(I am apologizing ahead of time for being half off subject, but I see no reason why we can’t tackle multiple conversations at once. After all we do it on nearly every other thread. In an effort to avoid confusion however, since posts tend to get lengthy I will attempt to color code. If for some reason you can see a color (I know brighter colors tend to give me headaches) feel free to pm me suggesting a better color.)

I’m in the middle of Mere Christianity right now, I really recommend everyone on this thread read it, even if you’re not a Christian (Actually Lewis intended this book to be aimed more at the agnostic than the Christians) because it’s fascinating to read his views on some of the most fundamental Christian beliefs. (Personally even though I don’t agree with him half the time I think he did a pretty good job of covering the basics and avoiding the inter-religion debated topics, which was his aim with the book- but that’s a topic more suited for the book thread.) My point in bringing up this is that I just finished the section titled, “The Great Sin,” which deals with pride, and as a natural consequence with humility. I found it very thought provoking in that he brought up theories I had not even thought of before. For instance he explains that pride is evil because it naturally brings a person to think of everyone else as competitors and enemies, especially if they are better that you in some regard. This is especially problematic because it causes people to go against God and think him an enemy, since God is the Supreme Being in essentially every aspect. He also brought up that many of our bodily sins, such as lust and greed, find their root in the spiritual sin of pride. He believed that pride is one of the greatest of all sins because it was based in the spirit not the body. Personally I view all sins as equally bad because any sin means death and goes against God’s will. I thought these were both very good points and would like to hear your opinions on them.

-What do you think of pride and humility? Is it better to be weak and humble or strong and proud?
-Do you think of pride (or any other sin) as worse than others? Or is a sin a sin and equally detrimental with all other sins?
-Do you believe pride could cause a person to commit another sin/wrongful act?

As for the slavery discussion, I’ve avoided posting on the matter until now because I haven’t the slightest idea as to where I stand on it. I do not like slavery, yet it was allowed by God. I tend to agree with Reepicheep775 in that if the fall had not happened there would be no slavery. But upon reading over the posts I’m noticing (granted I may be wrong) you all are having difficulties in coming to any sort of conclusion simply because nobody (myself included) can seem to agree on the definitions of a few key words. So I figured I’d start here:

-Just what is slavery? Does it include indentured servitude? Prisoners of war? Feudalism?
-What do you consider abuse? Physical? Mental? Emotional? Does it have to permanently harm or kill the person to be considered abuse? What about forms of discipline?
-Would slaves be considered part of the family?
-If a slave was able to earn back his freedom, would it still be considered slavery?

Nor should you be. Just because I believe the Bible is inerrant doesn't mean there aren't things in it that make me uncomfortable, questions that I still have, and now solid answers. I have a theology prof who has said that "As long as you don't ask the hard questions, you can keep giving the easy answers"---guess what he recommends? Very often I ask hard questions of God and His answer is something like this: "I don't have to answer this right now. I may not answer it ever. You've wrestled this question faithfully---but now let me be God."

Would you say this makes it difficult to defend the Bible to others who have doubts about the Bible's inerrancy and are wrestling with similar questions, which are often the basis of their doubts?

For me, it would be one thing if these were just my private beliefs and I could keep them to myself, but God tells us to spread the good news. Personally, I think I would find it pretty difficult to present something to others as a fact if I, too, still had questions unanswered. It seems to me that saying "I don't know, and God isn't talking" in response to a non-Christian's questions about some of the more cantankerous passages in the Bible could probably do more to impede the tide of Christianity than assist it.

^Perhaps the hardest part of trying to explain my beliefs to non-Christians is when we get to the parts of the Bible I don't understand. So I'm honest I state I don't know it all and as a human I'm not supposed to. Of course they usually don't like that, but I pray to God he helps me explain things as best as I can... And God doesn't want us to test him, he wants us to trust him... there's a verse somewhere in the Gospels (I'll edit it in if I can find it) that states if they don't believe in the Bible and the prophets they won't believe when they see a miracle.

To me, I don't see why there's a problem with it. We are not suppossed to know everything. Even science, if one truly understands science, does not pretend that. If they think it does they are only fooling themselves. By it's very nature in science we can never be 100% certain that something is a certain way. We can gather evidence that supports the possibility, but we can never know it as a 100% unreversable fact. We are taught in college "We can never prove a hypothesis right, we can only either prove it is false or not." If it stands for a while with out being proved false then we can support it's being correct, but we can still never prove it is correct. My biology professor last year liked to use the analogy of swans. He said that you could make the hypothesis that all swans are white, and you could test it by going to look at swans. But no matter what you did you could never find and observe every single swan on the planet. Before you were even halfway you'd have to start all over again. But every white swan you saw would support it- NOT prove it. On the contrary if you saw a black swan, your hypothesis is automatically proven incorrect. It only took one swan to prove it wrong, but you could never prove it right. So science isn't about proving things but disproving them. This is why I don't understand why people have a problem with the fact that they don't understand the way the world works. I don't understand how that proves there is no God. I don't care who you are or how long you've lived or will live or how much you know about the world- you can not ever know everything. But until people get past that it's just going to end up in the same cycle. If some mortal creature actually proved to me with no doubt at all that they discovered how everything in the world works by showing me how it works, then I'd be obligated to take back all I've said, but it ain't gonna happen-ever. At least not in this lifetime.

So when debates with non-Christians go in the direction of "But you can't prove the Bible true" or "But you don't understand it all" I say "So what? Look at the world we live it and show me what better proof you have of anything." It doesn't matter what you believe in you still have to believe in things with out being able to prove them. After all can you really trust your own senses? Your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, or skin? How do you know it's not deceiving us? And what right do we have to ask God to prove himself to us anyways if we'll so quickly believe a scientist or a poll without asking questions? Ultimately we've been using faith all along, we've just never realized it or pointed it in the right direction (God) until we became Christians.

(Important Edit!) Yes I understand that Rose's post was geared more toward the morality of the Bible but I tend to lump "Not understanding the morality of it" with the "Not understanding it" category. Sorry for the confusion, but my answer is essentially the same. After all can you absolutely prove with worldly evidence that your morals are the right ones? So that's just how I approach it- I trust that he has some good reason for it, even if it doesn't seem good to us, since he's not evil or neutral and is good. I don't try to prove it because I know I can't I just believe it.

Good idea to have colours separating the topics, Wolf!

-What do you think of pride and humility? Is it better to be weak and humble or strong and proud?
-Do you think of pride (or any other sin) as worse than others? Or is a sin a sin and equally detrimental with all other sins?
-Do you believe pride could cause a person to commit another sin/wrongful act?]

-It's definitley better to be weak and humble than to be strong and proud. The Sermon on the Mount is the best passage to support this that I've seen.
-I used to think all sins were equally bad because all sin is punishable by death (correct?). It was actually when I started reading C. S. Lewis (including Mere Christianity) that I noticed the pride within myself. And boy is it ugly. Pride is the ultimate anti-God feeling; all of your focus is inward on yourself. I thought it was funny that I don't feel as ashamed at my pride as I do with my other recurring sins, but then I realized that that made it all the worse.
-For sure. Personally, my pride has caused me to treat others in a bad way. Snubbing them, acting superior etc (think Eustace).

On the post above, there is nothing wrong with being weak or strong. The problem is pride. We have lots of examples of very strong men and leaders who were very humble. Moses in particular was known for being very humble. He did had anger problems but he was never proud. The only weaknesses we know Moses had was anger and a stutter. Pride is when you think you are more than you really are. Humility is not 'woe is me, I'm so poor...'. Humility is recognizing the real honor and skill. It's placing yourself lower than what you deserve (or feel you deserve or both). But being weak or strong really has little to do with it. One can most certainly be weak and be prideful about it. Self-pity parties are a frequently seen fruit of that.

Is pride a worse sin than others? In terms of your standing with Christ, a sin is a sin and sin separates you from God. In that regard all sins are the same. However, pride is considered a worse sin than others. It is the first listed of the 7 deadly sins. What makes pride so much worse than other sins is that it is one of the major sins that frequently lead to others. As Jesus said, 'the love of money' is a root of all kinds of evil, pride is in the same boat. It can lead to covetness, anger, hate, theft, disregard for others, and so much more.

That being said, pride can lead others to sin, but it is their choice how they respond to that pride. Pride in one person can lead to someone else's temptation. Very few of us do not struggle with pride in some way shape or form. The middle letter of pride is "I". The middle letter of sin is "I". Both have everything to do with "Me, myself, and I". Both show up when we hold ourselves above God and/or above others.

Been out of town for the past three days – a frustrating amount of time to be out of these debates, considering how fast the current pace is.

Thanks for responding to my questions, Fencer.

As I mentioned earlier, God did not endorse slavery or create it for the Israelites. He allowed them to use the system they had already established and told them how to work it the proper way. Its the same way God worked within the system of the Israelite monarchy. He didn't deliberately start a new system over, when he could have. He chose not to.

The problem I have is that I don’t think God showed them how to work with it in a proper way. From the laws we can see in the Old Testament, God still allowed Israelites to be pretty cruel to their slaves. I think you are trying to say that God saw the evil system of slavery contrast with a perfect moral vision and he met the Israelites halfway by laying down for them an improved system of slavery. Even if the Israelite’s system of slavery was better than all the others in that time period, this still means that a morally perfect God gave the Israelites morally imperfect laws, which is a contradiction to me.

As for your societies, living when I am today, it's easy to pick Society 2. But Society 2 was NOT AN OPTION back then.

Right, and Society 2 was not an option even 100 years ago. So how did it become an option? Because people recognized that the current society wasn’t perfect and worked toward trying to make it better. Today, even though American society is far from perfect, I maintain that it is closer to perfection than the ancient Israelite culture and that people are always working to keep us moving in the right direction. I have a problem with God laying down a set of laws for the Israelites and saying, “All right! Here’s your laws – and you can’t change them!”

There is where we truly are on separate paths. Am I convinced that God is real? Absolutely beyond any shadow of a doubt. I think that is obvious. But that was not by any means of convincing myself, in the same way you have convinced yourself otherwise (by what you said on why you 'de-converted').

I phrased what I meant poorly. What I was struggling to put in words is what Rose said much better – if you assume that the Bible is infallible and come across things that are immoral, you try and justify it, rationalize it with yourself, or think, “Well, I don’t know everything, so I have no right to judge God…” – rather than seeing it for the atrocity that it might actually be.

I know he is real because of what he has done in my life and simply by the fact that he lives in my heart. I've done all sorts of things that were truly impossible for me outside of God. I was not supposed to live to see my first birthday. My body is built with congenital twists in my legs and extreme tightness in my hip joints that when I was 6, specialists said I would never, ever run and don't expect any improvement. I have fenced for the last 13 years, run several raced, and can run backwards faster and longer than anyone else I know.

I’m sorry about your condition…I’m glad that you’ve been able to overcome medical odds and use your legs to the extent of a normal person. I can’t be too judging because I don’t know all the details of your situation but from my atheistic perspective, I would just consider you very lucky. I’m sure that if specialists said you would never run and not to expect any improvement, that they’ve seen many people with your same condition not have any improvement. And of course, all the other people with your condition who never have any improvement don’t make anything of it because their situation is nothing special.

My list goes on and on. Read back two pages to a post I made about a friend of mine that had a real-live gun pointed right at his face in point-blank range, fired, and not go off...5x. Minutes later, it did go off against Mexican police.

This is a remarkable story, but only when looked at without context. I’m sure there are lots of other situations where people have called out to God for help with guns pointed at them and they’ve simply been shot.

Look at it this way…let’s say there are 100 soldiers in the middle of a war. Their side is losing badly, they are getting absolutely slaughtered. As these soldiers are retreating and getting shot at, they all pray to God to help them survive. Almost all of the soldiers are shot before they can reach safety, but 2 of the soldiers manage to escape. The 2 soldiers look back on the situation. Against the odds, they survived – what a miracle! They attribute their safety to the prayers they made to God while retreating. They go back home and tells their amazing story to all their friends and families about the awesome power of having faith and trusting in God. But the 98 other soldiers who died are dead. They never get to tell about how God never helped them, because they are dead.

So it is in this way that the power of prayer can be grossly magnified. Christians tend to look at the few instances when prayer does work and use it as evidence of the power of God, even though there are multitudes of instances where prayer doesn’t work.

Now, I think maybe my rather pessimistic perspective on all of this might make more sense if I talk about something I’ve been through. I’ve never talked about this on NW before because it’s not family-friendly at all. So I’ve put it up here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asong ... hurchstory

I know the story sounds crazy, but it’s true and really left an extremely negative view of Christianity on me at a very young age. I know that it was the evil actions of the bishop and the priest that created such an awful situation, not God, but it was the way the religion was set up to give the clergy such respect, authority and power that allowed for such a corrupt situation to occur in the first place.

Now, I know that might set off a huge alarm in a bunch of Protestant’s ears…that this is just another case of “those evil Catholics” and that I haven’t experience real Christianity…but I think it’s important to remember that Catholics make up nearly 50% of all Christians on earth. So if God is allowing nearly half of people who claim to be his followers to be in some corrupt, evil, non-Christian system, he’s really not helping his own cause much.

And I’m also aware that my church’s unfortunate situation was pretty unusual and rare. Obviously most churches are not like this and most Christians don’t have to deal with this sort of stuff. But I think this only goes to show that for all the rare amazing Christian experience, there are also rare awful Christian experiences.

But since the issue of punishment, such as beating a foreign slave for misbehaving while not having the same laws for Israelite slaves, has been such an issue, let's look at it this way. I mentioned this analogy before. Let's say some kid breaks your window with a rock. If the kid is some bloke off the street, the kid must repay for the window AND repay a civil debt. But what if the kid is yours? Would you make him suffer civil suits for destruction of private property? I don't think so. You'd keep the issue in the family. This is the same way God treats sin for believers and non-believers. For believers, what happens in the family stays in the family. For non-believer, it's like an illegal immigrant trying to get in on benefits that don't belong to them. The rules are necessary to be different for citizens vs non-citizens.

Goodness. Comparing foreign slaves to illegal immigrants? I think there’s quite a big difference there. Illegal immigrants actively chose to live here despite laws against them doing so. Foreign slaves, as the verses say, were often sold amongst the foreigners and Israelites and thus they had no choice whether they wanted to be in Israel or not.

But ultimately, I think you have again misunderstood my question. My issue wasn’t whether it was fair to treat the Hebrew slaves differently than foreign slaves. My issue was the laws regarding foreign slaves.

The Narrowhaven slave trade was the very evil that all of us have agreed to abhor and hate. But think about this: wouldn't Caspian himself have had servants or slaves under him in Cair Paravel? It's not mentioned exactly how it works, but it would be hardly be any different than any other Medieval feudal system that the Telemarines established.

I don’t think Caspian would have had slaves under him at Cair Paravel. I think he would have had well-paid servants that served him by obligation, not by force.

Or what about the position Jewel had with Tirian? Or movie Phillip with Edmund? I would suspect this was far more of a lifetime servitude position vs 'modern day employment' status. Those examples would be more like the 'good kind of slavery' we are talking about. Though Phillip and Jewel were 'slaves' to Edmund and Tirian, both were good masters that tended to the needs of their servants.

I don’t have a copy of the Last Battle near me, but I’m pretty sure that Jewel was not Tirian’s property, because it is very clear in the Narnia books that one isn’t supposed to “own” a talking beast like one owns an animal. It is for this very reason that Phillip from the LWW movie is a horrible example – many hard-core fans were extremely critical (especially glumPuddle) of how a talking horse was portrayed as being owned by Edmund, since this never happens in a book.

The best argument that Minotaur and others would seem to have is that the Bible is self-contradictory, advocating a particular kind of slavery/indentured servitude in the past, while at the same time instilling principles of love and freedom, etc.

But it seems a bit odd to argue that this is immoral and thus the Bible collapses as a guide of morality — and primarily a written revelation inspired by the God Who desires, and demands, His creation's love and allegiance.

I would ask, then: if Scripture is wrong, slavery is "immoral" according to what, exactly?

Excellent question! To start off, I would say that there are no moral absolutes that are transcendent of religion and nature, but that nature has created for our species collectively the sufficient internal compulsions to act in a way one would consider “moral” to prevent our societies from collapsing into the sinful apocalypse most Christians see in a world without God.

For an example, I really like one of the questions in “Religion 101: The Final Exam”, so I’ll quote it here.

You are a loving family man who volunteers as a Big Brother and also at the local hospice when not working as the director of the community food bank. You awaken this morning to discover the global news media ablaze with the first-ever, easily understood, irrefutable scientific proof that there is no God. What will you probably do?
A. Quit your job and become a full-time rapist
B. Abandon your family and go on a murder rampage
C. Become a professional burglar
D. Continue your life pretty much as usual

Almost all of us would choose “D”, because we’re reasonable people and would realize that A, B, or C aren’t going to maximize our well-being for the rest of our lives. Now, there are always going to be insane people who have urges to be axe murderers or something of the like. Those insane people probably wouldn’t be convinced not to do those sorts of things simply by a religious person saying they’ll go to hell though. However, the powers of religion can convince people to do insane acts that they otherwise wouldn’t do (like 9/11).

Is this actually true in real life? The statistics seem to say yes. In 1997, the Federal Bureau of Prisons released the professed religious adherence rate of those in the U.S. Federal Prison system. Christians make up about 80% of the American population and prison population. However, Atheists make up about 8% of the American population but only 0.2% of the prison population. (On the flip side, only about 1-3% of Americans are Muslim, but 7.2% of inmates are Muslim.)

I have a lot more I can post about this position but I have to leave soon so I think this is enough for now. I can debate the more nitty-gritty details of this position with you if you desire.

Would you say this makes it difficult to defend the Bible to others who have doubts about the Bible's inerrancy and are wrestling with similar questions, which are often the basis of their doubts?

Not at all. The fact that I, a believer, have these same questions means that they really can't be a basis for unbelief---not really. It's a call to boldly ask the hard questions, but to ask them in a spirit of faith rather than doubt. Faith is that which can believe in spite of unanswered questions. It means giving up the delusion that I can understand everything perfectly and have all the right answers. It means learning to live faithfully with ambiguity. And in terms of explanation, it means that I can say to the skeptic, "look, I have all the same questions you do, yet I believe---what's the real problem you have? Because nine times out of ten, the objection to Christianity isn't intellectual at all.

TBG

I do have to say, it does make sense for someone to reject the church due to horrific experiences. I still wonder why God allows evil people to filter into the church to do the evil things they do. I firmly believe that the percentage of clergy that abuse their position (or worse, abuse the innocent children) is extremely small and not a mass pattern as the media has made it out to be. But this is what sinful people do. They try to get access to where they can be sinful and get away with it. 20-30 years ago, who would consider questioning a priest of doing something wrong? They are the icons of 'good people'. And that is the very reason the bad ones try to get under that guise.

This is an important reason why we need to understand the sin nature. People are not inherently good. Just look at a toddler. One of the first words they learn is either a form of 'me' or 'no'. And parents know right away that when their kid disobeys, is belligerent, and/or naughty, they are doing do deliberately. They know right and wrong. People tend to think these days that people are inherently good and are so shocked when people do something horrific.

Now, since this is likely to be brought up, I'll address it now. Only 100% perfection equates to being 'good' in a Biblical sense. The slightest break of the law from a white lie to a dark thought qualifies you (and me) as a sinner. Being 'morally' good from a human perspective is very plausible. But 'mostly good' doesn't count. Even if a good deed did erase a bad deed, we would never be able to hope to break even. And God doesn't want 50/50. He doesn't want 70/30. He doesn't even want 99/1. He wants 100/0. He has to in order to be consistent with his character.

But here is the amazing part. We all really don't like the fact that mankind is cursed thanks to Adam. That's also one of the reasons why there are attempts to make the creation story and the Fall a myth. But as Paul states so well in Romans 5, while Adam is the bringing of sin to all mankind, Jesus is the bringing of life to all mankind. Jesus did what Adam could not and lived a perfect life. And simply with faith in Christ, sin is no longer an issue to those who believe in God's eyes. Yes, we will be surprised to see a number of rapists, murderers, liars, gossipers, thieves, thugs, and the list goes on in heaven. It's because it is NOT a works-based situation. We can't earn it and that is a very good thing because each of us would fail.

I am sorry for what you came out of Minotaur. I cannot imagine the sense of that kind of betrayal. But I do know that God is not the only force at work. We do have an enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy and will use as many people as he can to join his cause. Right now it appears that Satan is winning, but I've read the end of the book. He lost the deciding battle at the cross and he will lose the final battle in the end as well.

You are a loving family man who volunteers as a Big Brother and also at the local hospice when not working as the director of the community food bank. You awaken this morning to discover the global news media ablaze with the first-ever, easily understood, irrefutable scientific proof that there is no God. What will you probably do?
A. Quit your job and become a full-time rapist
B. Abandon your family and go on a murder rampage
C. Become a professional burglar
D. Continue your life pretty much as usual

What a joke! I love the subtlety of this quiz. It's so obviously skewed to get a certain result. It doesn't seem to even hide that fact. Rubbish like this will only help to reinforce the beliefs of those who believe there is no God and those who believe there is a God will just laugh at the absurdity of the argument.

Not at all. The fact that I, a believer, have these same questions means that they really can't be a basis for unbelief---not really. It's a call to boldly ask the hard questions, but to ask them in a spirit of faith rather than doubt. Faith is that which can believe in spite of unanswered questions. It means giving up the delusion that I can understand everything perfectly and have all the right answers. It means learning to live faithfully with ambiguity. And in terms of explanation, it means that I can say to the skeptic, "look, I have all the same questions you do, yet I believe---what's the real problem you have? Because nine times out of ten, the objection to Christianity isn't intellectual at all.

No, I know that you can believe in something without having all the questions answered. Look at how many people believe in aliens. In fact, in some ways I have a hard time seeing how believing in an infallible Bible is so different from believing in, say, Bigfoot.

. . . Nobody clobber me for saying that, please. Hey, I think cryptozoology is cool.

In all seriousness, though, I think a Bigfoot believer could say the same things to a skeptic.

What I have difficulty with is presenting something to others as a fact, and viewing it myself as a fact, when I know fully well that it is nothing more than my personal belief which I could be completely wrong about. I want to keep it in perspective if I can, and to look at it as it is: a belief. Not a fact, or at least not one that's likely to be a widely knowable fact in this lifetime.

. . . Nobody clobber me for saying that, please. Hey, I think cryptozoology is cool.

Hooray for cryptozoology!

*tries to think of something that will actually add to the discussion* (Unless of coarse you all are willing to do a cryptozoology debate... And don't clobber me either!)

I guess though with me is that the difference between Bigfoot and God is that I can acknowledge a possibility that Bigfoot doesn't exist. I've never seen him or heard him. But I can feel God in me and around me everyday in a very real way. I understand your point though, I'm just still contemplating how best to respond to it

After all the talk about different things, I'm really confused. I'm not sure which questions have even been answered, and which ones haven't. And for those that have been answered, I'm not exactly sure what the answers were...

So, I basically have two questions. I'm going to restate them here. Please, if anyone knows the answer to them, tell me. And if you can, please keep the answer short and direct. I hope that doesn't sound rude or anything. It's just, I often have trouble understanding things, especially if the response talks about too many different things at the same time. I'm really dyslexic, and have enough trouble just reading a post at all. Usually, unless someone spells out their response to me in big, friendly letters, I usually have no idea what they're talking about. So, here we go, these are my two questions.

2. How many rights did foreign slaves have? Did they have any, and were they treated more cruelly than non-foreigners?
Those are my questions. Please answer them, if you can. If they have already been answered -- I'm sorry; either I didn't see your response, or I did see it but didn't understand it.

Generally speaking, in that time and age, no slaves had rights. In Assyria, according to my source (Mesopotamia: the mighty kings. 1995, p.62) 'the lot of slaves was brutal: The laws specifically permitted their masters to beat them, and they could be sold at will, even to a buyer outside Assyria'. Female slaves were forced to leave their faces uncovered, unlike 'respectable' women (p. 67). Even the more generous Hammurabi, a Babylonian law-giver from before 1750 BC, forced slaves to wear a certain hairstyle, an abbuttum, which if a barber altered it, could result in his hand being chopped off. And if a slave smacked a freeman he could get his ear lopped off (p. 26).

Would you say the Israelite slave laws, mentioned so far were quite as cruel? The slaves, wherever they come from, had to celebrate the Sabbath with their owners. They could be beaten for wrongdoing, but were they at any time mutilated? This was presumably allowed for disciplinary reasons only: slaves do have an economic value, and a badly injured and mutilated slave would not be very useful.

I'm glad to see the Israelites were told they could be penalised if they beat their slaves to death, and if their slave was injured or killed by a neighbour's animal, the slave had to be compensated for. Slaves, by definition were disenfranchised from the rest of society: they were considered property. At least the Israelites gave their slaves some human recognition and worth. They could not simply be smashed up like a piece of machinery.

Apparently, locally born people were not to be sold into slavery - wasn't that specification aimed specifically at stopping locally born slaves from being sold to foreigners, and thus being sent out of Israel? Hebrew slaves got extra privileges not afforded to slaves that were foreigners, such as being freed in a jubilee year. Unlike foreigners, their slavery was not hereditary. That is all.

1. Beating slaves. The Bible says that if a slave is beaten, the person who did the beating is only punished if the slave dies. So my question is, did God and/or the people back then say it was morally okay to beat slaves? Or was that just a punishment for slaves who did something very terrible like steal from their master or something? Why would the person be beating the slave? And what exactly does it mean by only punishing them if they die, and not for beating them in the first place?

It was most likely the people who expected to be able to beat slaves, just like their Babylonian and Assyrian neighbours. And I agree that beating would be mainly for discipline for wrongdoing. I think that you should reread that particular Biblical quotation, and stick to the exact wording. leaving out "only". It is very easy to see meanings that may not be there: I think it is great that the Israelites could be punished for beating their slaves to death.

I love that the 10 commandments forbid people coveting their neighbours' maidservants and manservants: they weren't to go rushing out to get the latest slave on the market in competition with their neighbours. And I hope my answer wasn't too long. Unfortunately, the Bible is the main source for how Israelites lived, apart from what Archaelogical finds there may be. These have been limited by the political situation there.

As I mentioned in your second question, the slaves wouldn't be of much economic use if maltreated too much. The question I have is this: Is there anything in either Exodus or Leviticus in anyone's readings which at any time limits the sorts of clothes slaves were allowed to wear? And did any of the penalties mentioned in Exodus or Leviticus ever mention any sort of physical mutilation, apart from beating, to be meted out as a punishment?

What I have difficulty with is presenting something to others as a fact, and viewing it myself as a fact, when I know fully well that it is nothing more than my personal belief which I could be completely wrong about. I want to keep it in perspective if I can, and to look at it as it is: a belief. Not a fact

Rose, you don't know me very well, but I'm a fairly naturally skeptical person. You can't say "it's just a belief": that's just silly. You only believe something if you think it's true: a fact. I look at the world and find myself realizing that it all points to the fact that God is there. This isn't like belief in Bigfoot: now maybe one could examine evidence and come to the conclusion that Bigfoot exists. However, this isn't how I came to believe in God---I believe in God because I know Him and know that He's there.

Theologian John Calvin talks about a cognitive faculty that he calls the sensus Divinitatus that is aimed at giving us knowledge of God. Because of sin, this faculty has been almost irreparably damaged such that only by Divine grace can it be repaired. So to you, it might seem as if I'm talking nonsense when I'm speaking of the fact that I know God, when in reality, it's akin to my trying to explain redness to a colorblind man.

TBG

Can some one explain to me why pride is a sin. Is having pride in something a sin? ( example " have pride in your work")

Can some one explain to me why pride is a sin. Is having pride in something a sin? ( example " have pride in your work")

The Bible encourages taking pride in your work.

The sinful sort of pride is the kind that makes you think you are better than you really are, or better than others somehow. Somehow thinking of ourselves as being higher than we really ought to.

~Riella