy did not hinge on what we do not know, but on what we do know. We know that the fundamental constituents of our universe are fully particles and fully waves simultaneously just as Christian doctrine claims that Jesus is/was fully God and fully man. Both ideas seem to be utter contradictions, but both make sense of much that needs making sense of.
In the first case, particle-wave duality makes sense of a vast number of experiments that badly needed explaining. In the second case, the hyperstatic union makes sense of a great deal of theological conundrums that are otherwise insolable. Yet neither particle-wave duality nor the hyperstatic make any sense to us, again for the same reason: they deal with realities that are very far removed from the types of things we are used to thinking about. They push to the bounds of what our minds seem to be capable of comprehending, leading us to paradoxes.
Does that mean we will never understand either of these things, not in the least. Perhaps we will, perhaps we wont. Perhaps once we learn more we will realize that we were wrong all along, the paradox really was a contradiction and we were wrong about this particular duality. Or perhaps we will discover that what seemed to be a paradox was nothing of the sort. Only time will tell in both cases, but in the mean time it is hardly irrational to stick with the useful paradox.
Please, let's not be ridiculous here; people claim to have experienced God (or a god) all the time, in every culture, since the beginning of recorded history. All you really mean is, "I personally do not believe any of those claims." So let me ask you, assuming the existence of God is a logical possibility, what kind of evidence would you consider sufficient to prove his existence?
Yes, most people throughout history have believed in spiritual entities. Gods, spirits of rocks, trees, animals, ancestors... The problem is that many of them are mutually contradictory. And even if some aren't, isn't it pretty arrogant to conflate everyone else's spiritual beliefs with your single, apparently male deity?
And even if nowadays people tend to scoff at demanding scientific evidence of a god, there's no logical necessity for gods be scientifically and objectively invisible and inscrutable. If your god is like that, why?
Ken wrote:
"The analogy did not hinge on what we do not know, but on what we do know. We know that the fundamental constituents of our universe are fully particles and fully waves simultaneously just as Christian doctrine claims that Jesus is/was fully God and fully man. Both ideas seem to be utter contradictions, but both make sense of much that needs making sense of."
I thought i had addressed this. The problem i see with this is that epistemologicaly, we have a solid, empirical ground upon which to base our beliefs upon the existence of quantum theory while we have no epistemelogical basis to ground a belief in something for which there is absolutely no evidence(God).
You say that your analogy arises from what you DO know as opposed to what you don't know. What can one possibly KNOW about God that is not derived from faith?
The problem here is that one can draw analogies to believe in anything one can imagine and compare it to an incomplete understanding of qunatum mechanics or any other theory we don't currently have a full understanding of:
"I believe in fairies even though certain attributes they are said to possess seem to be paradoxicaly contradictory. Belief in fairies is rational because i can analagously relate our incomplete understanding of fairies to our incomplete understanding -yet acceptance of, certain scientific theories we don't yet fully understand."
Do you see what i mean?
Ken wrote:
"Please, let's not be ridiculous here; people claim to have experienced God (or a god) all the time, in every culture, since the beginning of recorded history. All you really mean is, "I personally do not believe any of those claims." So let me ask you, assuming the existence of God is a logical possibility, what kind of evidence would you consider sufficient to prove his existence?"
I'm not asking you to provide proof of God's existence. My point is that we have utterly nothing in the way of evidence to warrant it as a possibility. Sure, there is a statistical probability that an invisible dragon might live in my garage, but untill i can provide some evidence, ANYTHING remotely objective, scientific or empirical to even suggest that there really is an invisible dragon in my garage, there is no rational reason to entertain the notion that there is.
What i'm suggesting is that rational beliefs are ultimitely derived from objective evidences, not from speculations about what might possibly be. Basicly, this is the same common-sense approach we all use when confronted with claims of aliens, bigfoots, lochness monsters and such. It is only in the sphere of religon where it is still intellectually respectable to abandon such qualifications.
Windy,
I'm not conflating anything. I'm saying that this common experience of the supernatural is strong evidence that a god or gods exist(s), and theology is the project of seeking to understand what such god or gods are like.
Nothing requires that God's actions be scientifically invisible; after all, Christianity does center on a resurrection. But God is a person, not a natural law.
Caliban,
Objective evidences like, say, a man rising from the dead? How about prayers being answered? People being healed from all manner of ailments? I've seen hundreds of prayers answered in quite amazing ways, and I've even see a handful of seemingly miraculous healing as a result of such prayers. I am hardly alone.
How can you claim there is "absolutely no evidence" of God if you are unwilling to even consider the possibility that such things have happened?
Caliban writes:
...invisible dragon...in my garage...
You know, if anyone's going to pay on Judgement Day for leading believers astray, it's gonna be Carl Sagan... ;-)
Cheers,
Ken wrote:
"Objective evidences like, say, a man rising from the dead?"
Wow! You have evidence of christian powers raising someone from the dead? I can't wait to see it! Once this evidence is made public, faith won't even be necessary anymore.
Ken wrote:
"How about prayers being answered? People being healed from all manner of ailments? I've seen hundreds of prayers answered in quite amazing ways, and I've even see a handful of seemingly miraculous healing as a result of such prayers. I am hardly alone."
Once the "misses" are counted along with the "hits" in answered prayers, they are revealed to be nothing more than the laws of statistical probability displaying themselves.
For a complete analysis of why prayer fails: http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god5.htm
Claims of miracles, healings, aliens, bigfoot and the lochness monster all nicely fit into the same category of events that cannot be taken seriously without some kind of objective, observable evidence to back them up.
Ken wrote:
"How can you claim there is "absolutely no evidence" of God if you are unwilling to even consider the possibility that such things have happened?"
One can consider the "possibility" of anything happening.(remember the invisible dragon that might be living in my garage?) Have you considered the possibility that the miracles you claim to have witnessed have been the product of demons trying to deceive you from believing the truth of Islam? Or, dare i say it, the possibility that all of the gods and monsters and other supernatural beings that humans have believed in at one time or another have all been imaginary?
Ultimitely, entertaining "possibilities" will not lead one to knowledge about the world and cosmos. There is no substitute for objective observation (science). If a particular "possibility" proves to be true it will be proven true within the context of science and reason. Everything else is just speculation.
...I'm saying that this common experience of the supernatural is strong evidence that a god or gods exist...
Is the common experience of alien abductions strong evidence that aliens exist?
But God is a person, not a natural law.
Where's the evidence? What about all those supernatural experiences that don't involve personal gods? You can't count them as evidence of your specific God.
Caliban and windy,
Perhaps if I knew dozens of people who (claim to be) regularly abducted by aliens, the way I know dozens of people who (claim to) regularly experience God, I probably would consider it plausible that at least some of those stories are accurate. If I had been abducted by aliens myself, as I have experienced God myself (on numerous occasions), then I probably would consider alien abductions as probable as I consider God. And if, for such reasons, I did consider alien abductions probable, I would also be more likely to believe some of the alien abduction stories told by people I don't know, at least when they fit well with my own experiences.
None of that is true of alien abductions, but it is true of my experience with God. That would be the difference between a sheer possibility and a possibility I consider plausible. Perhaps you can say the same about the invisible dragon in your garage? I thought not.
Ken wrote:
"That would be the difference between a sheer possibility and a possibility I consider plausible. Perhaps you can say the same about the invisible dragon in your garage? I thought not."
So, by your reasoning, if i found more people who also believed that invisible dragons lived in thier garages that would make the claim more plausible?
The only reliable means to verify something is with evidence. It doesn't matter how many people claim to believe in astrology, Thor or Jesus. If all of those claims are without evidence, then they can be rationally dismissed. Again, this is really nothing more than ordinary, common sense. The only time people disagree with it is when they want to believe in something they can't produce evidence for.
Caliban,
It is not a matter of how many people believe each of these things, it is a matter of why people believe them. If you collected a few dozen people who all said "I believe an invisible dragon lives in my garage," but the only "evidence" they could produce was to say "I like the idea, and it gives me confort knowing it lives there," then I would surely disbelieve them, just as you disbelieve me.
But if I knew many of those people well, and knew them to be trustworthy and honest. If all of them could tell me of many times in their own lives when they had asked that invisible dragon to do something, and had seen it happen (far more often than can be attributed to coincidence). If they invited me to see what they mean, and though I couldn't see the dragon himself, I tried asking it to do something (silently, so no one could know what I asked and play a trick on me), and I watched it happen. If I then got to know this invisible dragon, and found that it could give me advice when I most needed it, and found that its advice always turned out to be for the best. And if I discovered that thousands of people the world over have reported similar experiences since the beginning of recorded history. If all of those things happened, then yes, I would absolutely believe that invisible dragons live in people's garages.
Of course, none of that is true. But again, it is all true of my experience of God. Now it is clear to me that you have not had the same experience, and if that is the case, then no internet argument with a total stranger is going to change your mind. But I fail to see why I ought to ignore my experience (shared by so many others) in favor of your skepticism. I fail to see how that would constitute "common sense."
Ken, i liked this last post of yours. From my humble vantage point as an atheist, i liked this one the best.
Ken wrote:
"Now it is clear to me that you have not had the same experience, and if that is the case, then no internet argument with a total stranger is going to change your mind. But I fail to see why I ought to ignore my experience (shared by so many others) in favor of your skepticism. I fail to see how that would constitute "common sense."
For the record, i'm not really trying to change your mind. I simply enjoy these sorts of debates from time to time as a form of intellectual entertainment. Although i also think it is important to have one's beliefs challenged because it gives one the opportunity to further clarify thier thoughts. It is one thing to believe certian propositions and another to defend them in writting.
As fate would have it, i used to refer to myself as a born-again evangelical Christian. I preached before hundreds of people in Ireland, read my bible every day, prayed to Jesus every day (often, to the point of tears), went to bible study every week, church, etc.
Your remarks about the reasons why a person believes something is frankly more than i can address in these posts because there are SO many differant reasons why someone might believe something. I don't think it surprising that i once was a Christian as Christianity is by far the majority religon in America. Just as Islam is the majority religon in Saudi Arabia and Buddhism the majority religon in Tibet, etc. Most people arrive at thier religous convictions because they are indoctrinated into it or eventually encounter it from the culture they are born into.
This fact alone seems a sort of "red flag" to me considering the contradictory claims made by differant religons. Particularily when it comes to who will end up Hell. A child that is brought up in a throughly Muslim society essentially has very little chance of becoming a Chritian or any other religon. They live thier life trying as best they can to confrom to the requirements that thier religon/culture expects of them. And for this they are (according to Christian dogma) to be damned to torture for all eternity. In no way that i can possibly conceive of is that just, fair or loving. In fact, i find it wholly irrational, petty, barbaric and monstrous.
The reason why your fellow Christians confirm each others beliefs are likely to be same reasons muslims in Iraq confirm each others beliefs. What i'm suggesting is that if one tentatively looks outside the familiar landscape of one's religon and try to analyse it objectively, the dogma falls apart into a heap of cruel and irrational contradictions.
For what it's worth, that's my two cents. :)
This is sort of dead now. But I feel strangely compelled to point one more wee little tiny thing out.
Ken wrote:
It isn't just Caliban's skepticism, it's also yours Ken.
You use these same standards every day for a myriad of other things. It only seems to be Caliban's skepticism because he is applying it to an area that you do not, despite the fact that you and he probably have similar standards of evidence in most other areas. Medicine, handy gadgets, supernatural claims we haven't internalized. On and on.
Further, we also know that our emotional experiences do not translate to the world in a one to one way.
For example, have you ever been irrationally angry at another person? Perhaps your parents or spouse? A good friend or a child?
Eventually when you come to grips with yourself, perhaps even grow up, you come to understand that sometimes your feelings about others are unwarranted. It doesn't mean that you weren't angry or upset, just that your internal experience doesn't necessarily say anything about the external world. Sometimes it might, but mature, well-adjusted and emotionally stable adults don't give carte blanch authority to their feelings.
Similarily, your internal spiritual experience don't say anything about the external world. They tell us something about you to be sure. The fact that lots of people have them tells us something about humanity. But it doesn't really tell us anything about God. Especially since your interpretations of the experiences are not shared with most people who have them. Nor are they shared with most people throughout time, with the exception that some external agent is usually presumed to have caused them.
Anyway, I don't want to knock you for your choice in handling your experiences, it just always seems ironinc to me that people treat their spritual experience so much differently than other emotional experience. And disregard others' skepticism about their own claims while employing that same skepticism in all areas of life.