Slavery

I think that is exactly what it was. God is a mechanism that is used to keep the masses in check. I would tend to disagree with that particular claim. The Israelites would consider it blasphemous to refer to anything other than Yahweh as lord God. Same with the Romans and some other cultures. But there is nothing in Judaism that allows for this concept. I am sure that is what I implied in my post, I hope so because that is what I believe. Yes, but using ‘Lord’ is to place a western and also a very late term onto the word adonai. And many other names, Elohim, El Berith, El Olam, El Roi, Yah, El, Shaddai, etc. I don’t know if I would call them main and minor, they really just put a particular slant on things. The Priestly author for example would highlight the cultic aspects of a story, the J highlights the importance of Judah, while the Elohist would highlight Israel, the D would take a moral approach to a story. It is rather complex, and the number of redactions are difficult to determine, there may have been several Deuteronomistic Historian redactions.The Bible is man made, there is nothing supernatural about it.Brian.

When you think about it, doesn't it make more sense to have a slave that is fairly intelligent?I mean, how could you trust him to come back with the correct newspaper, or plough the correct field, or get you out of bed at the right time?Brian.

Brian,
Sorry that message was intended to be a reply to message 9 by riverat. Still a newb here learning the ropes.

No probs mate.I was a tad confused!Catch you later.Brian

There you are! I think they are, but the real question is, where is slavery from? Don't you get it? They are destroying themselves at an alarming rate anyway. They need to be saved, and brought to light. They need to know there are other ways of living, and that includes teaching them about our science, and medicine. Should we not show them this too, because that could be considered exploiting as well. No human can convert anybody, God does the converting.
Teaching them about our medicine, and other ways of life is exploitation as well. You are not exploiting anyone, if you teach them, what Jesus taught us. The choice is theirs, no matter what you think. We are not going to stop helping them, if they don't believe in Jesus. If it stops them from killing themselves, thats great! I do not judge peoples choices in religion. The great part about that story is that the people got to choose. If God is part of what drives us, then that is our freedom, please do not attack that. Not according to his own rules, seeya later free will. I think what God wants to do is steer us along, sometimes with great force, and other times with a gentle nudge. The best way to learn something is by making mistakes, that is called life. Because of posts like yours....j/k
I guess man was just really really screwd up, and was on a path of total self destruction. What did we learn from it is the real question. Just like we enslave dogs now. How could we possibly know the intelligence of people back then? They were dumb enough to think slavery was ok, weren't they? I don't believe that, or dis-believe that, because I do not know. But Darwin did. He also believe the man was far more capable than a woman.
(Ladies and Gentlemen, starts your engines!!!) One of the definitions of slave is as follows:
2 : one that is completely subservient to a dominating influenceWell they sure left him with no choice and screwd up his life. Their decsions affected him to the point where he had no choice, but had to submit. To me this is a form of slavery, maybe your not open minded enough yet to see this? Maybe I have no right to compare this form of slavery, with other forms, I don't know. Either way, none of it is good, and it is all relative. My point was that 5000 years from now, people will look at this as barbaric, like the way we look at slavery in the bible now.

No, that's exactly what was meant. I am saying we do not understand why.
We are not living in that time, yet slavery still goes on today, so it is a fact of life. Slavery happens.God gave us the earth to rule, and this is what we do with it. The best explanation I can think of, is God, or whoever wrote that text, figured we needed some rules to calm us down, because maybe it was even worse than that.I guess it's easier for to blame it on evolution rather than loving God due to your/our lack of comprehension about it. I said through Christ. Christ to me is love, and that's how we do it. Get over it. How naive of you to think that I do these things because I am afraid of God or something. You think I am some kind of marketing director for Christ.I have always done kind things, and treated people with love for the first 38 years of my life, without doing it for God. I just came into line with my creator, and realized, that is what he created me for.I believe in building the kingdom of God, not my church, or the charity, or anything other than spreading the love.Getting to know God, and Jesus, has showed me the love they have for us. Feeling that love, has increased the love I have for others, a true unselfish love, to the best of my abilities. That is only your opinion, based on what you believe, not a fact, or a truth. Get over it. Half of out charity is non-faith based grants, and we are not allowed to mention God or anything. But we believe that the love will be so strong, that somehow it will reach them, or God will tell them himself. This has happened already.The important thing and first priority is to help the children.You see being a Christian to me has a list of priorities, and it goes like this:
Love God
Love others
Help children/orphans and widows.
Then the rest. Well which is it? Jesus or his followers?
I am sick of people like you who constantly blame Jesus for all that happened bad in his name. Then you call yourself smart.Any person who knows just the basics of the bible, can clearly see that all that history of blood shed, cannot be blamed on Jesus, and if Jesus didn't exist, it would just be any old reason to go to war.Unless you feel that people who don't believe in God at all, are not capable of going to war.Stop the BS.Why do you let people who are clearly dumber(or more evil) than you ruin what Jesus is supposed to mean by thier actions of the past and present, and future? You are letting them rob you a relationship with the Lord. In a sense, God has left the decsions up to us. We just manage to screw up how he intended us to be. Maybe we will never get there, maybe we have to go through everything in life, so that we can appreciate where we are going after this. I don't know, it's life the universe and everything. I am sorry if you feel he messed you up. No, God starts us off in the Garden. Just like dogs. I believe science will tell you that people of long ago were not as smart as we are today."What a horrible thing to say" lmao, OMG he told the truth, shoot him, he believes in Christ, the living God killer from 2000 years ago, who is dumb, like 2 planks, no wait he's smart enough to trick 5000 people into believing in prayer, no wait, I don't know what I'm saying, I am just repeating everything they taught me, I want to know the truth WAAAAAAAAA !!!You people are all so reduntant, you all preach your stuff, like you learned it in a college course. Do they teach hate God courses in college now? It would seem they do.But it's ok, because I understand, really I do, although you will never understand that I understand. why would you respond with that answer, unless you think every slave was taken that way? I said:

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Maybe even some people were perfectly content being a slave, who knows?

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Do I need to underline the word "some?"
Some people were sold as slaves, parents sold their children, why would they do such a terrible thing? Did they cry the day they sold them? Or did they just go, because it was a part of life, just like my worker who worked for an airline?As far as this verse:

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Deuteronomy 20:10-15

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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.

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How can anyone not be grateful?

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Not only odes it mention terrible things, but it mentions peace. It looks like God wanted us to live in peace, but if it couldn't happen, then there was war. Not to different than what happens today in war.
Those people were the chosen ones, who knows how the rest of the world was living back then, and if we left the world up to people like that, then there would be even more cruel slavery, and worse things to deal with, that still may have not been corrected today.Jesus obviously made a change in life didn't he? He is like a point in history where everything turned. But I do accept that, barbarian by today's standards. God is everything, and that as well, since he created it all, and we are the victims. I guess if you really don't like it here, then you could commit suicide, and role the dice that you won't go to hell.I see the world, and the universe as a beatiful awesome place, that man has infected like a virus, and I will not blame God for it. I thank him that I am alive, and get to talk to people like you. No I am saying that I do not understand it completely. I ask the same questions as you. As I go, more and more of those questions get answered. What I offer here is only my opinion, with some fact tossed in. It's just what I have learned in life, don't put me down for it, please.

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God gave us the earth to rule, and this is what we do with it. The best explanation I can think of, is God, or whoever wrote that text, figured we needed some rules to calm us down, because maybe it was even worse than that.

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I thought that the rules in the bible were the rules that god put unto man and to disobey them is sin. I understand that the bible says that everyone sins no matter how hard they try but can be saved by christ but i dont understand why god would put down rules for something if he didnt accept it.

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Just like dogs. I believe science will tell you that people of long ago were not as smart as we are today.

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genetically speaking the people from 2000 years ago are almost identical to us due to only approx 100-150 generations. evolution takes a lot longer then that (if u dont believe in evolution then you would have to accept that they havent changed at all). this means that they would be almost as capable as us mentally with the major difference being nutrition during development. these people wouldnt have been all that 'dumb'

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I think they are,

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So, God clearly condones and encourages slavery. What do you make of that?

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but the real question is, where is slavery from?

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No, the question of the OP is what do you Christians make of the clear encouragement by God of the institution of slavery in the Bible.Clearly, slavery is from God, since God considers it a normal, natural thing for people to be engaging in, similar to marriage, owning other property, washing, and all the other things that need rules and regulations.

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Don't you get it? They are destroying themselves at an alarming rate anyway.

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Really? They are desroying their own religious traditions in the places you evangelize in?Where exactly are those places that are rejecting their own religious traditions before you even get there? Name them.

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They need to be saved, and brought to light.

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That might be true, but you also might be wrong.It's only your opinion.

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They need to know there are other ways of living, and that includes teaching them about our science, and medicine. Should we not show them this too, because that could be considered exploiting as well.

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You can show them all about your religion after they are back on their feet. You can tell them all about it when they are not in a desperate situation and they are on equal footing with you and they are not at all dependent upon you for aid. Before that, they shouldn't even know that you are a religious group.This way, you can know that they really made a free choice.

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No human can convert anybody, God does the converting.

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So, then nobody in your group should need to make even the merest mention of the fact that you are there on a religious mission. None of you should breathe a word of the religious nature of your presence.

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Teaching them about our medicine, and other ways of life is exploitation as well.

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No, it isn't. They already have a perfectly adequate religious belief that has just as much validity as yours.

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You are not exploiting anyone, if you teach them, what Jesus taught us.

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You are if you connect evangelism with humanitarian aid to desperate people.If you want to gain converts honestly, then don't go after desperate, lonely, or unhappy people. Choices can be heavily influenced by many social factors, can they not?

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We are not going to stop helping them, if they don't believe in Jesus.

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I have never, ever suggested that you should stop helping them with the basic necessities of life. In fact, I think that it's great that anyone does this and more people should.You should not, however, be mentioning anything about your religiion to them while they are in a desperate position.Later, when they are not starving and in fact are happy and healthy and living in a stable society, then you can tell them about your religion, because then they can choose without desperation.Respect the culture of the people you claim to want to help.

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If it stops them from killing themselves, thats great! I do not judge peoples choices in religion. The great part about that story is that the people got to choose.

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No, they really didn't get to choose, that's the point.Legitimate religious choices are made when one is happy and stable and not about to die from starvation.

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I guess they think slavery should still exist, and the children should be left for dead, starve, and fight other peoples wars.

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If God is part of what drives us, then that is our freedom, please do not attack that.

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Wha? This response has nothing to do with your previous comment nor my reply to it.You are the one making being insulting, riverrat.You are the one saying that those of us who believe it's wrong for you to evangelise to desperate people actually WANT children to starve to death.Let me ask you something. There are plenty of very poor Christian communities in the United States which could use the kind of help your group seem to provide. Surely it would be a much more efficient use of resources because you wouldn't have to travel anywhere near as far, there is no language barrier, etc. Why don't you help them? Is it because they are already Christians in a Christian country?

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Just like we enslave dogs now. How could we possibly know the intelligence of people back then? They were dumb enough to think slavery was ok, weren't they?

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God told them slavery was OK, and in fact encouraged and commanded it.Are you saying that God was dumb?

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I don't believe that, or dis-believe that, because I do not know.

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Well, you must believe something, because you just said that slaves might have needed slavery to survive because of a lack of intelligence.Africans were enslaved by Europeans, so do you suspect that Africans are dumber than Europeans?

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But Darwin did.

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Irrelevant. We are talking about the Bible and slavery, not Darwin or science.

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I can look at a story like that and say, he was a slave to that airline

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One of the definitions of slave is as follows:
2 : one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence

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Right.He was not completely subservient.

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Well they sure left him with no choice and screwd up his life.

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Was he legally forced to work there? Was he legally owned as property by his employer?

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Their decsions affected him to the point where he had no choice, but had to submit. To me this is a form of slavery, maybe your not open minded enough yet to see this?

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Maybe you are switching definitions mid conversation?Was he legally forced to work there? Was he legally owned as property by his employer?

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Maybe I have no right to compare this form of slavery, with other forms, I don't know.

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Duh.

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Either way, none of it is good, and it is all relative. My point was that 5000 years from now, people will look at this as barbaric, like the way we look at slavery in the bible now.

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I doubt it.There is a big, big difference between owning human beings as chattel and getting a bum deal from a former employer.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 08-10-2005 08:41 AM

Yes, slavery happened and still happens. But you seem none too keen to accept that Yahweh sanctioned it.Didn’t Paine write something about Christian slave traders during the 18th century CE? Well, surely it couldn’t have been much of an improvement since it still looked pretty bad. Why not have a bit more radical changes to society? Blame what on evolution? The fact that since the Bible lost its special status as western societies became more civilised? I know that’s how you do it, you prey on the vulnerable and needy. Christian missionaries are disgusting, evil, perverted people, get over it. Of course you do it to promote Christ, try helping someone without adding on the Christ clause, you’ll feel better for it. I think it is time you went back to doing things out of the kindness of your heart instead of adding conditions your love. Yes we know, and what better way than smothering a captive audience, dangling a little food parcel in one hand and a bible in the other, what love. That’s all and well, but why feel the need to force that belief on to vulnerable, needy people, why the need to Christianise the heathens? I am afraid that it is based on facts, missionaries have
Christianised countless towns and villages all over the world, they have forced Christianity down the throats of countless millions on their quest to further Christianity. If you think that Christianity is squeaky clean you are grossly mistaken. Both, since if we didn’t have a Jesus we wouldn’t have any followers. Well, whose fault is it? If Jesus couldn’t get his message over well enough then that is his fault, no one else’s. Why didn’t the big guy write something down instead of leaving it to people who never knew him? I don’t recall saying that. I didn’t blame it all on Jesus, but his followers have done some pretty horrendous things in Jesus’ name. Having said that, Jesus the God of Love did seem content to sit back and allow these things to happen in his name, guess he wasn’t that upset about it. Of course they are, but they tend to fight for things like land, or revenge, or some other equally sad reason. Fighting and killing over a fairy tale is even more sad though, imagine killing someone because they don’t believe in something that cannot be proven to them, amazng. It is only your opinion that they weren’t properly representing Jesus, if they were so grossly misrepresenting Him, why did he do nothing to stop it?Yahweh is a warrior, Yahweh happily led the Israelites into battle, Yahweh killed more inhabitants of Ai than the Israelites did. Jesus is God, Yahweh is God, Jesus is Yahweh, Jesus is a warrior, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, so Jesus is still a warrior. But, God knows everything, He knows how it is all going to work out, God knew that we would screw up, God set mankind up for His amusement, how can you worship such an evil being? I think when we die we wont have to worry about where we are going. What makes you think I am messed up? Yes, 6000 years ago I wouldn’t let Consequent Atheist hear you saying that!It is a rather silly thing to say when you consider the geniuses that lived long before Jesus. Look at what the Egyptians achieved, what about the Greek philosophers, or the Greek historians, mathematicians, astronomers? I think people 3000 years ago were every bit as mentally capable as we are today, they perhaps lacked the technology that we do, and perhaps we have more information to work with, but you cannot say that people were not as smart in ancient times.Do you think Pythagoras was more intelligent than Kent Hovind? But you didn’t tell the truth, you imagined a society full of morons, which clearly wasn’t the case. He doesn’t need to be smart to work that out, all he needs is someone to tell him about it, and Jesus, who was pretty dumb, is stupid enough to allow himself to be convinced that he was a god. Are you alright? Not that I am aware of. Take some courses and find out then. I don’t understand that! Because God is saying that it is perfectly okay for it to happen, every slave could have been taken that way. The some is immaterial, as soon as God sanctions the killing of thousands and the taking as slaves of the survivors then He loses all respect. Probably to help feed their other children. Since God happily sits back on his cloud watching his children die from hunger and disease then people are driven to take drastic measures. God couldn’t care less about mankind, so mankind really has to do some horrible things at times, if only God wasn’t so useless. I would think that they would be rather upset to see their families murdered and then taken as slaves, but who knows? Have you actually read the verse????????God is saying that His peace entails an entire city just handing themselves over to the Israelites as slaves!Make them an offer of peace, if they say yes then they belong to you. You shall subject them to forced labour. Tell me, where is the peace about? It doesn’t mention people living together in peace, it promotes slavery and warmongering. More racism and bigotry brought to you courtesy of the Word of God. So, by taking a city and enslaving its people the Israelites were actually fighting against slavery, take more slaves it will end slavery? But, the real improvements in society have only come about after the Bible fell off its pedestal. The last time that the Bible was taken as being the ultimate source of morality we ended up in the dark ages. Well, that’s arguable, I think Paul was a more effective force than Jesus. But not necessarily for the better. Why would I want commit suicide?I enjoy life immensely, especially since I left Christianity. Why not, since God created us and set up Adam and Eve, whose fault could it be?You also need to work on your self esteem, thinking of yourself as a virus is a bit off. No doubt a similar cry can be heard throughout the centuries from the death cries of hundreds of thousands of Africans who were forced to convert or die. Countless parents crying please don’t put me down for my beliefs as they watched their rivers running red with the blood of their children as Christians danced a merry jig, content that they had saved yet another heathen.Brian.

As my dear Momma used to say;"It ain't what you say it's what you do.", and "It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it."

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Don't think CP was being sarcastic. If he was an athiest he was being honest

Hi, iano.I don't know whether atheism has to do with it, unless it allows to me question a few assumptions that some people may not realize that they are making. This is similar to another discussion that took place in another thread.People are concerned that God condones slavery in the Bible when they know that slavery is wrong. How do they know that slavery is wrong?It seems to me that three assumptions are being made here.1) There is an absolute standard of good.
2) God is good according to this standard.
3) That our 21st century Western liberal democratic notions of morality are very close to this absolute standard of good.My guess is that at least one of those assumptions is incorrect.

It seems to me that three facts need to be faced here:1) God is Good - ie: Goodness is integral attribute of God as opposed to there being some other external-to-him measure, against which his actions can be measured
2) God is thus the absolute standard of Good. The defining metre stick if your like.
3) Our notions of morality throughout the ages have always referred to this standard (given that we were made in his image and likeness), even though falling very short at times (because of the Fall). Slavery then, starving millions now. Nothing new under the SunMy guess is that none of the above facts are incorrect

Hello again, Ian.I guess I don't see the problem. God is good, God condones slavery (and even gives rules how to do it); therefore, there is nothing morally objectionable about slavery.

I think it is pretty silly to take the position that God gave the rules
for slavery just because it was 'in vogue'. In plenty of other cases God is punishing his chosen people for all kinds of things that he dosen't want them to do so why would he take such a sissy stance on slavery if he thought it was morally objectionable.On Mt. Sinai he didn't say, "Okay now. Since you are all fornicating and stuff we need to set some ground rules here. Umm...Now if you all are going to get into the S&M stuff make sure you have a safety word. Lets make sure any 'toys' don't have sharp edges and such. Remember ladies, birth control wont be invented for a few thousand more years so ....."No. He brought the hammer down on them because they were doing something he demanded was immoral.It is absolutly clear that the God of the OT has no problem with slavery and in fact encourages it. Clearly, when he has a moral objection to something he does something about it. He is not afraid to bring the pain when his people get out of line.

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