Any time critics of the bible come up with slavery as an example of how awful God is, they completely miss the point.
Every single soul is a slave. The point really is what kind of a master do we want: a cruel, deceptive one, or a loving truthful one?
And what kind of freedom do we want: something that railroads us to an unpleasant destination, with self-centered ‘delights’ strewn along the path, or through chosen constraints leads us to a rich, unfathomably beautiful relationship?
The ironic thing is that the twisted, distorted image of what the critic thinks God is like, is actually a pretty accurate picture of what the cruel taskmaster is like. And the reason they think that is because they are already under his spell, his rule, and they don’t even know it.
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Barry McGuire: the difference between Christians and everyone else is that we CHOOSE who we want to wash our brains.
Alaaazaam-informktion found, problem solved, thanks!