After 2000 years since JC was executed ,why have we heard not a whisper from GOD ALMIGHTY ? (page 19)

cofty

Frankie - It was one of god's greatest miracles to help a 90 year old get it up so he could rape his slave girl.

The wonders of god will never cease.

slimboyfat

"... by modern standards."

That's the point.

Does it actually say Hagar was raped?

cofty

SBF - Are you tired after the convention? Do you really need me to join the dots?

Thats the whole point. It was not her choice. When its not her choice its rape. Tammy its amazing how instead of feeling pain for the woman you instead elevate the criminals in the story like Abraham. Abraham is just a rapist. she couldnt run away from abraham because in those days she cpuld have been killed just because Abraham wanted too, a bit like a chicken on a farm today.

Yeah, by definition, a slave CANNOT give valid consent. Anyone who knows even the basics of modern sexual harassment laws knows that whenever there's a significant differential in terms of power, authority, age, etc. It's why statuatory rape laws exist: if there's an AGE difference involving one party who is a minor (below the age of consent), the older party is looking at jail time, AT THE LEAST. The same idea applies, in that the one in the lower status can't give consent of their own free will, and that applies ESPECIALLY in the case of a slave/master, LOL!

Abraham lived in a patriarchial materialistic society which ALLOWED him not only to have sex with whomever he bought, but to beat/whip/torture/kill, etc, or to do ANY OTHER DAMN thing he wanted to them, since they were "ITS", POSSESSIONS, and NOT real humans with real feelings, like you and I (well, most of us who have rudimentary systems of internal moral codes in our brains, other than "blindly follow orders").

Note that the account is set in a time LONG BEFORE Abraham's descendents went to Egypt to escape a famine/drought, and 1,000 yrs BEFORE Moses led the Isrealites OUT of Egypt, long before Moses entered into a covenant agreement between God and the 12 Tribes by sprinkling them with blood and binding them to accept the laws of Moses to become God's Chosen People. It was LONG BEFORE the Torah was written which ALSO endorsed and regulated slavery.

Slaves like Hagar (an Egyptian, so it's not likely she looked like the young Hebrew woman posted by Cofty) were thought of as POSSESSIONS, intentionally dehumanized to JUSTIFY and rationalize treating them like cattle. Jesus clearly agreed with the practice of slavery, or he wouldn't have used "the slave being killed by the master for daring not to follow his master's orders, by abusing the other slaves" motif in the parable of the "faithful and wise servant". Jesus obviously believed that the master was the only one allowed to beat the slaves in his authoritarian scheme! Jesus asked that others become a SLAVE for him, who MUST follow his orders or face being BEATEN and SLASHED to death for their lack of FAITH in him. He promises to be a kind, gentle master: he promises, just as long as you do EVERYTHING he tells you to do!

So clearly, the practice of slavery is an amoral practice, that is UNLESS you have dreams of becoming a SLAVE OWNER: if you're a rich old male who wants to have sex with young nubile female slaves which are (literally) your sex slaves, you buy them; if you live in a paternalistic society where the haggard ol' sagging wife cannot protest since she feels shame for being unable to conceive, she can be guilt-tripped into GIVING one of her nubile female maid-servants to you. To pull off the stunt, though, your have to rely on the cockamamie superstitious practice that says a child conceived via forced surrogacy is actually the WIFE'S offspring, telling the wife that if the child comes to rest on the wife's knee after the child emerges from the surrogate's birth canal, it's the same as if she bore it. Now why would they think that? The knee was considered to be the source of generative fluid (it contains a clear synovial fluid, which was mistakenly thought to be the site of production of the generative source, eg sperm); hence maternity could be transferred to the wife by this odd practice. That ancient misconception is reflected in the name given to bowing on one's knee, "genuflect". The Bible reflects this ancient ignorant superstition which has been a long-disproven concept of human biology, shown in this case AND in the story of Rebekah, yet this old book of mythology is STILL seen as a valid source of FAITH for the voluntarily-deluded and willingly-ignorant.

Tammy, it's beyond belief that you'd say this:

She was given to him as his wife. To have a family. You might think you can judge that sort of thing by todays standards, but it makes no sense to do so. That would have been an honor, elevating Hagar to a position of honor. She never ran away from Abraham.

She wasn't "given to him as his wife" as you say, since Hagar was NOT Abraham's wife, had no say in the matter (as you say, she was "given" to Abraham by Sarah), but was only an involuntary forced human surrogate, a human cattle. She had no choice in the matter, and her opinion didn't count. The goal wasn't to for Abraham and Hagar to "have a family" (eg after Abraham divorced Sarah, etc): that's an ignorant and anachronistic reading, projecting YOUR OWN MODERN thinking and cultural mores into a story set in a foreign land in the ancient past. There was no "honor", no "elevating Hagar into a position of honor": she remained a SLAVE AFTER she delivered Ishmael, and Sarah remained Abraham's wife. Via the practice of forced-surrogacy, the child was accepted as Abraham's and Sarah's, and stolen from his mother, Hagar (although it was clearly eye-brow raising even then, and considered as 2nd-best from having one's own child).

And once again, you're flat-out wrong when you said she never ran away from Abraham: she ran away from BOTH Abraham AND Sarah, but an angel compelled her to return to her owners; she complied, facing her punishment at the hands of her owner Sarah, since a fugitive slave on the run from its owner was a crime, in-and-of-itself. Hagar returned and gave birth as a surrogate, but haggard and menopausal Sarah finally managed to conceive via "a miracle" (thank you, God! Ancients didn't know menopausal women are not completely barren, and it's STILL possible to conceive even after menopause begins).

Hagar and Ishmael were dispensed with to fend for themselves after they were no longer needed, and the old "the baby touches your knee and he's yours" work-around was no longer needed, and now ignored (and even though they didn't know anything about genetics back then, it STILL must've been a bit discomforting when the son looked JUST LIKE HIS surrogate mother, and not the adopted mother). So no problem! Just set them loose to fend for themselves, with a runner-up prize being a blessing given by God (and it's funny how THAT one worked out, since Ishmael was considered the forefather of Islam, which now is the WORLD'S LARGEST religion; meanwhile, the Jews, are back in what, 4th or 5th place.God must've felt really guilty about Hagar, as Ismael has REALLY been blessed)?

And to use the "well, it was fitting in THAT culture" defense is COMPLETELY MISSING THE ENTIRE POINT: NO KIDDING, since THAT was a cultural practice clearly ENDORSED by YHWH for Abraham (God BLESSED Ishmael), regulated and allowed 1000's years later in the Torah, and even AFTER the Jews had been the first benefactors in the World to be RELEASED from the inhumane practice of slavery, thanks to the 'more-loving for one's fellow man' policies of Ahura Mazda, the God of Zoroaster, the official State religion of the Persian Empire, the first religion in history to FORBID the practice! But "like a dog returning to it's own vomit", the Jews only started up slavery the first chance they got, after the Greeks drove the Persians out of the region. Jehovah CLEARLY is A-OK with slavery, and so was Jesus, a Torah-observant Jew. That IS the culture which God created, so if you like slavery, you'll LOVE theocracy!

It just completely baffles how people can possess the TOTAL AMORALITY/IMMORALITY to refuse to see what is patently obvious with their "flawed" Earthly perceptive senses, if they'd only use them; instead, they make excuses for "their" God, stubbornly putting on blinders to perceive the immorality of the scenario, simply because it threatens THEIR faith in THEIR absolute authority figure. THAT'S exactly WHY the Bible repeatedly harps on the importance of building FAITH: it requires active suppression of one's OWN atropied morality, ripping the offshoots out of the ground like weeds when they spring up (Psalms says not to trust your own knowledge, since it's inferior to FAITH; remember that Eve's SIN was to eat from the tree of KNOWLEDGE (of good and evil) which gave her WISDOM; her sin was DESIRING wisdom, when women aren't SUPPOSED to use THEIR own wisdom, but to rely on God as the source of moral decision-making).

Instead, FAITH requires simply overlooking all such moral predicaments (which only arises if one is KNOWLEDGEABLE of little things like recent/ancient history, or if you've studied other ethical systems aside from the Bible, etc). Knowledge is a BAD thing, per the Bible, since it's associated with 'man-made' ideas, which are inferior to "God-given" rules).

Now if the person is WEAK in their faith, they may engage in making excuses for depicted behavior that most anyone else would be able to say is CLEARLY WRONG. The weak in faith will attempt to defend the indefensible, sloppily using silly incoherent arguments, etc.

But if a believer is STRONG in their faith, they will simply IGNORE the issue, dismiss it, and even continue to refuse to use their OWN morality, refuse to exercise their OWN sense of right and wrong, in the first place. THAT'S what the Bible itself says that STRONG faith in one's beliefs means, per the Bible itself.

Adam

slimboyfat

Just where is the verse that says she was raped that's all.

cofty

SBF - Do you consider a young slave girl being forced to have sex with her 90 year old slave master for the purpose of bearing a child that was then to be stolen from her, as consensual sex?

slimboyfat

Jeezo do I need to go and find it myself? I was just wondering where it is and what the actual wording is.

You are still judging people from thousands of years ago (fictitious characters at that, no doubt) by modern western standards.

adamah

Just where is the verse that says she was raped that's all.

OMG, you too, SBF? You mean to tell me you don't realize that slaves, BY DEFINITION, CAN'T give consent? That's kinda the reason WHY mankind outlawed slavery: by definition, it IS an abuse of power!

Your "cultural relativism" defense is equally ill-informed: this was a practice ENDORSED and REGULATED in the Torah even 1,000 yrs AFTER Abraham bought and sold humans, engaging in the slave trade. God's moral standards are SUPPOSED to be unchanging and "perfect"; is slavery an example of God's "perfect" morality or not?

Better yet: Do YOU think slavery is moral or immoral?

Adam

slimboyfat

And yeah my brain's been frazzled, can you tell?

cofty

You are being obtuse.

I am judging the popular opinion among modern western christians that Abraham's actions are worthy of admiration and imitation.

But you already knew that.

SBF - I enjoy debate, but when you follow me around the board with your relativistic bullshit I am logging out.

Match of the Day is far more interesting.

After 2000 years since JC was executed ,why have we heard not a whisper from GOD ALMIGHTY ?

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