Stupid Atheist Tricks

“Too many atheists, blinded by hate against a God they do not believe in, cannot see what is right before their noses.”

I’ve always wondered about this. My Dad (RIP) used to say “Hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is.” I suspect that they just hate the people that have happy, fulfilled lives that DO believe in God. Just green-eyed monsters.

And I like the fact that they have a picture of Jesus (the fulfilled covenant) speaking the teachings of the unfulfilled covenant of the OT. Very different theology. But they either don’t know that or they are willfully ignoring it.

“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him.” C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I think there are two kinds of “atheists”, those who don’t believe in God and those who don’t believe in a good God. Also, I think that atheists sense that if you can get a Christian to doubt God’s goodness, you can get him to doubt God. This line of attack wouldn’t work in a Muslim culture.

Were Daughters Really Sold into Slavery?
Exodus 21:7-11
The Rational Bible
Dennis Prager

21.7 When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not be freed as male slaves are.

As I will explain, parents could not sell their children into slavery. What is depicted here is not about slavery and certainly not about sexual slavery. It is about indentured servitude.
People understandably think of it as slavery, because the Hebrew word eved is almost always translated as “slave.” But this word also means “servant.”

Moses, for example, is called an “eved of God”; no one assumes he was a “slave” of God.

Furthermore, a girl could become a maidservant – not a slave – only if her family sold her. No one else could sell a girl into slavery.

Of course, any notion of parents selling their children is disturbing. But thousands of years ago, it was done everywhere including – albeit rarely in Israel in circumstances of abject poverty. As reported later in the Bible (Nehemiah S:5)” “Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others” (emphasis added).

In the twelfth century, Maimonides, in his Code of Jewish law, ruled: “A man may not sell his daughter (as a maidservant] unless he became impoverished to the extent that he owns nothing, neither land nor other property, not even the clothing he is wearing.” As Maimonides’ ruling makes clear, the Torah is therefore putting parameters around a tragic practice. But recognizing that it almost inevitably occurs under dire circumstances, as is clear from the next verse, the Torah assures the girl many protections.

For example, the girl was sold to a man with the expectation either he or his son would marry her. Of course, to most people today, it is unacceptable that a woman’s family (essentially meaning her father) would choose a daughter’s spouse. But that has been the case in all societies throughout history and in many societies to this day. Women – and men – began to freely choose whom they would marry only in the relatively recent past, and almost exclusively in parts of the Western world. Furthermore, having one’s family choose a woman’s husband in no way meant sexual slavery; if it did, virtually every married woman in history was a sexual slave.

21.8 If she proves to be displeasing to her master, who designated her for her be redeemed; himself, he must let he shall not have the right to sell her to outsiders, since he broke faith with her.

The Hebrew, translated here as “outsiders” literally means “a foreign nation.” That would imply the Torah may have originally allowed the maidservant to be sold to another Israelite-as opposed to a non-Israelite, in which case she would likely be used, abused, and resold. However, from very early times, it was understood as a prohibition to sell her to anyone, including another Israelite.

If neither the master nor his son marries the young woman, the master is regarded as having acted deceitfully, a sin greatly magnified if he then sells her off to someone else, which is expressly forbidden here. Thus, if the master decides he does not wish her as a wife for himself or his son, since he is not allowed to sell her, he must let her be redeemed by her relatives.

21.9 And if he designated her for his son, he shall deal with her as is the practice with free maidens.

The maidservant is guaranteed protection as a wife of either the father or the son. The very fact she is to be treated as if she were a “free maiden” is yet another reason to believe the Torah is not referring to slavery when speaking about a family selling its daughter.

21.10 If he marries another, he must not withhold from this one her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.

If the master marries another woman in addition to his maidservant, the maid servant wife is not to be neglected in favor of the new wife. She retains the rights and privileges of a wife.

What is remarkable here is the concept of “conjugal rights.” Sarna points out that of all the ancient Near Eastern law codes, the Torah was unique in asserting a woman is legally entitled to sexual gratification. And what slave has ever had conjugal or any other rights?

A sold daughter is not only not to be a sex slave, she is not to be a chattel slave either: she is not owned property. Therefore, it is not accurate to call a daughter who is sold by her parents a “slave.” She is sold to a man who will eventually marry her; and if he doesn’t want to marry her, his son can. If neither does, she goes free (see next verse). That is not slavery.

21.11 If he fails her in these three ways, she shall go free, without payment.

The Torah restates that many obligations are owed to this daughter who was sold. The Torah delineates protection after protection of the girl involved. She has human rights; she has the dignity of marriage; she cannot be sold; she is to be redeemed by her family, if she is not to be a wife; and she even has conjugal rights.

LQC – I hopped on over there to see what the fuss was about. It’s misleading he calls himself an atheist. He is more like a hate-filled agnostic. He knows God exist is, he just hates God. A depressing individual filled with hate. To put ALL that energy and effort into mocking something that according to him “doesn’t exist” has eluded him.

And to add, he mostly targets Christianity and Christ. He stays away from memes about Muhammad. Coward. If you want to be a bigot towards religion – at least have the integrity to treat all the religions with equal contempt. I call BS he believes anything he posts about. He knows exactly who he can insult and get away with it. Messed up. I dread to think who has the misfortune to interact with him on a day to day basis.

One of Satan’s useful idiots. As Abp. Fulton Sheen observed, if there really were no God, there would be no atheists. No one with a functioning brain spends time attacking someone they really believe doesn’t exist. They are mostly envious of those who do believe and/or trying to justify their own rejection of all those pesky Commandments.