Comments by "ncwordman" (@ncwordman) on "Obvious Trump cognitive decline as lunatics pray over him" video.
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@jimbob3030 "The bible gives instructions on who to enslave, how much you can beat them, how long you can keep them"
First, you didn't give examples. If I'm to know what you're talking about, I need the quotes. Secondly, since I'm assuming you know/believe the Bible was written by men, then surely men of that time (who had slaves) would have recorded their directions for such things. And those directions, for some reason, were included in the Bible.
"Everything that was said previously is correct."
That remains to be seen. You certainly didn't prove it. Nor did you take into account that people who owned slaves wrote the parts of the Bible that talk about owning slaves. Different people wrote different parts of the Bible, all with different goals. There are some parts that claim God said what color the curtains should be in the tabernacle, for instance. You think God cares about colors?
"The god that is described to you when you sit in the pews is radically different from what it actually says in the pages."
I do not sit in any pews. Not for a very long time. But I've read the full Bible over a dozen times. I've read study Bibles, commentaries, and written nearly 50 essays, myself, on the Gospels. So when I call your claims into question, it is because I already know the answer. I'd just like to see you try and prove it.
"I never understood how people can believe but never read the book they think is so important."
I am not a believer. But, as I said, I know the Bible very well. And I look forward to you trying again to prove your claim, as you failed spectacularly this time.
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@TheHuxleyAgnostic "Have you never read the OT?"
Yes I have. And...?
"committing genocide; ordering genocide; ordering to bash people in the head with rocks, for non belief, for speaking of other religions, for working, even doing chores, on the Sabbath; okaying enslaving non Israelites for life, and passing them down as inheritance...."
That's quite a lot to go through. Let me ask you. The Bible: word of God as taken by dictation, or mythology? Either way, written by man, with the understanding of men back when it was written. Right? So when God says to "bash people," is that God, or man? Whether taken by dictation, or written by man, as I said before, men wrote it down. And so who is saying to bash people? God or man? Man, obviously.
Have you read much mythology? Have you seen how the writers of myths gave the gods the personalities, weaknesses, and goals of men? Or do you really think the immortal Zeus wanted to literally seduce a mortal woman, and so actually turned himself into a swan?
The Bible combines many different writings, from varied sources, about different things. Some of those things show the best of men, and some show the worst. Some show the thoughts and mores of the time and place, and some show the timeless behavior of humanity.
You're throwing the baby out with the bath water. You're cherry picking. Have you read the Gospels? How about the Psalms? How much of the Bible have you read?
To claim the Bible condones the worst parts of humanity, is to claim ALL the Bible does. And that's just not true. Come back to me with specific quotes, and we can discuss them individually.
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@justanotheropinion5832 Let's deal with a few things first. Then, in my next post, I'll look at your quotes.
"Either it’s the word of god, or Yes the word of man and we can dismiss the whole thing."
So dismiss Shakespeare? What else of man should we dismiss? How about the myths of the world? Greek? Roman? Since none of it actually came from Zeus or Jupiter, it has nothing to teach us?
Leviticus was a rule book for the tribe of priests, the Levites. So whatever you find in that book was meant for them. Their rule book was included when it was decided what would go in the original Hebrew Scriptures.
Ephesians, Colossions, 1 Timothy, and Titus were all attributed to Paul. That means they are neither part of the Gospels, nor part of the Old Testament. They were epistles, letters that were included with the New Testament for who knows what reason. None were actually written by Paul. It was "in style" at the time to do homage to someone by pretending to be them. No one actually knows who wrote any of the books of the Bible.
So that really just leaves the quote from Exodus as possibly being at all representative of the Bible. But, as I wrote earlier, I'll go through them all one at a time in my next post.
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@justanotheropinion5832 Ephesians 6:5-8
Really, if you're going understand this at all, you need to look at Ephesians 6:1-9. You skipped five verses. That's like missing the first half, and the end of a movie. The entire passage is elaborating on "Honor your father and mother." It starts with, "Children, obey your parents." Then turns to the parents: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath." And then it turns to slaves, which is what you referenced: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters." And it goes on for four verses, the entirety of what you referenced. I leave it to the reader to look up the whole thing. Then, it turns to the slaves' masters, which you didn't include: "And masters, do the same for your slaves. Give up your use of threats, because you know that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him."
In all, Ephesians Chapter 6 has 24 verses in it, and is one of six chapters. So you're looking at the smallest part of the end of letter, which was written a couple thousand years ago. In the first 9 verses of this chapter, we see a pattern emerge. Children--->Parents; Slaves--->Masters. Children should respect their parents. And, likewise, Parents should respect their children. Slaves should respect their Masters. And, likewise, Masters should respect their slaves.
In the Bible, you can't really approach the whole thing with crude literalism. It is often a metaphor, a parable, something to think about, and meditate on. So if we continued this ladder of respect to it's logical conclusion, we'd see, all along the way, that PEOPLE SHOULD RESPECT EACH OTHER. That is its purpose, its lesson to teach.
Given the length, I guess I should give each of these their own replies. To be continued....
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@justanotheropinion5832 1 Timothy 6:1-2.
This one is interesting. So during the early Christian church, i.e., after the time of Jesus, there were slaves in the church. These two verses are again looking at a small piece of a much larger whole. There were 21 verses in 1 Timothy chapter 6. And all of 1 Timothy was one letter to a church, written a couple thousand years ago, by someone whose name we don't even know. So we're coming in at the end of an anonymous movie, and watching one scene.
But, yes, slaves in the Christian church was a real thing back then. Not only that, but slaves attended the church like any other person who came. The slaves came for the service, and were not in service to the church. Although, to be clear, there were other slaves who were in service to the church.
The two verses you mentioned there have to do NOT with the slave who were IN SERVICE to the church, but those who attended the church like everyone else: the ones who were members of the church. So evidently slaves could be members of a church. The first verse is probably the one that caught the eye of whomever made this list for you:
"All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered."
Unlike the one from Ephesians (which was repeated in Colossians), this one does not mention how the masters should also respect the slaves. But since we now know that verse exists, we can apply it here, though I'm sure the person who originally made that list didn't think to do that.
So, all in all, this first verse is pretty boring. It leaves out the second part (about the masters respecting the slaves), and is the first verse, which means whatever point it wants to make...hasn't been made yet. That brings us to the second verse:
"Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves. These are the things you are to teach and insist on."
So this is about slaves to Christian Masters, where the first verse applied to all slaves. It is still about respect though. We are just missing the verse about the master respect the slave too. So the same lesson applies, but is of a slightly different angle this time, as we look ONLY at the slave.
The point here seems to be that the slaves should not say, "My master is Christian, and I'm Christian, and Christianity teaches that we are all in service to God, not man. So I don't have to be a slave anymore, and can scorn my earthly master." However, we're talking about the earthly master, and not the heavenly one here. And while Christians aspire to the heavenly, they are very much earthly. So, while on earth, we are a part of what's going on here on earth.
THEREFORE, we must respect what is here on earth, including each other. As I said, this makes more sense when you remember the part about the master respecting the slave in the same way. To be continued....
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@justanotheropinion5832 Titus 2:9-10
Once again, you're skipping a crucial part, which explains the passage you referenced. Verses 1-9 of Titus chapter 2 is about teaching. It starts with older men: "Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance." And goes on to older women: "Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teachers of good. In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children...." Then goes on to another group: "urge the younger men to be self-controlled." And wraps up with a general instruction for all: "In everything, show yourself to be an example by doing good works. In your teaching show integrity, dignity, and wholesome speech that is above reproach, so that anyone who opposes us will be ashamed, having nothing bad to say about us."
Only then does it get to the part of the population that are slaves, which is the part you referenced: "Slaves are to submit to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not stealing from them, but showing all good faith, so that in every respect they will adorn the teaching about God our Savior."
As before, the point and lesson here is about respecting others. Are you seeing the pattern yet? The Bible often does this: It repeats the lesson over and over, just in case someone cherry picked, and skipped the part with the lesson in it. This is a short chapter, with only two more verses in it, the last sentence being (I think) crucial: "Let no one despise you."
The point here, therefore, is to respect others so that no one despises you. That's the goal. Treat others in such a way that they will not despise you. You're assuming this is all about slavery. But, I hope you can see by now that it is not. Slavery takes up the smallest part of the overall lesson, which is, in essence, THE GOLDEN RULE: Treat others the way you want them to treat you. Respect them, and they will respect you.
Far from supporting or condoning slavery, this is about everyone in society, including the slaves, getting along with each other. To be continued....
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@justanotheropinion5832 Exodus 21:1-7
Your longest passage yet. But, as usual, you're missing the context. Chapter 21 follows the giving of the 10 Commandments on Mount Sinai. And that follows the Israelites being led from slavery in Egypt. After the 10 Commandments, God starts in with all the rules. And there are a bunch! The rules go on and on and on. So.Many.Rules! These continue into Leviticus, which are just the rules for the priests. Eventually, by Jesus' time (some 3,000 years later), there were so many rules that only the Pharisees could follow them all: They did nothing else but study and follow the rules, because there were so many. In fact, the rules we in such abundance that a whole new vocation started (called Scribes) who further broke down and elaborated on what each of these rules meant.
Anyway, this passage looks at the rules for servants, and not just any servants, but Hebrew servants. Depending on the English translation, some will use the word "slave" here, while others will use the word "servant." The best approximation, looking through Hebrew dictionaries of the word ebed (which is used in the original text) seems to describe this as "someone who is in service to someone else." So, far as I can understand it, an ebed could have been a slave or just someone who worked for you. It seems to be used in both cases.
So, yes, there was slavery going on back then. The Israelites had just escaped 500 years of being enslaved to the Egyptians. And, now, here on Mount Sinai, after giving the 10 Commandments, their God was telling them what to do about their own future slaves and servants.
It begins by saying they have to serve for only six years, but are to be set free on the seventh year. A lot of things were done like this in the Bible. Some numbers were used repeatedly. This one, of course, from the Creation Story, where God supposedly made the earth in seven days. It wasn't that anyone had to buy the slave, to get him free, as the verse specifies. Their contract was up, and they were free to go.
If the slave (or servant) came with a wife and children, the wife and children go also leave with them. But if the master gave him a wife, that wife had to stay. You can see, perhaps, how this is just a series of rules.
However, the slave (or servant) can choose to stay with the master, if they want. But to make this official, the verse say, the master has to go before the judges, and yada,yada,yada. Your referenced passage ends in the segue to another section, which is the rules about women. But, in this case, is the rule about a woman who was sold into slavery:
"If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do."
Women had almost no rights back then. A man could divorce his wife for any reason. But no woman could divorce her husband. It didn't matter what her reason was. I included this verse partly because you did. But I also wanted to mention the social mores about women at the time. That's an important phrase here...AT THE TIME.
All of these passages you chose are about slavery, which was widespread at the time. And you were, of course, wanting to prove "the Bible supported and condoned slavery." However, you didn't take a couple of important things into account:
First, the Bible was pieced together with all kinds of writing, from many different sources, over the course of thousands of years. Some of this writing was rules for the people back then. Some of it was metaphorical, with a deeper meaning, which could only be understood by not taking it literally. And some of it was talking about the different classes of people in society, and the one thing they should all do---which was respect each other.
Secondly, you assume by it being in the Bible, that the Bible supported and condoned it. EVIL is also in the Bible. SATAN is in the Bible. People doing what they shouldn't be doing are all over the place in the Bible. That does not mean the Bible supports or condones them.
Third, the Bible is an inanimate object. It can't do something of it's own accord. There were lots of people who contributed to it, including initial writers, the singers of the original songs, the writers of rules, not to mention the translators, medieval Bishops, and so on. And, of course, there were the lessons of Jesus, as well as the creation story, and the end-of-the-world story. The Bible is a compilation, not a book with a single agenda or thesis.
Anyway, to be concluded....
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@justanotheropinion5832 Leviticus 25:44-46
Ah, Leviticus. This is one messed up book. Some of the anti-LGBTQ justifications come from here. Most of it isn't really meant for the general population, as I said before, but is a rule book for the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe known as Levites. Chapter 25 has 55 verses! You referenced three of them. They come toward the end of the chapter, without actually being the end. So, again, you're talking about the smallest piece of a much larger whole.
If you ever accused religious people of cherry picking, just know YOU ARE CHERRY PICKING HERE. Got that? Now, how to summarize all this, so you understand it.... Great Zarquon!
So the Lord is talking to Moses on Mount Sinai, handing down countless rules for the future society of Israel. This has to be done because, as of this moment, the Israelites have (themselves) been slaves to Egypt for 500 years. So they had no rules for society. Also, since all of these early books of the Bible were written long after fact, couple thousand years later, much of it was justification for whatever was going on at the time. This would include the color of the curtains in the tabernacle, and the slaves of those who use to be slaves, and would be again.
We talked before about how slaves were released on the 7th year. 7 was an important number. The chapter began with the rule (or LAW, as it's called in the Hebrew Scriptures) that you planted in your fields for 6 years. But on the 7th year, you didn't plant at all. It was a year of rest for the field, as the 7th day was a day of rest for God, and the 7th year was for the resting of servants. And there was a big party (called Jubilee) every 7 times 7 years, and so on.
These rules for various things go on for some time, finally getting down to the business at hand in verse 39.
"If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor. Let him stay with you as a hired worker or temporary resident; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released, and he may return to his clan and to the property of his fathers."
I mention this one, because, it has to do with being a servant, i.e., a slave. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt because they owed a debt to Egypt for feeding them during a long famine. Likewise, here, if someone owes you money and can't pay, then they can reimburse you by being your servant. BUT YOU HAD TO LET THEM GO. This is where your referenced passage come in:
“Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves."
So you couldn't actually make slaves of your own people back then. That would change. All things change. We're looking at a snapshot of history. The next verse goes on to say you can make slaves from people within your country's boundaries, if they are foreigners. Hmm. Sound familiar? Sounds like what we do to immigrants. Doesn't it? The next verse says you can turn those slaves over to your children. Sound familiar? That's what happened in the South, during our own country's centuries of slavery.
And that's where your referenced passage ends. The 25th chapter ends on an interesting note, though, in verse 55:
"For the Israelites are My servants. They are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God."
So the Israelites were servants (or slaves) to Egypt. Then, among the many other things they did throughout the Bible, they became masters of their own slaves. Then they became slaves again, and again, repeatedly. But through it all they were all the servants (slaves) of God. And what is God but a name for all things?
I'll wrap this up in my next comment....
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@justanotheropinion5832 So, I've already discussed how the Bible could not condone or support slavery, because part (or parts) of its people supported and condoned it in the past. If that's true, then the United States of America Still Supports and Condones Slavery, because part of us did in the past as well. But our country has so much more going on throughout its history, and what we get out of it today, than slavery. So does the Bible.
I'd like to assume you didn't cherry pick that list, copy and paste it here from someone else's website. I'd like to think you did your own work, your own thinking, and those passages come from your own vast abundance of notes, taken from all the topics you noticed in the Bible. But somehow I doubt that's true.
So did you ever accuse anyone of cherry picking from the Bible? Be honest. Regardless of whether or not you accused others, you're doing it now. I've never seen such cherry picking. It reminded me of when the English inquisition burned Joan of Arc at the stake, justifying it because of this: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God" (Deut. 22:5). Because, you know, Joan had to wore a man's armor to fight for the French.
And there's the curse of Ham. Ever heard of it? It was one of the justifications for slavery in our own United States. Look it up. It's a gross misinterpretation, totally biased and slanted. There are so many throughout history. MAGA people are doing it today. If there's one thing most everyone knows about the Bible, it's that you can find justification for just about anything in there, so long as you're willing to take it out of context.
And you, my friend, left out a lot of context. In any case, I did my best here. I gave lots of time to discussing what you wrote. I'd like to think you won't just dismiss it all, out of hand, and assume you're still absolutely right. I really would.
Peace be with you.
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@TheHuxleyAgnostic "Then what have you been blathering about?"
It's hard to know what you consider to be blathering, when l am not about to scroll through 114 replies, to look for the post of mine you might be talking about. Plus it's hard to know when you can't be bothered to copy and paste it here, as I didn't for yours above.
"most peddle that their book is the truth, yeah?"
It's not really their book, but their religion that they're peddling as the truth. In other words: What I believe is right, and what you believe is wrong. Hopefully you can see the inherent problem there.
"So, why are you comparing it to a defunct mythology?"
Joseph Campbell once wrote, "Religion is misunderstood mythology." I have never seen a single sentence suddenly clarify all religions before. But there it is.
People once practiced what is now considered mythology, as literally as people today practice religion: Everything from a creation story, to the god coming down in human form, to talking animals (like a serpent), virgin birth, and so on.
It all screams mythology. That's not "blathering." It's logic.
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@jimbob3030 "We are more scholarly than most PHD's on this subject, we had the objectivity to see through it and most biblical scholars do not."
There's more to study Bibles and commentaries than interpretation. There's the history of the region to consider. Have to keep in mind that the large majority of the Bible was written between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago, by Jews, for Jews, in the middle east.
The only reason we have it now, and that it's worldwide, and the MAGAts eat it up is because of Rome. Constantine converted their empire in 300 CE.
So history plays a major role in understanding the Bible. I doubt the people claiming to be experts in this thread have given that the slightest thought. They're all talking about how it supports slavery. What an insipid, uneducated notion, that totally misses the point of the text!
Anyway, the history shown in commentaries and study Bibles (as well as the original language used) shows the context that you can't get from the Bible.
Finally, while we may be more "objective" than PhD's, it's absurd to think we're more scholarly than actual Biblical scholars. They know way more than you or I ever will. And to brush off their knowledge is to insist on ignorance.
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