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Originally Posted by shakran
The definition of "slavery" has not changed until some in this thread attempted to change it. There is a difference between slavery and indentured servitude.
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I didn't just, as you would like to put it, decide to up and change the definition of slavery. Rather, I attempted to show that the broad generalization you made concerning the Bible and slavery was, indeed, false.
Fact: We know that God rarely, if ever, commanded the Israelites to go out and make slaves out of their neighbours.
Fact: We know that slavery during Biblical times was more economical than racial, as many people willingly sold themselves to another to pay off debts or to provide for their families.
As I'm sure you're well aware, people have dedicated their entire lives to studying the Bible and other such religious texts. The idea that we have of slavery today is a far cry from the Biblical institution of slavery. Funny thing... As time progresses the meaning of words change, so it's sometimes hard to ascertain a words true meaning-- Hence why we have hermeneutics. Through the use of hermeneutics, we're able to determine the meaning behind just about any ancient text (Though some are harder than others).
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in that case perhaps it's using a different definition of the word "lie" and therefore to "lie with another man as with one's wife" might not mean sex at all, meaning the bible does not in fact condemn homosexuality.
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Which is why we have hermeneutics and exegesis of the Scripture. There are literally thousands of articles written on the subject, and I've been over this argument before. We could most certainly go down this road again, if you like
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While we're at it, let's just redefine "god" to be whatever we want as well. For the last 2 millenia people have been redefining and changing the bible to fit whatever they want to do, why not continue the trend?
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Go for it. There are already thousands of different interpretations of the word "God". I'm pretty sure one more couldn't hurt!