It's clear to me that your friends either don't know your feelings about the Bible and slavery, or they agree with you, or you won't listen to them when they tell you otherwise.
Actually the philosophy prof has said many of the same ridiculous things I've heard from Christians on this board "slavery in those days was 'different', not like it was in the 19th century U.S." etc.
Obviously we can disagree. We do.
You keep telling me you have friends who are Christians and creationists, but evidently you approach their beliefs with the same "respect" you approach mine.
Back the truck up there buddy: YOU don't earn much respect because I don't see in your posts anything like introspection or deeper thought.
No offense but your posts read like the scrawl of a second grader who is so impressed that he can make both capital and lowercase letters and assumes that's all there is to sounding "smart". My Christian friends at least challenge me by
coming to the table prepared to debate on an intellectual level.
To be very pointed about this: I've learned far more from my friend the philosophy prof in any given 15 seconds of religious conversation than I have in over a year of reading your posts. You bring very little of value. You have, on a couple of occasions, caught me off-guard with some unique hyper-legalistic read on a particular passage which has caused me to abandon that line of debate because you were technically (hyper-legalistically) correct. But don't for one second think
your points are by and large anywhere near equal to some of these other folks.
They know who Leibniz was, who Pascal was, and an awful lot about the history not only of the Church but even your fundamentalist leaning thought.
At least you're consistent --- unless, Heaven forbid, they have a degree other than yours; or worse yet: don't have a degree.
You are mistaking my point: I don't respect someone because of a degree but because of some intellectual skill and ability. You see my dad didn't even get to complete high school because of the great Depression, but he was so incredibly smart that it scared me at times. I respected him greatly.
But the fun thing about my dad was that he
never stopped learning as he grew older. I could talk to him about stuff I was learning and it was an actual
conversation.
I don't get that from you.
I notice too that when something in the Bible is evil, it's treated as if it absolutely happened. Even using technical terms to describe it; "genocide", "mass slaughter", "indentured servant", etc.
See my earlier post about Marcion. I don't expect this to be in your knowledge set either owing to your alarming lack of interest in the history of Christianity, but there it is. You can google as you like.
To be honest, I
don't think that the slaughter of the Amalekites happened as a direct command from God through his prophet. If it did happen it most assuredly was a fully human and fully evil action of "disproportionate 'total war'". No God need have given that command.
But let something good be brought up, and it's treated as if it absolutely didn't happen. Even using childish terms to describe it; "poofed", "magic", etc.
As I said my understanding of the history of the Bible and what did or didn't happen is a bit more nuanced than that owing to my having read quite a bit about it.
I find it unlikely that the overwhelming power of the ancient Israelites decimating all around them by God's power was the case. IF the Israelites invated
en masse rather than a more subtle displacement model of Caananite cities, it was probably recorded, as is all history, by the victors and then in the most glowing and mighty terms.
So you miss again. But that's because you see the world as a second grader. Black-white and you can't process the subtleties and distinctions that come from people who are capable of not only dealing with science but also theology, philosophy and history.
But someday maybe you'll step up to the plate and bring more than just bluster but actually impress me with something deeper.
I look forward to that day. But don't think for one sec you rate on the radar screen with the bigger brains I've met in religious discussion.
