Monthly Archives: September 2022

Christianity offers little more than deist arguments

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What’s common among the most popular Christian apologetic arguments? They’re all deist arguments. That means they argue for Islam, Mormonism, or Satanism as much as they do Christianity.

This is the next clue that we live in a godless world (this list of 25 reasons we don’t live in such a world begins here):

19. Because the best Christian arguments are deist arguments

A Christian appeal for the existence of God typically brings up arguments such as these.

  • The Moral argument: How can there be objective moral truth without God?
  • The Cosmological argument: The universe had a beginning, which requires a cause, and that cause was God.
  • The Fine-Tuning argument: The constants in the universe are fine-tuned for life, and that must’ve been done by God.

There are lots more arguments like these—the Ontological Argument, the Design Argument, the Transcendental Argument, and even the Argument from Mathematics. These are all deist arguments, which means that the god behind them might have been nothing more than a clockmaker who created and wound up the universe and then walked away. And if the creator god actually does interact with our world, nothing in these arguments points to the Christian god any more than to Marduk, Allah, Brahma, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If we lived in God World, the go-to arguments would unambiguously identify this god, not be one-size-fits-all arguments that point to no god in particular—not Yahweh any more than the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

And just so no one is confused, the arguments in the list above fail.

  • The Moral argument needs to first establish that objective truth exists.
  • The Cosmological argument fails in many ways.
  • The Fine-Tuning argument also fails. A universe made by God wouldn’t need fine tuning since God can make life anywhere (he’s God, remember). And there’s the multiverse, which is predicted by the theory of cosmic inflation, which is well supported by evidence. The multiverse could accommodate a vast number of universes with arbitrary settings of the universal constants.

Here’s your bonus reason:

20. Because the Bible story keeps rebooting

God has a perfect, bulletproof plan, and he’s stickin’ to it. He created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but those pesky kids messed things up. The resulting society became irredeemable, so God drowned them all. All, that is, except the brave little troupe that was Noah’s family.

Imagine Gilligan’s Island except on a cruise ship full of manure.

Society had been set right, God put his war bow in the heavens (that is, the rainbow) and promised never to fly off the handle again, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Or not. The story next lurches forward with Abraham, and God makes a perpetual covenant with Abraham—five times, in fact. And once again we think we’re done.

Nope. Abraham begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat the twelve patriarchs of the (soon to be) twelve tribes of Israel. Then slavery in Egypt, then “Let my people go,” then the Exodus through the desert, and then Moses leads them into the Promised land. God ties a bow on the story with the perpetual Mosaic Covenant that is still in force today. The End.

Wrong again. No, it turns out that it was Jesus who was the key to the whole thing. Who saw that coming? What a twist! The entire New Testament (plus a couple dozen church councils) are required to figure out what this new religion actually is and to rationalize some sort of harmony with the Old Testament, which is (oddly) still in force.

But don’t think that that’s the last reboot. Islam was a reboot. Mormonism was a reboot. Some new cult can always announce that they have a new take on an old theme.

And there you go—that mess of incompatible parts is God’s perfect plan(s).

For more, see: The Bible Story Reboots. Have You Noticed?

If a perfect god actually existed, he would get his story straight in the beginning, and it wouldn’t look like what it is—a collection of loosely connected ancient mythology and legend.

To be continued.

(How big an impact did Jesus have on civilization?)
If you’re just going to go with “well, his ideas lived on,”
I’ll put Jesus behind Archimedes, Socrates,
Euclid, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Pasteur, Einstein,
Fleming, and Bohr in that regard.
All of their ideas are current today
and of great value in modern society,
whereas Jesus espoused monarchy, slavery,
and second-class status for women.
— commenter RichardSRussell

Christians lie to cover up God’s support for slavery

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You’d think that God could defend himself, but Christian apologists must always clean up his messes. What’s interesting about this instance is how readily God’s defenders will lie for him.

In “Ten Ways Servant-Slavery in Israel Differed from Chattel Slavery,” Christian author Ken Samples contrasts “servant-slavery” (temporary indentured servitude) with “chattel slavery” (slavery for life) as defined in the Old Testament.

Technically, he’s correct—indentured servitude and chattel slavery are different. That’s why we have different names for them. But this isn’t what a casual Christian reader will take from his argument, and that’s the problem. It’s deceptive. Samples must understand the issue well enough to understand the problem, and that he takes no steps to clarify makes me fear that this deception is deliberate.

Read that title, and you’d think that Israel had “servant-slavery,” but it was the other societies that had chattel slavery. The truth is that Israel had both. Knowing that, Samples would’ve been more honest with a title like, “Servant-slavery vs. chattel slavery in ancient Israel: 10 differences.” But honesty doesn’t seem to be a goal.

Chattel slavery in the Bible

Here is one place where God defines the rules for chattel slavery:

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life … (Leviticus 25:44–6).

This is coming from God himself. Follow his rules, and you get a green light to keep slaves for life.

Indentured servitude vs. chattel slavery in the Bible

The article above lists ten points where the Old Testament’s indentured servitude is not chattel slavery. Let’s critique.

“1. Indentured servitude offered a means to deal with poverty.”

And in the US, the purpose was to get your trip to America paid for. Neither would be an excuse to reintroduce indentured servitude into modern society.

“2. Racism was not a motivation for slavery.”

This is presumably a contrast with American slavery. But with American slavery, racism was a justification, not a motivation.

Us vs. Them tribal differences was clearly central to Old Testament slavery. The passage from Leviticus above showed that chattel slaves came from neighboring tribes.

“3. Kidnapping, including for the purpose of slave trading, was illegal.”

For fellow Jews, yes, but this just means that indentured servitude and chattel slavery were different. We’ve been over that.

“4. Enslaved people were not treated as mere property.”

True for indentured servants but not for chattel slaves.

“5. Cruelty was strictly prohibited and punishable by law.”

We find cruelty in the Bible’s very laws to minimize cruelty. Here’s a slave rule from the Good Book:

Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property (Exodus 21:20–21).

Sounds like a thumbs-up to cruelty. Here’s one from the 1833 Alabama law code:

Any person who shall maliciously dismember or deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like offence had been committed on a free white person.

How does the Bible look in this comparison?

“6. Slavery was not operative from birth.”

Wrong. Children born to a slave mother, even if the father is an indentured servant, are the master’s property (Exodus 21:2–6). The father can leave after his indenture ends, but his children can’t. His only alternative is to promise to remain with the master for life.

“7. Slavery was not a permanent condition.”

True for indentured servitude; not true for chattel slavery.

“8. Indentured servitude was entered into and ended voluntarily.”

This is obviously not true for chattel slavery, but it’s also not true for indentured servitude, which lasted for six years (Ex. 21:2). Indentured servants who decide after a few months that the living or working conditions are too harsh are out of luck.

“9. Enslaved people had rights.”

As did chattel slaves in Alabama in 1833—see the law above.

“10. Enslaved people had access to an appeals process.”

Citation needed.

And let’s not get too excited about Israel’s graciousness if their slavery laws were no more enlightened than those of many other societies in the Ancient Near East. For example, Hammurabi’s Code compares well against the Old Testament.

Samples must understand the issue well enough to understand the problem, and that he takes no steps to clarify makes me fear that this deception is deliberate.

Returning to the point …

In this list of traits of indentured servitude, I count three items that are wrong, but this list isn’t the point. In Samples’ book from which this list came, Samples makes clear his point: “In truth, the indentured servitude of the Old Testament bears little resemblance to the modern conception of slavery” (p. 167). It was a useful exercise to respond to the list to highlight its flaws, but this plays to his agenda to get us talking about the wrong thing. Samples is misdirecting us, like a stage magician.

Sure, you can compare indentured servitude favorably to chattel slavery, but Israel had both! This is the elephant in the room that Samples doesn’t want to acknowledge.

What does it say about the god he worships that he must deceive us to defend that god? #NinthCommandment

See also: Yes, Biblical Slavery Was the Same as American Slavery

It’s often said that everyone
should respect the “great truths”
contained in all faiths.
If you see any, please let me know.
— James A. Haught