new trolley problem just dropped: save 1 billion people or ...

Since you said in another comment that the ten commandments would be a good starting point for moral absolutes, and that lying is sinful, I'm assuming you take your morals from God. I'd like to add that slavery seemed to be okay on Leviticus 25:44-46. Is the bible atrocious too, according to your own view?

Slavery in the time of Leviticus was not always the chattel slavery most people think of from the 18th century. For fellow Israelites, it was typically a form of indentured servitude, often willingly entered into to pay off a debt.

Just because something was reported to have happened in the Bible, doesn't always mean it condones it. I see you left off many of the newer passages about slavery that would refute your suggestion that the Bible condones it.

> Slavery in the time of Leviticus was not always the chattel slavery most people think of from the 18th century. For fellow Israelites, it was typically a form of indentured servitude, often willingly entered into to pay off a debt.

If you were an indentured slave and gave birth to children, those children were not indentured slaves, they were chattel slaves. Exodus 21:4:

> If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

The children remained the master's permanent property, and they could not participate in Jubilee. Also, three verses later:

> When a man sells his daughter as a slave...

The daughter had no say in this. By "fellow Israelites," you actually mean adult male Israelites in clean legal standing. If you were a woman, or accused of a crime, or the subject of Israelite war conquests, you're out of luck. Let me know if you would like to debate this in greater academic depth.

It's also debatable then as now whether anyone ever "willingly" became a slave to pay off their debts. Debtors' prisons don't have a great ethical record, historically speaking.

At least nowadays we have the upper moral hand because the debtors prison has become so large and comprehensive you think you’re not in it.

Cherry picking the bible isn't going to get you any closer to understanding. There are a lot of reasons God ordained society in a certain way. Keep reading and you'll discover that is a much more complex situation than you let on. Also don't let your modern ideals get in the way of understanding an ancient culture and a loving God.

The "keep reading" defense of Biblical slavery is self-defeating.

"Don't let your modern ideals get in the way of understanding an ancient culture and a loving God."

This is moral relativism. You're saying morality was different then. That's the position you're arguing against.

The Bible doesn't merely describe slavery -- it prescribes it:

  Leviticus 25:44-46: "Your male and female slaves are to come from 
  the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves... You can 
  bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make 
  them slaves for life."

If the Bible is your objective moral standard, then either:

  (a) Slavery is moral (defend this publicly)
  (b) You're bearing false witness about what the Bible says, 
      flagrantly breaking one of the ten commandments.

If you claim the New Testament supersedes Old Testament slavery rules, you've admitted morality changes over time. That's relativism. Case closed.

Re: "atheists don't understand the Bible" -- Pew Research (2010) tested this empirically. Results:

  Overall religious knowledge (32 questions):
  - Atheists/Agnostics: 20.9 correct
  - Jews: 20.5
  - Mormons: 20.3  
  - White Evangelicals: 17.6

Atheists scored #1 overall on religious knowledge, including Christianity-specific questions. The fastest path to atheism is reading the Bible cover to cover. Thank you for recommending it, you are putting more people on the path the atheism!

As an atheist who probably knows the bible even better than you do (and I can quote the parts about slavery and treating women like shit, and you're the one who misunderstands it, since you've just proven yourself by your own words to be an unwitting moral relativist), I vigorously endorse your recommendation that everyone should read the bible, since that's the best way to defeat it!

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religiou...

So it was a different kind of slavery. Still, God seemed okay with the idea that humans could be bought and sold, and said the fellow humans would then become your property. I can't see how that isn't the bible allowing slavery. And if the newer passages disallows it, does that mean God's moral changed over time?

You mean well in ignoring their argument, but please don't let people get away with whitewashing history! It was not a "different kind of slavery." See my comment. The chattel slavery incurred by the Israelites on foreign peoples was significant. Pointing out that standards of slavery toward other (male, noncriminal) Israelites were different than toward foreigners is the same rhetoric as pointing out that from 1600-1800, Britain may have engaged in chattel slavery across the African continent, but at least they only threw their fellow British citizens in debtors' prisons.

Good point. That wasn't my intention. I meant to steelman his argument, to show that even under those conditions, his argument makes absolute no sense.

You are still selecting one verse to interpret an entire culture. Misleading at best. And saying this is "white washing history" is silly. Continue reading the Bible and you'll see that it is the Christian Worldview that eventually ended slavery.

"Christianity eventually ended slavery"

Christians also defended slavery for 1800 years using these exact texts. The Southern Baptist Convention was founded in 1845 specifically to support slavery. Confederate VP Alexander Stephens called it "ordained of God."

Abolitionists existed despite these passages, not because of them. They had to argue against the plain text. If the Bible clearly opposed slavery, why did it take until the 19th century for Christians to notice?

The abolitionist argument was: "The spirit of Christianity opposes slavery even though the letter permits it." That's moral reasoning overriding scripture — which means scripture isn't the objective standard. You're proving my point.

God has changed since Genesis.

Why haven’t we all?

Because God doesn't exist.

If your Bible is your objective standard, then you have to admit it frames slavery as moral, or you're flagrantly and hypocritically and even by your own definition sinfully breaking one of the 10 commandments by bearing false witness.

Your Bible has passages about dashing infants against rocks (Psalm 137:9) and killing children for mocking a prophet (2 Kings 2:23-24). Is that better or worse than raping or enslaving them?

So do you also agree with Ye that slavery "sounds like a choice", and that Hitler is admirable?

Since your New Testament retro-conned all that inconvenient slavery condoning in your Old Testament, then you admit morality changes over time and is relative. Case closed.

Moral Disclaimer: I love babies! I just can't eat a whole one. ;)

Have you ever read any treatment of a subject, or any somewhat comprehensive text, or anything that at least tries to be, and not found anything you disagreed with, anything that was at least questionable.

Are you proposing we cancel the entire scientific endeavour because its practitioners are often wrong and not infrequently, and increasingly so, intentionally deceptive.

Should we burn libraries because they contain books you don’t like.

What I agree or disagree with the bible is irrelevant. He is claiming moral is objective, unchanging and comes from God. God allowed slavery at some point, as that bible passage shows. So his options are to admit that either slavery is moral, or morality is not objective/unchanging. That's the point I was trying to make.

You have two choices:

1) Do what you asked above about a one-year-old child 2) Kill a million people

Does this universal moral standard continue to say “don’t choose (1)”? One would still say “never” to number 1?

You have a choice.

1. Demonstrate to me that anyone has ever found themselves in one of these hypothetical rape a baby or kill a million people, or it’s variants, scenarios.

And that anyone who has found themselves in such a situation, went on to live their life and every day wake up and proudly proclaim “raping a baby was the right thing to do” or that killing a million was the correct choice. If you did one or the other and didn’t, at least momentarily, suffer any doubt, you’re arguably not human. Or have enough of a brain injury that you need special care.

Or

2. I kill everyone who has ever, and will ever, think they’re clever for proposing absurdly sterile and clear cut toy moral quandaries.

Maybe only true psychopaths.

And how to deal with them, individually and societally, especially when their actions don’t rise to the level of criminality that gets the attention of anyone who has the power to act and wants to, at least isn’t a toy theory.

It is exactly that: a hypothetical. The point is not whether anyone has ever faced this scenario, but whether OP’s assertion is conditional or absolute. Hypotheticals are tools for testing claims, not predictions about what will occur. People routinely make gray-area decisions, choosing between bad and worse outcomes. Discomfort, regret, or moral revulsion toward a choice is beside the point. Those reactions describe how humans feel about tragic decisions; they do not answer whether a moral rule admits exceptions. If the question is whether objective moral prohibitions exist, emotional responses are not how we measure that. Logical consistency is.

If the hypothetical is “sterile,” it should be trivial to engage with. But to avoid shock value, take something ordinary like lying. Suppose lying is objectively morally impermissible. Now imagine a case where telling the truth would foreseeably cause serious, disproportionate harm, and allowing that harm is also morally impermissible. There is no third option.

Under an objective moral framework, how is this evaluated? Is one choice less wrong, or are both simply immoral? If the answer is the latter, then the framework does not guide action in hard cases. Moral objectivity is silent where it matters the most. This is where it is helpful, if not convenient, to stress test claims with even the most absurd situations.

I do realize now I accidentally shifted the language from "universal" morals to "objective" morals. If a moral principle is claimed to be universal, it must, by definition, be applicable to all possible scenarios.

An objective moral isn't invalidated by an immoral choice still being the most correct choice in a set, but a universal moral is invalidated by only a single exception.

I suppose it's up to you if you were agreeing with the OP on the choice of "universal".

>absurdly sterile and clear cut toy moral quandaries.

I don't think it's that clear cut, if you polled the population I'm sure you'd find a significant number of people who would pick 1.