Brother Billy

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I sort of agree in this particular way -- It makes no sense at all as endorsement or support of slavery for God to make this commandment He made:

15 If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. 16 Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.

That law is telling Hebrews to allow slaves who have escaped their foreign masters in foreign lands to settle in one of their (Hebrew) towns. It doesn't apply to Hebrew slaveowners or their slaves. "let them live among you" implies they came from foreign lands.

Even if it did apply to all slaves, it just meant that Hebrew masters had to keep their slaves locked up or in chains if they thought that they might escape. It doesn't mean that slaves were free to come and go as they chose.

Of course in America before 1865, slave owners infamously violated almost every law from even the Old Testament on slavery.


You are conflating two separate issues:

  • Having laws in place to protect slaves from abuse
  • The degree to which these laws were enforced
There were laws that protected American slaves from being mistreated too:
  • the 1739 South Carolina code limited the number of hours that slaves could be made to work and fined anyone who killed a slave £700.
  • The 1833 Alabama law code dictated, “Any person who shall maliciously dismember or deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like offense had been committed on a free white person.”
  • Ten Southern codes made it a crime to mistreat a slave.... Under the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825 (art. 192), if a master was "convicted of cruel treatment," the judge could order the sale of the mistreated slave, presumably to a better master
  • In 1791, the North Carolina legislature made the willful killing of a slave murder unless it was done who was resisting or under moderate correction
  • The South Carolina slave code was revised in 1739, with the following amendments:
    • No slave could work on Sunday, or work more than 15 hours per day in summer and 14 hours in winter.
    • The willful killing of a slave was fined £700, and "passion" killing £350.
We know that the above were not always enforced.

Similarly, the bible contains laws that protect slaves from being abused. Do you know the degree to which the bibles laws were enforced? You imply they were? What is your justification for this?

It's no wonder that the most effective workers in the abolition movements were Christians, like powerful evangelists such as Charles Spurgeon (who is still known as one of the great evangelists of all time) who reached tens and tens of thousands with powerful preaching.
Christian Abolitionism - Wikipedia

"In these venues Spurgeon frequently preached to audiences numbering more than 10,000. At 22, Spurgeon was the most popular preacher of the day.[7]"
Charles Spurgeon - Wikipedia

Christians may have been responsible for ending slavery in the US, but remember virtually everyone identified as a Christian at the time. Also Christians on both sides of the slavery debate used the Bible to justify their views.

Many southern Christians felt that slavery, in one Baptist minister’s words, “stands as an institution of God.” Here are some common arguments made by Christians, who supported slavery at the time:
  • Abraham, the “father of faith,” and all the patriarchs held slaves without God’s disapproval (Genesis 21:9-10).
  • Canaan, Ham’s son, was made a slave to his brothers (Genesis 9:24-27).
  • The Ten Commandments mention slavery twice, showing God’s implicit acceptance of it (Exodus 20:10, 17).
  • Slavery was widespread throughout the Roman world, and yet Jesus never spoke against it.
  • The apostle Paul specifically commanded slaves to obey their masters (
    Ephesians 6:5-8).
  • Paul returned a runaway slave, Philemon, to his master (Philemon 12).

While there were also many Christians who opposed slavery, they picked and chose the verses that supported their cause and ignored or interpreted away the verses that didn't. In particular they ignored 1 Corinthians 7:17-24, which says "each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them." The fact that it also says "although if you can gain your freedom, do so" is more of an afterthought and of no real help to the slave. It effectively said: “if your master lets you go, then take your freedom”. I can imagine a slaves response to be "Gee, thanks for nothing!"

Also remember that although the Abolitionist Movement used religious arguments against slavery, there there were also many enlightenment thinkers who condemned slavery on humanistic grounds. People realized that slavery was deeply immoral because:
  • It reduces people to objects that can be owned
  • Increases leads to a great deal of suffering
  • It exploits and degrades human beings
  • It violates basic human rights
  • It perpetuates the abuse of children
My view is that the Abolitionist Movement was successful in ending slavery, in spite of, and not because of Christianity or the Bible.
 
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Halbhh

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The apostle Paul specifically commanded slaves to obey their masters (
Ephesians 6:5-8).

When you post something with so many points that it would prevent a doable discussion, I'll try to help by picking a single truly significant point and address it alone, to help us have a real discussion.

So we can talk to each other, instead of past each other.

For this one -- why did Paul tell slaves to remain with their masters...for the time being? --> see post #323 just above.

If you want to pick another single point or question, I'll be happy to address it specifically.

But first it's fair for you to answer a couple...

Consider the Big Picture....

If you are really against slavery, it's not enough to just say it's wrong, and do little to end it.

We want to actually reduce it, including the new forms it mutates into, even the forms of slavery widespread in the world today, such as modern American forms used today in the U.S. in 2018....

We want the outcome of less slavery, and not merely laws that don't accomplish that.

Right?

That's a real question -- do you agree so far?

Then consider this:

Why didn't God just outlaw slavery entirely to begin with?
(answered just below)

We can see in the broad sweep of scripture, God wants real change to true fairness. He wants us to treat others better.

(Background: Slavery was the normal human practice around the world 3500 years ago. Slavery is still common today, in 2018, but in more subtle forms. Our modern forms are more diverse and less visible, including hidden slavery such as sex trafficking of course, but more widespread subtle forms like intentional underpaying of workers even when a company could pay them more easily and still make nice profits.)

God's goal appears to have been actual change, that is real change in the heart, not only lip service, and even to the high level few today meet of this new form of law --

"So in everything [meaning all the time, including pay of workers, kindness to strangers, everything], do to others as you would have them do to you."

How to get to this extremely high moral level even that many today in 2018 cannot consistently do?

(most people can do it some of the time, until they don't want to, or until they have a hard day, or someone is rude...etc.)

Let's look at what happened in the Old Testament
----------------------------

First, Israel was given 10 Commandments.

Half of these we can today summarize very simply for us modern Christians as "Love your neighbor as yourself." (but we are further along then people were 1500 years before Christ.)

And Israel, given those 10 commandments, failed to obey this simple Law during the Exodus journey. Over and over.

Not just a couple of times. It's failure after failure after failure.

Even after gaining the new land and many aids, still Israel would break the Law not just occasionally, but over and over and over and over.

The general and simple Laws, not being followed, resulted in what I like to label micro regulations (my wording) -- little detailed rules given to make people better able to do what they should, and what they could in practice, as they were, the people they were.

Baby steps.

Little regulations, like little steps, upward out of the morass of evil and wrong, tiny steps up, one at a time, to lift them out of their wrong and bad ways of treating each other.

Little steps they could actually manage.

And these micro regulations actually help, over time, in a progression, for a larger portion of people.

e.g. -- Instead of 3% obedience, a higher amount happens, like perhaps 15% or 25% even, and later in time higher, like 60%, 80% even, in later generations.

Progression.

Today in 2018, because only some people follow Matthew 7:12 (all the time), we have our own secular micro regulations --

Detailed. (Think Kavanaugh; what if Kavanaugh knew the little rules):
Maryland Rape and Sexual Assault Laws - FindLaw

This is our secular law -- fine detailed regulation (micro regulation) -- today in the U.S.


Because only some people obey "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you".

Do you think we could chuck (discard) our own secular laws -- Baby Steps in our secular law like the Maryland Rape and Sexual Assault Laws?

Seems the American experience is that we need baby steps upward over time. In America. Today.

Just like in the Old Testament.

Do you agree with that analysis, or do you think we could discard American Law today and just use Matthew 7:12 for our only secular law?
 
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Brother Billy

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When you post something with so many points that it would prevent a doable discussion, I'll try to help by picking a single truly significant point and address it alone, to help us have a real discussion.

So we can talk to each other, instead of past each other.

For this one -- why did Paul tell slaves to remain with their masters...for the time being? --> see post #323 just above.

If you want to pick another single point or question, I'll be happy to address it specifically.

But first it's fair for you to answer a couple...

Consider the Big Picture....

If you are really against slavery, it's not enough to just say it's wrong, and do little to end it.

We want to actually reduce it, including the new forms it mutates into, even the forms of slavery widespread in the world today, such as modern American forms used today in the U.S. in 2018....

We want the outcome of less slavery, and not merely laws that don't accomplish that.

Right?

That's a real question -- do you agree so far?

Then consider this:

Why didn't God just outlaw slavery entirely to begin with?
(answered just below)

We can see in the broad sweep of scripture, God wants real change to true fairness. He wants us to treat others better.

(Background: Slavery was the normal human practice around the world 3500 years ago. Slavery is still common today, in 2018, but in more subtle forms. Our modern forms are more diverse and less visible, including hidden slavery such as sex trafficking of course, but more widespread subtle forms like intentional underpaying of workers even when a company could pay them more easily and still make nice profits.)

God's goal appears to have been actual change, that is real change in the heart, not only lip service, and even to the high level few today meet of this new form of law --

"So in everything [meaning all the time, including pay of workers, kindness to strangers, everything], do to others as you would have them do to you."

How to get to this extremely high moral level even that many today in 2018 cannot consistently do?

(most people can do it some of the time, until they don't want to, or until they have a hard day, or someone is rude...etc.)

Let's look at what happened in the Old Testament
----------------------------

First, Israel was given 10 Commandments.

Half of these we can today summarize very simply for us modern Christians as "Love your neighbor as yourself." (but we are further along then people were 1500 years before Christ.)

And Israel, given those 10 commandments, failed to obey this simple Law during the Exodus journey. Over and over.

Not just a couple of times. It's failure after failure after failure.

Even after gaining the new land and many aids, still Israel would break the Law not just occasionally, but over and over and over and over.

The general and simple Laws, not being followed, resulted in what I like to label micro regulations (my wording) -- little detailed rules given to make people better able to do what they should, and what they could in practice, as they were, the people they were.

Baby steps.

Little regulations, like little steps, upward out of the morass of evil and wrong, tiny steps up, one at a time, to lift them out of their wrong and bad ways of treating each other.

Little steps they could actually manage.

And these micro regulations actually help, over time, in a progression, for a larger portion of people.

e.g. -- Instead of 3% obedience, a higher amount happens, like perhaps 15% or 25% even, and later in time higher, like 60%, 80% even, in later generations.

Progression.

Today in 2018, because only some people follow Matthew 7:12 (all the time), we have our own secular micro regulations --

Detailed. (Think Kavanaugh; what if Kavanaugh knew the little rules):
Maryland Rape and Sexual Assault Laws - FindLaw

This is our secular law -- fine detailed regulation (micro regulation) -- today in the U.S.


Because only some people obey "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you".

Do you think we could chuck (discard) our own secular laws -- Baby Steps in our secular law like the Maryland Rape and Sexual Assault Laws?

Seems the American experience is that we need baby steps upward over time. In America. Today.

Just like in the Old Testament.

Do you agree with that analysis, or do you think we could discard American Law today and just use Matthew 7:12 for our only secular law?

I agree with you that we should focus on one point at a time. Lets start by agreeing on a definition of slavery.

My definition of a slave is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. What is yours?
 
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Par5

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The nonsense here is saying that the God of Bible is immoral.
What I have been saying is that slavery is immoral. I say it is immoral because a slave is considered to be property. The slave can be beaten by their owner. Their owner can claim the slave's wife and children as an inheritance. The slave might have his ears tagged like a farm animal.
Those are a few of the reasons I say slavery is immoral and wrong. Can you see anything there that you might consider as being wrong? It's not rocket science, it only requires a yes or no answer.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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I agree with you that we should focus on one point at a time. Lets start by agreeing on a definition of slavery.

My definition of a slave is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. What is yours?

Wouldn't metaphysics and/or Biblical theology HAVE to play into the way that a Christian would and should answer this question of yours, Billy?
 
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Brother Billy

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Wouldn't metaphysics and/or Biblical theology HAVE to play into the way that a Christian would and should answer this question of yours, Billy?

Please answer it the way you feel is best. What is your definition of slavery?
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Please answer it the way you feel is best. What is your definition of slavery?

Assuming there's a biblical God, then slavery is the outcome of a world that is either under the auspices of that same God or under the auspices of Satan. Hence, part of the reason for all of that talk in the New Testament about a person's status as being either "slaves to sin" or "slaves/freedmen/children" in Christ.

So, in some Christian sense, slavery as an institution-----which is still very much with us today in more than one form-----refers to a metaphysical/theological truth, and it represents a conflict between Light and Dark, Truth and Error, Freedom and Servitude. In fact, Orlando Patterson, a Marxist-type political theorist, makes a case that the concept of Freedom which we now value in the West owes its fledgling essence in history to the introduction by Jesus and Paul of the spiritual motifs I've mentioned above.
 
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Halbhh

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I agree with you that we should focus on one point at a time. Lets start by agreeing on a definition of slavery.

My definition of a slave is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. What is yours?

Slavery is every situation from a-z where any person in any way forces or takes advantage of another person so that they get something from that person without fair payment of some kind to them.

So we have not only the simple forms of slavery like sex trafficking in which a young person is tricked and made to work as a prostitute against their will for little or no money. Not just obvious forms like that one, common in the U.S., but also the less-obvious forms like intentional ongoing underpayment of compensation.

Routine and ongoing significant underpayment for services is also a form of partial slavery. (Yes, we've all heard the rationalizations that the employees can just change jobs, a valid point, but incomplete, in that the partial slavery via underpayment relies on knowing they have costs to changing jobs, and often some are mentally weak (like the teen that gets forced into prostitution) and using that weakness against the person, intentionally, extracting part of their real earnings from them by taking advantage and underpaying with below average wages for that work at the same time that profits are especially high).

Contrast to Christ's way:

1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

------------
What would it look like to give people fairly what is theirs by right of the locally fair value of their work?

It would look like a business with larger than average profits and lower than average wages giving it's workers a large raise up to average wages.

It would look like Zacchaeus paying back money to those he'd cheated of what was fairly theirs by taking advantage of them in whatever way his position allowed and collecting more than he should have.

It would look like the U.S. paying the entire full value of the land it took when it broke treaties with some North American Native Tribes and took their lands for a pittance, forcing them (often with physical attacks and killings) onto far less productive and hospitable lands.

So, I don't ignore modern forms of slavery today in the U.S. when I consider what is slavery.
 
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Brother Billy

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...slavery is the outcome of a world that is either under the auspices of that same God or under the auspices of Satan...

...slavery as an institution ... refers to a metaphysical/theological truth, and it represents a conflict between Light and Dark, Truth and Error, Freedom and Servitude.

That's an extremely vague definition. You're essentially defining slavery as anything that is against God? Under this definition, the practices described in Leviticus 25:44-46 and Deuteronomy 20:10-18 aren't slavery because they were explicitly condoned by God? Am I correct in understanding you?
 
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2PhiloVoid

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That's an extremely vague definition. You're essentially defining slavery as anything that is against God? Under this definition, the practices described in Leviticus 25:44-46 and Deuteronomy 20:10-18 aren't slavery because they were explicitly condoned by God? Am I correct in understanding you?
I think the explanation I'm attempting to make will be difficult for most people to hear and to understand since we've all been indoctrinated through various forms of modern education and we assume that all of the post World War II and Post-Holocaust ideals of the modern Human Rights Regime are automatically correct without any further question. And it is this present paradigm that has to be addressed before we can assess what we think we see within the pages of an archaic religious book that seems to tell us about a God who affirms slavery.

With the above in mind, I'll try once again to articulate the spiritual setup of the Bible that informs its social and political matrix. What I was trying to say before is that, from a biblical perspective, slavery is allowed by God as a kind of byproduct of human sin and it reflects our choice to be spiritually 'bound' either to Satan or to God. The upshot of this is that, from the Biblical perspective, if humanity persists in sin and rebellion against God, then unfortunate institutions like slavery will tend to persist.

Do I like the ontological miasma of slavery which we find in the pages of the Bible? No, not really. Would I prefer to have freedom and a safe democracy for all in which to live and breath as opposed to being enslaved or existing under a dictatorship? Of course, I would! And it's not hard to figure out why. Many of the reasons we push away the Bible and its archaic politics is because we're now living in the petrified remains of Greek and Roman culture, even if in a transmuted and refined way after having come through the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Religious Wars, the Enlightenment, and lately, through 20th Century World Turmoil and Ethnic conflict, and 21st century Terrorism. Moreover, we're all so existentially shocked by what has transpired over the past 100 years or so that we're now on the edge of just throwing out the Bible all together because we see it as being socially backwards and morally offensive. But, really, I think God sees slavery as offensive, too, but we tend to ignore the context by which He sees slavery, just like we ignore how He sees our human sin.

Regardless of all of the above, I'm not saying that you or anyone has to like my explanation; no, I'm just offering what I see is the theological and social background of biblical slavery as it was provisioned for in the Old Testament. Fortunately, for those of us now living in Western nations, the days of outright slavery seem to be behind us, but as Orlando Patterson implies, we might at least partially have Jesus and some of His 1st century followers to thank for setting into motion the germinal essence of the Freedom we think we enjoy today.
 
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Halbhh

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I think the explanation I'm attempting to make will be difficult for most people to hear and to understand since we've all been indoctrinated through various forms of modern education and we assume that all of the post World War II and Post-Holocaust ideals of the modern Human Rights Regime are automatically correct without any further question. And it is this present paradigm that has to be addressed before we can assess what we think we see within the pages of an archaic religious book that seems to tell us about a God who affirms slavery.

With the above in mind, I'll try once again to articulate the spiritual setup of the Bible that informs its social and political matrix. What I was trying to say before is that, from a biblical perspective, slavery is allowed by God as a kind of byproduct of human sin and it reflects our choice to be spiritually 'bound' either to Satan or to God. The upshot of this is that, from the Biblical perspective, if humanity persists in sin and rebellion against God, then unfortunate institutions like slavery will tend to persist.

Do I like the ontological miasma of slavery which we find in the pages of the Bible? No, not really. Would I prefer to have freedom and a safe democracy for all in which to live and breath as opposed to being enslaved or existing under a dictatorship? Of course, I would! And it's not hard to figure out why. Many of the reasons we push away the Bible and its archaic politics is because we're now living in the petrified remains of Greek and Roman culture, even if in a transmuted and refined way after having come through the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Religious Wars, the Enlightenment, and lately, through 20th Century World Turmoil and Ethnic conflict, and 21st century Terrorism. Moreover, we're all so existentially shocked by what has transpired over the past 100 years or so that we're now on the edge of just throwing out the Bible all together because we see it as being socially backwards and morally offensive. But, really, I think God sees slavery as offensive, too, but we tend to ignore the context by which He sees slavery, just like we ignore how He sees our human sin.

Regardless of all of the above, I'm not saying that you or anyone has to like my explanation; no, I'm just offering what I see is the theological and social background of biblical slavery as it was provisioned for in the Old Testament. Fortunately, for those of us now living in Western nations, the days of outright slavery seem to be behind us, but as Orlando Patterson implies, we might at least partially have Jesus and some of His 1st century followers to thank for setting into motion the germinal essence of the Freedom we think we enjoy today.

Nice points!

It's so helpful to become self aware.

To realize, as you've well pointed out in a way --

We tend initially to interpret Bible law from 3,500 years ago as if the people only needed some better instruction.

So they could be enlightened like us modern Americans, us enlightened Americans, who are such a model of advanced something or another.

And we say to ourselves (or could), "Oh my!"

"Oh my, these people were so backward, and why didn't God give them better laws?"

To paraphrase one point in the OP.

I was trying to get at this point in post #325 above, but it's hard to know if many people can get what I'm pointing out, understand why incremental gradual improvements were necessary.

Our own modern secular law is just the same -- incremental gradual improvement in small details. (example given in post #325 of the Maryland Sexual Assault laws)

Baby steps. Because only some people consistently do the golden rule.

But I wonder if I write it clearly enough to make it understandable.

Perhaps I need to write post #325 shorter?
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Nice points!

It's so helpful to become self aware.

To realize, as you've well pointed out in a way --

We tend initially to interpret Bible law from 3,500 years ago as if the people only needed some better instruction.

So they could be enlightened like us modern Americans, us enlightened Americans, who are such a model of advanced something or another.

And we say to ourselves (or could), "Oh my!"

"Oh my, these people were so backward, and why didn't God give them better laws?"

To paraphrase one point in the OP.

I was trying to get at this point in post #325 above, but it's hard to know if many people can get what I'm pointing out, understand why incremental gradual improvements were necessary.

Our own modern secular law is just the same -- incremental gradual improvement in small details. (example given in post #325 of the Maryland Sexual Assault laws)

Baby steps. Because only some people consistently do the golden rule.

But I wonder if I write it clearly enough to make it understandable.

Perhaps I need to write post #325 shorter?

I think you write clearly enough, Halbhh. So, don't concern yourself too much with that. What we might want to keep in mind when writing about issues like the one in this thread is that these kinds of topics are still relatively fresh in people's historical, collective memory, as are the social and emotional ramifications that accompany that memory. These felt emotions have remained during and after the development of Civil Rights and Human Rights laws, but the thing is, we all know that these laws could never really take away the pain of the past or heal the social, ethnic biases of the present, and we're still healing over many things related to the social outcomes of Western slavery. So, just about any attempt to try to 'explain' Old Testament slavery to an audience today will more often than not just fall flat before it reaches anyone's eyes or ears.

Maybe consider the wide spectrum of people who sit in our audience and remember that when we attempt to explain these deeply cutting social issues, an avalanche of angry emotions and assumptions will need to be worked through in order for any one person who hears you to open up further and really think about Old Testament slavery in ways which they've probably never done before. Again, I think the post you've written here is fine, and if anyone really wants you to elaborate further, they'll ask you to do so if they're really interested in understanding your view.

Now that I've successfully preached to the choir and told you things you probably already know quite well, I'm off:

Peace, bro! :cool:
 
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Brother Billy

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I think the explanation I'm attempting to make will be difficult for most people to hear and to understand since we've all been indoctrinated through various forms of modern education and we assume that all of the post World War II and Post-Holocaust ideals of the modern Human Rights Regime are automatically correct without any further question. And it is this present paradigm that has to be addressed before we can assess what we think we see within the pages of an archaic religious book that seems to tell us about a God who affirms slavery.

With the above in mind, I'll try once again to articulate the spiritual setup of the Bible that informs its social and political matrix. What I was trying to say before is that, from a biblical perspective, slavery is allowed by God as a kind of byproduct of human sin and it reflects our choice to be spiritually 'bound' either to Satan or to God. The upshot of this is that, from the Biblical perspective, if humanity persists in sin and rebellion against God, then unfortunate institutions like slavery will tend to persist.

Do I like the ontological miasma of slavery which we find in the pages of the Bible? No, not really. Would I prefer to have freedom and a safe democracy for all in which to live and breath as opposed to being enslaved or existing under a dictatorship? Of course, I would! And it's not hard to figure out why. Many of the reasons we push away the Bible and its archaic politics is because we're now living in the petrified remains of Greek and Roman culture, even if in a transmuted and refined way after having come through the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Religious Wars, the Enlightenment, and lately, through 20th Century World Turmoil and Ethnic conflict, and 21st century Terrorism. Moreover, we're all so existentially shocked by what has transpired over the past 100 years or so that we're now on the edge of just throwing out the Bible all together because we see it as being socially backwards and morally offensive. But, really, I think God sees slavery as offensive, too, but we tend to ignore the context by which He sees slavery, just like we ignore how He sees our human sin.

Regardless of all of the above, I'm not saying that you or anyone has to like my explanation; no, I'm just offering what I see is the theological and social background of biblical slavery as it was provisioned for in the Old Testament. Fortunately, for those of us now living in Western nations, the days of outright slavery seem to be behind us, but as Orlando Patterson implies, we might at least partially have Jesus and some of His 1st century followers to thank for setting into motion the germinal essence of the Freedom we think we enjoy today.

From your response it seems that you're essentially saying God considers slavery a sin, but he allowed it anyway and slavery wasn't as bad in ancient times because people considered it normal back then?

If something is deeply immoral today, surely it would be just as immoral in ancient times? Or are you claiming that God's morals have changed over time?

If God though that slavery was so immoral, why didn't he just tell the Hebrews? Instead he told the Hebrews who they could enslave, how they could go about enslaving them and the the circumstances under which slavery was allowed. Anyone hearing this would interpret this as God approving slavery. Why would an omni-benevolent god tolerate one of the most evil practices ever created, because of economics or social customs? There are numerous examples in the Old testament where God killed Hebrews by the thousands for things far less serious than slavery. It seems completely bizarre that he would balk at telling them to give up their slaves.

A good moral teacher doesn't tell his followers that they can engage in immoral behavior if they find it difficult to refrain from it. He tells them what ideals they should aspire to. Where does God tell the Hebrews that slavery is wrong? Nowhere in the Bible does God or Jesus say this. In fact there is nothing in the Bible that suggests slavery is wrong. "Love your neighbor" and the slavery rules both appear in the 5 five books of Moses. Are you suggesting that the books contradict each-other?
 
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Brother Billy

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Slavery is every situation from a-z where any person in any way forces or takes advantage of another person so that they get something from that person without fair payment of some kind to them.

So we have not only the simple forms of slavery like sex trafficking in which a young person is tricked and made to work as a prostitute against their will for little or no money. Not just obvious forms like that one, common in the U.S., but also the less-obvious forms like intentional ongoing underpayment of compensation.

Routine and ongoing significant underpayment for services is also a form of partial slavery. (Yes, we've all heard the rationalizations that the employees can just change jobs, a valid point, but incomplete, in that the partial slavery via underpayment relies on knowing they have costs to changing jobs, and often some are mentally weak (like the teen that gets forced into prostitution) and using that weakness against the person, intentionally, extracting part of their real earnings from them by taking advantage and underpaying with below average wages for that work at the same time that profits are especially high).

Contrast to Christ's way:

1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

------------
What would it look like to give people fairly what is theirs by right of the locally fair value of their work?

It would look like a business with larger than average profits and lower than average wages giving it's workers a large raise up to average wages.

It would look like Zacchaeus paying back money to those he'd cheated of what was fairly theirs by taking advantage of them in whatever way his position allowed and collecting more than he should have.

It would look like the U.S. paying the entire full value of the land it took when it broke treaties with some North American Native Tribes and took their lands for a pittance, forcing them (often with physical attacks and killings) onto far less productive and hospitable lands.

So, I don't ignore modern forms of slavery today in the U.S. when I consider what is slavery.

I disagree that underpaying someone is equivalent to slavery. Slavery is owning another person as property.

Do you think there was any difference between slavery in the Bible and slavery in the America between the 17th-19th centuries? Before you answer, please read:
Yes, Biblical Slavery Was the Same as American Slavery
 
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Brother Billy

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Nice points!

It's so helpful to become self aware.

To realize, as you've well pointed out in a way --

We tend initially to interpret Bible law from 3,500 years ago as if the people only needed some better instruction.

So they could be enlightened like us modern Americans, us enlightened Americans, who are such a model of advanced something or another.

And we say to ourselves (or could), "Oh my!"

"Oh my, these people were so backward, and why didn't God give them better laws?"

To paraphrase one point in the OP.

I was trying to get at this point in post #325 above, but it's hard to know if many people can get what I'm pointing out, understand why incremental gradual improvements were necessary.

Our own modern secular law is just the same -- incremental gradual improvement in small details. (example given in post #325 of the Maryland Sexual Assault laws)

Baby steps. Because only some people consistently do the golden rule.

But I wonder if I write it clearly enough to make it understandable.

Perhaps I need to write post #325 shorter?

What are your comments to what I wrote in #336?

You keep saying that God meant to abolish slavery at some point. When exactly was this point?

You also assert that the rules that regulated slavery became more restrictive over time. Even at their most restrictive, they weren't much different to those that existed in America? (See my post in #324). And I don't see a progression either. It seems all the laws regarding slavery were given to the Hebrews around the time of Moses since these laws are contained within the 5 books of Moses.

I know the whole story of Paul and Philemon. All I see here is one man becoming attached to one slave and then pleading with that slave's master to set him free. Nowhere does Paul suggest that slavery is evil? All he says is that slaves should seek their freedom where this is possible. As I pointed out before, I think it is better that chickens on egg-laying farms should be free-range as opposed to locked up in cages, but that doesn't necessarily mean I think keeping chickens locked up is wrong. Also Paul sent the slave back to his master and said slaves should obey their masters even if they are cruel. What exactly in this story makes you think that God was telling humans that slavery was evil and that slaves should be released? I just don't see it.
 
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DogmaHunter

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You're missing too many details to piece it together, quite reasonably, because you'd have to read fully through several books to get all of the situation/context, to actually know what's happening, the why.

Here's why, and one only learns the full picture in scriptures usually, such as from finding sections like this, because they are reading through fully --

29 “When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30 take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’

[Why are they being destroyed? --]

31 You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods."


The special extreme evil of burning children in fires as sacrifices -- ongoing, routine, permanent as part of their culture -- led to the total destruction of such cities. [and we can learn more about this in other books also]

They were wiped out, with all in them sent on to the Day of Judgement (where all will go in their time) -- where the innocent will be separated out from the guilty. The unrepentant guilty going into the "second death", and the innocent into Life.

I read the bible dude. Admittedly, that was some time ago, but I'll go ahead and assume that it still says the same thing.

Anyway, like I said before: as far as I am concerned, there is NO EXCUSE and NO CIRCUMSTANCE that EVER justifies things like genocide, infantacide, etc.

The "william lane craig" excuse that basically says "ow it's okay that all those innocent babies and toddlers were slaughtered, because they are all in heaven jumping in rain puddles" is beyond disgusting.

The is NO CRIME, NO ACTION, no matter how brutal, that justifies the slaughter of innocent people.

Put it in perspective a bit... Let's look at the most evil regime/society that currently exists (or existed until recently, depending on who you ask): ISIS.

These were/are pretty gruesome people and argueable to most evil group of people on this planet.

Imagine the US invading Syria and slaughtering every single one of them - including women, children, toddlers and babies.

The world would be up in arms about the disgustingly immoral war crimes and genocidal and infanticidal brutality. And rightfully so.

Because there is no action, no crime, no anything, that justifies the brutal slaughter of innocents.

Frankly, when I hear WIlliam Lane Craig making that "excuse" / "argument", I feel like he deserves a serious slap in the face.
 
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DogmaHunter

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It will often be confusing to try to understand scripture if one feels certain there is no afterlife. That assumption or belief will make the text seem contradictory in many places. e.g.--How can God be 'good' (benevolent, etc.) if He directed and sometimes directly did the deaths (seeming final death) of innocents along with the guilty....?

? That is, under the assumption there is no afterlife. (That belief there is no next life)

I'm not Jewish nor in a war. Additionally I'm under the "new covenant" -- the change in the rules and the situation and the condition (of humanity) -- so I'm not going to be in a situation where there is a command to entirely destroy a city of great evil.

But, the most basic difference ultimately here is between a view in which death in this mortal body is believed to be a true death that is final vs. a whole different understanding when one knows that death here is only a doorway all will pass through, to what comes next, and what comes next is that the redeemed and the innocent (children that died in every way, war, famine, cancer, every last way) will live.


You forgot to answer the question.

Is it something you could/would do?
 
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DogmaHunter

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Interesting error to make.

I'm not merely against slavery in the past, but also against it now in the U.S., today in 2018. In the various forms, like sex trafficking and sweat shops and intentionally underpaying workers (some businesses that have unusually large profits and especially low wages).

What about you? Are you against not only past slaveries, but also the modern forms in the U.S. today? Curious.

I'm really asking, because I don't assume if you are against A you are against A5 and A8 also, but instead leave it as something to inquire about.


And still no answer. Worse even, now you're trying to redefine slavery in a rather pathetic attempt to turn the questions around.

Again: is going on a genocidal and infanticidal killing spree something you could / would do?
 
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DogmaHunter

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When God removes innocent people from this temporary mortal life into the next life to come, the eternal one, that's not 'murder' because they are alive.

Except it wasn't god that did the killing.


Once again: could/would you go on a genocidal and infanticidal killing spree?

Does that make logical sense?
No.

Now, answer the question. You've been beating around the bush and dodging it for more then 4 posts now.

Humans can murder, but God will rescue when they do. Humans can kill in war, but God will rescue those that die who deserve to live.
Does that make sense?

It sounds like a really pathetic and rather evil excuse to justify genocide and infanticide.

Now: could/would you go on a genocidal and infanticidal killing spree?
 
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2PhiloVoid

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From your response it seems that you're essentially saying God considers slavery a sin, but he allowed it anyway and slavery wasn't as bad in ancient times because people considered it normal back then?
No, that's not what I'm saying. (See, I'm going to have to lay this out again, aren't I?) :rolleyes: Let's see if I can be more concise and to the point.

Slavery in the Old Testament context (i.e. the B.C. context), and as administered by the Israelites during their times, is implicative of "just desserts" upon those who disregard God's Will and Commandments. They didn't have prisons, they had slavery. So, in the O.T., we see that everyone, even the Israelites were subject to slavery if they disobeyed God. This is part of the principles behind why, say, Samson was enslaved by the Philistines; it's also part of the reason the Israelites themselves were decimated by Nebuchadnezzar, with the surviving remnants of the Israelite population then hauled off to Babylon for 70 years.

"Today's" slavery is a different case and we're now in a different world (i.e. in the A.D. context) with a different set of post-Christian social milieus. And the slavery of the Atlantic slave trade was more or less what I'd call "White Sin," which had more to do with a big Economic and Religious Power Trip on the part of Muslims, followed by greedy Europeans who were only too happy to follow suite, than it does with any apparent injunctions supporting slavery which seem to reside in the pages of the O.T.

You see, BEFORE any one of us really has the privilege [despite our present freedom to tell ourselves otherwise] of making an ethical evaluation about the Old Testament institution of slavery, we HAVE to hermeneutically account for and understand the full context of what we're actually finding and what WE THINK we're reading in those archaic O.T. pages. Otherwise, we're guilty of misappropriating the material and prone to making brash judgements about things we know not which, and all we'll have to excuse ourselves by is to say, "...well, we don't like it because we think it's the same ol' thing we had to deal with during the last several hundreds years!" Which wouldn't really be true.

I mean, if we're going to affirm the nastiness of slavery in the O.T., we HAVE to be willing to ALSO affirm such odd-ball contexts such as, "...and there were Giants in the land in those days," or "You Israelites are stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart, so don't think you're any better than those that God is displacing and eradicating before you" etc., etc. etc.?

If something is deeply immoral today, surely it would be just as immoral in ancient times? Or are you claiming that God's morals have changed over time?

If God though that slavery was so immoral, why didn't he just tell the Hebrews? Instead he told the Hebrews who they could enslave, how they could go about enslaving them and the the circumstances under which slavery was allowed. Anyone hearing this would interpret this as God approving slavery. Why would an omni-benevolent god tolerate one of the most evil practices ever created, because of economics or social customs? There are numerous examples in the Old testament where God killed Hebrews by the thousands for things far less serious than slavery. It seems completely bizarre that he would balk at telling them to give up their slaves.

A good moral teacher doesn't tell his followers that they can engage in immoral behavior if they find it difficult to refrain from it. He tells them what ideals they should aspire to. Where does God tell the Hebrews that slavery is wrong? Nowhere in the Bible does God or Jesus say this. In fact there is nothing in the Bible that suggests slavery is wrong. "Love your neighbor" and the slavery rules both appear in the 5 five books of Moses. Are you suggesting that the books contradict each-other?
I've already covered some of this elsewhere here on CF.

Let's just say, for now, that you're only seeing half, maybe even only a third of, the total picture.
 
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