The Bible And Slavery

[DBT]

The thoughtful attitude of the time, treat them well, but do not set them free;

''Philo (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD), one of the philosophers of the time, wrote texts on how to properly treat slaves, indicating that slavery was an important part of Jewish life, but also emphasizes the humanitarian perspective offered up by many Ancient Near East scholars.[7] One such way of showing this was through the sharing of products, such as food and cloth, with other, underprivileged members of society.[1]'

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Whereas slave owners, in your view, approach the Bible in an unbiased fashion, and simply read it as it is without being shaped by personal interest? I do not remember what position I had on slavery before I ever read the Bible, childhood memories are slightly hazy, but everyone has a bias. I'd rather be biased by compassion for others than compromised by greed and a lust for controlling others. And do you know what other famous ancient philosopher taught that love is a better guide for your actions than greed?

Well, actually, nearly all of them. But Jesus was certainly among their number. So I do not see my bias as an equivalent sin to reading the Bible with the intent to accumulate wealth from it, no. If I had to choose between being a good human and "following the Bible", the book would be the first thing to go. But that's not necessary in this case, nor do I think it is wise or ethical to tell slavers and slavery apologists that the Bible says slavery is okay, when the most one can say is that the message is ambiguous.

I'm still waiting for anyone to make a logical case against my position. You're trying to make this all about my personal beliefs in motivations, because you know you have no actual argument against my primary point, that whatever people may have deluded themselves into believing over the millennia, enslaving another human being is not loving them as oneself. In fact, the two commandments Jesus called the most important, love of God and love of neighbor, are both very obviously violated by the practice. And that, you have no argument against.

Yet, you are happy to parrot a pro-slavery argument you know to be wrong, and that you know is championed by cruel and wicked men. Have you ever wondered about your own biases, and and how they might influence the way you "read" the Bible?

In this case, yes. Slavery was the order of the world for most of it. The bible has an ambiguous relationship with that. It's OK to recognize that the bible doesn't say what they want either: they manufacture the insistence as much as the insistence against "onanism" is manufactured.

But they don't manufacture the license the bible gives to slavery, only the obligation; it is a half-truth.

We already here know the "Bible says it!" Argument is wrong twofold: the bible saying shit doesn't mean shit, and the bible doesn't actually say that shit.

As such I repeat the argument I have made elsewhere, and often here: the bible cannot be used as a measuring stick for sin today; it acts only as a single step in the philosophical journey of those seeking actual truth, as a suggestion of what right may look like that must be consummated against the shape of the universe through testing or at least observation, current or recorded faithfully. To do more is to go too far. Many people go too far. Many people don't even know better.

Correct. So many people I know see the universe, earth, people and everything as being contained in their bible. Must somehow be comfortably reassuring, not to mention delusional. On the other hand lots of sane folk like myself see the bible as a tiny artifact contained in something much larger and so their perspective and opinions are much better informed.

The thoughtful attitude of the time, treat them well, but do not set them free;

''Philo (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD), one of the philosophers of the time, wrote texts on how to properly treat slaves, indicating that slavery was an important part of Jewish life, but also emphasizes the humanitarian perspective offered up by many Ancient Near East scholars.[7] One such way of showing this was through the sharing of products, such as food and cloth, with other, underprivileged members of society.[1]'

Self interest. What else is new? Slaves are necessary possessions, certainly an owner wishes to maintain in working order that which is theirs.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Do slaves have free will? What does the christian magic book say about that?

 

[atrib]

we have managed to figure it out on our own without any help from the book that instructs us on the proper way to beat our slaves.

Who is "we"? Do you know anything about the history of abolition?

We, the human species. Or most of us, anyway.

Since you didn't respond to anything else in my post, I will assume you agree with my position. That "love your neighbor" is NOT the central theme of the Bible, as you keep insisting, but that total submission to an all-powerful creator is the core message. If that is the case, why do you choose to believe in, seek wisdom from and publicly defend a book that is so obviously flawed at its core?

 

[Politesse]

We, the human species. Or most of us, anyway.

That is not a very accurate appraisal of either the past or present condition of humanity.

Since you didn't respond to anything else in my post, I will assume you agree with my position. That "love your neighbor" is NOT the central theme of the Bible, as you keep insisting, but that total submission to an all-powerful creator is the core message

I would agree that this is the bedriock of Dominionist theology. Not "the Bible", whatever that may mean, though I suppose if that's what you're looking for, you'll probably find it.

If that is the case, why do you choose to believe in, seek wisdom from and publicly defend a book that is so obviously flawed at its core?

I am publicly defending people, not a book.

 

[Atheos]

Politesse, the subject at hand is "The Bible And Slavery," not "People Of Antiquity And Slavery." At issue is what the Bible says (if anything) about the subject. Yes, the bible was written by fallible humans living under very different zeitgeists. On that we agree (at least most of us do, allowing that there are inerrantists among us).

But I really believe that the point several of us are attempting to make is that for the most part the book is at best neutral about the morality of slave ownership, and when addressing the subject directly only ever attempts to provide guidelines for its practice.

A book that places guidelines on how severely an owner can beat his slave without being punished is a book that advocates the practice. A book that allows a slave owner to beat a slave so severely that the slave dies a few hours later with no repercussions to the owner because the slave "is his money" is a book that advocates the practice (Exodus 21:20-21). A book that requires a slave owner to free his slave if he injures the slave such that the slave loses an eye or tooth is a book that advocates the practice and simply places guidelines on it (Exodus 21:26-27).

There is no apology for this. The bible sanctions slave ownership and beating slaves. No civilized country today does.

 

[Politesse]

No civilized country today does.

Bullshit, and if you really live in the "heart of the Bible belt", you ought to know better. Fully one in every hundred Americans are still legally enslaved, or reduced to near slave-like conditions by our prison system. 8% of those people labor in explicitly for-profit instutions. The strategy of slavers changed, the moral worth and justification of their actions does not. To say nothing of illegal but still commonplace slave operations, such as agricultural plantations that employ and then refuse to pay undocumented immigrants, and immigrants themselves with "family members" imported for labor or sexual purposes. Our consumer behavior, happily buying up commodities and even "adopted children" off the global market because they are cheap and conspicuously refusing to ask questions about where and by whom those goods were produced, only adds to our sin. I'm certain, simply as a statistical matter, that you have slave-goods in your closet or pantry as we speak. If we were only talking about an issue of antiquity, I wouldn't have bothered with the thread at all. This is an issue that means a great deal to me, that I dedicate a not-insignificant portion of my life to advocacy on. Most Americans, like yourself, don't give a shit, but I do. And if you don't think people don't lean on Bible verses to justify not paying or underpaying prisoner labor, I can assure you that you are dead wrong about that.

If you want to attack the Bible, fine, that's your business. It really shouldn't be that hard to do. But don't do it by spreading around dangerous lies that bolster pro-slavery propaganda.

 

[Lion IRC]

Atheists Guide to Intellectual Dishonesty About Biblical Slavery

Here's what we have so far..the bible mentions the (translated) word slavery, therefore the bible;
Advocates,
Supports,
Endorses,
Approves,
Condones,
Encourages,
Sanctions,
Blesses,
Applauds,
Commends,
Favors,
Embraces,
...all forms of 'slavery'.

And wherever else throughout the bible it is replete with absolute condemnations of greed, selfishness, bigotry, theft, coveting, depriving a person of their wages...just ignore those.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

No civilized country today does.

Bullshit, and if you really live in the "heart of the Bible belt", you ought to know better. Fully one in every hundred Americans are still legally enslaved, or reduced to near slave-like conditions by our prison system. 8% of those people labor in explicitly for-profit instutions. The strategy of slavers changed, the moral worth and justification of their actions does not. To say nothing of illegal but still commonplace slave operations, such as agricultural plantations that employ and then refuse to pay undocumented immigrants, and immigrants themselves with "family members" imported for labor or sexual purposes. Our consumer behavior, happily buying up commodities and even "adopted children" off the global market because they are cheap and conspicuously refusing to ask questions about where and by whom those goods were produced, only adds to our sin. I'm certain, simply as a statistical matter, that you have slave-goods in your closet or pantry as we speak. If we were only talking about an issue of antiquity, I wouldn't have bothered with the thread at all. This is an issue that means a great deal to me, that I dedicate a not-insignificant portion of my life to advocacy on. Most Americans, like yourself, don't give a shit, but I do. And if you don't think people don't lean on Bible verses to justify not paying or underpaying prisoner labor, I can assure you that you are dead wrong about that.

If you want to attack the Bible, fine, that's your business. It really shouldn't be that hard to do. But don't do it by spreading around dangerous lies that bolster pro-slavery propaganda.

You might be doing a bit of projecting there.

As a staunch defender of your bible, do slaves have free will?

 

[Politesse]

No civilized country today does.

Bullshit, and if you really live in the "heart of the Bible belt", you ought to know better. Fully one in every hundred Americans are still legally enslaved, or reduced to near slave-like conditions by our prison system. 8% of those people labor in explicitly for-profit instutions. The strategy of slavers changed, the moral worth and justification of their actions does not. To say nothing of illegal but still commonplace slave operations, such as agricultural plantations that employ and then refuse to pay undocumented immigrants, and immigrants themselves with "family members" imported for labor or sexual purposes. Our consumer behavior, happily buying up commodities and even "adopted children" off the global market because they are cheap and conspicuously refusing to ask questions about where and by whom those goods were produced, only adds to our sin. I'm certain, simply as a statistical matter, that you have slave-goods in your closet or pantry as we speak. If we were only talking about an issue of antiquity, I wouldn't have bothered with the thread at all. This is an issue that means a great deal to me, that I dedicate a not-insignificant portion of my life to advocacy on. Most Americans, like yourself, don't give a shit, but I do. And if you don't think people don't lean on Bible verses to justify not paying or underpaying prisoner labor, I can assure you that you are dead wrong about that.

If you want to attack the Bible, fine, that's your business. It really shouldn't be that hard to do. But don't do it by spreading around dangerous lies that bolster pro-slavery propaganda.

You might be doing a bit of projecting there.

As a staunch defender of your bible, do slaves have free will?

Again, I'm defending people, not the Bible. Where did you get the idea that I am a "staunch defender of <<my>> Bible"? I have always opposed Bibliolatry and inerrancy theology.

To my knowledge, the Bible doesn't discusss the issue of free will directly either, though as with slavery, people have made arguments both ways over the centuries, from hardline determinists to unreserved libertarians. I don't personally believe in free will as many here can attest from previous discussions on the matter, but the Bible has nothing to do with why (I'd consider that one a straightforward scientific conclusion).

 

[Jarhyn]

No civilized country today does.

Bullshit, and if you really live in the "heart of the Bible belt", you ought to know better. Fully one in every hundred Americans are still legally enslaved, or reduced to near slave-like conditions by our prison system. 8% of those people labor in explicitly for-profit instutions. The strategy of slavers changed, the moral worth and justification of their actions does not. To say nothing of illegal but still commonplace slave operations, such as agricultural plantations that employ and then refuse to pay undocumented immigrants, and immigrants themselves with "family members" imported for labor or sexual purposes. Our consumer behavior, happily buying up commodities and even "adopted children" off the global market because they are cheap and conspicuously refusing to ask questions about where and by whom those goods were produced, only adds to our sin. I'm certain, simply as a statistical matter, that you have slave-goods in your closet or pantry as we speak. If we were only talking about an issue of antiquity, I wouldn't have bothered with the thread at all. This is an issue that means a great deal to me, that I dedicate a not-insignificant portion of my life to advocacy on. Most Americans, like yourself, don't give a shit, but I do. And if you don't think people don't lean on Bible verses to justify not paying or underpaying prisoner labor, I can assure you that you are dead wrong about that.

If you want to attack the Bible, fine, that's your business. It really shouldn't be that hard to do. But don't do it by spreading around dangerous lies that bolster pro-slavery propaganda.

You might be doing a bit of projecting there.

As a staunch defender of your bible, do slaves have free will?

I'm just going to point this out to you: Politesse doesn't defend the bible. In this thread you will see a few instances where they quite readily decry it for some of the awful shit it has in it.

Rather, his message is "if someone brings up the bible and slavery, these are ways to counter that message in a biblical context; but pointing out that the bible is ambiguous at best and supportive at worst of slavery is in front of someone who believes in the bible is a good way to convince them that slavery is OK!"

There is merit to this position. You will not convince someone to put down a Bible short of convincing them to read the whole thing several times, not meandering, but cover to cover. At best you can convince them to pay attention to less awful parts of it. OTOH, if I were a person who wanted to convince Christians that slavery is endorsed by the bible, you have given a fantastic roadmap.

You would say "throw out the bible" but as Politesse and even myself (I view the bible as a collection of literary non-sacred works) point out, your goal of "the bible must go, everything of christian belief is garbo," Is a poisoned well fallacy: the inaccuracy, awfulness, and such do not negate the literary and even proto-philosophical conclusions of, say, the original work of John.

 

[Atheos]

No civilized country today does.

Bullshit, and if you really live in the "heart of the Bible belt", you ought to know better. Fully one in every hundred Americans are still legally enslaved, or reduced to near slave-like conditions by our prison system. 8% of those people labor in explicitly for-profit instutions. The strategy of slavers changed, the moral worth and justification of their actions does not. To say nothing of illegal but still commonplace slave operations, such as agricultural plantations that employ and then refuse to pay undocumented immigrants, and immigrants themselves with "family members" imported for labor or sexual purposes. Our consumer behavior, happily buying up commodities and even "adopted children" off the global market because they are cheap and conspicuously refusing to ask questions about where and by whom those goods were produced, only adds to our sin. I'm certain, simply as a statistical matter, that you have slave-goods in your closet or pantry as we speak. If we were only talking about an issue of antiquity, I wouldn't have bothered with the thread at all. This is an issue that means a great deal to me, that I dedicate a not-insignificant portion of my life to advocacy on. Most Americans, like yourself, don't give a shit, but I do. And if you don't think people don't lean on Bible verses to justify not paying or underpaying prisoner labor, I can assure you that you are dead wrong about that.

If you want to attack the Bible, fine, that's your business. It really shouldn't be that hard to do. But don't do it by spreading around dangerous lies that bolster pro-slavery propaganda.

Wow, talk about a major shift in goalposts mixed with a generous helping of tu quoque. I do not disagree that there are problems with the criminal justice system but that is not the same as slavery. Just as in antiquity there were prisoners and there were slaves, and the classes of people were different, even so now there is a manifest difference between the concept of slavery and imprisonment.

Please be so kind as to produce a single piece of legislation in any current civilized country that makes it legal to purchase human beings, treat them as property and beat them as you see fit if they displease you for any reason and I will retract what I said. I am not aware of any such law.

Slavery existing in spite of laws prohibiting human trafficking is not the same as sanctioning slavery.

 

[Politesse]

Please be so kind as to produce a single piece of legislation in any current civilized country that makes it legal to purchase human beings, treat them as property and beat them as you see fit if they displease you for any reason and I will retract what I said. I am not aware of any such law.

And you're accusing me of goalpost shifting? Seriously?

And if your basic argument here boils down to "slavery is only bad when it's done a certain way", we are unlikely to make much progress anyway. We live in different moral worlds.

 

[Atheos]

I'm going to bow out of this conversation. I've said my piece and evidently it's not being understood in the spirit in which it was given.

To be clear I personally denounce slavery in whatever form it takes and wherever it is found. That includes the bible and anywhere else. I feel like I'm the one being consistent here. Apologizing for obvious writings in an ancient text seems counter-productive to this end but perhaps I'm just too ignorant to understand why.

You, my friend, may feel free to have the last word as far as our discussion of this matter is concerned.

 

[Politesse]

To be clear I personally denounce slavery in whatever form it takes and wherever it is found. That includes the bible and anywhere else. I feel like I'm the one being consistent here. Apologizing for obvious writings in an ancient text seems counter-productive to this end but perhaps I'm just too ignorant to understand why.

Because, saying "the Bible clearly endorses slavery", in a country where half the people you meet believe that the Bible is the unchallengeable Word of God, is feeding the pro-slavery argument rather than challenging it. If it isn't true, it shouldn't be said, regardless of your apologetic goals, because if a fundamentalist must choose between Bibliolatry and morality, you know damn well which of those options they'll choose. If the Bible did in fact unequivocally endorse slavery, without internal contradiction, there is little that anyone could do about that. But if it is ambiguous and you know that it is ambiguous, denying that ambiguity is neither honest nor safe. And this isn't just ambiguous; I've made the case that slavery is straight up inconsistent with what Jesus himself is said to have taught as the cornerstone of the faith, and no one has yet had the balls to try and contradict my actual point on that, since they know full well that love and abuse aren't synonyms, whatever hypocrises history may have wrought to avoid that truth.

Again, the Bible isn't really the central issue for me so much as people's decisions. give me the Gita, give me the Tao te Ching, give me Hobbes or Voltaire, I'll use whatever ingredients you give me to show that the worst sins of our sociopolitical life are inconsistent with the best virtues of our philosophies, because they always will be on some level. Every great thinker has produced ideals more beauftiful than they themselves let alone their followers were able to live up to. And to the other end, a book of sufficient length can be made to look like it says almost anything, by a sufficiently skilled rhetorician. But slavery is a concrete problem in the real world, and one that I care about greatly. If I can turn a religious movement into a positive rather than a negative voice just by holding people to the consequences of their own stated moral principles, you can bet your horse I'm going to.

 

[Jarhyn]

To be clear I personally denounce slavery in whatever form it takes and wherever it is found. That includes the bible and anywhere else. I feel like I'm the one being consistent here. Apologizing for obvious writings in an ancient text seems counter-productive to this end but perhaps I'm just too ignorant to understand why.

Because, saying "the Bible clearly endorses slavery", in a country where half the people you meet believe that the Bible is the unchallengeable Word of God, is feeding the pro-slavery argument rather than challenging it. If it isn't true, it shouldn't be said, regardless of your apologetic goals, because if a fundamentalist must choose between Bibliolatry and morality, you know damn well which of those options they'll choose. If the Bible did in fact unequivocally endorse slavery, without internal contradiction, there is little that anyone could do about that. But if it is ambiguous and you know that it is ambiguous, denying that ambiguity is neither honest nor safe.

Again, the Bible isn't really the central issue for me so much as people's decisions. A book of sufficient length can be made to look like it says almost anything, by a sufficiently skilled rhetorician. But slavery is a concrete problem in the real world, and one that I care about greatly. If I can turn a religious movement into a positive rather than a negative voice just by holding people to the consequences of their own stated moral principles, you can bet your horse I'm going to.

I will disagree insofar as it must be said that the early bible is very wrong about slavery. It is a point of fact that the bible contains some damnable text in the subject. As much as I accept and understand your point, there is still a context wherein a hard discussion has to be had about the weird books full of laws about slaves people keep in their homes.

 

[Politesse]

To be clear I personally denounce slavery in whatever form it takes and wherever it is found. That includes the bible and anywhere else. I feel like I'm the one being consistent here. Apologizing for obvious writings in an ancient text seems counter-productive to this end but perhaps I'm just too ignorant to understand why.

Because, saying "the Bible clearly endorses slavery", in a country where half the people you meet believe that the Bible is the unchallengeable Word of God, is feeding the pro-slavery argument rather than challenging it. If it isn't true, it shouldn't be said, regardless of your apologetic goals, because if a fundamentalist must choose between Bibliolatry and morality, you know damn well which of those options they'll choose. If the Bible did in fact unequivocally endorse slavery, without internal contradiction, there is little that anyone could do about that. But if it is ambiguous and you know that it is ambiguous, denying that ambiguity is neither honest nor safe.

Again, the Bible isn't really the central issue for me so much as people's decisions. A book of sufficient length can be made to look like it says almost anything, by a sufficiently skilled rhetorician. But slavery is a concrete problem in the real world, and one that I care about greatly. If I can turn a religious movement into a positive rather than a negative voice just by holding people to the consequences of their own stated moral principles, you can bet your horse I'm going to.

I will disagree insofar as it must be said that the early bible is very wrong about slavery. It is a point of fact that the bible contains some damnable text in the subject. As much as I accept and understand your point, there is still a context wherein a hard discussion has to be had about the weird books full of laws about slaves people keep in their homes.

I don't mind having a conversation about the worth of that. I mind a discourse that looks at the text only in those terms, denying existence or validity of the counterpoint.

 

[Jarhyn]

I will disagree insofar as it must be said that the early bible is very wrong about slavery. It is a point of fact that the bible contains some damnable text in the subject. As much as I accept and understand your point, there is still a context wherein a hard discussion has to be had about the weird books full of laws about slaves people keep in their homes.

I don't mind having a conversation about the worth of that. I mind a discourse that looks at the text only in those terms, denying existence or validity of the counterpoint.

It does have a counterpoint. John cleverly sidestepped the topic for the most part, though. Socrates, and many of my favorite philosophers had their issues and most lived in times of rampant slavery. Most people weren't far away from slavery by some less direct mechanism anyway. It's just really hard to recommend John's book when someone else might recommend... Most any other document that is usually sold along side it, and is trash. Bait and switch, passable philosophy for the masses! Switched to damnable set of bronze age codes and laws!

 

[Lion IRC]

If the bible "endorsed" slavery then I would too.
But it doesn't, and therefore I don't. Those who work deserve their pay!

Leviticus 19:18 Matthew 7:12 Luke 6:31
I wouldn't want to be treated like, or kept as a slave against my will.

James 5:1-3 Exodus 20:17 1 Timothy 6:10 Luke 12:15 Matthew 19:21
Slavery is the product of greed. There is no book on earth which condemns greed more than the bible.

Exodus 20:15 Leviticus 19:11 Deuteronomy 5:19
Slavery is stealing a person's labor without payment. Thou Shalt not steal!!!

Deuteronomy 24:7 Exodus 21:16 Romans 13:7
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.”

 

[Rhea]

Most Americans, like yourself, don't give a shit, but I do.

That’s the second time (at least) the you have claimed without evidence what other people do or do not do for society. YOu have no idea what shits atheos gives.

I wonder why you would make such a blatantly uninformed assertion. Perhaps it’s because you care deeply about the subject. But why would that cause you to make up stories about other people? Strange.

If you want to attack the Bible, fine, that's your business. It really shouldn't be that hard to do. But don't do it by spreading around dangerous lies that bolster pro-slavery propaganda.

He’s not spreading dangerous lies. Your bible says what it says.