Split thread: Does the Bible speak out against slavery?
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
Well I'll be a monkey's auntie. Joobz, you now have earned the title "Speaker to DOC".
Unlike Kmo, who is still official Insulter to DOC.
Elizabeth I
Philosopher
Texans - we're meaner than almost anybody <<grrr!>>
six7s
veretic
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No Way José!
Until they can play contact sport without protection and stopping for a 45-second breather every 90 seconds, I'll invest on Aussies, or - preferably - Samoans
Hmmm... that reminds me... still no 'authoritative' answer from Dead On Contact (or whatever his name is)
Until they can play contact sport without protection and stopping for a 45-second breather every 90 seconds, I'll invest on Aussies, or - preferably - Samoans
Hmmm... that reminds me... still no 'authoritative' answer from Dead On Contact (or whatever his name is)
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joobz
Tergiversator
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We just need 10 more and we can start the DODOCs.
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Elizabeth I
Philosopher
Hey, we have Rugby teams in Texas. And have you ever watched NBA basketball? I know it's not SUPPOSED to be a contact sport, but...
joobz
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Perhaps DOC will eventaully explain why the bible is a valuable source of morals when it so clearly indicates that salvery is acceptable.
As it stands, Perhaps DOC is correct that you need a god to be "truly" moral, but it seems (as judged by the bible) that the christian god isn't the one to follow.
As it stands, Perhaps DOC is correct that you need a god to be "truly" moral, but it seems (as judged by the bible) that the christian god isn't the one to follow.
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
Actually, if God was so opposed to slavery, then I would have expected there to be an admonition about slavery in the Ten Commandments.
But alas, the Ten Commandments actually affirms the practice of slavery. Specifically:
Exodus 20:10
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
And just a bit later in Exodus 20:17
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
Proof positive of God's approval of slavery!
But alas, the Ten Commandments actually affirms the practice of slavery. Specifically:
Exodus 20:10
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
And just a bit later in Exodus 20:17
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
Proof positive of God's approval of slavery!
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Cleon
King of the Pod People
So apparently the answer to the thread title is a very firm "no."
The only exceptions seem to be:
1. Wishful thinking
2. Creative re-interpretation
3. Assumption of facts not in evidence
Am I missing anything?
The only exceptions seem to be:
1. Wishful thinking
2. Creative re-interpretation
3. Assumption of facts not in evidence
Am I missing anything?
Reasonable inference. Arguably, even logical deduction.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
I filed that under "creative re-interpretation."
Go on then; show your working.
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
Just one small thing and that is
God is such a bugger!
Ooops! I just had a Richard Dawkins moment.
Didn't Locke already do that in the Two Treatises?
Anyhow, though I don't acknowledge any spiritual premises from the Bible, even I can see how one can reason from those premises to arrive, without undue difficulty, at the notion that slavery contravenes them.
One might reasonably conclude that slavery, especially chattel slavery of the sort we knew in the New World, violates the Golden Rule. If I love my neighbor as myself, and wish to do to him as I would have him do to me, should I consign him to slavery?
One might reasonably conclude that the state of slavery, which fundamentally reduces human persons to instruments of gain, is a dishonor to the natural dignity of rational creatures created in God’s image, and to God himself who asserted that whatever we do to one another, we do to him.
One might reasonably conclude that if “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own” having been “bought, and at a price” (i.e. Jesus' sacrifice), then our ownership of and commerce in other human bodies is a fortiori an affront and injustice to God.
One might reasonably conclude that slavery entails a denial of certain virtues praised in the Bible (e.g. justice, charity, mercy, fraternity, humility) and an indulgence of corresponding vices that are condemned there.
One might reasonably conclude that accepting the Bible’s assertion of the spiritual and a priori equality of members of the human race, who are “of one blood”, deprives us of a just basis for arguing that some of us are meant to be owned by others.
Noting the frequency with which the image of freedom is invoked as a blessing (“the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free”; “the perfect law of liberty”; “the glorious liberty of the children of God”; etc.), one might reasonably conclude that – even assuming arguendo that the images are figurative – their very use acknowledges personal liberty as a great good (and the unmerited suppression of which must be a great wrong).
But why bother to reinvent the wheel here? Arguing the the immorality of slavery from scriptural bases has been a feature of Western anti-slavery writing from St. Cyprian through Locke through the 19th-century American abolitionists.
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quixotecoyote
Howling to glory I go
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The question wasn't whether Christians could re-work the Bible to show slavery is wrong, examples of that are prevalent in this very thread. The question was whether the Bible actually spoke out against it or is it something that has to be coaxed, teased, and creatively interpreted based on the interplay of other scriptural texts and modern morals.
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I'm sure this is true, and it's a good thing, obviously, that they did interpret things that way, since it gave them motivation to fight slavery. But the question was if the bible condones slavery, and I still think it does.
I am certainly no bible expert, but these questions comes up within me.
It doesn't violate the golden rule if the golden rule does not apply to all. We assume that the golden rule does apply to all human beings. But does it in the context of the bible? And haven't people through history, including those who used the bible to defend slavery, actually not included certain groups of humans? I mean, the golden rule refers to humans not to chattel, and if you already accept that some humans can be considered chattel, then it's as easily reasonable to conclude that the golden rule does actually not inlcude absolutely everybody.
Again, who is to be included in the "another"? Another equal? Surely some have argued through history that some humans beings were actually not, they could have been created by the devil, and not by god, for example. There was a discussion about if Native Americans were really humans. If you really thought they were not, then they weren't created in god's image. Enslave at will!
No, you shouldn't, but who was "the neighbour"? We see "the neighbour" as a symbol for all other humans, everybody is our brother or sister. Did they? Could the word in the bible be taken more literally? The neighbour is actually the guy next to you, who you are more or less related to, the same clan or tribe member. Someone of the same people as you. All others are actually not neighbours, and if they are stronger, beware of them, if they are weaker, enslave them! The bible does not speak against that, it seems.
Ah, well, you get my point. I'm not sure the bible meant all these things as nobly as you stated above, I think that many of these words and phrases were actually never meant to be "all inclusive". And I am quite sure that as many people as has interpreted the bible as you mentioned above, there are just as many (more?) who have come to the equally reasonable conclusion (in this context) that slavery is quite OK with god.
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Well, every text, by definition, has to be interpreted. But my intention above was to show examples that don't really involve (from my non-Christian perspective) particularly convoluted reasoning. Perhaps I failed to do that, although upon re-reading my examples I still think they don't resort to any coaxing, teasing, tricky logic, or what have you. Accepting the truth of the biblical premises might require some convoluted reasoning, of course! But I don't have to believe X is true in order to conclude that believing X is inconsistent with believing Y. I'm not saying that the reasoning in my examples is the only possible reasoning, by the way, just that the conclusions aren't unreasonable ones.
Such reasoning doesn't require the benefit of influence from "modern morals", either. Bear in mind that arguments along the lines of the ones I cited have been around since pretty early on in the history of Christianity. Indeed, they're indirectly part of the reason why our "modern" view of the immorality of slavery is what it is.
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Except for the bit where passages explicitly condoning slave ownership are ignored, perhaps.
That's one way to view it. Alternatively, people felt that slavery was wrong, and looked for support in what they believed to be the word of God. They had to be fairly creative to find it.
joobz
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by the series of arguments you made, any form of social inequality can be considered unchristian.
But this was the point I made with DOC, if you allow for that interpretation with slavery, why not with homosexuality?