dinkum wrote:That's better than I did. I read the first article and slapped myself with a haddock. Okay, a piece of haddock. But it's gonna end up as fish tacos a little later, so it all works out.

Daron wrote:What did I already say on that?
What's 'real' slavery?
What's wrong with giving a person food and lodging in exchange for their labour?

Daron wrote:When Josh claimed that of the Israelite wars were :"Those wars were often unjust aggression."

I asked him to name.

He then said:

Many of the early Israelite wars were over territory and religious differences. Even if thier god [known as God] existed he "gave" them land that was already occupied. Land and a good life for many people was taken away. The were children robbed of freedom and thier parents and some slaughtered out right. (if we believe the biblical account) Might does not make right. When I say barbaric it's because of these things.

This does not make them unjust. Since God does exist, owns the land, and was purging it of the practitioners of idolatry, human-sacrifice, ritual prostitution, bestiality, etc., His decree was just. He defines morality, upon which justice depends (see previous discussions and Bennett's excellent comments above) and, therefore, His actions are just.

Josh allows that the car thief is a criminal deserving of his punishment. How much more the Canaanites who knowingly went after other gods, broke the law of God, and who were given several centuries in which their evil came to full bloom?

Likewise, God was just when He fulfilled prophecy and punished Israel in the land and then had it vomit them out.

Daron wrote:

Right, but I don't see the Hebrew culture as an improvement.

They were not an incredible improvement because they were sinful people who disobeyed God and let themselves maintain the idolatry of Egypt and absorb that of Canaan.

Certainly not something that would be put into power by a perfect holy god. Their laws allowed for slavery,

Defined by a God Who admonished them to love their neighbor as themselves and to take care of the poor.

the culture viewed women and outsiders as property

Actually ,not. it bestowed upon women and outsiders the rights and protections of other human citizens. Women could not be discarded as in other cultures, outsiders were allowed into the family, the courts, and the religious observances.

and children could be stoned for being disobedient.

This is a flimsy presentation and reading of this legislation. Not something one would expect of a student of the Bible. This "child" for instance, is a profligate and a drunkard. In fact, as evidence of the advancement of this culture, this ruling demonstrated that the family had to bring the son to the courts and prove their case before them. Unlike in other cultures, the father was not allowed to decide himself whether or not to kill the members of his family.

Not to mention it was okay to commit genocide of a people group for the sins of a few.

Genocide was not committed and God made the case many times that for one or a few righteous people He would not judge cities and nations. There were none righteous.

And God, as we discussed before, has the right of life and death over everybody. Everyone is going to die (timing of Christ's return taken into consideration, of course) and from the eternal perspective it is up to God whether this happens in battle, in a car accident, by disease, or by any other means.