Because Zarr can only interpret the world through the definitions he uses. He can't put himself in anyone elses shoes so when other people show their definitions Zarr wipes those from his mind and substitutes his own while responding.

Both sides have done that.

Others disagree with that definition, show their definition, and call the practice immoral. Zarr then declares that people think his volunteer service is immoral.

And on the flip side, Zarr said slavery is not immoral in and of itself and people substitute in their own definition of slavery and claim Zarr thinks it's cool to forcibly capture slaves and beat them.

But sure, it's a "Zarr tactic."

When someone brings up something like slavery you go with the definition of the person who initiated the conversation.

So somebody brings up slavery in the Bible, and we're supposed to use that person's definition instead of the one in the context of the Bible? Sorry, but that's idiotic.

Sure, Zarr could have been clearer.

So picking a definition and sticking to it is "changing definitions to suit the argument?

I'm not saying they changed the definition they used from the start, but they changed the definition of the word in the text. Maybe "changing the definition" is the wrong terminology...perhaps forcing their definition onto a text written when a different one was sometimes meant. I was was just trying to point out that they did something similar. (Thus, I said "essentially".)

And Zarr, or someone else, is entitled to demonstrate why that particular definition does not apply to the passages in question... if he can.

I've gone over all of this I'm about to say, so I'll try to be brief.
1) There's definitely "bad" stuff, stuff that's hard to reconcile, whatever, in the Bible, especially in the OT. So don't read this as me trying to wave (or waive?) everything away as a non-issue.

2) There's quite often no way (that I know of) to tell what is meant by "slave" in a particular passage. Sometimes, it clearly refers to debt elimination. Other times, it clearly refers to capturing people as slaves. Most often, I personally wouldn't know how to tell which it means. Due to 1 above, I don't think it's worthwhile to bother trying for the purposes of this argument.

3) Part of the problem initially was that Gandol just parroted a parody site, which was biased and didn't give any context or references for its info. I think to this point we've only had one actual Bible verse cited, and that was the parable.

How hard is it to admit that both sides have used some poor debating tactics? I've admitted a mistake at least once in this thread. Come on people, you can do it.