There is at Least One Person on the Earth Who Believes that Parts of the Bible Are Despicable

In a PM pro told me that she's using the RSV Bible, so I'll do that too. She fails to give chapters (and sometimes the book! ) for the verses she cites - in future, it would be great if this could be briefly included. First, my opponent claims that she doesn't need to prove the Bible says what she thinks it does. Her reasoning is, to paraphrase, that she considers something despicable when she believes it is despicable, even if her belief is false. The problem is that if she despises what she believes the Bible is, and her belief about the Bible is false, then logically she's not really despising the Bible! She's only then despising her false perception of the Bible. She needs to prove that the subject of her despising is actually the Bible, not some text she just made up to suit her case. The second key way her analysis is flawed is that she believes I told her that she has "to prove that the men who wrote the Bible also found the actions despicable. " That's also not true - her job is simply to prove the Bible is despicable. We ASSUME, by her own rule, that the men who wrote the Bible found the actions just as despicable as we find them today. My caseHer claim is that the writers ignored universal morality when writing the Bible. Let us first presume that lying is moral. Then, why despise the Bible for lying about morality? It's absurd to criticise a book as immoral when the book is doing something you define as being moral. Let us secondly presume that lying is not moral. Then why does she insist that the writers were moral, yet lied in the Bible, when she condemns this action as immoral? Surely that doesn't add up! The people who wrote the Bible (and I note that my opponent has tacitly conceded that that Bible was most likely written by man) must, logically, have written down what they thought was moral. Here are some passages where the authors of the Bible explain that the entire Bible is true. Remember, we must assume that these people are not lying (or else there would be no moral problem with the Bible) and completely agree with pro on morality: 2 Tim. 3:16, John 10:35, 1 Tim. 4:6, 2 Corinthians 13:8. Furthermore, lying and deceit are explicitly condemned a number of times in the Bible. So there is no possibility that the writers of the Bible ignored universal morality, because they weren't lying. That means that they must have believed they were telling the truth. However, this would contradict the notion of a universal morality. The whole position my opponent advocates is therefore logically absurd and illogical. .. unless, of course, pro is lying. That's right. Almost everything pro said in the last round MUST have been a lie for her case to make any rational sense. In which case, of course, her case really makes no sense at all. Pro says I need to prove God exists for that logic to hold water, because "If God does not exist, then actions are not moral because he does not endorse them. " In other words, pro accepts that God is the one and only source of morality (for if there was another source, I would not have to prove this). Since she accepts some things are immoral, it follows that she accepts the opposite of those things as moral. Since there are moral things and she believes God is the source of all morality, pro must therefore logically believe God exists. Then she claims I must prove that there is only one God, as otherwise how would we know which moral system to follow? But my opponent made it a rule that I have to assume that there ARE NO ALTERNATIVE MORAL SYSTEMS! Sorry for shouting. In asking this question, my opponent breaks her own assumption. This is also true for the other things she says I first need to prove - they all presuppose the existence of genuine alternatives to pro's biblical morality, which of course, we must presuppose don't exist, leaving the questions in violation of the rules of logic and this debate. Basically, my point stands. Pro's case pt 1 : SlaveryFirst, let us examine what a slave is. When we think of slaves, we have a tendancy to think of negro labourers in a cotton plantation, singing chants and being whipped. 4,000 or thereabouts years ago, in Ancient Egypt, that's more or less how slaves were treated. When the Israelites escaped Egypt, they decided they would not treat slaves as they had been treated. There are reminders of this in the Bible at frequent intervals, including Deuteronomy 5:15, and in the New Testament they go even further - 1 Timothy even treats slave traders as murderers and lawbreakers. Brilliant scholar Peter Garnsey writes, in his book "Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine":"Slavery is the most degrading and exploitative institution invented by man. Yet many slaves in ancient societies. .. were more secure and economically better off than the mass of the free poor, whose employment was irregular, low-grade and badly paid. .. It was not unknown for free men to sell themselves into slavery to escape poverty and debt, or even to take up posts of responsibility in the domestic sphere. "I agree that being a slave sucked. However, for people who were dying on the street, with no money, lots of debt, and no reliable income, the Bible says it is better for them to be slaves. In the old testament, this is the ONLY justification given for slavery - and even there, it was qualified. Deuteronomy 15:14 instructs slave masters to give enough property to the slave to make them non-poor when they are freed. Deuteronomy 24:21 forces slave masters to give their slaves free wine; 5:13 forces them to give their slaves free rests. Hardly like those cotton plantations. Why? Because God forbade the exploitation of slaves, not the ownership of slaves. Pro's case is not against ownership per se - it's about how that might be abused to beat or murder slaves (the latter of which is actually forbidden by my opponent's own passage from Exodus). For beating, allow me to cite the Word Biblical Commentary (summarising several exodus passages):"In the case of bodily injury to slaves, whose status does not qualify them for equal compensation, the owner whose abuse results in the loss of an eye or a tooth is to free that slave, a remarkably humanitarian provision directed at cruelty and sadism in a slave-owner"Also, contrary to my opponent's assertion, forced slavery was punishable by death (Exodus 21:16). And about girls sold to slavery - such sales ALWAYS presupposed marriage, which would then free the girl (see the JPS Torah Commentary on Exodus 21). Today we'd call that an "arranged marriage," not slavery. Pro's case pt 2 : RapeMy opponent has cited two verses supporting rape. The first is easy: if you didn't cry out for help, you consented. No right-thinking lady would let somebody have sex with her whom she didn't want to have sex with, and say nothing. "Has relations" implies not just a one-night stand with a bound and gagged girl, but an ongoing affair - there is nothing to hint the woman was forced. That's not rape. Second, my opponent claims captive girls could be raped. This is a mistranslation. The RSV was that bible which was burned by Christian ministers for blasphemy and widely condemned (. http://en.wikipedia.org...). One change, which unfortunately found its way into a few other Bibles in that era, was in this very passage. The NSV, published later, corrected this mistake, and practically no bibles since have had the error. The NSV says "you may go to her and be her husband" not "you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband"Here's the cold, hard fact: Deuteronomy 22:25-27 states that rapists are to be killed. Same punishment as for murder. That concludes my case for this round.