Reponse to https://hessianwithteeth.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/reply-to-sirratiocination-a-romp-through-philosophy/

This response is directed toward hessianwithteeth.  It is another response in a series.  The older responses can be found here: https://sirratiocination.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/response-to-httpshessianwithteeth-wordpress-com20141210its-time-to-change-something-other-than-the-design-about-ethical-models/

I’ll use the numbering system already in place.  From here on out, the second person is for hessianwithteeth not the reader.

I’m going to be responding to you as I read your response.  If I fail to understand something early on, then I apologize.

[B1] I have nothing really to say about what you wrote in [A1].  If you believed in your hard version of nihilism, then I might be a bit concerned.  But, you say that the evidence doesn’t lend itself towards that conclusion.  Besides that one time I mentioned epistemological nihilism, I will almost always mean moral nihilism when I use the term nihilism.

[B2] I’m not quite sure why you brought up swords.  I’ve already said that I disagreed with Aristotle with regards to his account of causes.  Mundane physical actions like sword making and the like may need some type of explanation.  Yet that explanation would be historical or scientific in nature.  What you must focus on when I employ the word teleology is not an explanation of a certain natural phenomenon, but rather a justification for an action that has moral content.  Sword-making has no moral content.  It simply produces a tool.  Maybe humans make these tools for some purpose–war.  When speaking of ethics, we must only consider actions which moral agents execute for or against other moral agents.  Anything not involving moral agents cannot contain moral content.  Sometimes there are cases like environmental conscientiousness which involve actions directed against or for non-moral agents, but in these cases moral agents are indirectly affected, therefore moral content can be attributed.

Any evolutionary account of morality is going to be automatically prudential in nature because it is a enterprise under the domain of historical science which, by virtue of it being science, can only account for things empirically.  Therefore, such anthropological pursuits might explain the rise of certain cultural practices and behaviors, but it would be totally inept at providing us with any real account of morality.  Any morality spoken of within this scientific context is going to be that which is directed at aiding survival and flourishing.  It may be true that human society will not be so violent and be able to develop more efficiently if a certain moral code is obeyed.  Nevertheless, what does this say about the legitimacy of the code itself?  Why should it matter that humans thrive?  They like to.  We know that.  When an army comes and sacks and razes a town to the ground in order to support their starving families back home, who’s going to condemn them?  They get to survive at the expense of another town.

I saw that you referenced Kant earlier.  Well, he would totally disagree with your morality.  He would say that such a morality contains maxims which could not be logically universalized.  He would say that your morality is full of people not obeying law but rather self-interest and inclination.  He demands that any account of morality must be objective in nature in the same way in which logic is.  In fact, he uses the precepts of logic itself to test maxims in order to determine whether they would be suitable universal laws.  But, never would he concede that morality develops in this sense.  What is logically coherent already existed before you did the test.

I think Kant is able to put forth the case very effectively that morality must be objective if it’s going to be anything at all.  He’s able to explain why some things cannot be objectively right in this scheme.  But, I believe he still fails in justifying actions in order to truly make them moral.  A murderer does not care that if his maxim were universalized it would be illogical.  People reason irrationally all the time, why should it make a difference in moral cases in which something is only illogical in a theoretical sense?  Anyway, I thought I’d bring Kant up, just in case you thought he might provide you with an objective atheistic ethics once you decide that objective morality is the only way to go.

[B3] In response to [A3], the reason why I demand that logic and morality can’t develop is because anything that develops is by virtue of not existing at some point in time not a necessary facet of reality.  Only that which is necessary can remotely hold the type of weight to condemn people and make it so counter-arguments are impossible because there is no other way in which reality could have been.  Morality is not some inherent feature of the universe in my view.  I think it emanates from God who is totally separate from his creation.  Any way in which we are made in God’s image is also not going to be something physical, hence part of this universe.  The physical universe has logic as one of its inherent features, however.  It is impossible to imagine causation in a different way with respect to physical things.  Logic is tied very intimately with causation.  To prove to you that logic is inherent in rational creatures and physical reality and not something that develops, imagine, if you will, the most complicated sentence in sentential calculus that you could.  This sentence would take many inference rules, theorems, and deep thought in order to derive a proof from it within an argument.  Nevertheless, it would never be the case that once this sentence, once it has been simplified down to each individual part and every inference rule and theorem is understood in how they relate to this particular sentence, that you would find someone, who has properly understood the sentence in this way, still say that they don’t find it to make sense logically within the argument (assuming the argument in valid).  In every case, the person would apprehend the logical nature of the information.  That does not need to be taught.  How to apply logic does need to be taught, nonetheless.  Under the normal course of events, a completely understood phenomenon in scientific terms will always transpire in the predicted manner.  Causation cannot be dismissed.  Things happen necessarily given certain causative contexts.  In the same way, logic is necessary and cannot develop.  It resides within every rational creature.

Your prudential morality’s goals of survival and thriving could always be achieved by other means.  Therefore, it will be contingent no matter how you state it.  If morality emanated from the creator of reality then there could be no other way in which reality could exist, because in every “world” this creator would exist with his character.

[B4] in response to [A4] Consequentialism is a failure.  I’m sorry.   If it were true, then every time a moral action were done then it would require the intended result lest the action contain no moral content, or worse, lest the action contain moral content that is evil.  For example, suppose I wanted to help someone across the street.  If a bus ran both me and the person over, then this action would have the same moral worth as murder and suicide.  I would say consequentialism would still require justification as to why the consequence is good.  It cannot be inherently good lest it be completely arbitrarily.  Don’t appeal to human flourishing.  That is contingent and also arbitrarily good.

[B5] in response to [A5] This seems to be a continuation of the part about logic.  Even though I already gave my opinion about it, I’ll add something.  You say that logic and mathematics has developed over thousands of years; this appears to you as a strong hint at it being contingent and dependent upon our limited perspective.  Well, as I said before, there have never been discoveries in these fields, only different ways of representing reality.  Plato via Socrates would tell you that when someone considers a geometrical problem, he already has the answer within himself.  Once he understands the problem, he instantly knows the answer and knows that it must be right.  Mathematical answers and logical proofs can basically always be checked for accuracy by one’s own innate reasoning.  A child may not understand the Pythagorean Theorem at first glace, but he would understand the concept as logical if it were explained to him.  It’s not as if every time he considers the theorem, he must simply trust its author for its correctness.  The child has already seen for himself that it is logical.  When it comes to rational creatures, once things are distilled to their basic components, perceiving logic is analogous to seeing physical objects.  Formulae upon formulae can be created over hundreds of years, but the same basic laws of logic are being used over and over:  law of excluded middle, law of non-contradiction,  law of identity.  These laws are not just made up.  They are representations of the way physical reality works.  Even if you believe in the multi-verse, these laws would still apply to every universe regardless of the value of the constants.  Physical reality cannot exist apart from them.  Any argument to the contrary is the most tenuous argument from ignorance there can be.

Because you say you’re an anti-realist with respect to logic and mathematical objects, let me quickly clarify.  I say the laws of logic exist, but I mean that not in the hard sense, as if they were Platonic forms or something.  I believe that the laws of logic exist as true descriptions of reality.  You might ask yourself why I keep using the word reality and not universe.  I say this because I believe the laws of logic are not only descriptions of the way the physical universe operates, but also spiritual reality.  God, logically and according to revelatory sources, cannot lie; that is, he cannot purvey something that is not true because he is omniscient and omni-sustaining.  If he said something untrue within a reality that only existed as it did–truly–then he would be creating something untrue and true at the same time.  Thus, we can see how the law of non-contradiction applies.   But this is all elementary.

[B6] In [A6] you elaborate the term relative.  Think about what it means to be true.  When we use the word true, the first definition we would use is that of something being absolutely true.  A secondary definition would be relatively true.  When a person in Norway says that the direction extending above his head is “up,” we could never interpret that as a statement of absolute truth.  We know there are people in South Africa.  This is what I mean when I use the term relative.  It may be that for one person something is so, but that same thing is not so for everyone or everywhere.  When we’re speaking of truth, we are normally interested in what is universally, absolutely true.  This is especially the case with respect to morality.  When I say, “I feel like murdering today.  Yesterday, I ate pizza,”  the listener would be rightly shocked, because it is not merely relatively true that murder is wrong.

[B7] In [A7] you apply relative to morality.  What I mean by contingent is exactly as the term in used in philosophy.  Something did not have to exist in the way in which it does.  This doesn’t mean by chance; it just means not necessary.  God could have created a universe without an Andromeda galaxy.  The Andromeda galaxy is a contingent thing.  God could not have created the universe not according to the laws of logic.  These are necessary “things.”  God did decide to create an Andromeda galaxy.  Was it by chance?  I don’t think God is able to do anything by chance; that is, for no particular reason.  I think the idea of chance and random events is illogical.  I believe the findings of quantum mechanics do nothing to nullify the laws of logic.  The exact causes of quantum fluctuations and the position of electrons are difficult to pin down, but does this mean that we ought to give up and say that they contradict logic and thus empiricism and all of our understanding about the physical universe and reality?  I don’t think so.  Just as people before Pasteur were unjustified in believing in spontaneous generation, we are unjustified in believing in physical events with literally no specific cause at the level of sub-atomic particles and energy fields.  Whatever the case, I was simply explaining the term contingent.

I’ve already clarified myself about the chance bit and I’ve also tackled the multi-verse problem to my satisfaction.  What next?  You think moral relativism is still an adequate account of morality?  Consider this situation:

A man puts a gun to your head

You say, “Don’t do it.”

He says, “Why?”

You: “I want to live.”

The man: “I don’t care.”

You: “What you’re doing is wrong.”

The man: “Why?”

You: “You shouldn’t murder people.”

The man: “Why not?”

You: “You’re a person aren’t you?”

The man: “So?”

You: “If everyone acted like you, humanity would cease to exist.  Someone would kill you.”

The man: “I don’t care.  Everyone doesn’t act like me.  Besides why should I care about humanity?”

You: “Don’t you want humanity to flourish?”

The man: “No.  Why should I?”

You: “Because if humanity flourishes, you’ll live better and so will your children.”

The man: “I couldn’t care less.”

You: “But wouldn’t you feel bad about killing me?”

The man: “Yes.  All the same, I intend to kill you.”

You: “But if you kill me, the police will arrest you and you’ll go to prison.”

The man: “I don’t care about my life.  I only want to kill you.”

You: “But if you kill me, then you won’t have another of myself to kill.”

The man: “I’ll live my life without killing people, but first, I’m going to kill you.”

Would you be able to persuade the man not to kill you?  Better yet, would you be able to condemn the man?  I hope the arbitrariness of moral relativism shines brightly in this little scene.  If you say that you could condemn him, then how?  If you don’t care about condemning him, but still think that morality must exist in some prudential form, then how can you say your morality has any merit?  It can’t even deal with the simplest dilemma.

[B8] Now, considering what you wrote in [A9] and must of the rest of your post, I am amazed how easily someone can be misunderstood or not understood at all.  It’s a wonder that any information is conveyed in what I write.  Anyway, it seems that I must try again in my theology.  You’re not at all satisfied.

What I meant to emphasize is that morality can only exist between moral agents.  Moral agents have to be persons.  They must at least have a will and rationality.  Objects cannot participate in the moral realm, because they are not persons.  Animals, for the most part lack rationality, because they are not, as far as can be discerned, self-aware in the capacity that humans are.  Though even for argument I would be willing to include some animals as moral agents (I don’t believe they are really moral agents though).  In the Torah, if a bull rampaged and kill someone, then that bull had to be killed.  Morality cannot exist in abstract objects, because there are no persons involved.  Therefore, Platonic forms do not work as proper seats of moral authority.  You say I leap to God for help in this matter.  I do not.  If we only consider finite moral agents, then where are they getting the information and sense when they perform an action that has moral content?  Considering only humans, there is no standard by which one determines whether what he does is good.  He can appeal to ideas and prudential precepts, but ultimately all of it either originates within the man himself or within another man, going back till there were no men.  Where did humanity get this standard?  You are satisfied to say that people created it and that it only makes sense within a human context.  I don’t see how you can be satisfied with that.  I’m struggling to convey how nonsensical that is.  How do you know something is good?  You can appeal to anything and everything.  I will simply repeat my question, “How do you know that that is good?”  There is no way not be to dragged into an infinite regress.  So I appeal to a person as my standard.  That person is God.  He can be a standard because he is not finite in nature like a human is.  He has all those traditional divine attributes.  The concept of God is that of a necessary being.  Now, I am well aware that given this argument within a vacuum, you naturally wonder, even if you agree with the argument, how I know that God exists.  Well, I know that he exists because you cannot extrapolate infinitely into the past within arriving at a beginning ex nihilo.  I know that under natural conditions it is physically impossible to create something out of nothing or to create something by the same thing.  The law of identity tells me that something cannot be both existing and not existing at the same time.  Therefore, in order to explain why I exist–and I must because I know that I exist–I must appeal to some other cause for creation.  Besides this, there is my argument from meticulous causation, which you believe yourself to have quickly refuted.  My rebuttal: there is no such thing as infinitely short.  That is just a grammatical construct.  That contains no information.  Infinite means without limit.  Short means something that something exists but exists in a lesser amount compared to something else.  Infinitely short makes no sense.  In order to be short, something must exist.  Something cannot be without limit short.  Something can be very short.  Therefore, every event may exist within a very short moment, but that moment is still some measure of time that, of course, must be traversed.  You can theoretically continue dividing up the moments into smaller ones but at no point will you come to such a thing as infinitely short.  The moments will only be very short.  They will still take up some amount of time however.

There are the historical arguments.  I have one about the resurrection on my blog.  There are fulfilled prophesies which are only refuted by people with an anti-supernatural bent that, because of no other reason, late-date certain books in the Old Testament.  There are many reasons why I believe in God, specifically Yahweh.  I have a post about how the trinity is the only solution for providing us with a convincing account of love.  What I meant in my earlier response about the trinity and not being about to produce such an idea through reasoning was not that the idea is irrational, but that is just not something one would specifically be able to arrive at through natural theology.  I believe, because of my love argument, that God if he has love as a substantial property must be multi-personal, but that is as far as I can go.  I would not be able to arrive at the correct number of persons through my argument.  I only know that God would have to be multi-personal.  And if you demand that I show how the trinity is not irrational, then let me briefly clarify what I mean by it.  If Christians meant by the term trinity that a being exists unified in one respect and then in a tripartite manner in the exact same respect, then that would not be logically coherent.  This is not the trinity, however.  The Bible reveals a God who is unified in one respect, essence, and then divided into three in a different aspect, person-hood.  Essence is related to nature.  You cannot have multiple beings that are omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, all-sustaining, atemporal, etc.  There would be logical contradictions.  For example, how could one being be everywhere and then another being be everywhere as well?  The Bible teaches that God is united in essence and nature, but divided into persons.  Humans are unified in both essence and person.  Does this mean that all beings have to exist like humans do?  I see no conflict in saying that God is made up of three persons, especially if these persons have wills that work towards the same end.  The Bible teaches that there is a hierarchy between the persons as well.  But, unlike in our fallen world.  This hierarchy does not denote value as love naturally drives one to subject oneself to another.  It also produces no conflict because of the existence of love.  An analogy would be a Christian marriage.  The Bible teaches that Christ is under the Father and that a husband is under Christ and that the the wife is under the husband.  The wife being subject to the husband does not, by this fact alone, hint at any inferiority or superiority.  If there were such concepts hidden here, then it wouldn’t make any sense to clarify that the husband ought to love his wife as Christ loves the Church.  Christ laid his life down for the Church.

As a side note in response to your little gibe about the Bible drawing from other Pagan cultures.  There is no historical evidence for such a claim.  The stories in the Bible and in the Sumerian culture, for example, may have some similarities, but they are very different as well.  There is another explanation, rather than just saying that the Hebraic account originated in the Sumerian one, we could say that the story could be true.  If the event actually happened, like the flood for instance, then cultures immediately afterwards would have knowledge of it.  Most cultures indeed do have global flood stories.  Be that as it may, I would say that the Hebraic account does come from the Sumerian account in some respects.  Abraham came from Sumeria.  Moses came from Abraham and was a product of Egyptian culture, which arose around the same time as Mesopotamian culture or before.  Revelation (not the book) would help explain why there are differences in the accounts.  In general, however, the documentation and artifacts we have from civilizations in the Near East before three-and-a-half thousand years ago is rather limited compared to what we have from Rome, for example.  Therefore, we must be hesitant to ardently affirm things about these ancient peoples which cannot be substantiated.  If the Bible makes a claim and extra-biblical sources are silent on the matter, then we are not justified in saying that the Bible is wrong about the issue just because it’s the Bible.  Alternatively, we cannot assume that the contributors to the Bible were simply incapable of literary independence from other neighboring cultures, and then subsequently assume that if the Bible makes a claim about something, that the content of the claim must have originated somewhere else.  After all, the story had to start from a single source at some point in time.

[B9] In response to [A11], let me extricate the terms fear and love in the divine context.  Normally, if we fear something we fear how that thing can negatively affect our status or life.  Hence, fear is never really of some particular being or thing, rather fear is directed at power, namely, power to cause unwanted things to happen.  The most powerful being in existence is God.  It would be reasonable to fear him.  Nevertheless, one only has a rational reason to fear if one has cause to believe that this power will actually be exercised against oneself.  If you’re a sinner, which we all are, then we have a rational reason to fear.  We are acutely aware of how vulnerable, and legitimately so, to divine judgment.  In spite of this, I must add in the little intricacy that goes by the name of the gospel.  If we are told by the one that we fear that we no longer need to fear because he has nothing against us, then it would only be irrational to continue fearing him.  It would be irrational unless you didn’t trust what you had been told.  If you didn’t trust what you had been told, then you don’t find the person who told you to be trustworthy.  If you don’t find the person trustworthy, then you think that past or present wrongdoing of his, especially deception, makes him untrustworthy.  If the person in fact is not guilty of such things, then you make yourself out to be a liar in slandering the person.  In this slander you neither accept what has been done for your account nor can you continue claiming your innocence.  You end up actually having reason to fear.  That is position of he who rejects the gospel.  Any who accept the gospel have no reason to fear God: that is, unless they apostatize.  Then they are in same position as the person who rejects the gospel.  While I believe apostatizing in possible, I don’t believe it is at all probable for those who actually believe that God has justified them through Jesus’ sacrifice.  It seems that those who actually apostatize had some spiritual problem much earlier than their apostasy.  The Bible says that perfect love casts out fear.  No one who is battling against the flesh nature can have perfect love.  Therefore, there is sometimes fear, even for Christians.  But, this is the negative type of fear, which I just outlined: the fear directed at the power to bring about unpleasant consequences.  There is another type of fear that ought to go under a different name, possibly honor.  When we say that someone is a God-fearing man we mean that he is a good relationship with God.  In order to explain this, I would point out that a human is not on an equal position with God.  The human’s power, authority, and character are noticeably inferior to God’s.  God loves us, but this does not mean he is egalitarian.  He demands proper honor.  It would be untruthful of a human to act as if he were on an equal footing in anything with God, therefore if the human acts truthfully, then he honors God.  What do I mean by honoring God?  I mean that in honoring him, you recognize that it is entirely within God’s prerogatives to exercise his sovereignty over his creation as he pleases.  You recognize that you are subject to him.  This does not mean that in honoring him you will assent to anything immoral.  We all know that his character is the standard.  He will not contradict his character.  Yet, you make the claim that God is immoral.  You bring up several alleged examples of his immorality.  Before I address that, let me conclude with this section by saying that love and honor are two different concepts.  They are not even on the same spectrum in opposing meaning as love and hate are.  Love is exercised within personal relationships.  Honor is exercised between ranks and deals with issues of authority.

Is God bad?  God is good.  God is godly.  What about slavery and murder supposedly instituted by God?  Well, let’s address this.  I suppose like most critics that you are referencing Israel’s campaign against the peoples of Canaan.  The Bible explains that God was not merely giving the liberated Hebrews their homeland back in bringing them to Canaan, but he was, in fact, using Israel to judge the peoples of Canaan.  In the text we are told that God waited four hundred years until the Canaanites’ sins had adequately accrued, according to his satisfaction, before he decided do something about it.  All this time, we can safely assume that God was awaiting their repentance of baby-sacrifice, idolatry, sexual immorality, drunkenness, etc.  God is merciful in waiting for anyone’s repentance due to the fact that one infraction of the slightest degree mares perfection.  Perfection is all that can exist in God’s presence.  Where is God’s presence?  God is omnipresent.  I will elaborate on this later.  God is not unjust in ending life either in using Israel as a proxy for his ends or in doing it directly as he did with the Assyrian army at the gates of Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah.  God creates life freely.  It is his prerogative to end it.  Who could sit back and accuse him and say that he must prolong his own creation?  Every moment as I’ve pointed out is a definable choice of God’s: shall he sustain things?  Or, shall he end them?  He must think and act.  Things do not just happen, as it were, apart from him.  The extinguishing of life only becomes a problem when humans seize that authority from God.  In doing so, they are displaying their rebellion.  They are also destroying images of God, however tarnished they may be.  That is also showing hate for God.  Murders are also, of course unloving in murdering others.  Is God unloving when he kills?  He is in a different position than a mere human is.  The demands of justice press upon him.  These are, as we already know, demands extending from his own character, not from some metaphysical concept.  People God has killed and will kill are all, without exception, sinners.  They have all endangered and outright violated the well-being of persons whom God loves.  These persons include the other persons of the trinity and humans.  You might object in saying that in order to care for those whom he loves that God must kill persons whom he also loves, unrepentant sinners.  This is the case.  But, I must also add: God kills everyone eventually.  The wages of sin is death.  It is appointed for man once to die.  It is at his discretion to change when someone is going to die in order to benefit those who chose him, or to benefit his own plan for the course of history.  God says that he does not enjoy the death of the wicked.  So, why does he do it then?  We can’t imagine that God would do anything he doesn’t want to do–he is sovereign.  He is forced to kill and judge those whom he loves who reject him and his gospel.  Now, I will tell you why something is ultimately bad.  You may have wondered in past argument, “Even if morality emanated from God’s character, what makes something bad just because it is bad necessarily?  I recognize that the universe could not have existed in a different way without God’s character.”  Well, this is my attempt at ending the long teleological line of justification and ends.  When someone does something bad, he acts in contrary to God’s character.  God is the only source of life (This is a Christian axiom, just accept it for argument), therefore in order to have life one must be united to God in some way.  We cannot think of life as some external thing dispensed, rather it is in God himself.  If one is united with God, then he cannot have an opposing character.  If free-will is in the picture, then there is the option to be united with God.  If he chooses God, then his character cannot be one of a conflicting nature.  It is assumed that all those who don’t choose God do so because their character does not agree with God’s.  Thus, God must sever the life-giving connection to those who don’t choose him.  In effect, those who act vilely, not in accordance with God’s character cannot really exist.  Now, God does prolong their existence, but only in order to get them to repent.  Eventually, however, he must judge and retract life from those who reject him.  Christians have all committed evil acts, but these acts do not come from their spirit which is regenerated by God.  God promises that he will conform every Christian to the image of his Son.  Whether he does that in this life or the next makes no real difference.  The ultimate state of affairs will be that of all persons with characters matching the standard.  In the present, Christians must drag around this frail, contrary shell called the flesh in the Bible.  They have already made their choice for God.  Their driving principle of the will is that of God.  One day they will be glorified and not have to battle against the fallen, fleshly nature.

There you have it–my account of morality.  Something is ultimately bad because it comes from a person of a contrary character who cannot exist alongside God in his reality.

[B10] I forgot to mention slavery.  Well, Christianity is slavery.  I am a slave of God.  He is my Lord.  I have no rights before God.  I must obey God and promote his will.  I deserve nothing.  I labor for no wage.  Yet, I will inherit eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Why do I do this?  Out of love and out of honor for God’s authority.

What happens when slavery is used by humans?  Men have neither God’s authority nor love.  Enslaving people is wrong.  Abolition is not a heavy topic in the New Testament because God wanted and still wants to win the hearts of people freely and not through political decrees.  God hoped that a slave who was a Christian would, in his Christian love and conduct, be noticed by other slaves and by his master, thereby producing conversions.  Alternatively, God hoped that a Christian master would, in his Christian love and conduct, not abuse his slaves and be noticed by them and other masters, thereby producing conversions.  God wants justice in this life, but more important to him is the eternal destination of each individual whom he loves.  If Paul were an abolitionist, he would be fighting against an evil institution, but not for the souls of those who participated in the institution.  Slavery mentioned in the Old Testament is almost always a result of war or indenture.  In addressing the former, I would simply say that it was judgment by God.  More often however, when the Hebrews conquered a city, God commanded utter extermination.  He did this out of judgment and in order to prevent the negative influence of the evil culture.  Many times the Hebrews disobeyed God by taking property and slaves for themselves from the city.  God either judged them for this instantaneously like he did in the case of one man, Achan, early in the Hebrew campaign who stole a cloak some silver and gold by having him burned alive or by allowing the Hebrews to lose in battle or to get oppressed by enemy nations.  In the case of indenture, people, in order to pay off debts, sold themselves into slavery.  God did not allow this type of slavery to turn into chattel slavery, however.  Every fifty years a Jubilee would be announced; everyone would be freed and returned to his original allotted land.

I would like to add to this section that modern abolitionism was not a product of your atheistic morality.  It was a product of the hard work of Christians like William Wilberforce in England and Frederick Douglass in America.

[B11] I was hoping your link in [A11] about the supposed conflicting character of God represented in the Bible was going to be a specific example.  However, I found that like most atheistic criticism, it was a mere assertion of a conflict existing between the Old and New Testament with respect to God’s character.  I see no conflict.  God punishes the wicked and rewards the penitent.  He loves everyone in both Old and New Testament.  He bestows mercy and judges in both.  There seems to be no conflict.  Mostly everything Jesus taught can be found in the law and the prophets.

[B12] in response to [A15], I must say I have no idea where you’re getting this bit about the Bible being historically inaccurate.  On the contrary, there are scores of things biblical claims, which archaeologists and historians of previous centuries scoffed at, that were then confirmed through later archaeological finds.  A few examples include the existence of the Hittite civilization, the existence of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Cyrus’ policy of allowing the Jews to return and rebuild their temple and Jerusalem, etc.  As for the New Testament, even atheistic scholars stand by the reliability and antiquity of the its manuscripts.   But, this can only show that the Bible is reliable not that it is divinely-inspired.  The latter comes through accepting the resurrection.  Once you accept Jesus, since he references the Old Testament as having divine authority, you end up seeing that you ought to as well.  If you accept Jesus, then you accept the ones whom he sends–his apostles.  The quote that I used in my previous post is from Paul who is an apostle.

[B13] In response to [A16], Arguing that we will never have access to absolute truth is either an argument from ignorance or a nonsensical argument.  How could it be absolutely true that we have not and will not arrive at absolute truth?

Contrary to what you or others might think, I do not thrive on philosophical discourse, as if it were my identity.  Philosophy and logic is a tool for the purpose of refining things into true propositions.  For me, it is a pre-evangelization tool.  I do not aim to babble on all day.  It profits no one.  I am interested in truth.  I am willing to listen to others and to change my opinions where necessary, but I am convinced that I have arrived at the beautiful truth of all reality.  That truth is a person.  I aim to convert, not merely to converse.