Religion Slavery and the Bible

[No-name]

Again, read the first paragraph in my post and the previous post on the subject.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

Again, read the first paragraph in my post and the previous post on the subject.

I have, brother Sabro, and it is lacking. Here it is again:

SVF: you are misinterpreting the whole "favoritism" thing. It doesn't mean that God does not judge or discriminate... only that he does these things not based upon the physical/temporal...God is not impressed. You can't buy him off. He is unlikely to favor you simply because of your earthly status or your tribe. He will pick whom he wills for whatever reason he wants to. One person interprets a single word in a unique way and then finds that it is inconsistent with the definition given by others. How shocking...

What is shocking, brother Sabro, is your inability to see favoritism when it is smacking you in the face.

God may indeed be what you describe above, but not BGOD.

Of course those who show favoritism "pick whom he/she wills for whatever reason he/she wants to." BGOD did not say from the beginning that all those who fear me and do what is right will be my people. If that were the criteria then the Jewish tribe/nation would have never been chosen as a group.

Furthermore, you are trying to limit "favoritism" to the subset of "physical/temporal" when in fact it is much broader than just those two. Just by allowing the autographa of the BWOG to be seen by people in previous generations and not this generation is showing favoritism with time and applying that to people.

Why don`t you think BGOD can be bought off? In the past weren`t animal sacrifices done to please him? Sounds pretty primitive and superstitious to me. Many superstitions had animal sacrifices as a part of their dogmatic practices and belief systems. Looks like BGOD wasn`t so unique in that aspect, huh?

Yes, BGOD may not show favoritism due to titles -- but that is not the only thing favoritism can be applied to. But, I did like how you were cautious to leave wiggle room for BGOD to show favoritism by qualifying your remark with "unlikely." You leave it open for him to contradict himself. You wouldn`t want to limit him, now, would you?

 

[No-name]

I guess that must mean that I believe in God and not BGod.

It really doesn't seem like you read what I posted- the explanation was already given.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

It really doesn't seem like you read what I posted- the explanation was already given.

Oh, brother Sabro, I read it. It`s just that it was sorely lacking as a refutation about showing favoritism.

You seem to have not read mine, or if you have, still don`t understand that favoritism is not narrowly defined as you would like it to be.

 

[No-name]

"Favoritism" doesn't fit the definition you are using. It is not narrowly defined, but it is specific. I gave the sites to show that others indeed had a different less limited view of how the word was used given the exact context.

The pattern of
1. Take a verse out of context.
2. Narrowly define it based usually upon a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the term.
3. Finding that the verse is inconsitant with either your definition of God, your personal expectations, or another verse or set of verses also taken out of context .

...proves only that you are looking for faults and will reach as far as possible to find them. It says more about you and your beliefs than it does about the Bible. On your quest to disprove, please don't reach too far to fast- I wouldn't want you to hurt your back.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

The pattern of
1. Take a verse out of context.
2. Narrowly define it based usually upon a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the term.
3. Finding that the verse is inconsitant with either your definition of God, your personal expectations, or another verse or set of verses also taken out of context

Yes, brother Sabro, we agree -- they all describe Biblicists and those who cling to the BWOG. I sense some deprogramming coming on from you.

Congratulations1 You are making your first baby steps of breaking away.

 

[No-name]

Yes, brother Sabro, we agree -- they all describe Biblicists and those who cling to the BWOG. I sense some deprogramming coming on from you.
Congratulations1 You are making your first baby steps of breaking away.

Don't be patronizing. You tried "witticisms" before and it lacked humor.

The fact that your parameters of what defines the "BWOG" are wrong shouldn't surprise either of us. You create definitions using false parameters and then debunk the definitions. I tell you that you have either misunderstood or taken things out of context- which is rather repetitious, but even Athiest will point out the flaw in your construct and argument.

If different people are telling you the same thing repeatedly, I think it is time that you considered listening to others.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

If different people are telling you the same thing repeatedly, I think it is time that you considered listening to others.

Didn`t "different people" refuse to accept Jesus as the SOG? According to your logic, he should have "considered listening" to them and just admit he was not the SOG.

I think I will follow in JC's steps on this one.

 

[No-name]

Well since Jesus is not a SOG, I guess you're right- he should CONSIDER listening to them. But about a billion of us accept him as Lord and as Savior-- perhaps you should admit that you are just a negative and bitter Christian hater.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

Well since Jesus is not a SOG, I guess you're right- he should CONSIDER listening to them. But about a billion of us accept him as Lord and as Savior-- perhaps you should admit that you are just a negative and bitter Christian hater.

Yes, I am right. Thanks for acknowledging that.

Actually, I don`t hate Xtians. I pitty them. I feel sorry for them (and other superstitions [Xtianity has no monopoly on superstion]).

If there is anyone to hate, it would be the original fraudsters of 2000 years and plus ago that started the whole thing in order to dupe those around them for their own greed and gain. It is a shame it has not died out yet.

Those people, while pretty much ignorant, were smart enough to understand the "carrot" and "stick" principle to get people on board.

The only thing I can admit to, brother Sabro, is taking satisfaction in adding my voice to exposing the lies and deprogramming those who are caught up in them -- or those who are on the fence thinking about getting caught up in them.

Sometimes birthing is painful -- in this case, birthing the realization of what is not truth is painful to hear. But, if you bear down and study heard -- the lies will come popping out with clarity like a new baby crying and sucking for air. Almost a miracle -- but not quite.

 

[No-name]

I'm glad you pity the Xtians. The ones you describe do sound stupid and superstitious. Perhaps you and I can organize a relief effort to Xtia and include some real Bibles to assist them with a true understanding of their faith.

Wow as a truthmonger and birthing expert you certainly sound young and inexperienced. Perhaps our missionary trip will wear down some of that green edge.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

<SNIP>

Deletion of double posting.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

I'm glad you pity the Xtians. The ones you describe do sound stupid and superstitious. Perhaps you and I can organize a relief effort to Xtia and include some real Bibles to assist them with a true understanding of their faith.

Perhaps our missionary trip will wear down some of that green edge.

Oh... no! Your Bible would confuse them more than what they are now. You missionarries should just stay home. Look what you helped do to the indigenous people of South and Central America -- hand in hand with the conquistadors forcing conversion and slavery. And then your book tells them to just bear their slave status. After all, when they came to know Christ while they were slaves, they had "spiritual freedom." <sarcasm employed>

Right? What more could they ask for? Surely "spiritual freedom" in Christ should be all they need, right? Not liberty.

The promise of liberty being wherever the Word was, was just semantical masterbation. May make someone feel good for a few minutes, but....errrr.... that feeling passes soon enough.

 

[No-name]

My bible wouldn't confuse anyone that could read basic English.

My missionaries are currently working relief missions and are widely accepted and requested by the people who are gladly accepting aid- right now mostly in eastern Europe- pimarily Romania and Hungary. None in those countries so far as I know has slave status, but a few have come to the US for University jobs. No one at my church is a conquistador. I don't know any.

And the Romanians with which my church has had a 30 year relationship seem rather happy with both their political and spiritual freedom. Smuggled food, bibles, and supplies made their life liveable during the Ceausescu regimes darkest days. When he finally fell in 1989, they were quite happy.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

My bible wouldn't confuse anyone that could read basic English.

Then why are you confused?

Smuggled food, bibles, and supplies made their life liveable during the Ceausescu regimes darkest days. When he finally fell in 1989, they were quite happy.

So, are you saying it is ok to break the laws of countries?

Who decides if the law is unjust or not and worthy to be broken?

Why not accept the hardships in suffering as Jesus accepted his hardships? I don`t recall Jesus ever saying break the laws if they are unjust. Why not let those Romanians just pray for mana from heaven to feed them? Surely, if they are deserving of it, Bible God could just rain it down on people instead of having them resort to breaking laws.

But, hey...c'mon, brother Sabro, we both know Bible God didn`t rain any mana down. It would be fool hearted to put faith in a fictional story like that. After all, it was just a story -- and nothing more.

 

[No-name]

I am not confused.

And yes, they broke the laws of that country. Rational people will do that for one another when the laws are unjust. And they often faced the consequences. As for suffering- some of these people spent two to ten years in Nicolai's little camps. You would have loved them. They tried for 12 to 15 hour a day to convince them that the Christian God was nothing more that a superstition. Does that pursuit sound familiar?

And your Bible God didn't rain manna down. The true and living God did it. Your Bible God is simple the misconceptions read in by someone who doesn't like Christianity.

 

[Revenant]

Oh... no! Your Bible would confuse them more than what they are now. You missionarries should just stay home. Look what you helped do to the indigenous people of South and Central America -- hand in hand with the conquistadors forcing conversion and slavery. And then your book tells them to just bear their slave status. After all, when they came to know Christ while they were slaves, they had "spiritual freedom." <sarcasm employed>

Right? What more could they ask for? Surely "spiritual freedom" in Christ should be all they need, right? Not liberty.

The promise of liberty being wherever the Word was, was just semantical masterbation. May make someone feel good for a few minutes, but....errrr.... that feeling passes soon enough.

You make that sound like the Missionaries were in cahoots with the Conquistodors to make placid slaves, that would be a stretch, and I do doubt that the missionaries had this at all in mind when they converted the indigenous people to Christianity.

But if an indigenous person became a slave, and there was little to no chance of the slave finding actual freedom, what would be the best way for him to view the situation? Anger? Acceptance?

In fact, some of the Jews in concentration camp, as well as some people with severely restricted freedoms found some of their most liberating experiences within their confines. I'm not suggesting that people should give up freedom, but that even within the confines a liberation of the mind can be known. Christianity gives hope to those with little, and as such I'm not going to demonize it.

EDIT: That last sentence wasn't at all meant to say that Christianity was only for those without hope, but rather that it does give hope to some, a purpose of life to some.

 

[strongvoicesforward]

I am not confused.

Yes, often the confused and delusional are not aware that they are so.

And yes, they broke the laws of that country. Rational people will do that for one another when the laws are unjust.

Slavery is unjust. Jesus never said anything about breaking unjust laws of slavery, did he? His own people tell the slaves to suck it up. Why aren`t you and them doing what the Bible encourages? I guess Jesus and his followers of merry men just weren`t rational enough to break the unjust laws around during their times, huh? There you go, you have just said Jesus and his men were irrational.

And your Bible God didn't rain manna down.

Yes, that is right. The God of the Bible did not do that. It was all a story. Nice for semantics to shield your Bible God, brother Sabro.

The true and living God did it.

And where is he and why didn`t he do it for those in Romania, rather than letting them resort to breaking the law and risking their lives for food? If he did if for the Jews several thousand years ago, why not the Romanians recently? Sounds like more favoritism.

Of course he didn`t do it now, because he can`t, because he doesn`t exist.

Your Bible God is simple the misconceptions read in by someone who doesn't like Christianity.

I like prosecuters because they expose fraud. One need not read anything into it. The fraud is blatant. There for all to see. Many, however, just shut their eyes to it.

Christianity is a fraud. I don`t like frauds. Therefore I don`t like Christianity.

I do like some Christians though. I can separate the person from the activity (kind of like when Christians say they don't condemn homosexuals, but they condemn the practice of homosexuals).

I pity those who are taken in by fraud and never come to see it for what it is.

 

[No-name]

You are quite right when you say that Jesus never said to break laws regarding slavery and that slavery is unjust. This does not make him and his men irrational. I don't know where that would come from. But teachings of non-violent resistant to unjust laws are based around biblical principals.

As far as God raining manna down on Romania- my people were aparently the hand of God, and for the Romanians He did rain manna down again. When the Romanians met the trucks in Hungary and Czeckoslovakia, they often asked if clothing, medicine and food could be left behind so that more bibles could be brought in.

That whole favoritism thing you continue to misunderstand. It obviously doesn't mean what you continue to think it means.

If Christianity is a fraud, you have not proven it. If it is blatant, then you obviously can demonstate proof in a clear and irrefutable set of statements backed up with evidence, but all you have given is ridicule, misreadings, deceptive clips out of context and clear misunderstandings. I'm glad that you finally admit your hatred and see the source of your intolerance and bigotry. This would make your pity quite meaningless.

Again I don't know when I graduated from a "pond" to your "brother," but it seems a bit disingenuous.

 

[Revenant]

Here I'm going to play the devil's advocate to anyone putting forth that the Bible condones slavery.

I'd like to get some background info on the common slavery practices of that day, not only of Israel's, but also of the nations surrounding them.
In some ways, when one actually gets down and discusses ethics, it is difficult to avoid the point that ethics was generally what the collective whole felt was wrong, so if slavery was never viewed as wrong by any of the nations...

Second, these laws are to govern a nation. The setting of limits may not be at all condoning slavery, just as a parent telling their child that if they must sleep around, they really should use a condom probably isn't condoning the kid's sleeping around.

Exodus 21:20-21 "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money [property]."

How else could one punish slaves? One cannot fine them or acquire their property, as they have neither. Neither can one make them work in reparation, for they already work for free.

Perhaps the idea wasn't to beat them to within an inch of their life, but that it sometimes happened within a nation of people. How would that be regulated, except through an imperfect letter of the law in which to judge whether someone had to be punished or not?

Certainly we can see that the letter of the law in even the developed nations can supposedly 'condone' a lot of less then fair actions, such as some of the lawsuits we see in America.

Would we say that American leaders condoned unfair lawsuits?

Exodus 21:26-27 "And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake."

This seems also a letter of the law. It seems one of the more humane laws.

Exodus 21:1-4: "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."

Legalities. How else would one regulate these kind of cases (saying that slavery were just a part of the culture, and wouldn't go away even if one tried to make it go away)?

Deuteronomy 15:12-18: "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him."

Sounds somewhat fair as well, given the circumstances.

Exodus 21:7: "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."

Why wouldn't she go out as menservants do? Is this a law protecting the maidservants?

Just out of curiousity, could selling a daughter into slavery in those days actually be seen as compassionate to the daughters? Like in Memoirs of a Geisha, perhaps some families just didn't have the money to even feed their daughters anymore.

Leviticus 25:44-46: "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly." (NIV)

Ummmm.... actually I can think of no way to rationalize this law.

Leviticus 25:48-53: "After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him."

Perhaps slavery was in part to ensure that food and shelter were provided in times of economical hardship. There isn't enough work for hire for all in the area, and the family just doesn't have the money to provide for everyone. Later, when they get into some money again, they are then able to redeem the family member they had to sell into slavery.

Exodus 21:8: "If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money."

Sounds like slaves could be forced to marry their masters. If the man, after promising marriage (marriage meant she would be treated as wife rather than a slave, and that she would get all the fod, clothing, and perhaps 'duties of honor' that came along with marriage), decides he doesn't want her anymore, it sounds like he is to give her back to her family without a price of redemption. Promising her status, freedom, and a better position, then recanting the promise, and then selling her off to a nation for profit was just too much for the leaders of that day to stomach.

A slave given to a son in marriage is to be treated just as a daughter. Sounds alright.

I don't know what 'duty of marriage' is being talked about here. Some duties might be seen as an honor. So the slave woman taken as a wife shall continue to recieve the same amount of food and clothing even after the man takes on another wife. Sounds alright as well.

Leviticus 19:20-22: "And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the LORD for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him.":

Just remembering, the punishment for a free man and a free woman committing adultery was a stoning. If the woman was in a populated area when she was 'raped', she was to be stoned, for she could've raised her voice for help. If she were in the country, she wasn't to be stoned.

A slave woman could also raise her voice in objection, but perhaps the law recognized it was difficult for the slave women to oppose her master's wishes, and only administered a scourge for not keeping herself pure until marriage.

Deuteronomy 23:15-16: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."

First reading this, this also sounds alright, although my brain isn't working well now, and I can't get it around all those 'thous' and 'thees' and negatives.