Over many years I have.
But the divine that springs forth from logic is just as easily rebuffed using the same tools. I've yet to find any real logical explanation for the very short list of problems I have with the Judeo-Christian God in post 537, but it is not for the faithfuls' lack of trying.
My problem with their arguments to me is that they seem stuck to the fact that I'm not "seeing" something that they are "seeing". They try logic and reason (even science sometimes, which makes it real fun), but they always come back to the non-empirical and esoteric dictums of faith and salvation.
If slavery is wrong, and God is always right, why did God not say "Free your slaves, no matter how much it costs you". The believers can twist themselves into all types of knots trying to explain this, but a much more believable explanation to me is that the writers of the Bible had no problem with slavery, and as such, neither did the God they created.
Have you read Lessing?
Slavery is wrong because it regards a person as being less than what God created him to be: Made in the image of God, and thus as having unalienable rights -- unalienable because vested in him by his Creator. Christians are taught that God loves and values each unique human being. Slavery in the United States could exist only because people could not see the image of Christ in the face of a black man. This is human ignorance pure and simple. But God's second law (the minor one :^) ) commands us to love our neighbor -- who is one who bears the image of Christ, whether he be a Christian or no. Christians already have that responsibility, and will be judged accordingly by God.
God has made His intent plain. If people don't get the message, I don't expect He's going to indulge in a lot of righteous nagging: His Law is plain, and it's up to us to live by it (or not, as the case may be). As it turned out, in time people "saw the light," and the institution of slavery in the West disappeared, thanks largely to eloquent, dedicated Christians, such as Wilberforce....
I gather you think that God didn't do WRT slavery what you think He ought to have done. Did you mean to "create" a "man-sized" God here (sized to the limit of our intellect and imagination), as you suggest the writers of the Holy Scriptures did?
In regard to the writers of the Old Testament, in their time slavery as an institution was just a part of the natural social landscape, usually involving spoils of war; and it certainly wasn't confined to black persons. It took the Incarnation of Jesus before the world would be taught that slavery is wrong, for the reasons I gave above.
Thanks so much for writing, GunRunner!