Why do you suppose Jesus never condemned slavery?

@spendius,

Quote:

It was standard practice for a very long time to massacre the able bodied males after a siege. The women and children were carried off into slavery. Which was the humane thing to do because without the men the women and children would have perished in ghastly circumstances.

The idea that the women and children be granted citizenship in the victor's society is as far fetched as is granting citizenship now to illegal immigrants. Thus a category was invented: slaves. In time the slaves were gradually assimilated into the victor's society just as the slaves in north America have been.

That's why the question here is anachronistic. It uses the modern emotional attitude to the word "slavery" and applies it to conditions over 2,000 years ago with the sole purpose of discrediting Jesus, the founder of our culture, and by extension discrediting the religious beliefs and moral imperatives of long standing and without offering even a hint of any alternative.

It's street vandalism and as "rude" as rude gets.

If you are correct, Spendius, and I am not suggesting in any way that you are, one has to wonder why the people who wrote the history contained in the Bible were so averse to their slavery in Egypt...and why they still celebrate the god who created the entire universe freeing them from that slavery.

C'mon, Spendius. Be real.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

omigosh...Frank, you just reminded of a conversation I was in on Abuzz with some idiot who was defending the US Southern States' Right to 'either have slavery or get rid of it'. It was his,( damn, I forgotten the name,) position that if we had just left the South alone, it would have abandoned slavery at some point, not because it was immoral, but that, given the coming Industrial Age, it wouldn't have been economically viable.

He actually used your quote about "Slaves, you shall have them..." to defend the white Southerners' attitude towards the ethics of owning slaves.

I asked him if he thought it was ethical for the Egyptians to enslave the Jews, and , if so, by what supernatural authority had they been given permission to own the Jews?

He replied that the Egyptians never had the right to enslave the Jews because they were following the dictates of "a false god".

(You have to watch out for those, I guess.)

So, the Jews, and their philosophical descendants, the Christians, did have the right and authority to enslave other people because they were following the commands of Almighty God.

(Ah, a real god. Lucky for them.)

After I stopped banging my head with my fist, I decided to thank him for aiding me in seeing what a steaming pile of horsepoop the Bible is.

~
His (it was a name like Madetse, or Modesto or something) other bit of brilliance was that anything in the Old Testament that Jesus didn't specifically deny was to be followed by Christians.
(Christ didn't speak about homosexuality, thus the Old Testament proclamations against it hold.)
I said "Good. Because there's not a word in the New Testament against selling my daughters and I am getting really tired of all their crap."

Joe(I don't remember what he said to that, but he made no offer.)Nation

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@Joe Nation,

Quote:

It was his,( damn, I forgotten the name,) position that if we had just left the South alone, it would have abandoned slavery at some point, not because it was immoral, but that, given the coming Industrial Age, it wouldn't have been economically viable.

Then he was right. They would either have abolished slavery or they would have been laughed at by the others who knew that it was better if the slave was required to house and feed himself, and made to work to repay the debt he accepts in exchange for his freedom.
And that's how we've been doing it ever since.

Slavery was never abolished. It was just modernized. Industrialized, like everything else.

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@Joe Nation,

Joe, I do not remember the guy, but I remember at least one conversation like that.

Whenever anyone mentions that the god of the Bible is honored (in one of the oldest religious ceremonies now extant) for releasing the Hebrews from slavery...the discussion takes a side track.

Slavery sucks today...and it sucked back then. There were some slaves in the American south who resented being freed (I grant that at least as a possibility)...and I am sure there were some slaves back 2000 years who considered their lot better as slaves than as free men. But that does not detract from the fact that being bought and sold...and having family bought and sold...sucked big time.

The fact that the god of the Bible allowed that slavery was okay...in other words, moral...is, at very least, an indictment of that god. I think it more reasonable that the fact that the god CONDONES slavery can be interpreted in a much more reasonable way...obviously, as an indication that the "teachings" of the god of the Bible were actually just humans of several thousands of years ago putting their mores, ethics, morals, and general philosophy into the mouth of a god they invented.

My attack is not on Christianity...and arguably is not even on religion in general. My attack is on the logic used in making guesses about the Bible...and the god described in it.

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

Slavery was never abolished. It was just modernized. Industrialized, like everything else.

These guys can't be expected to see that Cyr. They are perpetually blinded by their obsession that it is socially acceptable to wank, shag spayed females, divorce, sodomise and abort to circumvent procedural errors.

They will even go so far in pursuit of such an obsession that they will not only commit that most derisory literary solecism of declaring the Bible to be a steaming pile of horsepoop but execute the very unoriginal assertion with no expectation that anybody will smirk, laugh or guffaw.

Which I consider to be rather presumptuous of them.

It surprises me that they are not asking why Jesus didn't condemn planting bombs.

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

Slavery was never abolished. It was just modernized. Industrialized, like everything else.

I understand the frustration with economic conditions of today can cause some of us to subscribe to that notion, Cyracuz, but I caution against it.

True slavery...the kind practices back then and during the slavery days of America...ARE gone. The truly heinous aspects of slavery, in my opinion, were never in the economic characteristics…but in the “buying, selling, having complete dominance” area.

You may not agree with me on that, but I wanted to share it.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Slavery- (Noun)
1. system based on enslaved labor: the practice of, or a system based on, using the enforced labor of other people
2. condition of being enslaved laborer: the state or condition of being held in involuntary servitude as the property of somebody else
3. hard work: very hard work, especially for low pay and under bad conditions
4. state of being dominated: a state of being completely dominated by another

I don't know...of the definitions listed, three of the four applies to most minimum wage jobs...Only robots can free them from their menial jobs...

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@Frank Apisa,

You should more Nicolas Kristoff on modern slavery, present day. It is widespread, it is profitable and it is, if not state-sanctioned, state ignored.

Joe(and not just in Thailand)Nation

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

It's in the United States, certainly, especially with the "importation" of Chinese. Of course, it's all about greed, it has nohting to do with religion.

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The first feechewer on Newsnight yesterday concerned the plight of Rumanian and Bulgarian workers in the hotel trade in London. Slaves clean the **** up the fat cat visitors leave in their wake.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I understand the frustration with economic conditions of today can cause some of us to subscribe to that notion, Cyracuz, but I caution against it.

One winter I couldn't pay the electricity bill. It was a very cold year, and the power supplier wanted to cut me off. This being Norway, the company had no other choice than to keep supplying me with power and just accept late payment. Had I lived in the US, I would perhaps have frozen to death that year.
So yeah, if you have to pay for the bare essentials that you need to simply survive, and someone has legal right to deny those things to you if you don't pay, not only are you a slave, you are a slave to a nameless master who has no responsibility for you at all.

I'm not complaining because I'm lacking something. I have everything I need and then some. I am simply making an observation about the system we have in place to govern our economics. The nonsense about "equal oportunity for all in capitalism" was probably true once upon a time, but by now, the game is so thoroughly rigged by those at the top that it's a load of crap.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

In many jurisdictions in the United States, your gas or electricity cannot be cut off in the winter.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Jesus, the founder of our culture

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@ehBeth,

I don't wear sandals.

and I've never had a girl that wanted to wash my feet with her hair...

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@ehBeth,

Now that's pretty damned hilarious. Them Greeks, them Romans--they didn't give us squat.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I see no indication that the Church fathers condemned slavery...and the man who became one of, if not "the" leading Church father, Paul, specifically condoned it.

I do not think that Paul was a therapeutea but rather one of the ones who used parts of the therapeutea's moral philosophy and twisted it to fit his agenda. "wolf in sheep's clothing" Certainly these early church members knew slavery was immoral if it was done to them but they did not seem to care if it was done to others. They were sociopathic in this sense.

Quote:

I am unaware of this...but I would appreciate some citations if you can furnish them.

On the seventh day the Therapeutae met in a meeting house, the men on one side of an open partition, the women modestly on the other, to hear discourses. Once in seven weeks they meet for a night-long vigil after a banquet where they served one another, for "they are not waited on by slaves, because they deem any possession of servants whatever to be contrary to nature. For she has begotten all men alike free" (Philo, para.70) and sing antiphonal hymns until dawn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutae

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@Setanta,

That's good for them. Perhaps it should be said that cases where this is not respected aren't that uncommon over here. If the person who's power they come to cut off doesn't refuse, they will do it, even if it's mid winter.

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@Frank Apisa,

The be sure there were many injustices taking place during the time Jesus walked the earth. Slavery being one of them. But instead of allowing himself to become side tracked by various issues of that time, Jesus revealed to people what he will do to bring an end to all injustice. As one who was throughly familiar with what the Scriptures taught, he now doubt helped people to remember this promise as found in the Bible at Psalm 72 verses 12-14

Psalm. 72:12-14: “He ["God's appointed King"] will deliver the poor one crying for help, also the afflicted one and whoever has no helper. He will feel sorry for the lowly one and the poor one, and the souls of the poor ones he will save. From oppression and from violence he will redeem their soul, and their blood will be precious in his eyes.”

Yes, although Jesus didn't mention slavery directly, we can be sure that he includes it as one of the matters of oppression he will do away with.

Why do you suppose Jesus never condemned slavery?

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