clayflingythingy
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Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.
- Thread starter DOC
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L The Detective
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Cmon DOC, address the slavery thing. You gave 3 choices:
1) Kill them
2) Let them go free
3) make them slaves
No matter what the context, the least evil and most "Christian" answer is number 2. Your response?
1) Kill them
2) Let them go free
3) make them slaves
No matter what the context, the least evil and most "Christian" answer is number 2. Your response?
The Romans were repelling a revolt which they didn't initiated. There is a big difference in that and slaughtering innocent babies to keep power. If the people read about the slaughtering of babies that would definitely throw gas on the fire that was already there. Unless you believe the people would have thought it was no big deal to slaughter hundreds of babies.
I'll try to get to this within a week.
paximperium
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L The Detective
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joobz
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Niggle
Basement Cat's, Evil Twin Skippy
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Niggle
Basement Cat's, Evil Twin Skippy
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He didn't silence the Jew Matthew did he. And as I've pointed out, most people back then couldn't read or write. And there was no newspapers or magazines (probably because paper hadn't been invented yet) And if they did write down something what are they going to do with it, post it on trees and get themselves killed.
Jesus was speaking in ways the people of that brutal period could understood and would remember. The beating of some slaves was probably normal in that brutal society, just like the severe beating Jesus would eventually receive was normal in that day.
There is no doubt about it, in Christianity (according to the bible) if you disobey God's will (and do not sincerely ask for forgiveness) you will be punished, and Jesus does a good job of getting that point across in a way the people (some of whom might only hear him speak once) will remember.
But if you also break God's laws and you are unaware of what you are doing you are still going to receive a punishment. For example if you disobey God's laws by being sexually promiscuous and are not aware of what you are doing is wrong, you might get an STD or you might get the person pregnant and suffer that way. Your punishment won't be as great as it you knew it was wrong but you will still be punished in some way. A price always has to be paid for unforgiven sin -- either a big price or a small price depending on the circumstances.
It is would seem obvious that it would be much more important for Jesus to get his point across about God's rules and disobeying those rules with regards to the individuals listening than to spend a lot of time on a deeply ingrained social and economic policy like slavery that as I've pointed out before would probably do more harm than good to abolish immediately in that time and place of history.
I describe how it would probably do more harm than good in this post:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4565803#post4565803
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six7s
veretic
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So DOC... all the kids who die in hospitals every day... please describe the sort of sins that results in their punishment
Oh yeah... whilst I'm here...
You have (conveniently?) over-looked quite a few questions recently
Please, before you post any more spamtastic nonsense (ie anything), answer them
TYIA
Remember, the tax collector Matthew walked and ate with Jesus for 3 years. It would be obvious that Jesus or his mother would have heard about it from people they knew in Bethlehem or the surrounding areas at some point in their life. Jesus would of then had 3 years to tell Matthew about it.
wollery
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DOC, I really can't understand the disconnect you seem to be having here.
This isn't something that would have been secret, particularly not among the Jews who lived in the area. We aren't talking about a couple of kids disappearing in the night. We're talking about soldiers going through a fairly large town and the entire surrounding area killing all children under the age of 2. That isn't a quiet event, nor one that you can keep from people in other towns.
It would have been known to everyone in the area, all of Galilee probably. Yet other than one gospel it isn't mentioned. Not one historical document mentions it. Not one!
And, as has already been pointed out, the man who ordered this massacre wasn't actually a Roman, but a Jew, the King of Judea to be precise, so the Romans would have had no reason to keep it quiet. None!
This isn't something that would have been secret, particularly not among the Jews who lived in the area. We aren't talking about a couple of kids disappearing in the night. We're talking about soldiers going through a fairly large town and the entire surrounding area killing all children under the age of 2. That isn't a quiet event, nor one that you can keep from people in other towns.
It would have been known to everyone in the area, all of Galilee probably. Yet other than one gospel it isn't mentioned. Not one historical document mentions it. Not one!
And, as has already been pointed out, the man who ordered this massacre wasn't actually a Roman, but a Jew, the King of Judea to be precise, so the Romans would have had no reason to keep it quiet. None!
joobz
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Exactly!
God is cruel, unjust and (by modern standards) evil.
Thank you for agreeing with me.
I know you did. And the problem for you hasn't changed.
The problem with this is multifold
1.) Jesus doesn't give a set of conditions which allows slavery to be acceptable. He simply condones it and he went so far as to tacitly permit the beatings of slaves for violating rules they were unaware of.
2.) The new testament permits Christians to be both master and slave. This clearly contradicts the idea that jesus would condone slavery on the grounds of the "enemy combatant" argument.
3.) The same hazards regarding enemy combatants exist today. It's expensive to have prisoners and if you releasse them, you run the risk of them re-attacking you. We can simply put forward the reasons we don't enslave such combatants.
a.) It permits other nations to capture your people and enslave them.
b.) Keeping enemies as slaves is costly and requires brutal treatment to force compliance and requires high oversight costs to prevent escape.
c.) It gives moral justification against other nations to unite and rise up against you.
4.) The argument assumes that enemies that were captured were always put into slavery. This isn't true and indeed the romans were rather good at taking over areas and turning the new people into citizens.
DOC, god is
The Holocaust (with a reported 6 million people killed) was kept quiet for years from other Jews and the German masses. If the death of 6 million people can be kept quiet for years in an era of radio and newspapers, why not a couple hundred deaths in a primitive era with no media.
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So you want a universe where there is no severe punishment. You want someone like that man who kidnapped, raped, and buried alive a small girl or someone like Hitler (who was responsible for the death of 60 million people) not to be severely punished. Joobz should they be severely punished or not.
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