You can use the Buybull to justify almost anything - more than likely they'd have used something like the golden rule. Anyway, like today, the South was MUCH more Christarded than the North and the pro-slavery people could easily find things in that asshat book supproting slavery.

Riiight. The people at the time HAD to have slaves. There was just NO other way.  Divine progressive revelation. That is just too funny. 
I think  "it is what the majority says it is" is more on target. 
You just admitted you don't need an imaginary friend to dictate law. Congrats!

Now.. for a more substantive response:

Yes. "Progressive revelation," at least, the argument that I have heard been made which I deem "progressive revelation," states just that.  

Is it possible that the U.S. South, in time, would have realized slavery as an inhumane establishment? Perhaps.  England certainly did.  Instead, however, the U.S. North forced them too.

Wow! I just find it fantastic that Yahweh et al. found enslaving others to be no problem, but then, later on, decided  that it should be given a rest. Just wow...

I suppose I could try and be a little more sarcastic and sophomoric; but instead, I won't, and much rather prefer reverting to my passive aggressive tendencies in any case.

To clarify, once again, the idea of "progressive revelation" does not mean that, in this case, Yahweh found "no problem" with a particular practice in the past.  Instead, the argument goes, is that IF he had said "don't have slaves" (I'm not even go into the distinctions between slavery in its contemporary form and that of 2000 years ago) that the his "chosen people" would have said, "wait, what?! forget you."  E.g. what the south did.

This is not to say, as some people posting before me has pointed out, that there aren't some underlying principles in the bible that can be used to underwrite the inconsistency between christian principles (as interpreted by them using these verses) and slavery.

Even on a strict, interpretation, however, the Old Testement rules on slavery were incredibly progressive in terms of slavery "FOR THAT TIME"-- for instance, the "year of jubilee," which required all slaves to be set free--or, merely its tort law which actually granted rights to slaves for injury conferred upon them from their masters.

"et al." Psh. 

[Clears throat] "It might be hubris of me to point out that the illegitimate assertion, id., failed in almost every respects, cf. my own comment.  That is not to say that you, et al., did not have... etc."

Psh. Why not just say "Yahweh and others" as opposed to "Yahweh et al."--which requires me to look up on the internet what it means.  I have to deal with this abbreviation stuff to much already in citations to deal with it hear.. Heh.  I just got out of a class, so I'm a bit edgy.  Apologies all around..

Alright.. I guess I'll have to continue to play devil's advocate here, approaching the problem from a position I don't necessarily take. 

Simple answer, yes. The bible is full of stories where these "miraculous" actions don't do anything.  Even the people that saw the "miracles" still fall back on their "evil" ways.  Consider the story of the exodus form Egypt.  Allegedly, God parted the red sea and yet still the Hebrews complained and said "lets go back" because they thought God would let them die.

Now, apart from the stories in the bible--an analogy now to life.  I can punch my little brother in face and make him submit to my demands; but, soon I will be too old for that, and he'll no longer care to listen to me.  Where am I then? If I had anything of use to teach him, he certainly won't hold onto it if the only reason he followed my "wisdom" was because I punched him in the face.  

At the same time, if I tried to reason with my little brother, then there are certain things he'll continue to do because he doesn't understand my reasoning.  For instance: "Don't stick that fork in the electrical outlet" R: "Why?" A: "Because you'll get burned." R: "What's burned?"

Instead.. I'll just negatively condition him, i.e. spank him perhaps coupled with some "warning', until such time that he's ready to understand the reasoning.

It's a balance, in that relationship.  Since the biblical God is already filled with self-projected characteristics, I see no reason why the tradition shouldn't continue when "interpreting" the relationship God had with man throughout the Bible.

True. Perhaps.

True.  As is true with most bits of literature or, in the alternative, historical record and statistics.

Yet, most wouldn't disagree that the writer of moby dick didn't have some actual reason for writing the book--some "deeper understanding" to be drawn from it.  Whether or not anyone has actually figured it out.. is another matter.  People cherry pick all the time..

That's why I don't like writing things down... oops. 

 

I think a much more fitting explanation is that it was written by people... and that's all. 

WhiteManRunning wrote:

 

So this almighty, all powerful god decides to write a book that will tell us how to live our lives, and says that if we dont follow this book we will go to hell.

First off, im not trying to argue that god is an asshat because of the things he did in the bible. Im trying to understand why an all-knowing all-powerful god will say: "This slavery thing is really bad, but I guess Ill let them get away with it for a while." RhadTheGizmo did a good job of explaining that. I dont buy it, but it makes sense.Second, I know that god didnt write the bible, people did. Change that line to "decided to get his people to write a book" and now it sounds better and doesnt change my argument at all. Here's what I dont understand. You know the bible was written by people and that it has lots of errors(or whatever else you want to call them) in it, and yet your willing to base your entire life off of your interpretation of this inaccurate book. Many people have done that in the past, and so far they've done a pretty shitty job. Why not just ignore the bible and live your life by your own moral code, instead of relying on a book that has badly mislead a lot of people in the past?

What is this? Fucking theist=fundie day? How do you come to the conclusion that I live by the bible?

Well, Ive never actually met you, so I cant come to the conclusion that you live your life by the bible, but in general theists say that the bible is the word of god(or at least close to it), and they follow it. They may not base their every action of every day on it, but when they are deciding who to vote for, if abortion is wrong, should they cheat on a test, etc... they tend to base those decisions on their interpretation of what the bible says. Thats what I dont understand.

Maybe im completely off base here. The only time I ever get into religious 'discussions' is on online forums, mainly because my friends just dont like arguing about it. But from reading other peoples posts, and watching youtube videos, this is the impression I am left with.

 

IMHO the "theist" tag as it's used on this forum is extremely vague and overly inclusive. It produces confusion.

If some member here is a theist, but not an orthodox Christian theist, then perhaps tags can be more specific so that exchanges can be more productive, waste less time and emotion.

If nothing else, perhaps deists, pantheists, etc could self-identify in their sigs to avoid the repeated cases of mistaken identity ? 

Just a thought...