Can you cite some passages of the Bible that explicitly forbid slavery?
To southerners. What’s your point?
Slavery was common in the northern colonies, and it’s only economics that made it useless to the north when the industrial revolution hit. The Founding Fathers were uncomfortable with it, but not uncomfortable enough to ban it. The fact that the government permitted it in the south, and that the north sat back and condoned it, makes it irrelevant who might have shipped the slaves from Africa, since clearly the entire Union colluded to do it.
So what? It was still wrong. So were the lynchings that took place between reconstruction and around 1920 (mostly, I might note, a southern phenomenon.) I don’t remember anyone in a previous post trying to claim that the south is uniquely responsible for slavery.
Speaking of which, what’s your feeling on slavery? Does a person have the right to sell themself into slavery? Some libertarian thinkers, IIRC, support that.
No, dear. As a person who has zero religious beliefs at all, let me tell you that I couldn’t care less what you believe. Why would an athiest care whether others are religious? We’re not an organized movement, either. And the “fight” between Christianity and atheism is entirely one-sided. We don’t care what you guys do. It’s just rather annoying that a few Christians feel the need to worry about what we do.
I’m not exactly a Bible scholar, but apparently there’s some bit where two brothers, Ham and Shem, ran across their drunken father (I think it was Noah.) Noah was passed out and naked, and Ham laughed at his father’s nakedness, while Shem covered him up. And so Ham was marked forever, and his descendents were to serve as the slaves of Shem’s descendents, who became the Semites. Supposedly, Ham’s skin was darkened, and thus blacks are the sons of Ham and condemned to slavery.
That’s the story I’ve heard, and I can’t say where it happened in the Bible. It’s not New Testament, but then, the Old Testament is still held to be cannon, is it not?
Now certainly many prominent abolitionists were Christian, and using the Bible’s overall message of love and compassion, they argued vociferously that it was contrary to God’s will. Obviously this is a better interpretation of the spirit of Biblical teachings, but it’s a long book and people can find a lot of stuff in it. But yes, there were definitely those in the south who used the Bible to justify slavery.
I’m not Reeder but here you go…
1 Peter 2:18
Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
Ephesians 6:5
5Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
Leviticus 25:44
'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.
That’s just a taste. There’s plenty more. Shall I go on or are you satisfied?
Now…can you find anything in the Bible which consemns the practice of slavery?
(I’ll save you the trouble. You can’t)
Let’s distinguish here between old testament and new. The overarching term “Bible” is useless in my opinion; Old Testament Judaism has very little in common with the beliefs of Christianity. Slavery is condoned as far as I know by the Torah. The message of “love and compassion” is pure Christianity. Judaism is a religion from a warlike tribe.
Which is why all angels have, at minimum, three sets of wings.
Hopefully you ment “explicitly condemns”?
Pure poppycock.
The Golden Rule is right out of Leviticus. I’ve already cited two New Testament verses which condone slavery. If you want divine wrath, check out Revelation sometime.
The Hebrew Bible (as well as the Talmud) is filled with compassionate messages. This meme that the OT God is all blood and guts while the NT God is all puppies and bunnies is a ridiculous over-simplification.
Is there anything that condemns it even indirectly? There are instructions on how to take care of your slave and be a good massah but nothing that says the practice itself is wrong.
There are multiple instances in the HB where God pretty much commands the Israelites to take slaves.
I’m definitely not trying to make any case that Christians (or Jews) have to be pro-slavery but I do think they have to admit that their scriptures contain some cultural and historical archaisms which can’t be defended as legitimate anymore.
Some smuggling likely took place, but the slave population more than tripled, from 1.2 million in 1808 (when importations were abolished) to 4 million by 1860. The need to import fell pretty drastically.
Not that I want to be on the side of white-washing our nations greatest shame, but didn’t Alexis de Tocqueville sorta describe slavery in the sout like that?
Can’t believe I’m defending Reeder here, but I think you are taking sarcasm too seriously in this instance. He wasn’t seroiusly saying that all Christians have to believe slavery is justified, but rather that for some a true literalist defense of the Bible requires defending the indefensible, including slavery.
As long as no one tells me I have to bunk something, I don’t particularly feel the need to debunk it.
At least the OT God never imagines anything as unimaginably detestable as neverending eternal suffering.
I wonder: is there any Biblical support for the idea that there is a particular list of things one must believe to truly be a Christian that includes belief that the Bible is literal and infaliable?
I would think it would be hard case to make for anything in the NT, given that it was written without knowledge of any such thing as a Bible ever existing. But some NT and OT books do make claims about OT Scripture, so it’s not impossible either (however, OT books on the other hand certainly never define “Christian” either)
de Tocqueville wrote of slaves “admiring” their masters and of freed slaves being doomed to suffering, but his account is a mixture of ethnocentric paternalism and rationalization oddly combined with a sharp eye for reality. It is hardly a blanket endorsement of slavery.
Not that Muad’Dib was making a claim that de Tocqueville championed slavery–only that de Tocqueville’s description of a people who could not see any better goals for themselves because of the brutality imposed upon them differs sharply from the “harmonious” life depicted in the pamphlet mentioned in the OP.)
It is somewhat ironic to me that the birth and driving force behind the abolition movement in the British Empire and USA was the protestant Christian Quakers who believed that owning slaves was sinful.
The irony of course is that here is a bible thumping church trying to change society by identifying a “sinful” practice that they wish to ban. Sort of abandoning the principle of separation of church and state. No doubt there were plenty of people who were upset by these meddling “fundies”.
[…shrug…] Why not give people the desires of their heart?
What are you implying here? I wouldn’t call Quakers “fundies”.
Nope. But there are plenty of passages urging love and compassion towards fellow man, and our shared inferiority before God-- and those are the passages I would guess most Christians pay attention to when it comes to slavery.
Billy Graham said,
I suppose in BG’s eyes that slavery that is based on race superiority is a prideful sin and thus not something God smiles down benevolently upon.
That’s one way to look at it.
Here’s something else I’ve been wondering about.
Billy Graham’s website seems to sum well everything I’ve ever been taught about what it takes to become a Christian:
Here’s another checklist from http://www.faithman.org/howto.htm
Is an oath required that says one must believe in the complete, literal truth of the Bible? If so, can you provide me with a cite? [And doesn’t that raise the question: what* is * the Bible? Since certain books are canonical and others are not-- like the Apocrypha, etc.? Has its definition as a collection of specific books changed significantly since the Bible as we know it was finished?]
As a sidenote, I can understand using the relationship between slave and master as an analogy for facets of a relationship with Christ/God. Complete obediance to God’s will is something desired by God (in my understanding)-- and using the analogy of a slave, devoted to the will of his master, is an effective one in conveying a relationship of dedication, compliance, and servitude. Like a son who listens to the wisdom of a father and obeys wholeheartedly, a follower of Christ gives up all worldly things to focus on Christ alone.