Religion. What is it good for?

Oh, this is going to be an interesting one, can't you feel it?

Let's jump right into it, shall we?

Christianity, if it would ever be permitted to actually use such a collective noun when there are thousands upon thousands of different denominations most of which are more or less enemies of each other and neither are ever capable of actually entirely accepting the views of the others, is deeply, deeply, inconsistent.

See, when the subject of consistency arises in relation to the topic of christianity there are always excuses bounded about.

Example: Why was slavery fine in the old testament? Because those were the times, and slavery was acceptable back then, says the christian. Sure, sunny Jim, but if you're going to argue that point, you've just invalidated every single argument you could ever make based on any part of the scripture whatsoever, because then the Bible is suddenly worth absolutely nothing. See, if what is good and proper in the eyes of god, which really can never be anything but the one and only measure of what is right for any christian, and this point is impossible to argue against since it involves belief in a god that literally defines good by his mere existence, boils down to what is good and proper in that particular era, then we don't need god at all. If the excuse is to be made that the general social context of any situation is what dictates what is good and proper, then god doesn't actually fit in.

In short; you can't both argue that something which was right back then is wrong now AND argue that an eternally unchanging god decides what is right or wrong.

Related to this is that most annoying and very least credible argument that christians basically just follow the good bits and don't give a shit about the bad stuff, like how a disrespectful child should be murdered, because for some reason only the good bits apply to them. What is then either forgotten or intentionally omitted is all the things that the nice bits leave out. If a good christian throws out all the stuff about murdering gay people or people who work on the sabbath and only follows the fourteen or so big ones, that still leaves alot of evil stuff.

For instance, you're still stuck with thinking slavery is alright, because that is something that is never ever denounced in the major commandments, or for that matter in any of the smaller ones. Of course, you don't think slavery is alright, because you're not an evil bastard. I don't chalk this up to just picking and choosing which bits of scripture you like the most, I chalk it up to compartmentalization involving the realization, no matter how unconscious, that morality is really a social construct and nothing that god plonks down in a ready made Unhappy Meal. We all get it; social constructs matter; what society considers to be okay matters, it's not something that we can honestly disregard just because it's not written in some holy text.

This is what we always end up with when analyzing the Bible and how christians relate to it; either the scripture collides with reality to such an extent that the christians themselves reject parts of it because it's bonkers, or the scripture demands arguments be made that invalidate it. Neither option spells success for the Bible, does it?

So, how about you try to make an argument for why slavery is wrong that doesn't in any way clash with either existing commandments in the Bible or the notion of god being eternal and unchanging, then see how it stands up to logical scrutiny.

Oh, and then present some evidence for god, because if you believe nonbelievers go straight to hell, then that absence of evidence is condemning me to eternal suffering. Nice to have that on your conscience, right?