My Unoffensive Challenge

Archie the Preacher said:

Vet, 'anathema' means "forbidden by the Pope and outlawed" which gave rise to "condemned or accursed" which morphed into "distasteful"

'Maranatha' means "My Lord Comes" and is often representative of the Second Coming at the end of time.

So could you explain to me how you are using those two words together and what do you mean in dog years?

Click to expand...

Hello Archie.

We have a very slight difference in our definition of 'anathema'.

Anathema, a formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunicating a person or denouncing a doctrine. I also think an inquisitor, has this same power to denounce and excommunicate folk. I don't think the pope has a strangle hold on these powers in the historical church. Bishops I believe can also excommunicate.

AV1611VET said:

With respect to it, or in spite of it?

In your opinion.

Click to expand...

In my opinion? Very much with respect to it.

AV1611VET said:

Let me get this straight.

Jews go home to their promised land and find it occupied by squatters.

If said squatters don't vacate, they are to die.

Some don't ... and they die.

Through disobedience, not all squatters are terminated.

Click to expand...

Disobedience to whom? The Jews?

AV1611VET said:

Let me get this straight.

Jews go home to their promised land and find it occupied by squatters.

Click to expand...

Nope, they abandoned their land. If that is the case it was no longer theirs. Actually it seems that you are believing the story that they went to Egypt and there does not seem to be any valid reason to believe that story. It does not appear to fare to well when it faces reality.

If said squatters don't vacate, they are to die.

Click to expand...

Um, no. That is simply and obviously wrong. Even if they were squatters one can't kill them. Try leaving a house for a year and coming back. If you kill any squatters the law will not be on your side.

Some don't ... and they die.

Click to expand...

You mean that they are murdered.

Through disobedience, not all squatters are terminated.

Click to expand...

You are really stretching to try to make it look like those particular verses of the Bible are not rather evil. And you need to try again. These people were not squatters. Until you prove that they were squatters you are making false accusations against them. Secondly this did not apply only to people conquered by the ancient Hebrews. You need to study your Bible some more.

God goes to Plan B:

If you're going to let them live, at least make them bond servants.

Click to expand...

What? Where do you get that claim from?

Now it's thousands of years later, and the scene shifts to America.

Click to expand...

Wait a second you still failed to support your nonsensical claim about what happened in the Bible. Until you do you really can't make any applications elsewhere. But out of curiosity let's see where you fail next.

What exactly do you want us Christians to do?

Click to expand...

Why just limit it do Christians? How about everyone be held to the same standards. Slavery is wrong. It was wrong in the past. By those standards the Hebrews were doubly wrong. First for attacking people in their own land and then for making slaves of them and other foreigners.

Simply don't have slaves. Even in war if one defeats a country the civilian population is to be left alone.

I'm confused by all this bickering about slavery in some odd mistranslations of the Bible.

Click to expand...

I know, it is more than apparent that the Biblical position is wrong.

And I can't ... for the life of me ... figure out what you want us to do.

Click to expand...

Once again, it is simple. Act morally. Jesus even laid it out for you. The one thing that he definitely got right was the Golden Rule. If you don't want to be a slave, you should not enslave others.

Are you submitting yourselves to us for indentured servanthood?

Click to expand...

No, are you? Again, don't ask silly questions. All one has to do is to act morally as Jesus would have you act.

Or are you expecting us to go grab someone and make them act as our maids and valets and butlers and handymen?

Click to expand...

No, I don't expect you to follow the Bible in that way. It seems that you are having a hard time following this conversation. It is about how parts of the Bible advocate immoral behavior.

What exactly are you guys harping about?

It can't be slavery ... that word isn't even in the Bible.

Click to expand...

Please, the last is an equivocation error on your part. Just because the English word "slavery" is not in the Bible it does not mean that the Bible did not advocate for slavery. You can use the Hebrew word if you want, it does not make any difference.

joshua 1 9 said:

You need to study this a bit more. First of all a "slave" in the Bible was not a slave at all. They were indentured servants with a 7 year contract. The whole time we had slavery in American they knew the difference between indentured and slavery. What we had in the south was actually a muslim practice not a Christian practice. So your just peddling more revisionism. People have a choice if they want to enter into a contract just like people can choose to put themselves into the bondage of sin. "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin." John 8:34

Click to expand...

You are obviously a Christian because you DO NOT read your Bible, read the above post #87 then go read up on it in the Bible (Exodus 22:21) then come back and prove Subduction Zone wrong.
Your God condoned slavery.

AV1611VET said:

I'm still waiting for you to quote Romans 1:1 to me in whatever that translation is you're using.

Click to expand...

I don't like the idea of you using me to fool yourself, you know it's all rubbish but you think if you can use a different version it will somehow stop being rubbish, it's all a fairy tale.

AV1611VET said:

Why?

You're already a fool (atheist).

Don't you want me to join you?

That means that you would get the credit for leading me into foolishness (atheism).

You want me to think like an atheist and condone slavery; why not get the credit for converting me too?

Don't you guys have your own version of the Great Commission as well?

Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

Click to expand...

"Think like an atheist and condone slavery"? Um, most people don't condone slavery these days. The Bible does have parts where slavery is condoned, and none of them were atheists.

AV1611VET said:

[devil's advocate mode]

Paul Finch, I'm willing to concede and interpret the Bible as condoning slavery.

I'm willing to concede that we should follow the Bible all out, and skip context (such as dispensationalism and Old Testament vs. New Testament times).

In short, I'm willing to start being a good Christian and own slaves, just as Robert E Lee and the South did.

But I need your help, my friend.

Who specifically should I own?

I'll submit to your academics if you'll please advise.

[/devil's advocate mode]

Click to expand...

Twist twist and twist again, your life is just one big lie.

AV1611VET said:

Then why are they bringing it up?

If atheists don't condone slavery, why do they want us to condone it?

They may not have slaves, but they seem to be saying they think we should own them, because they think it's in the Bible.

Nevermind the fact that "slavery" is not mentioned once in the Bible.

Skip dispensational and covenant theology and go right to owning slaves.

Yet they don't seem to want to tell us who we should be owning.

The blacks? the whites? the Indians? them? each other?

Who should we have as slaves?

Click to expand...

They are NOT saying that you should have slaves, you're twisting words. They're saying the Bible says you should own slaves, and owning slaves is obviously wrong and cruel. Yet not only does the Bible condone it, God at times commands it, so the poster was saying that if you're so insistent on following the Bible then you'd own slaves, but everyone should know that owning slaves is wrong, and thus owning slaves seems less like orders from God and more the demands of a primitive patriarchal society.

AV1611VET said:

But God didn't abandon them.

Click to expand...

That does not matter. They were not there. Even according to your version, which probably did not happen, they abandoned the land.

You might want to study what is called the Abrahamic Covenant.

Click to expand...

No need. Once again, they abandoned the land even according to your version of the story.

And while you're at it, learn the difference between a bilateral (two party) and unilateral (one party) covenant.

Click to expand...

Again, it does not matter. Even according to the Bible they left that land. The land was no longer theirs. And you really need to support your claims with much more than just the Bible. Other groups has the same sort of promise of that land that is found in almost all religions. You still have not excused or explained the slavery of the Bible.

Then maybe you'll understand this passage:

Genesis 15:17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

In short, that land was unilaterally promised to Abraham and his seed ... forever.

Click to expand...

Dreams are not valid reasons for claiming land. And it definitely is not an excuse for enslaving people. The Hebrews should have paid for the land that they had abandoned. Did they put up signs I don't see anything about that. Did they hire guards to watch it in their absence? If not they as much as gave the land away. It was no longer their land.