Dinesh was completely outclassed in this debate. Prepackaged speech not addressing the question and couldn't adequately answer any objections. Couldn't even shake hands afterwards. Went exactly how I thought it would
@Sui_Generis0 I noticed how O’Connor would address D’Souza when he’d speak, but D’Souza would always turn toward the audience. One was there to be a showman; the other was there to earnestly debate.
I didn't hear him say the slave owners were also CHRISTIANS. He goes on to say I don't know how anybody could imagine that slavery would be OK. Because specifically says so in the Bible tells you how to keep them.. exodus 21 20 You can beat your slave to death as long as he doesn't die within the 1st day or 2... I love Christian morals. Next well here how Christians championed GAY MARRIAGE AND EQUALITY. CHRISTIANS ARE GREAT....
My critique is that Christians used the Bible to support slavery too. It’s not enough to say “Christians led the Abolitionist movement” if other Christians fought abolition. If there are Christians leading and supporting both slavery and antislavery, then it still leaves the question “where did equality of people come from?” A legitimate answer could still be it evolved from a selective reading of the Bible, one that ignores numerous clear and explicit denouncements of that principle.
My guess is it might be this: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew:7:12
Well said, the bible can make thing pretty plain when it wants too, let's just say, eating pork. It is forbidden in the text of the OT to eat pork, so the people who follow that don't, nice and easy. Now even if at the time everyone around them was eating pork, they were still not allowed, just like if it had been anti slavery it would be clear, and even if others around them were holding slaves they would not have.
And the answer to the new question is....drumroll....Christianity. The end of slavery stemmed from the principle of equality of people which stemmed from the Christian dogma that man has inherent sacred value from the Creation story. Philemon makes this as plain as day. The process of the end of slavery makes it undeniable.
@harlowcj and it's such an important tenant in Christianity that once they got into power they abolished slavery in their lands in: A: immediately, the bible states in the commandment given to Moses that as they were enslaved in Egptt, no one should be enslaved again. B: after they had rearrange thing so it took them 100 years. C: after they had been in power for over 1,500 years, as you know, their holy book is so against it that it takes them that long to work out it said so.
It would be good so this apologist could stop getting way with sham arguments. The last I heard was the hyperbole war rhetoric argument, which coincidentally enough O’Connor briefly addresses in his opening in this very debate. This apologist doesn’t include that but or respond to it. Wouldn’t you know. Instead he does the ai segment where he says the civilians “departed”. To where? If an entire city was not fortified in ancient times the civilians would flee to the fortified sections of the city. If there’s an established case of them fleeing completely from the city, I’d very much like to see this.
@@rg8597 are you one of those "complain box" people?...he literally said he wouldn't be able to address all the objections but would that he considers to be important.
@@temsumongbajamir1582 wouldn’t be able how? He’s incapable or is unable? Seems to me he is able to upload a video of any length. He cherry picked where and what’s comfortable to respond to and missed the points that directly challenge his position (under the guise of delegating what’s important). Did you even watch the initial video? That’s generally a good way to start instead of with the ‘response’ video.
@@temsumongbajamir1582I think their objection goes to the fact that Alex specifically preempted this response in the debate, which this creator chose not to include for… some reason. I think anyone should consider a direct addressing of the very argument they make to be relevant enough to include in the video.
@jax9466 actually, you have to read the bible incorrectly so say that god doesn't like genocide. Christians are masters at misinterpreting the bible and forget about context. They pick and choose words and short verses that in isolation might sound nice.
It’s so disappointing to have Christian “representatives” that absolutely have not deeply thought through their own beliefs and the arguments of the opposing side - makes ALL of us look foolish when a guy like Dinesh takes up these debates.
Dinesh is a Political commentator... that's his expertise, not Christian apologetics. But he seemed to do really well against Christopher Hitchens, although Hitchens wasn't educated in Christianity or philosophy either...
Christianity is a very wide spectrum. Dinesh represents a very prominent segment of Christianity. You can disagree with him but he is a well thought out christian apologist. I personally think he is awful
@@BrianWright-mi3lc Alex already did talk to WLC and got him to admit that under the chrstian worldview gen0cide isn't wrong, so Alex already destroyed him
@@ErnestStewart Even if you could prove the existence of the Christian God I couldn't bring myself to worship this God given that he thinks slavery is ok.
@@charvakaelysium2414 I think that is because of our modern understanding of slavery and ignorance of the practice in the Bible the the lack of understanding of the differences. Exodus 21:16 “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death. Deuteronomy 24:7 “If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. These alone put many of what we understand to be slavery (especially in the west) to rest. That aside there are a whole host of things that are different. Your ability to voluntarily sign up to become one, 7 year minimums, ability to marry into the family, etc. This view of slavery is by far different than what we think when we think of the word "slavery." If you're going to reject on anything it would be best to have a full understanding of said reason.
This is the theist dishonesty: when someone points out that the Bible endorses slavery, they start talking about kidnapping and treating others well. It's shocking what religion does to people's minds.
This is what the text says: _"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them _*_you may buy slaves._*_ You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and _*_they will become your property._*_ You can bequeath them to your children as _*_inherited property_*_ and _*_can make them slaves for life,_*_ but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."_ - Leviticus 25:44-46 It blows my mind how atheists dare to insinuate from verses like that that the Bible endorses slavery, clearly there is a context there. Don't they realize that if Yahweh did not exist they would not be able to distinguish between right and wrong? Or this one: _"Anyone who _*_beats their male or female slave_*_ with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, _*_but they are not to be punished_*_ if the slave recovers after a day or two, _*_since the slave is their property."_* - Exodus 21:20-21 They must really hate Yahweh, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be willing to do such mental gymnastics pretending that the Bible endorses slavery.
I absolutely LOVE Alex O'Connor and would love to see you two have a conversation. Alex is a phenomenal dialogue partner in the conversations I've heard him have with others.
no it wouldnt. He would shove in your face the same arguments he does here. I am so tired of the same old arg. !!! Christians can never be original because of the bible. And the bible just hinders their evolution. But if they go beyond the bible...they are no longer Christians..
By your reasoning, it means no genocide has ever happened because no people have been completely wiped out? No genocide in Rwanda, because the Tutsis still exist.
I think the absense of a response is, in itself, quite telling. I thought he was hoping to help people deal with these hard questions. I think they don't need help: neither the questions nor the answers are hard. They're only hard to swallow if you also want to believe the (traditional) Christian story.
@@aghudumokowa241 Fallacy, meaning faulty reasoning, is correctly used because in the six arguments, he explained why it was not a genocide but war. It was discriminate action -- not indiscriminate like genocide. Genocide has to be indiscriminate because the goal is to maximize the wiping out of a people.
@@Shawn-nq7du Do you think the Hutus called what they did to the Tutsis genocide or war? There's a passage in the Bible where God clearly tells the Israelites to wipe out everything on the land of their enemies - combatants, non-combatants, animals. If you want to define it as war and not genocide, feel free, but the idea is what's the problem, not definitions.
If the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, or if it does not meaningfully or significantly transcend the various surrounding cultures, or if it’s various extraordinary claims do not have corresponding sufficient confirmatory evidence, or if what can be observed has pushed back on historically accepted interpretations and plain readings of the text, or if there has been no evidence of divine intervention to correct “incorrect” and falsified interpretations, it should be held in no higher esteem than any other ancient text.
“Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct-as irrational animals do-will destroy them.” Jude 1:10
@@pillarsofpurpose the absolute bottom of the barrel believer is the one that pulls quotes deep from within their sphincter when they cant use their own fucking brain lmao
@@pillarsofpurpose - Why hold humans in esteem indeed? If what we read in the bible does not rise above either today’s standards or the standards of literature of the time in which it was written, why should we esteem it as anything more than human writings?
Dare I say Alex has a better grasp of the Bible than Dinesh? Dinesh needs to up his game, especially in face of the text saying that Josh & Co went back to Ai and blew it out. Alex is spot-on to say that the remnants in the city were **not** militant people. (If you're rusty on the story, Josh & Co set up an ambush and lured all the military out of Ai and killed them out in the fields. Those remaining in the city were non-combatants) So I really don't think Copan's argument (and Gavin's) passes the smell test here: [+] When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. (Joshua 8:24-26) I can maybe see "Let's go to Jericho and blow them all out, men, women and children!" as being some kind of ANE wartime hyperbolic battlecry. But Joshua 8:26 is written as historical description. Challenge for Bible teachers: if the **intent** is not to kill women, why mention them as having **been** (past tense) killed? I think Alex is right to point it out, and Dinesh dropped the ball. - - - - Let's recap God's MO when it comes to judgment: - God personally promises death for men and women who eat one little piece of fruit (Gen 2-3) - God personally destroys 'the world' with water, including women, and children (Gen 7-9) - God personally destroys S&G with fire, including women, and children (Gen 19) - God personally destroys thousands with an angel of death, including women, and firstborn sons (Exod 4-12) - God personally destroys Korah and 250 of his buddies with earthquake, including women and children (Num 16) ...but we recoil in horror when God kills Canaanites with the sword of Joshua, including women and children? I don't think we're taking our Bibles seriously. (while we're at it, check out Luke 13:1-5, where Jesus gives us a piece of His mind)
Obviously. When you watch the debate (assuming they actually upload the video and dinesh doesn't pressure them to not do that), Alex quotes the bible multiple times and Dinesh has no idea what he's talking about.
I do not found this convincing. I do not care if not all where killed, but text clearly says women, children and animals. So in this case Gavin says language of complete destruction should not be interpreted as it says in the text; but on the other hand when texts are talking about eternal destruction of goats/unbelivers then it is ok? This looks like cherry picking to me.
The Bible is a compilation of various texts: stories, historical records, letters, poems, songs, etc. They were also written by different writers, during different points in history, with different intended audiences. Additionally, we read these texts through the eyes of our own culture and experience which can skew the meaning of the words. All of these things are important to consider when you're reading the Bible. We wouldn't consider this cherry picking if we were reading a history book, Shakespeare, or the lyrics to a song. If you read these things and don't consider their context and who wrote them you'll quickly find those things also losing their meaning/message.
@@lukeverble5999 Unfortunately, for many Christians and apologists, the use of the term "cherry picking' is a strategy of avoidance. If the Bible is considered to be the word of God, then we should be able to examine any specific part of it and judge it as to its historicity and morale value and what that implies as far as God is concerned. Dinesh utterly failed and Gavin, while not denying them, does all he can to downplay the horrors of these particular verses.
@@lukeverble5999 Please give the context where it would be morally justifiable in your eyes for God to instruct them to kill the children. Also of course we don't consider it cherry picking in history books or Shakespeare because those are instructing you on how to live your life. They're of much less significance...
The ever increasing amount of mental gymnastics you guys have to submit yourselves to, in order to keep the house of cards that is the bible standing, is absolutely hilarious.
Actually not that hard. Scripture is not inerrant, it's a product of human beings giving their understanding at the time of what God was about. As we move to the New Testament there is a much better understanding of God due to the divine presence of Jesus. His teachings supersede the Okd Testament whenever they don't agree.
@@danhochberg9845 it's a product of human beings alright. And indeed, the ethics and morality evolved from the old to the new testament reflecting the evolution of human moral sense. Certainly not the other way around. I was raised a Catholic and it took me my whole life to undo the brainwashing. I wish everyone could step out of their own narrative for a minute and just take a look at how disingenuous and silly this kind of view of divinity is.
@@danhochberg9845 Jesus believed in the flat domed earth model, and in the fictional global flood. He was an ignrnt carpenter turned apocalypse preacher.
As an atheist, I do appreciate your attempt to defend the text, and even though I don't find your arguments thoroughly solving these contentious issues and modern morality could find more compelling arguments, I'd like to see you in a formal debate, as I think you'd present much more sound counter-arguments and actually have a productive discussion, because to be fair, Dinesh and Alex was pretty one sided, all I heard from Dinesh is dancing around the question or finding clownish answers that made me cringe.
I love Dinesh as a brother in Christ but Dinesh is a terrible representative of Christianity. His apologetic style is always very lacking and his staunch pro war position is contrary to the love of Christ
What do you mean "staunch pro war position"? Coz war is the domain of good governments and the government doesn't bear the sword in vain....and our Lord is not a pacifist. What exactly is your criticism to his view with regards to war.
@@angru_arches He took up a relationship with a woman while still married to his wife (but he denies sexual relations), then divorced his wife and married this new woman.
@@angru_arches his pro interventionism and imperialism. The founding fathers (especially the devout Christians like Dickinson, Henry, Sherman, Witherspoon and Washington) were pretty clear in warning us against Empire and how it would compromise our values at home. As Howard Buffet once put it, “Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns. Persuasion and example are the methods taught by the Carpenter of Nazareth, and if we believe in Christianity we should try to advance our ideals by his methods. We cannot practice might and force abroad and retain freedom at home. We cannot talk world cooperation and practice power politics.”
I think you and Alex would be a good discussion, because I think you both put priority on intellectual honesty. With respect to your argument that encouraging slaves to revolt would result in undesirable outcomes (like violence and perhaps suffering from economic disruption), I think the harder question is why the owners of slaves aren't instructed to free them.
Well slave trading is not permissible (1 tim 1:10) but the concept of slavery is outlawed with passages like Love your neighbour and the fact that we are made in image of by God. Also Paul asks Philemon to take onesimis back as more than a slave. However, we must accept that slavery was a part of the political and economic reality. Telling a master to free slaves would not have made sense to them because they did not understand as well as we do now the concept of love. Love is a positive law which is why it can always be better. We can always love our neighbour better and I’m sure there are many things that are politically and socially acceptable now that in many years time we look back at and think, “why did God not give a specific commandment against that”?
I think you will find your seat on fire in a debate with Alex on this topic. No sane person can absolutely justify those horrors. That shows how terrible it is. All you can say is "fuck it, god does whatever he wants" and that will be more understandable.
I swear thats what most christian apologists want to say. "god is perfect and what he does is perfect and if you dont like it then you dont understand god" except they wrap that sentiment up in the language of debate.
Lots of christians out there are willing to sacrifice their own humanity and empathy to justify the bloody horrors of their favorite fictional character. And honestly that makes me be scared of them. I hope to never in my life encounter one of those hidden monsters
Edit: Alex O'Connor did a really great probing interview w/ Jordan Peterson. He seemed to ask the best questions to Jordan about his belief in God and got clearer answers than most get. I had no idea that person was an atheist, because he didn't appear as such, at least in the clip I saw titled: "Did Jesus *Actually* Exit His Tomb? - Jordan Peterson". I'll have to watch the full interview.
@@charlesmaunder I've found Peterson to be remarkably consistent. If someone does show a bit of flexibility, and is willing to be proved wrong, then that's not a terrible thing either. Can you think of anything he's changed his mind on? It wouldn't be the end of the world if he did, but I can't think of anything.
As an agnostic, i think for whole my life, YOU are the only one that i find on the Christian camp that can debate issues with rationale and evidences. I can sit down and listen to your arguments because it is not just "you need to have faith way of debate" or aggresive bulldoze way. But you are different. A new breath. Will look forward more of your videos discussion.
While I'm an athiest and disagree with the Bible. I must say that i enjoyed watching your video. It was refreshing hearing an apologist who is genuin and truly trying to understand the athiestic objections. Your persona is calm, well received, and comforting. Normally, I roll my eyes hearing apologists misrepresenting or doing backflips. But i didn't feel like you did that once in this video. Thank you
I mean he is straight up lying in portions of this video. The passages in the Old Testament explicitly command the slaughtering of all non-combatants -- not simply a total military victory. He is lying and jumping through hoops trying to avoid this fact.
A simple question. Why couldn't God just spell it out in plain language and not have people like you and D'Souza go through hoops to try to justify the horrible despot of the God of the Bible.
Why wasn't "Thous shalt not have another person as your slave" in the Ten Commandments? Certainly, it's even more abhorrent as "Thou shalt not steal/bear false witness." The answer is that the commandments came from men, not God, and the men of the time felt that having slaves was a good thing.
WTF. Gavin- "How could you possibly think you could own someone (if you acknowledge that we are made in the image of God)??? Ummmm....maybe because GOD HIMSELF SAID YOU COULD IN LEV. 25:44-46!!!!
Your excuses for genocide are no better than those in the videos. You just biting the bullet only shows your worldview is wrong. Too often a retort is thought to be sufficient for simply being given.
It seems to me that the difficulty in addressing these issues is more rhetorical than anything else. Words like "genocide" have such emotional impact, and our brains love simple black-and-white thoughts, that they can poison the well of a discussion. A response relying on historical considerations and outside research (which people may not be familiar with) can appear more like rationalizing than answering, especially if the person is already inclined not to believe. This is why I'm not a huge fan of "debates," as they are much more about "being good a debating" than "having a rational and productive discussion that fairly and completely presents both sides of an issue." Also, and no shade to the man (as I don't know him), but I'm not sure D'Souza is exactly an S-tier apologist or scholar. I've always thought of him more like a political pundit?
@@georgwilliamfriedrichhegel5744 genocide should absolutely carry an emotional impact, and any other way of describing it, whatever euphemisms used to soften it, shouldn’t minimize that
So just to put all the cards on the table up front: I left Christianity about 5 years ago now and I'm not entirely sure why this video came up in my feed, but I'm impressed by your tone. The more bombastic the apologist the more intense is my gag reflex, so I appreciate your style. I work in a factory so I'm not imagining that my questions are groundbreaking, but I do want to ask them on the off chance that there are good answers to be had. 1. I appreciate that ancient people didn't have standards or practices like modern people do for history, but it seems wierd to abandon our modern standards. It seems like the standards for writing history shifted for some justifiable set of reasons and the style we see in the Bible is not what we are familiar with today because it didn't meet the community's or society's needs. When I think about contemporary examples of history that are like what you describe as the ancient norm, I think of things that are or skew in the direction of what we today call propaganda. Timelines and exact details are massaged to make the author's point and convince the reader to interpret their world in particular way. There are things we can learn from propaganda about history, what seems to have simply taken place, but obviously we ought to treat it differently than something that aspires to just give you a simple blow by blow of events. So my question would be something like, why isn't the clear intent of the New Testament authers to convince the reader that Jesus fulfilled prophesy and so forth something that should make us more cautious about their claims? I feel like I should be treating them more like Michael Moore than Ken Burns. 2. I'm in no position to litigate what ancient war language meant or how people would have taken it. It does seem implausible to me that the ancient world was less vicious in war than the modern one. I was talking with a friend the other day who read a book about the rape of nanking, for example. I'm not gonna be very open to the idea that the ancient Israelites were carefully selecting military targets and leaving everyone else alone. But my question is why does God choose to judge evil in this way? You didn't really argue with the notion that God chose Israel and was at least role playing the tribal war God to exact violent judgement on the inhabitants of the land. There are all sorts of ways to turn people from their behavior and God demonstrates all kinds of strategies for doing this throughout the Bible. He also demonstrates that He will set up ugly situations to display something. The hardening of pharoah, or the man born blind, etc. I don't know that there's a final answer to this question, but to me it looks like unnecessary and often hideous spectacle. 3. The slavery one is the simplest for me. Why not offer even a phrophetic image of a society without slavery? Even Paul who talks about breaking down all sorts of social barriers frames even our relation to God with the image of slavery. "Who will you serve?" Again, I don't know that there could be an answer, but it feels like a terrifying ommission considering that there are actual descriptions of divinely sanctioned slavery in the text. That people found resources within the Christian tradition to attack slavery doesn't necessarily mean the Bible condemns the institution. It could be that being enslaved sucks and people born into a Christian world had to figure out how to speak in terms the culture would accept. Anywho, for what it's worth, good on ya, and thanks for reading this far.
This was a bad debate for Dinesh. Alex did appear as being well prepared, while Dinesh's arguments, though some were not all bad, others were not well developed or thought through. Dinesh was nearly all on defense in the debate, which doesn't look good. In other debates and forums Dinesh fares better; this one was just sloppy
@@temsumongbajamir1582 I used to watch him a lot for political content. I may have seen him do a debate, but can't remember for sure. I think he'd be a great debater, but this isn't his wheelhouse. I saw a clip of Alex w/ Jordan Peterson, probing into whether Christ rose from the dead. It wasn't a debate, and it didn't even seem Alex was taking an atheist position. He did get some very good direct answers out of Peterson, simply w/ probing. It didn't even appear as pushback or argument, just questions in the clip (from a long interview w/ Peterson).
@@temsumongbajamir1582 Dinesh doesn't do better in political debates. It's just there isn't philosophy in political debates, it's a team sport. Dinesh just gets a home team crowd and dunks on liberals. He couldn't win a debate on religion against a trained philosopher.
@@temsumongbajamir1582 DInesh is just like Ben Shapiro, he surfes on the hate of leftists and college liberals and only scratches the surface of an actual reasonning. When confronted to real intellectual like O'Connor, they just crumble.
Hey Gavin, Appreciate your work here and thoroughly enjoy it and am edified as well. On the issue of slavery I just finished up Noll's "The Civil War as Theological Crisis." I'd recommend the read to look at the American/European Protestant responses to slavery (and Catholic responses too) at the time of the civil war! Perhaps there may be something helpful in there along this theme of topic and videos. Particularly, I wonder if Noll would challenge your claim in this video that it was predominately Christians that championed abolitionism, although, they did certainly play a significant role. My knowledge is limited in this respect as I learn from you, but I'll let Noll speak for himself on this. Anyway thank you for your work and irenicism, brother!
Gavin, I think you need to press in to what you said around 18:15. There is a brutal power the Israelites were opposing, which was the marriage of the dark powers (rebellious elohim) and the nations. It is not just a matter of the Canaanites and others as some kind of 'ANE Nazis' - the spiritual dimension of it all needs to be acknowledged. I don't think every apologist needs to agree with Heiser (may he rest in peace) on every nuance of his Deuteronomy 32 worldview, but there is a spiritual war going on in these passages alongside the physical one. That's why the giant clans, rephaim, apkallu and other associated concepts are important to the narrative (all of which involve at some level demonic-human intermarriage), just as much as general critiques of idolatry and pagan religion, but apologists often ignore them. This actually dovetails very well with Jesus's defeat of the powers and His role as the Bridegroom. It may well be that warfare (of a certain kind - related to geography and cultural/religious identity - NOT DNA or ethnicity) was permitted once the nations were fully under the control of the powers, but after that grip has been loosed by the victory of the cross, the whole Earth belongs to Christians in and through the Messiah, who are victorious through self-offering - the shedding of their own blood. Law and order is the role of the governments, and invasions may be resisted, but there is no further need for any kind of military conquest by God's people.
It was actually hard for me to believe Dinesh wasn’t intentionally giving ridiculously bad answers. It was like a toddler playing basketball against Michael Jordan.
The problem with your argument of 'complete destruction' doesn't mean genocide is that the Biblical God regrets and is enraged when Saul let some amalakites go. Your arguments can easily be refuted - God did mean genocide, but the people were unable to accomplish it.
I did a decade ago, fully willing to lead a pauper's I've been blessed since. Much like Job. Don't misunderstand, I'm a Christian, not a Biblican. I believe in following the red letters in the redletter version (aka the Jefferson Bible). The OT view the nature of God is through a glass Very darkly. They didn't understand much, when it comes down to it.
@@jackburn275 Ok; so you believe what you want, ignoring Paul, Peter and other men through which God performerd unbelievable miracles. Good luck with that worldview!
I’m a Christian and a fan of both Dinesh and Alex. I watched the full debate last night and I was extremely disappointed in Dinesh. I was embarrassed for him. He wasn’t prepared at all and deflected by way of delegating to different sources. Heck I had better answers than his. I think Alex showed up prepared and organised. He did much better. I wish Alex would come to faith.
That emphasis on literary genre is so important, and often so neglected. As I've engaged more with the critical perspectives and challenges to Christianity it's become larger and larger in my mind as a hermeneutical lens. Well crafted and thoughtful video as always, Gavin.
@@BrianWright-mi3lc That's cool for you, but it is obscured for many people, myself included. For me, it doesn't seem like the best idea to create the guide to salvation for all humans within a specific cultural context at a specific time. Seems like a bad idea, no?
@@WaterCat5 The obfuscation isn't in the message, it is in our own hearts. Rom 1:18-25, Jeremiah 17:9. The message of salvation is simple: We are not robots and God is no tyrant, we were given a choice to trust God or to do things our own way (sin) and we chose sin. When someone disobeys, there are consequences. We are all guilty in this before God. But God loved us in that while we were still guilty, He sent His only son Jesus, the guiltless one, to die in our place that in Him we may be reconciled to God and live with him forever. He gave many proofs in the form of miracles and fulfilled prophecy, culminating in the greatest miracle of all: the resurrection. He was witnessed by hundreds of his followers who were entrusted with the mission of spreading this good news to all the world. We have a historical event to point to in the resurrection of Christ. This is our hope and God's promise. These things took place at their proper moment in history, according to the will of God. What would you suggest as a better plan? That we not be made in the first place? That we be robots unable of making a choice on our own? I understand that people struggle with this. Continue to earnestly seek the truth, whatever it may be.
@@WaterCat5 Not sure what happened to my other comment but the obfuscation is in the heart, not the message: Romans 1:18-25, Jeremiah 17:9 I understand you do not think God's plan was a good one. What should it have been?
There's no doubt that this RUclips Playlist will serve as a reference guide to future debates both online and in homes. Thanks for building this precious resource for us and posterity. God bless your work.
First, let me state (because this is the internet after all) I would love for you to guest on Alex podcast. Not having a dog in this fight (being atheist, but incredibly interested in these types of discussions) I've always enjoy conversations, rather than formal debates.
I had a bad feeling when I saw the debate notification (still haven't watched the debate). I like D'Souza as a political commentator only. _Gavin please arrange a conversation with Alex_
What do you hope to gain from it? It's the same old arguments for and against Christanity. Do you think Ortlund is going to make some amazing revelation that's going to prove that Biblical Christianity is true.
How can you find d'Souza a likable optical commentator? His 2000 Mules was found to be so full of lies that he was forced to remove it from distribution as part of a law suit that he lost badly. The man is a dishonest con-man, as should have been apparent from this debate.
The problem I see with your counter-arguments is that you're implicitly rejecting biblical inerrancy and negotiating in context that most Christians either are unaware of or would disagree with, and which is completely absent from the text. Just cos total erasure of a people didn't happen doesn't mean it wasn't genocide and just cos it might not have happened like it says doesn't change the fact that the bible says God commanded it.
Alex O'Connor continues to argue that murdering innocent children is wrong. I would like someone to ask him if he supports abortion before accepting his thoughts on the morality of killing children.
I believe he said he doesn't have a strong stance on this one but that he feels it's maybe one of his blind spots or things he could be wrong about for not carimg or understanding fully.
@@GospodinStanoje Sounds like a cop out for "either way I answer my position is criticized" and he wants to hold a good image. He says he supports it, his atheistic worldview is easily challenged and mocked, he's against it and his atheist supporters turn on him for not holding what they believe is the correct opinion. A man as educated as him without a doubt holds an opinion on it, especially considering its prevalence within modern society and consistently brought up with religion. Massive dodge.
Murder is a legal term. It's defined as the *unlawful* premeditated killing of one human being by another. You may have objections to the morality of abortion and even assert that it's objectively wrong no matter what, but you can't simply equate abortion with murder. Moreover, your religion teaches that no one, including children, is actually innocent. Would you be okay with murdering children if they're not innocent...? If you're genuinely troubled by the morality of killing children, I don't understand how you can worship the God of the Bible. If it's not wrong when God does it because he can do whatever he pleases because he's a God, then you're not using your God as your moral standard.
I appreciate Alex O'Connor and have a lot of respect for him, but when I saw the title of the video, I preemptively cringed. I really wish D'Souza was not out there as a public representative of Christianity.
Interestingly enough, Alex references Ephesians 6:5, even though he admits he doesn't know the citation. If he read through to verse 9, he would see that Paul tells Masters to treat your slaves the same way. Wait, what? Is Paul telling masters to serve their slaves as if they were serving God? Hmm, why is that exactly? Oh, well fortunately Paul clarifies that the reason for this is the fact that God is in fact the master of them both! And furthermore, that God shows no favoritism, essentially saying that they are equal. That's pretty radical if you ask me.
All Ephesians 6:9 (nice) says is not to threaten them, they are still classified and treated as slaves. "Essentially equal" in this case means 'well, they're not slaves in a spiritual sense, ignore the leash and whip'.
@@Jonjzi (NIV) Ephesians 6:5-9 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him." Again, no denouncement of actual slavery, simply the acknowledge of spiritual equality. If that's your position then I would agree. But (intentionally or not) you make it sound as though they are literally equal and undermining actual slavery.
@@chottstuff The intent was not to sound callous. What is happening in the middle east is in fact a tragedy. However this does not imply that it is a geocide, as one side of the conflict is attempting to portray it as. There main ammunition within this conflict is the bodies of dead women and children as they know a war can't be one by themselves. There are multiple reasons why it's not to be considered a genocide, I'm happy to point them out if needed.
@@10patsor You're another great example of why American evangelicalism can be considered Christian only in the loosest possible sense. Supporting the slaughter and rape of the world's oldest Christian community (Palestinians) in support of a settler-colonial state based on Jewish supremacism is absolutely vile.
Your video is very helpful! Your arguments are logical. When you said that God has to work things from the inside out, it really helped me to see the wisdom of God and the way He sometimes chooses to work with humans. Even when we don't understand every detail of His workings. Thank you! And God bless you!
Concluding that God endorsed slavery from some Bible passages that merely acknowledge the state of the sinful world in one of its social and economic realities at the time of the writing, is extremely poor logic. Did God say to Adam : "multiply and fill the earth and subdue the earth by taking slaves and building empires"? No. Were anywhere the judges or the kings of Israel instructed to create systems of slavery? No. After all if you're going to place the responsibility for slavery with God you better find where He instituted the system. No place. Slavery was not instituted by God, but by sinful wicked men, men who turned so far against God that they began to enslave one another. The system was prevalent in pagan nations. If you read Leviticus 25, you will see that the double standard used for Israel and the surrounding nations was a direct result of those nations having instituted slavery themselves and refusing to follow God. So they were left to their own devices. And Israel is merely instructed how to work around that wicked system. They are told to never take Israelite slaves. That right there is proof of God's disapproval of slavery. God's people were never to be slaves. But the pagans who hated God and chose their own practices and would not listen to God's morality, God left them to continue in their own system after their own hearts desires. Those people wanted slavery, not God. He merely left them alone,and told His people Israel how to manage that situation with their neighbors. Is that so hard to understand? Tiny Israel is not given a mandate to suddenly transform the entire world at that time. No. Jesus was going to accomplish that. The world is stubborn in its sins and resists change for the better, but readily embraces wicked sinful changes. The job of uprooting all evil was not for this tiny, budding, fragile nation, but for its descendants and its King in centuries and millenia to come. The problem is many have no understanding of the depth of sin and the difficulty in changing it. Joseph son of Jacob, one of God's prophets and great leaders of Israel was sold into slavery by pagans. God never approved of that but he allowed it because He allows man free choice. If God were to stop every evil, He couldn't stop at slavery, but He would have to stop every evil every man does including everything millions of big and "small" sins people are committing right now. He Himself has suffered the punishment for our sins on the terrible cross. And now all sins can be forgiven if we come to the cross and acknowledge our sins. OUR sins, not the sins of others. And God is offering us everlasting life. People always complain about this or that but the reality is that life here is tough and short (even if you live to be 90) because of sin. God suffered unimaginably so He can offer us life without end and without suffering and without sin. And people keep trying to find reasons to point fingers and acuse God. Take the wonderful gift and thank Him. Don't be evil. Many people are pointing the finger at others sins but refuse to let go of their own. How hypocritical. You can't have it both ways. Sin hurts the world. If you want the good of the world, you must hate sin. Otherwise it's all empty talk. "Judge them, but not me!" God is good. You and I are not. Repent of your sins and acknowledge His mercy and powerful undeserved love towards you and enjoy His amazing gift of life. This is love from Him also. You hate God but we, Christians love you enough to tell you that you can receive life. If a doctor tells you you can be cured, would that be a hateful thing the doctor did? No, but a loving thing. So, though you hate our Lord, we love you and tell you how you can find the cure. Nothing is better than to live. Life emanates only from God. Come to Him in faith and receive it.
Best comment I've read on the issue so far! People like Alex don't understand the narrative of the Bible at all or don't want to (despite the fact he has studied theology - can't have been more than a basic "theology 101"). Interestingly enough, that narrative should be obvious to them if they read the Bible as literature (don't they always claim, "it's fiction"?) - that's not to say anything about the historicity of the story but it's obvious that the Bible does actually have a "story line" to it. Basically - men's fall and salvation and how God tries to get closer and closer to us to save us from the mess we brought upon or own heads. This ultimately finds its "peak" in the incarnation. There are so many wonderful depictions of the different aspects of God's character in the Bible. But all the atheists do is come from this rather primitive modern view how God should bow to their whims and wishes and talk to people in the ways of the modern day humanist philosophy people follow (not that there's much wrong with that - humanism is probably a good idea for atheists as moral compass). And they also completely ignore the mindset of the Jewish authors and the new testament writers. Isn't it interesting that for example Alex (and other atheists) seem to think that nobody noticed any discrepancies between different gospel accounts before they came around and read (probably 200 year old) books about it? It's the typical historical chauvinistic attitude of modern academia that thinks, "oh, those primitive people of old and their silly ideas, let me just debunk those real quick". Completely missing the fact that not only were these people as intelligent or even more so than we, they also had a completely different way of thinking about the world.
This is what the text says: _"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them _*_you may buy slaves._*_ You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and _*_they will become your property._*_ You can bequeath them to your children as _*_inherited property_*_ and _*_can make them slaves for life,_*_ but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."_ - Leviticus 25:44-46 It blows my mind how atheists dare to insinuate from verses like that that the Bible endorses slavery, clearly there is a context there. Don't they realize that if Yahweh did not exist they would not be able to distinguish between right and wrong? Or this one: _"Anyone who _*_beats their male or female slave_*_ with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, _*_but they are not to be punished_*_ if the slave recovers after a day or two, _*_since the slave is their property."_* - Exodus 21:20-21 They must really hate Yahweh, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be willing to do such mental gymnastics pretending that the Bible endorses slavery.
Servitude has existed throughout human history, and ancient civilizations organized almost all labor under some type of master-servant relationship. 1. Sumer (Mesopotamia): - The Code of Ur-Nammu, one of the oldest known law codes (c. 2100-2050 BCE), included laws related to slaves. It allowed a slave who married to remain within the household and set a bounty for returning escaped slaves. - The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (written between 1755-1750 BCE) also distinguished between free individuals and slaves. It offered rewards for capturing fugitive slaves and imposed penalties for harboring or assisting them. 2. Ancient Greece: - Slavery in Ancient Greece was complex, with various levels of servility. Different forms of servitude included traditional chattel slavery, helots (serfs), penestai, and other non-citizen classes. - Helots, for example, were state-owned serfs in Sparta who worked the land but had limited rights. 3. Ancient Rome: - Slavery played a significant role in the Roman economy. Slaves were acquired through conquest and formed a substantial part of the workforce. - Some masters freed their slaves, and these freedmen often rose to positions of power. - The Roman Empire's wealth was built, in part, on the labor of enslaved individuals. 4. Hittites: - Hittite texts from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) include laws regulating slavery. Notably, the reward for capturing an escaped slave was higher if the slave had already crossed the Halys River and moved farther away from the Hittite center of civilization. - This suggests that some Hittite slaves had a realistic chance of escaping and regaining their freedom by seeking refuge with other kingdoms or ethnic groups. 5. Israeli: - Old Testament scriptures included laws regulating slavery. Other than war, servants were a normal way for a poor family to pay off debts owed, get room, board, food and taxes paid by the "temporary" owner and were released with gifts after the 6th year of indentureship. In summary, servitude took various forms across ancient civilizations, from debt-slavery to punishment for crimes and enslavement of prisoners of war. While some societies allowed for manumission (freeing of slaves), others heavily relied on slave labor for economic prosperity. Alex steps forward to attack the Bible with what HE thinks slavery entails with an uninformed and biased personal judgement against everyone of the past who administered or used this system. Where is Alex getting his morality from? God?
It is the Christian morality being questioned, not Alex's. The apologists claiming there are objective, unchanging, universal morals written on our hearts, who are willing to admit that slavery is a moral evil, then have the struggle to reconcile their personal morality with the slavery in the bible. I would hope in modern western society we would all be in agreement of our hatred of the practice, yet our moral standards run counter to the practices outlined.
Yeah, I also get frustrated watching debates in which the Christian position is not being well represented. Thanks for your takes, and I join the chorus of those who would like to see a dialogue between you and Alex.
It's tough to watch Christians giving self-righteous hypocrite like Alex the chance to judge God and Christianity while he can't defend his own world view.
Dr. Ortlund, in your opinion for this conversation, how effective or useful would it be to point out the inconsistency of atheism and atheists outrage over moral claims, of which they have no objective foundation?
@@ryana1787 If one claims that OT events are 'atrocities' or 'genocide' and therefore morally wrong, there needs to be a transcendent moral foundation for such claims. Otherwise you just don't like the events on a personal level, but they are not actually wrong.
@@irenictone8109 why? I can certainly say it’s morally wrong. “genocide is wrong”. Done. My standard is maximizing the well-being of human beings. Which is a highly superior standard to a gods personal desires.
@@ryana1787 And other people have accepted that "Genocide is morally okay". Something about Third Reich comes first to mind. Morals without an objective foundation are subject to the whims, variances and discretions of a government, or a dictatorship, or a group of people, or an individual. Changes in morality then happen as society changes, and even the degree of morality differs from person to person. Objective morality requires an unchanging source.
When it comes to your first example of text against slavery did you notice the term enslavers. If I wanted to make the case for slavery as a slave owner I could simply respond with “I’m not the one who made that person a slave I’m simply the one who now owns the slave” it’s like saying “I’m not the one who stole that item I’m simply the person who is now in possession of that item” so you see it can become down to interpretation of the term enslaver.
Cognitive dissonance occurs when your personal morality tells you that something is dreadfully wrong with what you are promoting, yet you remain steadfast. Is it any wonder that young, educated people are fleeing Christianity in increasing numbers? How can you ever morally justify what was done to women and children by your God.
just saying they were refuted doesn't mean they were refuted, especially when you're talking about whatdoyoumeme who has a problem with fallacious reasoning.
😂😂😂😂whaddoyoumeme😂😂😂😂 you need to watch Dr. Josh Bowen's analysis of whaddoyoumeme and Alex O'conner's videos. Fair analysis by an actual scholar who criticizes both them both, but mainly the awful whaddoyoumeme.
Where does Alex have standard of morality tu judge others? I would answer quite straightforwadly. Mallachites genocide, evil? Well, by what standard? You are mistaken, my friend, it was actually example of God's justice. Wages of the sin is death. God has sentenced death to this nation for the abundance of their sin and this judgment was executed through Israel. And something like that will happen to you as well if you will not repent.
Because morality is a combination of preference and empathy. Both exist in nature, for animals and humans. Hence things can be immoral in a non-spiritual worldview.
So what you're telling me is that your belief in an invisible supernatural entity allows you to believe in good or bad ? Please demonstrate for all of us watching how you are able to do that ?
@weedlol That is relative, and therefore useless. Why should anyone prescribe to your idea on right or wrong? It is just your opinion. There is nothing immoral in action and reaction. Is it immoral to crush a rock? Animals don't have a concept of morality. Do you consider a lion eating a gazelle alive to be evil?
@Bugsy0333 Im telling you that your morality comes from religion, and you are a fool to attack the very source of your idea of good or evil. Your position is self-defeating and contradictory.
Correct. “people who live under fallen structures does not approve or endorse that structure” (paraphrased - regarding slaves) Don’t blame the people that are enslaved for the errors of those that enslave them.
"Matthew's audience is Jewish, Matthew is Jewish" Do we know that? The Gospels reference the old testament but they are written in Greek and decades after the events in question. While Matthew is considered the most 'Jewish' of the Gospels do we really know that the author isn't a gentile? If the Gospel authors are willing to put things into a context for a specific audience it doesn't necessarily mean the author is part if that group. Would love to see a debate between yourself and Alex. Dinesh seemed unprepared and overwhelmed.
Still doesn't address how God was ok with slavery and gave instructions on who to enslave and how to enslave them. God is also apparently unchanging. God also hardened pharaoh's heart, so why couldn't he soften the hearts of slavers? Is God unable to stop slavery or just unwilling? Either makes God immoral.
Also I would think If a slaver reads the bible, they would start to feel uncomfortable when they read passages about Lazeras and the rich man, and how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom, and when you do good to the least of these you are doing unto me (Jesus) and when Paul said you both have the same master. or when Jesus talks negatively about the hired hands beating the servants, because the master tarried. I would imagen if you owned slaves, and you believed the bible, and read it, it would greatly impact how you viewed your role as a "master", Do unto others and all
As a lifelong devout Christian D'Souza was monumentally out of his league here. His nonstop fidgeting (more like bouncing in his seat like a toddler) his inability to answer O'Connor's criticisms, his woeful lack of knowledge of the Bible and that incessant water chugging. Nervous? I've never seen a worse representative. It was 3/10. Mike Tyson in his prime against a child. For the love of God, Christ and the angels above, Dinesh D'Souza, don't ever represent us again. You're clearly not equipped!
Dinesh was completely outclassed in this debate. Prepackaged speech not addressing the question and couldn't adequately answer any objections. Couldn't even shake hands afterwards. Went exactly how I thought it would
Dinesh was obsessed about optics. The other guy was obsessed about truth and accuracy.
@@mugglescakesniffer3943 And you're obsessed with the word obsessed. I don't think either showed signs of obsession.
@Sui_Generis0 I noticed how O’Connor would address D’Souza when he’d speak, but D’Souza would always turn toward the audience.
One was there to be a showman; the other was there to earnestly debate.
I agree. When Dinesh began by talking about Alex's accent, he already looked like a drowning man.
I didn't hear him say the slave owners were also CHRISTIANS. He goes on to say I don't know how anybody could imagine that slavery would be OK. Because specifically says so in the Bible tells you how to keep them.. exodus 21 20 You can beat your slave to death as long as he doesn't die within the 1st day or 2... I love Christian morals. Next well here how Christians championed GAY MARRIAGE AND EQUALITY. CHRISTIANS ARE GREAT....
My critique is that Christians used the Bible to support slavery too. It’s not enough to say “Christians led the Abolitionist movement” if other Christians fought abolition. If there are Christians leading and supporting both slavery and antislavery, then it still leaves the question “where did equality of people come from?” A legitimate answer could still be it evolved from a selective reading of the Bible, one that ignores numerous clear and explicit denouncements of that principle.
My guess is it might be this:
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew:7:12
@@MrSeedi76but that principle is not at all unique to Christianity, the golden rule existed long before Jesus
Well said, the bible can make thing pretty plain when it wants too, let's just say, eating pork. It is forbidden in the text of the OT to eat pork, so the people who follow that don't, nice and easy. Now even if at the time everyone around them was eating pork, they were still not allowed, just like if it had been anti slavery it would be clear, and even if others around them were holding slaves they would not have.
And the answer to the new question is....drumroll....Christianity.
The end of slavery stemmed from the principle of equality of people which stemmed from the Christian dogma that man has inherent sacred value from the Creation story. Philemon makes this as plain as day. The process of the end of slavery makes it undeniable.
@harlowcj and it's such an important tenant in Christianity that once they got into power they abolished slavery in their lands in:
A: immediately, the bible states in the commandment given to Moses that as they were enslaved in Egptt, no one should be enslaved again.
B: after they had rearrange thing so it took them 100 years.
C: after they had been in power for over 1,500 years, as you know, their holy book is so against it that it takes them that long to work out it said so.
I hope you and Alex eventually get to have a dialogue or a debate. It would be very valuable I think.
Yep you stole my thoughts 💯 agree
It would be good so this apologist could stop getting way with sham arguments. The last I heard was the hyperbole war rhetoric argument, which coincidentally enough O’Connor briefly addresses in his opening in this very debate. This apologist doesn’t include that but or respond to it. Wouldn’t you know. Instead he does the ai segment where he says the civilians “departed”. To where? If an entire city was not fortified in ancient times the civilians would flee to the fortified sections of the city. If there’s an established case of them fleeing completely from the city, I’d very much like to see this.
@@rg8597 are you one of those "complain box" people?...he literally said he wouldn't be able to address all the objections but would that he considers to be important.
@@temsumongbajamir1582 wouldn’t be able how? He’s incapable or is unable? Seems to me he is able to upload a video of any length. He cherry picked where and what’s comfortable to respond to and missed the points that directly challenge his position (under the guise of delegating what’s important). Did you even watch the initial video? That’s generally a good way to start instead of with the ‘response’ video.
@@temsumongbajamir1582I think their objection goes to the fact that Alex specifically preempted this response in the debate, which this creator chose not to include for… some reason. I think anyone should consider a direct addressing of the very argument they make to be relevant enough to include in the video.
The amount of mental gymnastics that is required to justify the atrocities in the bible is astonishing
You just don’t read the Bible correctly
@@jax9466 "You didn't read the Bible correctly" is one of those acrobatics
Why do you call them atrocities?
@@mendez704if you found an Aztec (human sacrificial religion) like culture today what would you do about it and why?
@jax9466 actually, you have to read the bible incorrectly so say that god doesn't like genocide. Christians are masters at misinterpreting the bible and forget about context. They pick and choose words and short verses that in isolation might sound nice.
It’s so disappointing to have Christian “representatives” that absolutely have not deeply thought through their own beliefs and the arguments of the opposing side - makes ALL of us look foolish when a guy like Dinesh takes up these debates.
Dinesh is a Political commentator... that's his expertise, not Christian apologetics. But he seemed to do really well against Christopher Hitchens, although Hitchens wasn't educated in Christianity or philosophy either...
Christianity is a very wide spectrum. Dinesh represents a very prominent segment of Christianity. You can disagree with him but he is a well thought out christian apologist.
I personally think he is awful
@@BrianWright-mi3lc Alex has has WLC on his podcast more than once, and WLC has had plenty discussions and debates with atheists over the years.
@@EnglishMike I think Alex is an exception, but either way I'm not saying they never engage with stronger opponents.
@@BrianWright-mi3lc Alex already did talk to WLC and got him to admit that under the chrstian worldview gen0cide isn't wrong, so Alex already destroyed him
The verses in Leviticus are damning. For a Christian I don't see there is a way out of this. The Bible clearly advocates for slavery.
It's not damning. It's just true! We believe in a God that HATES sin. Has anyone read Revelations? It's going to be pretty ugly!
@@ErnestStewart Even if you could prove the existence of the Christian God I couldn't bring myself to worship this God given that he thinks slavery is ok.
@@charvakaelysium2414
I think that is because of our modern understanding of slavery and ignorance of the practice in the Bible the the lack of understanding of the differences.
Exodus 21:16
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
Deuteronomy 24:7
“If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
These alone put many of what we understand to be slavery (especially in the west) to rest.
That aside there are a whole host of things that are different. Your ability to voluntarily sign up to become one, 7 year minimums, ability to marry into the family, etc.
This view of slavery is by far different than what we think when we think of the word "slavery."
If you're going to reject on anything it would be best to have a full understanding of said reason.
This is the theist dishonesty: when someone points out that the Bible endorses slavery, they start talking about kidnapping and treating others well. It's shocking what religion does to people's minds.
This is what the text says:
_"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them _*_you may buy slaves._*_ You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and _*_they will become your property._*_ You can bequeath them to your children as _*_inherited property_*_ and _*_can make them slaves for life,_*_ but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."_ - Leviticus 25:44-46
It blows my mind how atheists dare to insinuate from verses like that that the Bible endorses slavery, clearly there is a context there. Don't they realize that if Yahweh did not exist they would not be able to distinguish between right and wrong?
Or this one:
_"Anyone who _*_beats their male or female slave_*_ with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, _*_but they are not to be punished_*_ if the slave recovers after a day or two, _*_since the slave is their property."_* - Exodus 21:20-21
They must really hate Yahweh, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be willing to do such mental gymnastics pretending that the Bible endorses slavery.
To quote Alex O'Conner who was paraphrasing Sigmund Freud. "Some times Dinesh, a genocide is just a genocide." Don't put lipstick on a pig.
lipstick on a pig have you seen my wife xD.
ironically, sometimes humans are more pigs than pigs, and pigs are more humane than humans
@@skogstjuven LOLLL
Where the heck did Freud say anything that you just said lmao.
@@johnathanl8396 "...sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"
I absolutely LOVE Alex O'Connor and would love to see you two have a conversation. Alex is a phenomenal dialogue partner in the conversations I've heard him have with others.
coach needs to put Ortlund out on the field
Amen 😂
The result would be the same... You can't defeat reason.
@@TheAeolas You'd be surprised the kinds of "acrobatics" Christians can perform
Gavin don’t want that smoke
It would be cool to have a dicussion between Ortlund and Alex
Gavin you should try to make that happen!
no it wouldnt. He would shove in your face the same arguments he does here. I am so tired of the same old arg. !!! Christians can never be original because of the bible. And the bible just hinders their evolution. But if they go beyond the bible...they are no longer Christians..
By your reasoning, it means no genocide has ever happened because no people have been completely wiped out? No genocide in Rwanda, because the Tutsis still exist.
I think the absense of a response is, in itself, quite telling.
I thought he was hoping to help people deal with these hard questions.
I think they don't need help: neither the questions nor the answers are hard. They're only hard to swallow if you also want to believe the (traditional) Christian story.
That is one of 6 arguments he presented. Don't make the fallacy of eliminating the other five.
@@Shawn-nq7du You might be misusing the word fallacy. I pointed out the bad logic in one argument, I've said nothing about the remaining 5.
@@aghudumokowa241 Fallacy, meaning faulty reasoning, is correctly used because in the six arguments, he explained why it was not a genocide but war. It was discriminate action -- not indiscriminate like genocide. Genocide has to be indiscriminate because the goal is to maximize the wiping out of a people.
@@Shawn-nq7du Do you think the Hutus called what they did to the Tutsis genocide or war? There's a passage in the Bible where God clearly tells the Israelites to wipe out everything on the land of their enemies - combatants, non-combatants, animals. If you want to define it as war and not genocide, feel free, but the idea is what's the problem, not definitions.
If the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, or if it does not meaningfully or significantly transcend the various surrounding cultures, or if it’s various extraordinary claims do not have corresponding sufficient confirmatory evidence, or if what can be observed has pushed back on historically accepted interpretations and plain readings of the text, or if there has been no evidence of divine intervention to correct “incorrect” and falsified interpretations, it should be held in no higher esteem than any other ancient text.
“Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?”
Isaiah 2:22
“Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct-as irrational animals do-will destroy them.”
Jude 1:10
@@pillarsofpurpose the absolute bottom of the barrel believer is the one that pulls quotes deep from within their sphincter when they cant use their own fucking brain lmao
@@pillarsofpurpose - Why hold humans in esteem indeed? If what we read in the bible does not rise above either today’s standards or the standards of literature of the time in which it was written, why should we esteem it as anything more than human writings?
@@JohnnyQuick_ ♻️ Don’t get caught in the loop brother.
Dare I say Alex has a better grasp of the Bible than Dinesh? Dinesh needs to up his game, especially in face of the text saying that Josh & Co went back to Ai and blew it out. Alex is spot-on to say that the remnants in the city were **not** militant people. (If you're rusty on the story, Josh & Co set up an ambush and lured all the military out of Ai and killed them out in the fields. Those remaining in the city were non-combatants)
So I really don't think Copan's argument (and Gavin's) passes the smell test here:
[+] When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. (Joshua 8:24-26)
I can maybe see "Let's go to Jericho and blow them all out, men, women and children!" as being some kind of ANE wartime hyperbolic battlecry. But Joshua 8:26 is written as historical description. Challenge for Bible teachers: if the **intent** is not to kill women, why mention them as having **been** (past tense) killed?
I think Alex is right to point it out, and Dinesh dropped the ball.
- - - -
Let's recap God's MO when it comes to judgment:
- God personally promises death for men and women who eat one little piece of fruit (Gen 2-3)
- God personally destroys 'the world' with water, including women, and children (Gen 7-9)
- God personally destroys S&G with fire, including women, and children (Gen 19)
- God personally destroys thousands with an angel of death, including women, and firstborn sons (Exod 4-12)
- God personally destroys Korah and 250 of his buddies with earthquake, including women and children (Num 16)
...but we recoil in horror when God kills Canaanites with the sword of Joshua, including women and children?
I don't think we're taking our Bibles seriously.
(while we're at it, check out Luke 13:1-5, where Jesus gives us a piece of His mind)
Obviously. When you watch the debate (assuming they actually upload the video and dinesh doesn't pressure them to not do that), Alex quotes the bible multiple times and Dinesh has no idea what he's talking about.
@@Reloading20 I like Dinesh for a lot of things. Theology is not one of them.
A lot of Atheists become such after reading and understanding the bible. It's normal that they usually know the bible better
@@Tim.Foster123what do you like him for?
@@piage84 its been a while since I've listened to him, but I'm on board with his political views.
I do not found this convincing. I do not care if not all where killed, but text clearly says women, children and animals. So in this case Gavin says language of complete destruction should not be interpreted as it says in the text; but on the other hand when texts are talking about eternal destruction of goats/unbelivers then it is ok? This looks like cherry picking to me.
The Bible is a compilation of various texts: stories, historical records, letters, poems, songs, etc. They were also written by different writers, during different points in history, with different intended audiences. Additionally, we read these texts through the eyes of our own culture and experience which can skew the meaning of the words. All of these things are important to consider when you're reading the Bible.
We wouldn't consider this cherry picking if we were reading a history book, Shakespeare, or the lyrics to a song. If you read these things and don't consider their context and who wrote them you'll quickly find those things also losing their meaning/message.
@@lukeverble5999 Unfortunately, for many Christians and apologists, the use of the term "cherry picking' is a strategy of avoidance. If the Bible is considered to be the word of God, then we should be able to examine any specific part of it and judge it as to its historicity and morale value and what that implies as far as God is concerned. Dinesh utterly failed and Gavin, while not denying them, does all he can to downplay the horrors of these particular verses.
@@lukeverble5999 Please give the context where it would be morally justifiable in your eyes for God to instruct them to kill the children. Also of course we don't consider it cherry picking in history books or Shakespeare because those are instructing you on how to live your life. They're of much less significance...
I found this video even more hypocritical and offensive than Dinesh' nonsense.
@@PS-ej2xnThis is a very good video for atheists to watch. Gavin is wholesome
"I was so gripped by Gregory of Nyssa in 379AD" Gavin is waaaaay oldee than he looks :P
Good video brother. This is helpful!
The ever increasing amount of mental gymnastics you guys have to submit yourselves to, in order to keep the house of cards that is the bible standing, is absolutely hilarious.
Actually not that hard. Scripture is not inerrant, it's a product of human beings giving their understanding at the time of what God was about. As we move to the New Testament there is a much better understanding of God due to the divine presence of Jesus. His teachings supersede the Okd Testament whenever they don't agree.
@@danhochberg9845 it's a product of human beings alright. And indeed, the ethics and morality evolved from the old to the new testament reflecting the evolution of human moral sense. Certainly not the other way around.
I was raised a Catholic and it took me my whole life to undo the brainwashing. I wish everyone could step out of their own narrative for a minute and just take a look at how disingenuous and silly this kind of view of divinity is.
@@danhochberg9845 Jesus believed in the flat domed earth model, and in the fictional global flood. He was an ignrnt carpenter turned apocalypse preacher.
@@danhochberg9845in other words "lets forget whatever god did in the old testament and not take it too serious"
Even in this video😂
As an atheist, I do appreciate your attempt to defend the text, and even though I don't find your arguments thoroughly solving these contentious issues and modern morality could find more compelling arguments, I'd like to see you in a formal debate, as I think you'd present much more sound counter-arguments and actually have a productive discussion, because to be fair, Dinesh and Alex was pretty one sided, all I heard from Dinesh is dancing around the question or finding clownish answers that made me cringe.
I love Dinesh as a brother in Christ but Dinesh is a terrible representative of Christianity. His apologetic style is always very lacking and his staunch pro war position is contrary to the love of Christ
Worse than that is his whole marriage fiasco.
What do you mean "staunch pro war position"? Coz war is the domain of good governments and the government doesn't bear the sword in vain....and our Lord is not a pacifist.
What exactly is your criticism to his view with regards to war.
@@lukyguy1240 what marriage fiasco? Is it criticism on his personal life or a controversial stance he takes on marriage?
@@angru_arches He took up a relationship with a woman while still married to his wife (but he denies sexual relations), then divorced his wife and married this new woman.
@@angru_arches his pro interventionism and imperialism. The founding fathers (especially the devout Christians like Dickinson, Henry, Sherman, Witherspoon and Washington) were pretty clear in warning us against Empire and how it would compromise our values at home. As Howard Buffet once put it, “Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns. Persuasion and example are the methods taught by the Carpenter of Nazareth, and if we believe in Christianity we should try to advance our ideals by his methods. We cannot practice might and force abroad and retain freedom at home. We cannot talk world cooperation and practice power politics.”
Dinesh’s mistake in this debate was finally being honest about what the Bible actually says.
Watching Atheists win debates over theists is my favourite content on RUclips. Alex is brilliant :)
Yep and this one was one of the best.
It is not fair.... Dinesh never won a debate....
I think you and Alex would be a good discussion, because I think you both put priority on intellectual honesty.
With respect to your argument that encouraging slaves to revolt would result in undesirable outcomes (like violence and perhaps suffering from economic disruption), I think the harder question is why the owners of slaves aren't instructed to free them.
Well slave trading is not permissible (1 tim 1:10) but the concept of slavery is outlawed with passages like
Love your neighbour and the fact that we are made in image of by God. Also Paul asks Philemon to take onesimis back as more than a slave.
However, we must accept that slavery was a part of the political and economic reality. Telling a master to free slaves would not have made sense to them because they did not understand as well as we do now the concept of love. Love is a positive law which is why it can always be better. We can always love our neighbour better and I’m sure there are many things that are politically and socially acceptable now that in many years time we look back at and think, “why did God not give a specific commandment against that”?
@@The07vinny , I don't think God would be constrained by the political and economic reality.
@@bigdavexx1 God meets us where we are at. I agree with you and don’t think God is constrained by the political and economic reality.
Dinesh was slaughtered in that debate, did not come prepared. Alex was on point as usual
"I want to talk with Alex O'Connor" 😃
Good luck. He will pick any apologist apart in the most polite way
@mmerri9780 your out of your fuc**** minded if you believe that shit 🤣🤣🤣
I think you will find your seat on fire in a debate with Alex on this topic.
No sane person can absolutely justify those horrors.
That shows how terrible it is.
All you can say is "fuck it, god does whatever he wants" and that will be more understandable.
I swear thats what most christian apologists want to say. "god is perfect and what he does is perfect and if you dont like it then you dont understand god" except they wrap that sentiment up in the language of debate.
Lots of christians out there are willing to sacrifice their own humanity and empathy to justify the bloody horrors of their favorite fictional character. And honestly that makes me be scared of them. I hope to never in my life encounter one of those hidden monsters
Edit: Alex O'Connor did a really great probing interview w/ Jordan Peterson. He seemed to ask the best questions to Jordan about his belief in God and got clearer answers than most get. I had no idea that person was an atheist, because he didn't appear as such, at least in the clip I saw titled: "Did Jesus *Actually* Exit His Tomb? - Jordan Peterson". I'll have to watch the full interview.
Peterson's views change as a matter of convenience.
@@charlesmaunder I've found Peterson to be remarkably consistent. If someone does show a bit of flexibility, and is willing to be proved wrong, then that's not a terrible thing either. Can you think of anything he's changed his mind on? It wouldn't be the end of the world if he did, but I can't think of anything.
As an agnostic, i think for whole my life, YOU are the only one that i find on the Christian camp that can debate issues with rationale and evidences.
I can sit down and listen to your arguments because it is not just "you need to have faith way of debate" or aggresive bulldoze way. But you are different. A new breath.
Will look forward more of your videos discussion.
What "evidence"?
While I'm an athiest and disagree with the Bible. I must say that i enjoyed watching your video. It was refreshing hearing an apologist who is genuin and truly trying to understand the athiestic objections. Your persona is calm, well received, and comforting. Normally, I roll my eyes hearing apologists misrepresenting or doing backflips. But i didn't feel like you did that once in this video. Thank you
I mean he is straight up lying in portions of this video. The passages in the Old Testament explicitly command the slaughtering of all non-combatants -- not simply a total military victory. He is lying and jumping through hoops trying to avoid this fact.
@@WhatThisMeann Didn't he talk about that?
@@ignatiousjasentes1658 Yes and he is being disingenuous.
A simple question. Why couldn't God just spell it out in plain language and not have people like you and D'Souza go through hoops to try to justify the horrible despot of the God of the Bible.
Hopefully a dialogue between the two of you will arise in the future
Why wasn't "Thous shalt not have another person as your slave" in the Ten Commandments? Certainly, it's even more abhorrent as "Thou shalt not steal/bear false witness." The answer is that the commandments came from men, not God, and the men of the time felt that having slaves was a good thing.
WTF. Gavin- "How could you possibly think you could own someone (if you acknowledge that we are made in the image of God)???
Ummmm....maybe because GOD HIMSELF SAID YOU COULD IN LEV. 25:44-46!!!!
""The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman mixed into a large amount of flour until the yeast worked its way through"
Dinesh actually wrote a book where he talks about me. He got so many easily checked facts wrong, I will never trust a word he says.
Prove it? You are lying for sure!!
Could you maybe give an example so we can understand what he did? :)
Your excuses for genocide are no better than those in the videos. You just biting the bullet only shows your worldview is wrong.
Too often a retort is thought to be sufficient for simply being given.
It seems to me that the difficulty in addressing these issues is more rhetorical than anything else. Words like "genocide" have such emotional impact, and our brains love simple black-and-white thoughts, that they can poison the well of a discussion. A response relying on historical considerations and outside research (which people may not be familiar with) can appear more like rationalizing than answering, especially if the person is already inclined not to believe. This is why I'm not a huge fan of "debates," as they are much more about "being good a debating" than "having a rational and productive discussion that fairly and completely presents both sides of an issue."
Also, and no shade to the man (as I don't know him), but I'm not sure D'Souza is exactly an S-tier apologist or scholar. I've always thought of him more like a political pundit?
@@georgwilliamfriedrichhegel5744 genocide should absolutely carry an emotional impact, and any other way of describing it, whatever euphemisms used to soften it, shouldn’t minimize that
So just to put all the cards on the table up front: I left Christianity about 5 years ago now and I'm not entirely sure why this video came up in my feed, but I'm impressed by your tone. The more bombastic the apologist the more intense is my gag reflex, so I appreciate your style. I work in a factory so I'm not imagining that my questions are groundbreaking, but I do want to ask them on the off chance that there are good answers to be had.
1. I appreciate that ancient people didn't have standards or practices like modern people do for history, but it seems wierd to abandon our modern standards. It seems like the standards for writing history shifted for some justifiable set of reasons and the style we see in the Bible is not what we are familiar with today because it didn't meet the community's or society's needs. When I think about contemporary examples of history that are like what you describe as the ancient norm, I think of things that are or skew in the direction of what we today call propaganda. Timelines and exact details are massaged to make the author's point and convince the reader to interpret their world in particular way. There are things we can learn from propaganda about history, what seems to have simply taken place, but obviously we ought to treat it differently than something that aspires to just give you a simple blow by blow of events. So my question would be something like, why isn't the clear intent of the New Testament authers to convince the reader that Jesus fulfilled prophesy and so forth something that should make us more cautious about their claims? I feel like I should be treating them more like Michael Moore than Ken Burns.
2. I'm in no position to litigate what ancient war language meant or how people would have taken it. It does seem implausible to me that the ancient world was less vicious in war than the modern one. I was talking with a friend the other day who read a book about the rape of nanking, for example. I'm not gonna be very open to the idea that the ancient Israelites were carefully selecting military targets and leaving everyone else alone. But my question is why does God choose to judge evil in this way? You didn't really argue with the notion that God chose Israel and was at least role playing the tribal war God to exact violent judgement on the inhabitants of the land. There are all sorts of ways to turn people from their behavior and God demonstrates all kinds of strategies for doing this throughout the Bible. He also demonstrates that He will set up ugly situations to display something. The hardening of pharoah, or the man born blind, etc. I don't know that there's a final answer to this question, but to me it looks like unnecessary and often hideous spectacle.
3. The slavery one is the simplest for me. Why not offer even a phrophetic image of a society without slavery? Even Paul who talks about breaking down all sorts of social barriers frames even our relation to God with the image of slavery. "Who will you serve?" Again, I don't know that there could be an answer, but it feels like a terrifying ommission considering that there are actual descriptions of divinely sanctioned slavery in the text. That people found resources within the Christian tradition to attack slavery doesn't necessarily mean the Bible condemns the institution. It could be that being enslaved sucks and people born into a Christian world had to figure out how to speak in terms the culture would accept.
Anywho, for what it's worth, good on ya, and thanks for reading this far.
This was a bad debate for Dinesh. Alex did appear as being well prepared, while Dinesh's arguments, though some were not all bad, others were not well developed or thought through. Dinesh was nearly all on defense in the debate, which doesn't look good. In other debates and forums Dinesh fares better; this one was just sloppy
I would love to see him in a political debate but not in a theological debate for sure
@@temsumongbajamir1582 I used to watch him a lot for political content. I may have seen him do a debate, but can't remember for sure. I think he'd be a great debater, but this isn't his wheelhouse. I saw a clip of Alex w/ Jordan Peterson, probing into whether Christ rose from the dead. It wasn't a debate, and it didn't even seem Alex was taking an atheist position. He did get some very good direct answers out of Peterson, simply w/ probing. It didn't even appear as pushback or argument, just questions in the clip (from a long interview w/ Peterson).
@@temsumongbajamir1582 Dinesh doesn't do better in political debates. It's just there isn't philosophy in political debates, it's a team sport. Dinesh just gets a home team crowd and dunks on liberals. He couldn't win a debate on religion against a trained philosopher.
@@temsumongbajamir1582 DInesh is just like Ben Shapiro, he surfes on the hate of leftists and college liberals and only scratches the surface of an actual reasonning. When confronted to real intellectual like O'Connor, they just crumble.
@@saintejeannedarc9460 he did a debate with Hitchens a while back and fared better there than in this debate
Thanks Gavin for another video with clear responses.
Would love to see you and Alex O'Connor have this discussion.
Hey Gavin,
Appreciate your work here and thoroughly enjoy it and am edified as well. On the issue of slavery I just finished up Noll's "The Civil War as Theological Crisis." I'd recommend the read to look at the American/European Protestant responses to slavery (and Catholic responses too) at the time of the civil war! Perhaps there may be something helpful in there along this theme of topic and videos. Particularly, I wonder if Noll would challenge your claim in this video that it was predominately Christians that championed abolitionism, although, they did certainly play a significant role. My knowledge is limited in this respect as I learn from you, but I'll let Noll speak for himself on this. Anyway thank you for your work and irenicism, brother!
Love to see you and Alex in a discussion about this and other stuff. Would be great! Someone make it happen! Christ love! ✝️
Gavin, I think you need to press in to what you said around 18:15. There is a brutal power the Israelites were opposing, which was the marriage of the dark powers (rebellious elohim) and the nations. It is not just a matter of the Canaanites and others as some kind of 'ANE Nazis' - the spiritual dimension of it all needs to be acknowledged. I don't think every apologist needs to agree with Heiser (may he rest in peace) on every nuance of his Deuteronomy 32 worldview, but there is a spiritual war going on in these passages alongside the physical one. That's why the giant clans, rephaim, apkallu and other associated concepts are important to the narrative (all of which involve at some level demonic-human intermarriage), just as much as general critiques of idolatry and pagan religion, but apologists often ignore them. This actually dovetails very well with Jesus's defeat of the powers and His role as the Bridegroom.
It may well be that warfare (of a certain kind - related to geography and cultural/religious identity - NOT DNA or ethnicity) was permitted once the nations were fully under the control of the powers, but after that grip has been loosed by the victory of the cross, the whole Earth belongs to Christians in and through the Messiah, who are victorious through self-offering - the shedding of their own blood. Law and order is the role of the governments, and invasions may be resisted, but there is no further need for any kind of military conquest by God's people.
It was actually hard for me to believe Dinesh wasn’t intentionally giving ridiculously bad answers. It was like a toddler playing basketball against Michael Jordan.
The problem with your argument of 'complete destruction' doesn't mean genocide is that the Biblical God regrets and is enraged when Saul let some amalakites go.
Your arguments can easily be refuted - God did mean genocide, but the people were unable to accomplish it.
To the Christian apologists: Have you given away all your money, like Jesus instructed?
The host of this channel looks materially comfortable.
I did a decade ago, fully willing to lead a pauper's I've been blessed since. Much like Job.
Don't misunderstand, I'm a Christian, not a Biblican. I believe in following the red letters in the redletter version (aka the Jefferson Bible).
The OT view the nature of God is through a glass Very darkly. They didn't understand much, when it comes down to it.
Having a phone from which you wrote this comment, you clearly didn't give away all your money.
@@jackburn275 Ok; so you believe what you want, ignoring Paul, Peter and other men through which God performerd unbelievable miracles. Good luck with that worldview!
I’m a Christian and a fan of both Dinesh and Alex. I watched the full debate last night and I was extremely disappointed in Dinesh. I was embarrassed for him. He wasn’t prepared at all and deflected by way of delegating to different sources. Heck I had better answers than his. I think Alex showed up prepared and organised. He did much better. I wish Alex would come to faith.
That emphasis on literary genre is so important, and often so neglected. As I've engaged more with the critical perspectives and challenges to Christianity it's become larger and larger in my mind as a hermeneutical lens. Well crafted and thoughtful video as always, Gavin.
Then ask yourself what is the probability of an all-loving God obscuring his message of salvation behind culturally specific literary genres.
@@WaterCat5 I do not think the message of salvation is obscured at all.
@@BrianWright-mi3lc That's cool for you, but it is obscured for many people, myself included. For me, it doesn't seem like the best idea to create the guide to salvation for all humans within a specific cultural context at a specific time. Seems like a bad idea, no?
@@WaterCat5 The obfuscation isn't in the message, it is in our own hearts. Rom 1:18-25, Jeremiah 17:9.
The message of salvation is simple: We are not robots and God is no tyrant, we were given a choice to trust God or to do things our own way (sin) and we chose sin. When someone disobeys, there are consequences. We are all guilty in this before God. But God loved us in that while we were still guilty, He sent His only son Jesus, the guiltless one, to die in our place that in Him we may be reconciled to God and live with him forever. He gave many proofs in the form of miracles and fulfilled prophecy, culminating in the greatest miracle of all: the resurrection. He was witnessed by hundreds of his followers who were entrusted with the mission of spreading this good news to all the world. We have a historical event to point to in the resurrection of Christ. This is our hope and God's promise. These things took place at their proper moment in history, according to the will of God. What would you suggest as a better plan? That we not be made in the first place? That we be robots unable of making a choice on our own? I understand that people struggle with this. Continue to earnestly seek the truth, whatever it may be.
@@WaterCat5 Not sure what happened to my other comment but the obfuscation is in the heart, not the message: Romans 1:18-25, Jeremiah 17:9
I understand you do not think God's plan was a good one. What should it have been?
There's no doubt that this RUclips Playlist will serve as a reference guide to future debates both online and in homes. Thanks for building this precious resource for us and posterity. God bless your work.
The Bible is historical, but it’s also a historical artifact that must be dealt with in terms of its historical context.
Its not
Its fictional
You mean the amalgamated book which starts with a talking snake? 🤡 Pathetic, gullible theists!
@@dodumichalcevski fictive, like all historical narratives.
You’ve basically just conceded Alex’s point that the authors are willing to alter things for theological reasons.
Excellent responses, Gavin. Keep up the good work.
First, let me state (because this is the internet after all) I would love for you to guest on Alex podcast.
Not having a dog in this fight (being atheist, but incredibly interested in these types of discussions) I've always enjoy conversations, rather than formal debates.
I had a bad feeling when I saw the debate notification (still haven't watched the debate). I like D'Souza as a political commentator only.
_Gavin please arrange a conversation with Alex_
What do you hope to gain from it? It's the same old arguments for and against Christanity. Do you think Ortlund is going to make some amazing revelation that's going to prove that Biblical Christianity is true.
How can you find d'Souza a likable optical commentator? His 2000 Mules was found to be so full of lies that he was forced to remove it from distribution as part of a law suit that he lost badly. The man is a dishonest con-man, as should have been apparent from this debate.
The problem I see with your counter-arguments is that you're implicitly rejecting biblical inerrancy and negotiating in context that most Christians either are unaware of or would disagree with, and which is completely absent from the text.
Just cos total erasure of a people didn't happen doesn't mean it wasn't genocide and just cos it might not have happened like it says doesn't change the fact that the bible says God commanded it.
Gavin, have your people call Alex’s people 😉
Why not say slavery was never condemned? Why are y'all ashamed of the Bible!?
Alex O'Connor continues to argue that murdering innocent children is wrong. I would like someone to ask him if he supports abortion before accepting his thoughts on the morality of killing children.
I believe he said he doesn't have a strong stance on this one but that he feels it's maybe one of his blind spots or things he could be wrong about for not carimg or understanding fully.
@@GospodinStanoje Sounds like a cop out for "either way I answer my position is criticized" and he wants to hold a good image. He says he supports it, his atheistic worldview is easily challenged and mocked, he's against it and his atheist supporters turn on him for not holding what they believe is the correct opinion. A man as educated as him without a doubt holds an opinion on it, especially considering its prevalence within modern society and consistently brought up with religion. Massive dodge.
@@lilkurva180 I agree with you.
Murder is a legal term. It's defined as the *unlawful* premeditated killing of one human being by another. You may have objections to the morality of abortion and even assert that it's objectively wrong no matter what, but you can't simply equate abortion with murder. Moreover, your religion teaches that no one, including children, is actually innocent. Would you be okay with murdering children if they're not innocent...?
If you're genuinely troubled by the morality of killing children, I don't understand how you can worship the God of the Bible. If it's not wrong when God does it because he can do whatever he pleases because he's a God, then you're not using your God as your moral standard.
@@betsalprince it is murder, you are killing an innocent human for selfish reasons. You can't get around that fact.
I appreciate Alex O'Connor and have a lot of respect for him, but when I saw the title of the video, I preemptively cringed. I really wish D'Souza was not out there as a public representative of Christianity.
Interestingly enough, Alex references Ephesians 6:5, even though he admits he doesn't know the citation. If he read through to verse 9, he would see that Paul tells Masters to treat your slaves the same way. Wait, what? Is Paul telling masters to serve their slaves as if they were serving God? Hmm, why is that exactly? Oh, well fortunately Paul clarifies that the reason for this is the fact that God is in fact the master of them both! And furthermore, that God shows no favoritism, essentially saying that they are equal. That's pretty radical if you ask me.
All Ephesians 6:9 (nice) says is not to threaten them, they are still classified and treated as slaves. "Essentially equal" in this case means 'well, they're not slaves in a spiritual sense, ignore the leash and whip'.
@@weedlol it says to "treat them the same." The same as what? The same as what he just wrote in the preceding 4 verses.
@@Jonjzi (NIV) Ephesians 6:5-9 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."
Again, no denouncement of actual slavery, simply the acknowledge of spiritual equality. If that's your position then I would agree. But (intentionally or not) you make it sound as though they are literally equal and undermining actual slavery.
Oh boy you would've LOVEDDDDDDDDDDDDD plessy vs. ferguson
@@Jesi-xn”separate but equal” as if that’s any better lol
Excellent response video, Gavin! Thank you for the edification. I feel better prepared to defend some of these difficult passages.
Holy crap was Dinesh bad on the Old Testament parts. Yikes.
I thought he was just going to concede and become a Marcionite mid debate.
Lol yeah
That's funny!
Bro it wouldn’t have been this easy with Alex because he argues as if the verses exist in the Bible individually by themselves separate from the rest.
How do you mean?
Can dinesh not be out there representing our side ever? I'm sure he is a fine human being, but he needs to be very far from the public stage.
Oh, he is not a fine human being. Don't worry
From your lips to God's ears.
Funny how you would need "specialists" to cover up the sanctioned genocide. This God mind virus has you on the side of a genocidal megalomaniac.
Christian apologist will say anything to defend the Bible lol
What happens when you start with a conclusion and amend reality to fit that conclusion.
We live in a world that calls what is happening in Gaza a genocide, hence hyperbole is alive and well in the 21st century as well.
Great points.
why so callous?
@@chottstuff Indeed. Tens of thousands dead. The vast majority of them being non-combatants. I'm not sure hyperbole is even possible at this point.
@@chottstuff The intent was not to sound callous. What is happening in the middle east is in fact a tragedy. However this does not imply that it is a geocide, as one side of the conflict is attempting to portray it as.
There main ammunition within this conflict is the bodies of dead women and children as they know a war can't be one by themselves.
There are multiple reasons why it's not to be considered a genocide, I'm happy to point them out if needed.
@@10patsor You're another great example of why American evangelicalism can be considered Christian only in the loosest possible sense.
Supporting the slaughter and rape of the world's oldest Christian community (Palestinians) in support of a settler-colonial state based on Jewish supremacism is absolutely vile.
Your video is very helpful! Your arguments are logical.
When you said that God has to work things from the inside out, it really helped me to see the wisdom of God and the way He sometimes chooses to work with humans. Even when we don't understand every detail of His workings.
Thank you! And God bless you!
Concluding that God endorsed slavery from some Bible passages that merely acknowledge the state of the sinful world in one of its social and economic realities at the time of the writing, is extremely poor logic. Did God say to Adam : "multiply and fill the earth and subdue the earth by taking slaves and building empires"? No. Were anywhere the judges or the kings of Israel instructed to create systems of slavery? No. After all if you're going to place the responsibility for slavery with God you better find where He instituted the system. No place. Slavery was not instituted by God, but by sinful wicked men, men who turned so far against God that they began to enslave one another. The system was prevalent in pagan nations. If you read Leviticus 25, you will see that the double standard used for Israel and the surrounding nations was a direct result of those nations having instituted slavery themselves and refusing to follow God. So they were left to their own devices. And Israel is merely instructed how to work around that wicked system. They are told to never take Israelite slaves. That right there is proof of God's disapproval of slavery. God's people were never to be slaves. But the pagans who hated God and chose their own practices and would not listen to God's morality, God left them to continue in their own system after their own hearts desires. Those people wanted slavery, not God. He merely left them alone,and told His people Israel how to manage that situation with their neighbors. Is that so hard to understand? Tiny Israel is not given a mandate to suddenly transform the entire world at that time. No. Jesus was going to accomplish that. The world is stubborn in its sins and resists change for the better, but readily embraces wicked sinful changes. The job of uprooting all evil was not for this tiny, budding, fragile nation, but for its descendants and its King in centuries and millenia to come. The problem is many have no understanding of the depth of sin and the difficulty in changing it.
Joseph son of Jacob, one of God's prophets and great leaders of Israel was sold into slavery by pagans. God never approved of that but he allowed it because He allows man free choice. If God were to stop every evil, He couldn't stop at slavery, but He would have to stop every evil every man does including everything millions of big and "small" sins people are committing right now.
He Himself has suffered the punishment for our sins on the terrible cross. And now all sins can be forgiven if we come to the cross and acknowledge our sins. OUR sins, not the sins of others. And God is offering us everlasting life.
People always complain about this or that but the reality is that life here is tough and short (even if you live to be 90) because of sin. God suffered unimaginably so He can offer us life without end and without suffering and without sin. And people keep trying to find reasons to point fingers and acuse God. Take the wonderful gift and thank Him. Don't be evil. Many people are pointing the finger at others sins but refuse to let go of their own. How hypocritical. You can't have it both ways. Sin hurts the world. If you want the good of the world, you must hate sin. Otherwise it's all empty talk. "Judge them, but not me!"
God is good. You and I are not. Repent of your sins and acknowledge His mercy and powerful undeserved love towards you and enjoy His amazing gift of life.
This is love from Him also. You hate God but we, Christians love you enough to tell you that you can receive life. If a doctor tells you you can be cured, would that be a hateful thing the doctor did? No, but a loving thing. So, though you hate our Lord, we love you and tell you how you can find the cure. Nothing is better than to live. Life emanates only from God. Come to Him in faith and receive it.
Best comment I've read on the issue so far! People like Alex don't understand the narrative of the Bible at all or don't want to (despite the fact he has studied theology - can't have been more than a basic "theology 101"). Interestingly enough, that narrative should be obvious to them if they read the Bible as literature (don't they always claim, "it's fiction"?) - that's not to say anything about the historicity of the story but it's obvious that the Bible does actually have a "story line" to it. Basically - men's fall and salvation and how God tries to get closer and closer to us to save us from the mess we brought upon or own heads. This ultimately finds its "peak" in the incarnation. There are so many wonderful depictions of the different aspects of God's character in the Bible. But all the atheists do is come from this rather primitive modern view how God should bow to their whims and wishes and talk to people in the ways of the modern day humanist philosophy people follow (not that there's much wrong with that - humanism is probably a good idea for atheists as moral compass). And they also completely ignore the mindset of the Jewish authors and the new testament writers. Isn't it interesting that for example Alex (and other atheists) seem to think that nobody noticed any discrepancies between different gospel accounts before they came around and read (probably 200 year old) books about it? It's the typical historical chauvinistic attitude of modern academia that thinks, "oh, those primitive people of old and their silly ideas, let me just debunk those real quick". Completely missing the fact that not only were these people as intelligent or even more so than we, they also had a completely different way of thinking about the world.
This is what the text says:
_"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them _*_you may buy slaves._*_ You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and _*_they will become your property._*_ You can bequeath them to your children as _*_inherited property_*_ and _*_can make them slaves for life,_*_ but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."_ - Leviticus 25:44-46
It blows my mind how atheists dare to insinuate from verses like that that the Bible endorses slavery, clearly there is a context there. Don't they realize that if Yahweh did not exist they would not be able to distinguish between right and wrong?
Or this one:
_"Anyone who _*_beats their male or female slave_*_ with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, _*_but they are not to be punished_*_ if the slave recovers after a day or two, _*_since the slave is their property."_* - Exodus 21:20-21
They must really hate Yahweh, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be willing to do such mental gymnastics pretending that the Bible endorses slavery.
O'connor seems like he could defend the Bible better than most Christian apologists (excluding Gavin, of course).
I’d love to hear him having a conversation with Sam Shamoun
What 😂
Where can someone watch the full debate? I saw about half then it was set to private on pangburn.
They are still editing it. They responded via tweet because people were speculating Dinesh had it taken down because he is so petty.
@@coreybeltran understood, thanks!
It is out
ruclips.net/video/UMKkX8qRHsw/видео.html
Why does Dinesh not look at Alex?
Wish you had been on the stage debating Alex, Gavin. I really think you two could have a constructive dialogue.
The fact that apologetics exists is in it self sort of proof that religions are not as true as they like to picture themselves
Coming up: Alex in the comments inviting Gavin.
God is all powerful but he cannot command the slaveowners to let the slaves go free? idk man
Servitude has existed throughout human history, and ancient civilizations organized almost all labor under some type of master-servant relationship.
1. Sumer (Mesopotamia):
- The Code of Ur-Nammu, one of the oldest known law codes (c. 2100-2050 BCE), included laws related to slaves. It allowed a slave who married to remain within the household and set a bounty for returning escaped slaves.
- The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (written between 1755-1750 BCE) also distinguished between free individuals and slaves. It offered rewards for capturing fugitive slaves and imposed penalties for harboring or assisting them.
2. Ancient Greece:
- Slavery in Ancient Greece was complex, with various levels of servility. Different forms of servitude included traditional chattel slavery, helots (serfs), penestai, and other non-citizen classes.
- Helots, for example, were state-owned serfs in Sparta who worked the land but had limited rights.
3. Ancient Rome:
- Slavery played a significant role in the Roman economy. Slaves were acquired through conquest and formed a substantial part of the workforce.
- Some masters freed their slaves, and these freedmen often rose to positions of power.
- The Roman Empire's wealth was built, in part, on the labor of enslaved individuals.
4. Hittites:
- Hittite texts from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) include laws regulating slavery. Notably, the reward for capturing an escaped slave was higher if the slave had already crossed the Halys River and moved farther away from the Hittite center of civilization.
- This suggests that some Hittite slaves had a realistic chance of escaping and regaining their freedom by seeking refuge with other kingdoms or ethnic groups.
5. Israeli:
- Old Testament scriptures included laws regulating slavery. Other than war, servants were a normal way for a poor family to pay off debts owed, get room, board, food and taxes paid by the "temporary" owner and were released with gifts after the 6th year of indentureship.
In summary, servitude took various forms across ancient civilizations, from debt-slavery to punishment for crimes and enslavement of prisoners of war. While some societies allowed for manumission (freeing of slaves), others heavily relied on slave labor for economic prosperity.
Alex steps forward to attack the Bible with what HE thinks slavery entails with an uninformed and biased personal judgement against everyone of the past who administered or used this system.
Where is Alex getting his morality from? God?
It is the Christian morality being questioned, not Alex's. The apologists claiming there are objective, unchanging, universal morals written on our hearts, who are willing to admit that slavery is a moral evil, then have the struggle to reconcile their personal morality with the slavery in the bible. I would hope in modern western society we would all be in agreement of our hatred of the practice, yet our moral standards run counter to the practices outlined.
He can get his morality from where he sees fit. Slavery is owning a person. This is what happened
Yeah, I also get frustrated watching debates in which the Christian position is not being well represented. Thanks for your takes, and I join the chorus of those who would like to see a dialogue between you and Alex.
It's tough to watch Christians giving self-righteous hypocrite like Alex the chance to judge God and Christianity while he can't defend his own world view.
Dr. Ortlund, in your opinion for this conversation, how effective or useful would it be to point out the inconsistency of atheism and atheists outrage over moral claims, of which they have no objective foundation?
Why would morals require an objective foundation?
@@ryana1787 If one claims that OT events are 'atrocities' or 'genocide' and therefore morally wrong, there needs to be a transcendent moral foundation for such claims. Otherwise you just don't like the events on a personal level, but they are not actually wrong.
@@irenictone8109 why? I can certainly say it’s morally wrong. “genocide is wrong”. Done.
My standard is maximizing the well-being of human beings. Which is a highly superior standard to a gods personal desires.
It's a non-sequitur because the problem of evil is an internal critique. It does not matter what the atheist or whoever else is debating thinks.
@@ryana1787 And other people have accepted that "Genocide is morally okay". Something about Third Reich comes first to mind.
Morals without an objective foundation are subject to the whims, variances and discretions of a government, or a dictatorship, or a group of people, or an individual. Changes in morality then happen as society changes, and even the degree of morality differs from person to person.
Objective morality requires an unchanging source.
Thanks Dr Gavin! Jealous for your voice to be there also!
Thank you for offering such sound defenses, Dr. Ortlund! I sincerely appreciate your work.
I first learned of Alex with his argument that he sincerely speaks God but can't find him. Does he really speak to know a God he views as evil?
He doesn't view God as evil. As an atheist he views God as non-existent.
Ouch! This was painful to US Christians
so is the bible.
When it comes to your first example of text against slavery did you notice the term enslavers. If I wanted to make the case for slavery as a slave owner I could simply respond with “I’m not the one who made that person a slave I’m simply the one who now owns the slave” it’s like saying “I’m not the one who stole that item I’m simply the person who is now in possession of that item” so you see it can become down to interpretation of the term enslaver.
Christians led the movement to abolish slavery, but they also led the movement to maintain slavery
Dinesh should retire, that was embarrassing.
4:19 “We have to measure truthfulness by the intention of the author.” Cool cool. I thought the author was God? And thus perfect. ❤
Would have been just as embarrassing to watch you debate Alex. It's crazy how much mental gymnastics you did in this video.
Cognitive dissonance occurs when your personal morality tells you that something is dreadfully wrong with what you are promoting, yet you remain steadfast. Is it any wonder that young, educated people are fleeing Christianity in increasing numbers? How can you ever morally justify what was done to women and children by your God.
Apologetics never really has anything to offer. The young man is simply applying logic. Apologetics have always struggled with morality,
Life Pro Tip: Even when Dinesh D'Souza is technically right, disregard everything he has to say anyways.
Pretty much
It seems unlikely you'd do any worse than Dinesh, but I wouldn't expect to do much better, either. Alex is a skilled debater and knows his stuff.
Alex would whoop your ass in a debate. You cant argue with logic. I know yall will try, but like always yall will fail.
12:17 i don't understand what he meant when he says God was judging evil when he sent out Israelites to take over land from unprovoked citizens...
What’s so crazy is Alex arguments have already been refuted by John from whaddo you meme and he still uses these one dimensional arguments
just saying they were refuted doesn't mean they were refuted, especially when you're talking about whatdoyoumeme who has a problem with fallacious reasoning.
😂😂😂😂whaddoyoumeme😂😂😂😂 you need to watch Dr. Josh Bowen's analysis of whaddoyoumeme and Alex O'conner's videos. Fair analysis by an actual scholar who criticizes both them both, but mainly the awful whaddoyoumeme.
Hello, you are the kindest christian apologetic on planet earth ✝💚🙏
Where does Alex have standard of morality tu judge others? I would answer quite straightforwadly. Mallachites genocide, evil? Well, by what standard? You are mistaken, my friend, it was actually example of God's justice. Wages of the sin is death. God has sentenced death to this nation for the abundance of their sin and this judgment was executed through Israel. And something like that will happen to you as well if you will not repent.
I don't believe you.
How can an atheist call anything immoral? They don't believe in good or evil beyond their own opinions.
Because morality is a combination of preference and empathy. Both exist in nature, for animals and humans. Hence things can be immoral in a non-spiritual worldview.
So what you're telling me is that your belief in an invisible supernatural entity allows you to believe in good or bad ?
Please demonstrate for all of us watching how you are able to do that ?
@weedlol That is relative, and therefore useless. Why should anyone prescribe to your idea on right or wrong? It is just your opinion. There is nothing immoral in action and reaction. Is it immoral to crush a rock?
Animals don't have a concept of morality. Do you consider a lion eating a gazelle alive to be evil?
@Bugsy0333 Im telling you that your morality comes from religion, and you are a fool to attack the very source of your idea of good or evil. Your position is self-defeating and contradictory.
Super easily, morality is social construct, it's a subjective consensus rooted in Naturalism.
Correct. “people who live under fallen structures does not approve or endorse that structure” (paraphrased - regarding slaves) Don’t blame the people that are enslaved for the errors of those that enslave them.
"Matthew's audience is Jewish, Matthew is Jewish"
Do we know that? The Gospels reference the old testament but they are written in Greek and decades after the events in question. While Matthew is considered the most 'Jewish' of the Gospels do we really know that the author isn't a gentile?
If the Gospel authors are willing to put things into a context for a specific audience it doesn't necessarily mean the author is part if that group.
Would love to see a debate between yourself and Alex. Dinesh seemed unprepared and overwhelmed.
Still doesn't address how God was ok with slavery and gave instructions on who to enslave and how to enslave them. God is also apparently unchanging. God also hardened pharaoh's heart, so why couldn't he soften the hearts of slavers? Is God unable to stop slavery or just unwilling? Either makes God immoral.
Also I would think If a slaver reads the bible, they would start to feel uncomfortable when they read passages about Lazeras and the rich man, and how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom, and when you do good to the least of these you are doing unto me (Jesus) and when Paul said you both have the same master. or when Jesus talks negatively about the hired hands beating the servants, because the master tarried. I would imagen if you owned slaves, and you believed the bible, and read it, it would greatly impact how you viewed your role as a "master", Do unto others and all
As a lifelong devout Christian D'Souza was monumentally out of his league here. His nonstop fidgeting (more like bouncing in his seat like a toddler) his inability to answer O'Connor's criticisms, his woeful lack of knowledge of the Bible and that incessant water chugging. Nervous?
I've never seen a worse representative. It was 3/10. Mike Tyson in his prime against a child. For the love of God, Christ and the angels above, Dinesh D'Souza, don't ever represent us again. You're clearly not equipped!