> 1. Slavery
>
> First, I want to emphasize that freedom is a very strong theme in the Bible (a) (b). It's frankly not true that the Bible condones slavery. When certain portions of the Bible describe slavery, it was more of a form of indentured servitude than the abomination we tend to think of.
I know that you can justify just about anything with the bible. Figuring out a justification for a given conclusion is not a reliable path to truth.
> For various reasons, people would put themselves into lifelong work contracts.
Which isn't moral either, and which doesn't change that the bible also condones slavery.
> The Mosaic Law has very progressive laws (at the time) for how masters were to treat their servants.
Yeah, god was very progressive for the time he lives outside of ... or whatever it is that you believe. Seriously, I have heard it all, and I have heard other people justify the opposite using the same book and just as broken logic.
> In fact, the Mosaic Law specifically condemns forced slavery, under the penalty of death (c).
>
> The Bible does encourage the forgiveness of debts (d), and in this context, masters releasing their indentured servants from their contracts was considered a part of this. The entire book of Philemon was basically about this.
See above.
> Anyway, the American abolitionist movement absolutely had Christian underpinnings, as did the British equivalent (read up on Wilberforce).
As did the supporters of slavery.
> At a minimum, there are many modern and historical black ministers, like Theodore S. Wright and Dr. King, that would disagree with the idea that Bible says slavery is OK. That sort of thing clearly violates both the golden rule and the idea of imago dei.
Yeah, just as supporters of slavery would agree very much, because .
> Finally, black-market slavery is still a concern, especially sexual slavery. I don't see much in the press about this sort of thing, but I haven't been to a church in the last ten years that didn't make fighting it a special focus in its ministry (e).
Yeah, and it's great when churches to good deeds. But that neither justifies any supernatural claims nor does it depend on holding beliefs without evidence. The same people could just forget about the god stuff and continue doing good deeds, and often better deeds, as evidenced by lots of non-religious charities.
> 2. Causing harm with the intention of doing good.
>
> I absolutely think Christians do this. When this happens, they need to listen and be humble enough to ask for forgiveness and change their ways. The greatest two commandments are to love God completely and to love others as we love ourselves (f). If we're not willing to stop harming and start helping people, we're breaking the second most important commandment directly and the first most important commandment through disobedience.
You avoided the question.
> You probably see people (in shallow understanding of scripture, IMO) justify themselves with Bible verses when people are hurt. This is not Biblical. In fact, the harshest things Jesus said were to religious hyprocrites (g). Jesus has been, and still is, extremely counter-cultural. And religion, in the Bible, is all about charity and doing the right thing (h).
Yes, I still know that you can justify just about anything using the bible. It's great if you justify good things using the bible. It's just risky to use the bible as a source of justification, given how many bad things people have justified using it without realizing how bad it was, so chances are it could happen to you as well.
> Anyway, I see many, many more Christians deciding to sacrifice their time, money, and energy to help people than I see harm. It's hard to put to fine a point on the hypothetical premise, though.
Yes, they decide to. But do they actually help, or do they just decide to help, and then end up causing harm?
And if they do actually help (and I agree, many certainly do), that's great, of course, but, see above, doesn't need the bible or belief without evidence.
> 3. ...if your religion keeps you from having real social contacts, I would urge you to change that, it's probably not good for you in the long run.
>
> Yes. I agree. The Bible is fundamentally about relationships, so a Christian faith with no relationships is incomplete at best.
>
> I actually have much better friendships and my relationships with my family are also better now that I take the teaching in the Bible seriously. With salvation and assurance of a meaningful future, I don't have to worry about myself (i) (j), so I can focus on others' needs, whether they're physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational.
Except this assurance is actually worthless, so it's risky if you stop worrying about yourself because of that worthless promise.
Nevertheless, great to hear you have great relationships with real people, those do actually provide a certain assurance of a meaningful future.
> I have never seen someone with worse relationships because of their obedience in the Bible. I have seen people oppressed, mocked, and attacked for their faith and insistence on doing what is right. That's what I was talking about. Sorry if that was not clear.
Well, you are aware that there are churches that isolate their members from outside society, right? And that they justify that using the bible (or whatever, possibly related, holy book they are using)? And not only small ones either.
> 4. ...unlike real people, god does not actually exist, and you cannot expect anything tangible from god if you need help.... Other people will largely honor your loyalty with their support for you, god won't.
>
> It shouldn't shock you that the Bible teaches the opposite.
Well, no, books teach lots of things. Doesn't mean it's true, though.
> And it probably won't impress you that I've found the opposite to be true. God has never let me down, but people let me down all the time. I don't hold that against them, though, since they're my brothers and sisters and they're not doing anything I haven't done before in some way. But God is always there. Often not in the way I want or expect, but God isn't a wingman or a genie that He's obligated to follow my mission and fulfill my wishes.
You do notice that you start with the conclusion that god exists and then go and find excuses for anything that with any other entity besides god you would count as evidence against their existence, right?
> I will say that you are very assured that God doesn't exist, and logically you shouldn't be. There is no way to prove that the God of the Bible does not exist. There is no scientific experiment you could whip up to use matter to prove the immaterial isn't there. I've wrestled with atheism or perhaps deism before, and I've found that it takes a lot of... well, faith... to assume a negative.
You are misunderstanding my position. " does not exist" is just a colloquial formulation people use for what epistomologically correctly would be expressed as "I don't believe exists because I have not seen any convincing evidence for its existence". When people say "santa clause doesn't exist", they usually don't mean that they have proved that santa clause doesn't exist either, after all. I don't affirm the negative, I simply withhold belief on your claim due to lack of evidence, just as with myriads of other baseless existence claims you could make and people have made, and withholding belief does not require faith.
Also, either "the immaterial" has some sort of predictable effects that we can observe, in which case that claim can be tested scientifically (not the immaterial cause, but the effect and the supposed rules according to which it happens), or it doesn't, in which case the existent immaterial is indistinguishable from the non-existent immaterial, and in particular you cannot make any claims about its supposed effects on us.
In any case, you don't get to shift your burden of proof onto me. You made the claim that some particular god exists, so you are responsible for providing the evidence, it's not my job to disprove any claim you throw at me and to believe it until I have done so.
If you want to understand the standpoint of a skeptical/scientific atheist and what you can expect people like myself to reply to your arguments, I guess I would recommend this playlist to you as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOkwq0YkXJA&list=PL8U_Qmq9oN...
In particular the videos about specific topics. He is a former christian-nearly-became-minister, so I guess he might be better at putting things into words that make sense from your frame of reference? If you just repeat the same arguments that "we" have heard and refuted thousands of times, chances are pretty low you'll make much of an impression, so understanding those might help you have more productive conversations.