God's Law; Your slaves

windword
reply to post by DISRAELI

 

RUBBISH!

It makes me physically sick to think that people sit around justifying brutality, rape and slavery believing it to be condoned by a loving God, who is "working with what he finds", and is doing the best he can.

Lets not forget where and how these Hebrews got their slaves to begin with!

10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. 16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

There is never a justification to beat someone into submission, to force them to work for you. There is no justification in murdering a young girl's parents and family, giving her a month to morn, shaving her head, etc, and then raping her. If she doesn't please, she can where she wants? WTH?

Male slaves, who have been set free, but don't want to leave their wives and children are forced into a lifetime of slavery!

SICKENING!

There is no GOD behind this (biblical) culture. No God at all!

Aren't you the same person who said last year that you have a friend who has Roman statuettes of gods and goddesses? If not you, then I apologize.

But how do you embrace Roman and Greek democracy when it was also slave based? Should we abandon Democracy for something more appealing? Let's say, Communism, which in fact turned people into slaves for the building of The State? What about slaves in Communist China? Do you care that we emulate atheistic societies that worked, starved, beat, murdered, enslaved, and persecuted people on a daily basis for the name of The State?

Where's your compassion in those atheistic societies? Remember Pol Phot and the Khmer Rouge? He was atheist. So how are people better under atheism when it has proven itself to be more destructive as government?

Remind me again just how many people died during Stalin's Russia, the East Berliners' struggles to escape and were killed, the Killing Fields of Cambodia? Remind us all. Then you call ancient Hebrew society sickening and yet embrace Roman and Greek democracy. Isn't that slightly hypocritical on your part?

Caligula was a slave, but wasn't Caligula also the most sadistic and hedonistic Roman Emperor ever? Remind us again just how many Christian slaves were thrown to the lions for pure entertainment. Remind us again just how many slaves it took to build the Coliseum and the Appian Way. Remind us again just how many Chinese slaves it took to build the Great Wall. Remind us again how many slaves and women Genghis Khan and Atilla the Hun took. Remind us again just how many children today are trafficked in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Nigeria, Cote de Ivoir, Saudi Arabia and every country....today. Remind us again of all of these things and then tell us how these laws in the Bible were unfair when you can't even address what is happening right this very minute in countries that are not associated with Christianity.

And then remind us again how you plan to address it and stop it. You can't even understand ancient history, how will you even understand the 20th Century?

reply to post by WarminIndy

Besides what you mention, there are the laws of Babylon which I described in the second post.
These laws are about the welfare of the existing slaves, those laws have no interest in tneir welfare at all.
It ought to be possible for people to see the contrast.

DISRAELI
reply to post by windword

 

How am I "justifying" slavery?
I have been putting forward the proposition that the Biblical God did not want slavery and was trying to wean them off it.
The argument was that continued slavery was the product of human "hardness of heart".
That is not "justifying" slavery at all- exactly the opposite.

You are justifying slavery by, as you said, "attempting to gain insight into the 'character of the Biblical God 'by examining the written laws- in this case those on slavery."

In this case, the God of Bible not only condones slavery, but orders it! He orders the Hebrews to seek out, march up to cities and murder the families of the women he orders to take home and rape! Then you naively laud the civility and compassion of the people, their God and their laws that, supposedly, were administered to those slaves.

I can't understand how anyone could worship such a entity, let alone believe that this despicable character is the creator of the universe!

I'd laugh if it wasn't so truly sad.

reply to post by WarminIndy


No, I am not the person who has a friend with Roman Statues. Apology accepted.

If your god really wanted to improve the treatment of slaves he should have added "thou shall not enslave" to the ten commandments.

Why in the world would anyone want to fine tune brutality when it should be abolished?

reply to post by windword

I would call it "tolerating" slavery, at best, especially given the statement forbidding them to return slaves to their masters.
Did you see the extracts form the Babylonian code in the second post?
The Babylonian code has a massive section on "fugitive slaves" and NO laws relating to the welfare of slaves.
The israelite laws are fundamentally about the welfare of slaves and have NO laws demanding the return of fugiive slaves.
Can you not see how one is an improvement on the other?

You think slavery is a bad thing.
I think the Biblical God thinks slavery is a bad thing.
In other words, you agree with each other.

reply to post by igloo

Jesus said that God did not want the law permitting husbands to dump their wives, but allowed it for the time being because of their "hardness of heart".
I propose that this applies also to other areas, including slavery.

Why in the world would anyone want to fine tune brutality when it should be abolished?

In terms of my third post on this thread, you are a "zapper". As I was arguing there, God is a teacher.
If you have ever tried teaching children, did you plunge them straight into Einstein's equations, or did you start them off on the alphabet first?

When Christians began campaigning for the abolition of the slave trade and succeeded, they got the idea that slavery is a bad thing straight out of the Bible (as did you, indirectly). So it must be there after all.

reply to post by DISRAELI

I would call it "tolerating" slavery, at best, especially given the statement forbidding them to return slaves to their masters.

Deuteronomy 20 does't "tolerate" slavery, it commands it. The God of the Old Testament doesn't "tolerate" war, rape, pillage, murder, etc., he commands it!

The israelite laws are fundamentally about the welfare of slaves and have NO laws demanding the return of fugiive slaves.
Can you not see how one is an improvement on the other?

No.

I see a little kid that was bullied becoming the bully!

Joseph, kidnapped by his brothers and sold into slavery.
The Hebrews, supposed slaves of an evil Pharaoh, and led to escape slavery and find freedom with Moses
The Hebrews, conquered and enslaved by Babylon.

Every chance they got to be their own sovereign nation they copied their oppressors, claiming "GOD" told them to enslave and murder, it was their turn.

Look, I understand the cultural environment of the time was no picnic. It was brutal. But don't tell me that GOD is responsible for a more human type of slavery than the competition and their gods. That's just silly. There is no god behind murder, rape and slavery. No god whatsoever.

reply to post by DISRAELI

When Christians began campaigning for the abolition of the slave trade and succeeded, they got the idea that slavery is a bad thing straight out of the Bible (as did you, indirectly). So it must be there after all.

You really shouldn't go there. It wasn't until the mid 1500's that the Pope declared that indigenous and native people were "human beings" and worthy of being offered salvation. If they accepted Christian salvation, they were enslaved, if they didn't, they were brutally killed.

In America, both sides of the abolition debate were Christians. Christians were behind Apartheid in South Africa.

windword
"The israelite laws are fundamentally about the welfare of slaves and have NO laws demanding the return of fugiive slaves.
Can you not see how one is an improvement on the other? "
No.

That must be because you are so intent on getting on your high horse and being indignant you haven't bothered to compare them.
Go and have a look, calmly and dispassionately.
I tell you again- a set of laws which considers the welfare of slaves is an improvement on a set of laws which don't .
A set of laws which do NOT demand the return of fugitive slaves, with heavy penalties on non-compliance, is an improvement on a set of laws which do.

But don't tell me that GOD is responsible for a more human type of slavery than the competition and their gods.

I will tell you so, because it's obvious enough from a comparison of the two sets of laws.

windword
".When Christians began campaigning for the abolition of the slave trade and succeeded, they got the idea that slavery is a bad thing straight out of the Bible".
You really shouldn't go there.

I take my stand on the history of the Clapham Sect.
I did not claim that every Christian there ever was attacked slavery, so showing there were some who didn't is beside the point.
My statement was that those who set themselves against slavery got the idea from the Bible, and they did.

windword
reply to post by DISRAELI

 

There is no god behind murder, rape and slavery. No god whatsoever.

That's the same non-god of Stalin, Pol Phot, Mao Tze Tung. Why then did these men murder, rape and enslave? They didn't have a god directing them, but felt justified for it.

In fact, it was worse under these men.

But you can't pick and choose which society you want to emulate as no civilization has never known slavery. There has never been a Utopia. But if you read what it actually says and we had this discussion last weekend, IF was the word.

They didn't have to have slaves, murder and rape, then there were penalties. But as Disraeli has pointed out, as God knows what men will do, He says there are going to be rules and regulations for it. If God had simply said "I said not to" are people really going to listen? He said "thou shalt not kill" but don't people still kill?

He said "thou shalt not commit adultery" but aren't people still committing adultery, even those who do not believe in God? So just because God didn't directly say not to, but said IF, then how is that commanding them to do so? Even if God were to strike us all down for even thinking about it, would it stop people from thinking about it?

The Vikings took slaves and had slaves and sold slaves, but the Christian era ended the Viking Age. The Vikings didn't believe in the same god, they had Thralls as slaves because Wodin might be pleased with this.

Do you ever drive over the speed limit even though the signs say not to? But you believe in civil laws, don't you? IF you drive over the speed limit, then pay the fine.

I noticed how slavery seems to be accepted across many of the different versions offered. If we have 'free will', then how does slavery become accepted ?

We put people like Abraham Lincoln on a pedestal for his stance against slavery, yet we have the words of God's [or God's words being re-written by man] saying that slavery will accepted to the point of having rules and guidelines set out in religious text's ?

Slavery only benefits the slave owner. I wonder how much influence slave owners have had on religious text's over the years ?

What sort of God, religion, or human thinks that enslaving another human for their own benefit is somehow justifiable, let alone having any place in supposed religious texts ?

Does 'free will' still exist once slavery begins ?

What, so you're saying Bronze age magicians and goat herders aren't where modern man should be deriving his morality and ethics from *SMACKS KNEE* ahhhhhh......yeah.......

reply to post by WarminIndy


What are you on about? What do post modern era wars, tyrants and despots have to do the character of the God of the Bible? Oh, yeah, they're all alike!

immoralist
What, so you're saying Bronze age magicians and goat herders aren't where modern man should be deriving his morality and ethics from *SMACKS KNEE* ahhhhhh......yeah.......

We have to learn from somewhere though and many of the morals taught or even fought for back there are still pertinent today. I think its more a case of whom should we learn from, religious leaders, political leaders, eastern, western etc.

I do however agree with the sentiment that these are now getting old in some contexts. They are also being lost due to the mixed messages and changes in opinion.

This "thread series" has been pretty good at showing what they were trying to say in a more modern light, not just by the original posts but by the whole discussion on each topic.

Good thread, OP. Too bad not many are willing to even entertain, let alone understand what you're presenting.

What I see from the responses to the OP are children putting their fingers in their ears and screaming "LALALALALALA"

That's fine though, most of them have been given over to a reprobate mind.

If one denies God enough, He WILL eventually give up on you.

I completely agree regarding the fact that these laws were designed for a different time. There are many people who compare these laws to our modern understanding of human rights and liberties, and they believe because what those laws discussed in the Bible are outdated, this is proof that either God had no hand in the Bible or that God doesn't exist. I am reminded of Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," because it illustrates perfectly the problems that would topple an institution, were the laws and beliefs completely contrary to what the people have been used to.

So even if God had laid down the laws that we would think to be more advanced and correct, there is no telling what the outcome would have been. It could have been disastrous. Perhaps it would have been, and if God could foresee as much, He would could have chosen what was included. That is just a hypothetical, although it should be accepted if the counter-argument, that God didn't have a hand in the Bible because of its backward teachings, is accepted. Neither possess good form, and neither are really proof by any means. I suppose I am jabbing at those who chide others for using improper arguments, while they themselves do it.

reply to post by immoralist

Underneath the sarcasm you obviously get the point, that the task is to distinguish between the good and the bad, to separate out, if possible, what they were being told ("You shall love you neighbour as yourself") from what they came up with themselves ("we've always had slaves, let's keep them").

DarksideOz
... saying that slavery will accepted to the point of having rules and guidelines set out in religious text's ? ...
What sort of God, religion, or human thinks that enslaving another human for their own benefit is somehow justifiable, let alone having any place in supposed religious texts ?

You are missing the point that these are law texts in the first instance.
Why do modern western countries have so many laws dealing with the driving of cars? Not because the lawmakers are obsessed with cars, but because the people who live under the laws drive cars. The cars exist, are capable of causing trouble, and need to be regulated.
Similarly these are laws to govern the behaviour of people who have already got slaves. The slaves exist, so the situation needs to be regulated.

Nothing in the passages I quoted, and nothing in my remarks on them, suggest that slavery is "somehow justifiable".
On the contrary, I have pointed out a number of indications that the Biblical God did not want them to be holding slaves, and wanted them to give it up.
They include the episode where Jeremiah talked the people of Jerusalem into issuing an Emancipation Proclamation.
You think slavery is a bad thing.
My claim is that the Biblical God thinks slavery is a bad thing. You are in agreement with each other.

Slavery only benefits the slave owner. I wonder how much influence slave owners have had on religious text's over the years ?

Did you not read the second post of the thread, where I quoted Babylon's laws on the subject of slavery?
They make an interesting contrast.

On the one hand, Babylon has many laws about returning "fugitive slaves" to their masters
While it has NO laws promoting the welfare of slaves.

On the other hand, Israel has many laws promoting the welfare of slaves.
While it also has a law saying fugitive slaves must NOT be returned to their masters.

Isn't it obvious enough that slave-owners wrote the first set of laws, and did not write the second set?