A Christian's Rationale For Owning Slaves...

[POI]

Taken from "1213" --> http://www.kolumbus.fi/r.berg/Owning_slaves.html

Notably, the quote below:

Owning slaves?

According to the Old Testament, peoples at least had right to own slaves. Many wonder, is that same right also valid for today’s disciples of Jesus.

1) Jesus didn’t directly deny owning slaves. So maybe it can be taught that it is valid right today also. However Jesus taught to do same to others that you want others to do to you. Therefore, if you don’t want yourself to be slave, don’t keep others in that position.

2) Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
Mat. 7:12

3) It is also good to notice that disciples of Jesus shouldn’t consider themselves superior to others. If we are all brothers and sisters, how could we keep other as a slave? Rather we should be servants to each other.

*************************

My response, thus far:

1) You are right, Jesus never tells humans that slavery is wrong. Instead, He looks to endorse the following two Bible passages A) and B):

A) Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Col. 3:22-24)

B) All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. 2 Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare[a] of their slaves. (1 Tim. 6:1-2)

A) This massage tells the slave to remain subservient, work as hard as one can; even when the master is away. This way, God will be proud of you, via the slave.

B) Respect your slave master. If the master happens to be a Christian, respect them even more.

As you can see, Jesus appears not to be against slavery at all. In fact, He condones such practices.

2) If this were the case for all humans, (the free and the enslaved), then Jesus would not have endorsed instructions for slavery.

3) Please remember the 'golden rule' was already expressed in the OT (i.e.) "you shall love your neighbor as yourself"(Lev. 19:18). Either never speak about the topic of slavery at all, or, tell the Bible readers that slavery is 'wrong'. Instead, the OT already instructs on how you may obtain slaves, how you may beat your slaves, and informs the reader that the slave master can own the slave for life, and also treat them as their property for life. The NT then merely reinforces such OT instruction.

Question(s) for debate:

Why didn't Jesus just abolish slavery practices, or never mention slavery at all? Seems rather confusing, to have left what He left in the NT Bible....?

Answer (post #401)

I'd say that the matter is clear. The OT does refer to chattel slavery - for foreigners. The Bible gives rules (attempting to be fair, no denial) for Jews enslaving others. It does not look like God, knowing that slavery is going to be a no- no in the age when his religion is user scrutiny, thought that he should make it clear that it was wrong. It looks like God thought it was ok, within limits. Paul gave it a thumbs -up and Jesus at least by not commenting, seems to be unaware that it is going to be one of the worst human crimes in modern times.

Thus, it is one more reason to believe the Bible, cover to cover...as the word of men of the time. And that's all it is. It is not even a valid guide to life- advice, morals or social conduct. It is, like any other book, judged by human moral standards, and I can prove it. If Christians did not judge the Bible by human moral codes, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

[POI]

I mean God gave ...special instructions/directions/orders ...

Fair enough; unless he gave these orders by telepathy we should be able to read them somewhere!


SPOT THE ORDER

....God orders no criminal/civil charges against the master...

GOD ORDERS NO CHARGES BE MADE means God issued an order that, the slavebeaters are immune from any and all charges, provided the slave recovers. .

Produce this instruction/direction/order I'd like to read it for myself. I take it this fantom order/instruction will read something along the lines of ...

"I God hereby NOTIFY


all slavebeaters that as long as your slave recovers you cannot be charged with any other offense. SIGNED. ...GOD"

If however you are saying no such order actually EXISTED but the fact that EXODUS 21 exempts slave bearers from capital punishment under the specifics mentioned therein, feel free to confirm





JW




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Did God order absolute immunity for slavebeaters?
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Did slave owners in biblical times escape absolutely ALL punishment if unintentional manslaughter could be established?
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SLAVERY, SLAVE BEATING and ...THE MOSAIC LAW

JW

Does God agree with Exodus 21, or not? If so, then my many responses stand. If not, then this is just another man-made book, in which some laws have been changed.

[TRANSPONDER]

... the OT accommodates chattel slavery of non Hebrews

Yes it does. That is, if by "chattel" slavery you mean lifetime slavery under the HEBREWS SYSTEM as enshrined in their scripture.

... OT morality falls short of what we today considered ethical.

We? "We" who?! There are many that I know that see OT morality as entirely ethical, even divine; myself included.



JEHOVAH'S WITNESS



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SLAVERY, CHATTEL SLAVERY and .... SLAVE BEATING

We majority (including governments, legislative body and media) who all see slavery as wrong. As distinct from you and those who thinks as you do, who either approve of (chattel) slavery or (more likely) want to deny that the Bible is not willing to denounce or forbid slavery, which is what you have been arguing and I would say without success, despite employing every wriggle, diddle and fiddle in the dirty trick book.
\
This is yet another example of the problem about religion; it makes good, decent, people act like bad.

[POI]

... the OT accommodates chattel slavery of non Hebrews

Yes it does. That is, if by "chattel" slavery you mean lifetime slavery under the HEBREWS SYSTEM as enshrined in their scripture.

... OT morality falls short of what we today considered ethical.

We? "We" who?! There are many that I know that see OT morality as entirely ethical, even divine; myself included.



JEHOVAH'S WITNESS



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SLAVERY, CHATTEL SLAVERY and .... SLAVE BEATING

We majority (including governments, legislative body and media) who all see slavery as wrong. As distinct from you and those who thinks as you do, who either approve of (chattel) slavery or (more likely) want to deny that the Bible is not willing to denounce or forbid slavery, which is what you have been arguing and I would say without success, despite employing every wriggle, diddle and fiddle in the dirty trick book.
\
This is yet another example of the problem about religion; it makes good, decent, people act like bad.

Seems like we are coming first-circle, from post #1....

Rhetorical questions for the Christian apologist:

1. Is 'slavery' a trivial/mundane topic? No?
2. Is slavery "bad"? "Well, it depends on...."
2. Why didn't YHWH/God/Jesus abolish 'slavery'? "Well, you see, slavery (in the Bible) was a special kind of slavery...."
4. Why does the Bible absolve the master from punishment for beating your slave? "Oh, the Bible is clearly only absolving the slave master from 'capital punishment'. They are still 'punished'.

As I told another, in this thread much earlier on....

Take other rules/laws in the Bible, such as "no theft" or "no lying". God simply states not to do them. And yet, we can rationalize, justify, or argue for all types of scenarios as to why theft and lying may still be 'morally permissible'. And yet, God states 'thou shall not' do either somewhere among it's pages.

If such a 'thou shall not' command was in front of 'slavery' anywhere in the Bible, then guess what? This topic would not exist. But instead, the apologists, who are brave enough to inter this topic/arena, have no choice but to present and demonstrate being the sultans of spin.

[JehovahsWitness]

We majority (including governments, legislative body and media) who all see slavery as wrong.

So ? So, What!? Ethics are not proven right by majority vote. All ABUSIVE OPPRESSIVE slavery is wrong; but not all slavery can thus be described. A case in point the slavery that existed under the Hebrew system which was an ethically sound and a merciful provision from God.










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[TRANSPONDER]

Thank you. We know (since we have seen it before, many times) that apologetics about this subject in particular (not not uniquely) is going to be the subject of two stages:

It was not really slavery but rather a sort of social safety net.
Ok it was slavery (If we ever get past denial) but God had to go along with that.

The real point is that they can deny and excuse until the cows come home to roost but that they can just deny everything with less and less plausibility until they just deny it and feel they won, but in fact they lost the debate and everyone can see they have.

It's not a question of convincing the opponent but in making the case to those still with the mind open to question and doubt. The problem is not the debate, which was won long years ago, but of getting the message out. I came here looking for a wider outlet on a dedicated forum, whereas my former Board had a religious discussion forum tucked away on a forum about other matters. I'm just hoping that the ideas will get out there to those geniuses who do videos and websites and books and (with support and funding as we God -denying darwinists get none from corporations or fundraising drives) people get to hear the refutations of the tired, tatty, weary old apologetics that we get time and time again.

[JehovahsWitness]

.. who ...want to deny that the Bible is not willing to denounce or forbid slavery, which is what you have been arguing ...

The bible does not denounce or forbid slavery. Where have I said otherwise ?

If such a 'thou shall not' command was in front of 'slavery' anywhere in the Bible, then guess what? This topic would not exist.

God does not call an absolute prohibition on slavery because slavery is not always wrong.

Does God agree with Exodus 21, or not? If so, then my many responses stand.

They may stand but only as a testimony to how inaccurate a view can be when context, content, culture and language are disregarded.

[TRANSPONDER]

We majority (including governments, legislative body and media) who all see slavery as wrong.

So ? So, What!? Ethics are not proven right by majority vote. All ABUSIVE OPPRESSIVE slavery is wrong; but not all slavery can thus be described. A case in point the slavery that existed under the Hebrew system which was an ethically sound and a merciful provision from God.

Wrong. Appeal to numbers (as in how many Bibles have been printed) proves nothing. However the consensus opinions of those who have (supposedly) expertise in the field, matter. Which is the opinions of scientists count in science and the opinions of preachers don't, and also the views of Preachers count as regards the Bible and the opinions of scientists on the Bible, don't. I may say that Dawkins is excellent on Biology but he struggled a bit with the religious debate.

[POI]

We majority (including governments, legislative body and media) who all see slavery as wrong.

So ? So, What!? Ethics are not proven right by majority vote. All ABUSIVE OPPRESSIVE slavery is wrong; but not all slavery can thus be described. A case in point the slavery that existed under the Hebrew system which was an ethically sound and a merciful provision from God.

Not sure who this argument is directed to? I, myself, am a moral relativist; who just so happens to think 'slavery' is wrong. And by 'slavery', I mean the kind, as described in the bible -- instructing ---> "you can make them slaves, and as property, for life" - (Lev. 25:46)

But if 'morals' are objective and/or absolute, and I disagree with the "rule" above, then I must either be diverted by "evil", or "stupid" Otherwise, one would need to instead argue that God gives differing moral compasses to differing folks.

But here is my alternative answer.... Maybe God does not exist, and if we wish to live in a cooperative society, we might want to figure out how to do so on our own. At some point, we figured out that the Bible has is 'wrong'. So we abolished it....

I, myself, would agree that 'right/wrong' is not determined by majority vote --- Even though many laws are put into place by this type of system.

I guess a follow up question could be....

Is something good because god commands it, or does god command something because it is good? You know the spiel...

I'm sure it's nothing new to you either. And I'm sure you have an answer here. But I'm not asking for one. Why? Because all this, for which you are doing, is just further demonstration of the (smoke-and-mirror tactics), for which you continue to present. We see it.

We have read your rebuttals. As others have already pointed out, you are presenting 'word play'. So please, do so carry on....

[JehovahsWitness]

Appeal to numbers (as in how many Bibles have been printed) proves nothing.

I agree. Has anyone made an appeal to numbers (as in how many Bibles have been printed) ?

... the consensus opinions of those who have (supposedly) expertise in the field, matter.

Did I say they dont matter? Or did I say they don't make something ethically right?

Ethics are not proven right by majority vote.

... the views of Preachers count as regards the Bible ...

Well, I am a preacher and I have shared my views as regards the Bible: And yet no "thank you"!

[POI]

If such a 'thou shall not' command was in front of 'slavery' anywhere in the Bible, then guess what? This topic would not exist.

God does not call an absolute prohibition on slavery because slavery is not always wrong.

You missed my point entirely. Let me reiterate...

You can also justify that lying and theft are not "ALWAYS WRONG" And yet, a "thou shall not" command exists for those two topics - somewhere within the pages of the Bible. However, "thou shall not own 'slaves'" is mysteriously absent.

Does God agree with Exodus 21, or not? If so, then my many responses stand.

They may stand but only as a testimony to how inaccurate a view can be when context, content, culture and language are disregarded.

Post #263 --> "Well, you see, slavery (in the Bible) was a special kind of slavery...."