While I don’t think any of us at The Aristophrenium have written on the subject before, you may find this short and succinct blog post at STR Place of some value: Does God Condone Slavery?

I will not moderate further comments to slavery or God’s character here as neither are relevant to the topic of the initial post. (Although you may email me directly if you wish to get my further thoughts on the matter.)

And can you desist with the ‘most Christians believe’ mantra? I find it very annoying that you want me to defend what ‘most others’ say.

EDIT 6 Dec 2012: You may be interested to know that my fellow AristoStaffer, Adam, has just published a post addressing some of the objections raised about the morality of God detailed in the Old Testament, We Don’t Hate Sin. So We Don’t Understand What Happened To The Cannanites. You may wish to post any relevant comments/objections there.

Yes, the Bible condemns all as morally corrupt (Rom 3:10) yet it also plainly states that God imputes to believers the righteousness of Christ, cancelling out this corruptness:

“For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” ~ 2Cor 5:21

So I still fail to see how Hitchens’s challenge remains valid. If, given the premises of Christianity are true, then the answer to his challenge is surely: Yes. Christians can perform moral actions (ie. worship God) that non-Christians can’t. However, if Christianity is not true, and nor is there any god let alone the Christian God, then Hitchens’s challenge is shown for the nonsense that it is, as Duane’s comment (and the article he linked to) allude to.

With regards to evidence, my response was in direct reply to your claim that there is no evidence to support biblical claims, which is blatantly false. Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of my reply, I was simply pointing to a scientific field of study (archaeology) that has uncovered evidence to support biblical accounts. I did not imply that it supported every biblical claim.

I believe that you believe that slavery is immoral. I also know that you believe that killing someone because they do not believe in what you believe is also immoral. Than why does god himself condone and give guidelines on how to own, how much you should get, and how bad you can beat your slaves? Also to kill nonbelievers? Most Christian answer is that nonbelievers or people of other faith were seen as a disease and they needed to be exterminated yet their god says to keep the women that have not slept with a man for themselves. If you actually read the Bible and understood it you would most likely come to the conclusion that based on the issue of morality alone we humans are obviously morally superior to god based on his inconsistencies and commandments

You say too Google archeological finds but you cant believe everything you read online. The truth is that there is no evidence of exodus and that is one of many events that the Bible claims to be true. Yes it is correct that cities and town were found using the Bible but that does not prove its contents to be all true. Its like saying England exists and harry potter takes place in England and therefore Harry Potter is real. I know the reasons for faith and the reasons for christian faith is absolutely no different than reasons of faith for Islam or any other religion.

Assuming you’re an atheist, or at least not a Christian, who posits that Christianity is not true, then by your very own admission you agree that Hitchens’s challenge is invalid, no?

“There is a reason why even Christians themselves say that it is about faith and not evidence …”

This smacks of a poor understanding of faith – much like something torn out of one of Richard Dawkins’s books, in fact. The whole reason why any of us here at The Aristophrenium are here at all is that we have reasons for our faith. Whether or not you would accept the reasons is of no account to us but you cannot accurately state that we have none.

“… this is because Christianity like other religions lack in any evidences or and stories found in the Bible are neither supported by reality. By reality i mean empirical evidences”

You mean ‘empirical evidences’, say, like archaeological finds? Here,
let me Google that for you.

“It is like saying to be a moral person you would have to believe in Islam …”

You misunderstand part of the response to Hitchens’s so-called challenge and seem to have not read Duane’s comment (or the post he linked to) carefully: it is not that if you’re an atheist that you can’t be good, it is that if there is no God there can be no such thing as good or bad.

Dr Craig is not talking about moral relativism.

@Ryft Braeloch, seriously? unrepentant sinner? Do you believe that all atheists are atheists because they like being bad and dont want the thought of god being upset bothering them? do you think they live in self-denial? I am an atheist because i find the idea of god existing silly and irrational (no offence) But i do not think that all theists are silly or irrational. I am not bad at all, i am able to do the moral thing without god watching me. To believe anything otherwise is foolish and almost worthy of disdain.