posted 12-27-1999 07:10 AM
How did I misrepresent the Bible?
The Bible is tolerant of
slavery. The Bible tells you how to treat your slaves. The Bible
tells you how to be obedient if you are a slave. I have yet to find
a passage denouncing the practice of slavery. They were indeed
bought and sold:
quote:
[Gen 17:23.10] Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all the
slaves born in his house or bought with his money, every male
among the men of Abraham's house, and he circumcised the flesh of
their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him.
[Lev 25:44.7] As for your male and female slaves whom you may
have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations
that are round about you.
They were forced to labor. Does anyone think
force means that if a slave refused, strong language was used on
them? Guess again!
quote:
[Josh 16:10.29] However they did not drive out the Canaanites that
dwelt in Gezer: so the Canaanites have dwelt in the midst of
Ephraim to this day but have become slaves to do forced labor.
[1Kgs 9:21.28] their descendants (All the people who were left
of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and
the Jebusites) who were left after them in the land, whom the
people of Israel were unable to destroy utterly--these Solomon
made a forced levy of slaves, and so they are to this day.
Yes, slaves were oppressed and suffered pain, turmoil
and hard service.
quote:
[Isa 14:2.29] And the peoples will take them and bring them to
their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the
LORD's land as male and female slaves; they will take captive
those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed
them.
[Isa 14:3] When the LORD has given you rest from your pain and
turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve
As a matter of fact, you could beat them almost
to death:
quote:
[Exod 21:20.6] "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with
a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.
[Exod 21:21] But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not
to be punished; for the slave is his money.
There are some 200 passages that deal with slaves
in the Bible, yet nowhere does the Bible denounce slavery in
any form. On the contrary, it says:
quote:
[Eph 6:5.1] Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly
masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to
Christ
[Col 3:22.1] Slaves, obey in everything those who are your
earthly masters, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in
singleness of heart, fearing the Lord.
Slaves were murdered along with their masters for their
masters' offenses:
quote:
[Jdt 9:3.32] So thou gavest up their rulers to be slain, and their
bed, which was ashamed of the deceit they had practiced, to be
stained with blood, and thou didst strike down slaves along with
princes, and princes on their thrones
And now I ask you to show how I have misrepresented the Bible on
the subject of
slaves.
---------------------------------------------
You say
that I have misrepresented Hitler as a Christian. Who are you trying
to kid?
There's no doubt that Hitler was a Christian. He may not have
been your ideal Christian; He may not have represented
Christianity in a positive light; But there is no doubt he was
indeed a Christian. He believed in Jesus as his saviour; That Christ
died for his sins. He was baptised and honored by the church
throughout his life. He extolled the virtues of Jesus' teaching to
his people and his armies.
Just because you don't want him to have been a Christian
doesn't unmake him
one.
---------------------------------------------
I look
forward to you "getting back to me" with the names of the societies
and cultures who encouraged their citizenship to "theft,
murder, rape, torture, child molestation, etc." simply because they
have decided not to follow God.
I remind you that your words were:
quote:
Actually there is a long history of cultures advocating precisely
those things. One need only look around to see it today.
--------------------------------------------
quote:
But it is pretty easy to demonstrate how an inherent morality
against huting others does not fit with evolution.
In addressing your claims to back this statement;
I never stated that anyone had been "born with a gene that causes
me (them) to seek societal good." What I am saying is that certain
animals, including man, have found a distinct advantage in numbers.
They have found that there is strength in numbers for hunting,
defense and so forth. This is not a disadvantage, as you claim.
You state that, "Evolution is first geared around survival of
individual." Isn't survival of the individual better assured when
surrounded by allies? Perhaps you'd like to refresh my memory on why
fish school? Why hyenas, wolves and other predators work together in
packs? Why lions live and work together in a pride? Why buffalo,
antelope, giraffes and so many others live and travel together in
herds? Why bees form hives and ants live together in colonies? Etc.,
etc., etc....
Think about it. There are very few animals that are so
individualistic that they kill everything they see including their
own kind. Are there any? Wouldn't this ensure that the species
itself would become extinct? Perhaps you could provide us a list of
them?
You state that, "Also, there are plenty of people today that
apparantly do not share your morals." And again, I say they are
outcasts. When they are discovered to be people who engage in
"theft, murder, rape, torture, child molestation, etc.", they get
locked up or killed with a sentence of death by the rest of us.
Your statement, "Survival of the fittest is only interested in
keeping an individual alive long enough to reproduce and pass on his
genes." is dependent on man being a non-thinking, non-reasoning
animal. This simply is not the case. We do think. We do reason. We
do live for more than to reproduce, and we have done so for many
thousands, or even millions, of years since we began using tools,
communicating and working together toward common goals like food,
shelter and defense.
Even animals we do not normally consider to be "thinking" and
"reasoning" do not exhibit traits of being singularly
disposed to simply, "keeping an individual alive long enough to
reproduce and pass on his genes." They too work, live and hunt
together in schools, herds, prides, packs, swarms, hives and
colonies.
That's primarily because, "survival of the fittest" is a sweeping
description popularized by the media and non-scientists that is not
accurate in that it doesn't encompass a tenth of the processes
involved in evolution. The phrase 'survival of the fittest' was not
even Darwin's. It was originally due to Herbert Spencer some years
before and was urged on Darwin by Wallace, the codiscoverer of
natural selection, who hated 'natural selection' because he thought
it implied that something was doing the selecting.
Your final statements, including, "Try watching a bunch of
average two year olds play, they could care less about the well
being of their playmates." is a one sided observation. They are
learning how to be social and testing the boundaries and limits of
this trait. Observe them and you will also see them make friends and
alliances. You will see them learning the virtues of sharing and
trade.
More importantly, you will see those that are bringing them up
teaching them what is acceptable to society so they will not be
outcasts, so they will strengthen the herd (the society), so they
will remain accepted within that culture.
Your half empty glass is also half full. 
------------------
"Jane!! Stop this crazy thing!!" ~ George
Jetson
[This message has been edited by Buckster (edited
12-27-1999).]
posted 12-24-1999 09:33 PM