Reclaiming The Bible For A Non Religious World

philologos

Sarky wrote: »

What, no turning the other cheek?

Turning the other cheek is good. Trying to help someone see what they've done wrong, or trying to help them understand how you feel is also important in forgiveness I find.

I was referring to human behaviour and how it seems to be based on an external standard which exists between both parties. If it didn't as I'd say, we'd be a lacking in finding a means of recourse to explain what happened to us in a way that others could adequately understand.

Sarky wrote: »

Your basis for viewing things is completely subjective. There are very few people in your society who would disagree with what you think is right or wrong, but individuals aren't important on that scale. Society, as an entity, has a completely subjective view on morality, and its laws reflect that.

There's very few people full stop who would disagree on the basic principles of ethical behaviour even across cultures. This is why I feel that the conscience plays a huge role in ethical decision making.

Sarky wrote: »

It IS how morality works in disputes. That's why we don't have the same set of laws we did 2,000 years ago. We don't even have the same laws we did last year. Ideas on what is right and wrong change, as societies change, and laws are changed accordingly.

Again, I really don't agree with you. Laws don't adequately cover the area of ethical behaviour. There is much that is unethical that is legal, and in some spheres of the globe there's possibly much that is ethical that is illegal. There is nothing saying that people don't try and suppress consciences on a personal level, or act contrary to the objective standard as nations. Indeed, the Christian position would give credence to such.

Sarky wrote: »

You do realise that this "objective" standard the UN is using was created by humans, right? And is vague and subjective enough for different nations to determine how it should be implemented? The Declaration of Human Rights was created BECAUSE there are no objective standards. We create our own right and wrong, for the betterment of society as a whole. That's how it ALWAYS happened. The UN is just trying to manage much bigger societies than would fit in a church.

It was created by the UN on the basis of what was inherently in the human conscience. The people who wrote that document believed in the concept of objective rights, that's why it's referred to as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rather than the Subjective Declaration of Human Rights.

Sarky wrote: »

Feeling guilty over an act does not make the act "wrong". You'd feel you'd done something wrong after killing another human. Congratulations, you are not a sociopath. Your evolved empathy appears to be working.

I think guilt is a pretty good indicator of when one's done wrong. Essentially it's their conscience convicting them. There are cases through abuse and other circumstances where the conscience can be warped, but I think for the most part it is a reliable indicator of right and wrong. The best that I've come across anyway.

Sarky wrote: »

Killing someone who won't be missed is indeed about as wrong as killing someone who will. But not for the reason you think it is, I suspect.

I pointed this out only because your explanation seemed to imply families and whatever else as a reason not to murder someone. I believe it's wrong in its own right - and objectively wrong.

Sarky wrote: »

You can give whatever reason you like for doing the "right" thing. Many people do. Most aren't being entirely truthful. How many people actively shun reward and praise when they do something good? Doing the right thing keeps societies stable and pleasant to live in. What does the society care if one person is inconvenienced as a result?

I think it's more truthful to seek to do what is right for the sake of what is right than looking to do what is right for selfish aims or goals. That seems to be one of the fundamentals behind ethics. As for reward and praise, again, ethical behaviour isn't for that either as far as I can tell. It's just for doing the right thing. It's probably another facet of human nature to enjoy receiving praise, and we all fall guilty to it, but I think all that one needs to be assured is that they've done the right thing. Living rightly is a lifetime journey, I'm learning all the time. I slip up time and time again, but God is merciful and keeps showing me new things. I'm focused on His path rather than mine.

Your point about keeping societies stable again, seems to me to have little to do with doing what is right. Sometimes societies stay more stable by lies, deceit, coverup and so on, but it is ultimately not right to do this. Sometimes societies do what is blatently immoral in order to ensure stability. Do the means always justify the ends?

Sarky wrote: »

Nope. Reward and punishment are certainly powerful influences, and I'm sure there are people who only do the right thing because they fear the consequences more, and vice versa.

Is that really moral action then? - I agree there are many many people like that, the kind that will suppress their conscience and do as much as they can do without getting caught. Some would say that it is a key phase in growing up too, or at least I found it was.

Sarky wrote: »

I'm thinking more along the lines of "We're all in this together, so lets try and establish some ground rules that shold ensure none of our lives become too unpleasant." Much what you were advocating just before you added in all that god stuff. He's not necessary. I think we can work it out on our own. I think we're starting to get the hang of it in some countries.

Sometimes doing what is right isn't pleasant on an individual level. I never hit the point of claiming anything about making ground rules to make things more pleasant. I think there are already ground rules that we know deep down as a result of our consciences. I don't believe that the first generation of humans were all that more immoral than the current.

Sarky wrote: »

Perhaps your god could make the world a little less screwed up? Asking too much?

I don't believe He did. I believe we did as a result of free will.

Sarky wrote: »

You don't account for societies or even individuals having different versions of "good". Catholics generally believe suicide is a terrible sin, no matter the reason. In other countries, it's seen as a brave, honourable act if done for the right reason.

Again, I don't doubt that as time has gone on man has suppressed conscience in one way or another, but the ground rules of ethics are pretty much the same. I think in most societies the idea of theft is frowned upon, the idea of rape is frowned upon, the idea of greed is frowned upon to one extent or another, the idea of lying to one another is frowned upon, the idea of murder is frowned upon and the idea of adultery is frowned upon. Most societies have the same basic ground rules.

Sarky wrote: »

The bible is not a very good objective standard for morality. It's good you mentioned the UN Declaration of Human Rights though, I'd recommend that as a far superior starting point. No superstitious wishy-washy stuff, no embarrassing subclauses that we're encouraged to ignore that say rape and stoning and burning people are ok. Just a reasoned set of guidelines that should help make the world a slightly better place.

I think it's the best standard, because it's the most honest about human nature. That we've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory (what's right). We've all screwed up. We can become right with God again, thus living for His glory. Jesus died in our place to pay the price that we should have, so that we can know Him in fullness and live and speak for Him in the world.

The Bible presents the most honest picture of human nature I've ever read. The full scale of human dishonesty, the full scale that we don't like hearing what's right when we're so clearly doing what is wrong. The fact that we're prideful and stubborn. I found it ingenious. How could a 2,000 year old book teach me more about myself than others around me could?

I believe that God set the guidelines for us, and gave us consciences so that we could better work them out so that the world would be a better place.

Sarky

And we're back to "I like this idea most, so I'm sticking with it."

philologos

No, we're back to, this is what I find more reasonable because of X, Y, and Z. I just don't find that moral relativism corresponds much with moral reality. If we can get through all the substance that I've given you and you still fob off my opinion on the subject that's fine, but to claim that I've just said I've liked it more is disingenuous.

Edit: It's important to note that this discussion started because RichieC posted about religious people being psychopathic if they believed they needed to follow God to be a good person.

I asked RichieC as to what he meant be a good person. If there was no objective standard for what was a good person that phrase would be meaningless. I asked him where he thought that moral standard came from, to which he said, people effectively just know. Essentially you seem to be arguing from the other side of the argument to him.

Sarky

Either way, you don't seem to want to accept that most of what you like to believe about morality can be explained without a god figure putting "goodness" into the human mind. You're horrified by the possibility that there isn't some standard you can measure yourself to that wasn't made by people.

ressem

philologos wrote: »

Good is good because it's good, not because of perceived benefits, or drawbacks. Doing what is right for someone else will a lot of the time mean that something bad may happen to you as a result. Is it bad as a result? No. The world is screwed up like that sometimes.

I don't get that Utilitarianism viewpoint from Sarky's posts at all.

As the writer(s) of Romans observe, the majority of people show a 'law written in their hearts'. You and Romans appear to suggest that this law is a constant for all, written into their minds by God.

I argue that the 'good will' is not a constant that is ignored by some.

Not everyone has empathy (those with antisocial personality disorders) but for the majority that do, it appears to be like other parts of the human body that develop and change based on environment and practice.

Twenty years ago, teachers had no problems with hitting primary school kids, for their own good, for the good of the class etc. Now it's anathema.

What has changed?
Have teachers in the past been oblivious to longer term damage that they might have done to the kids, versus short term teaching improvements.
Or were they 'evil' teachers suppressing their Kantian constant and immutable good will?

I'd suggest that from a seed of the 'do unto others...' hard wired onto the mammalian brain by evolution's trial and error, all the rest of the notions of good will have to be trained so people recognize the more subtle forms of harm that they do to one another.
Currently in society this is a haphazard collection of perceptions, observations and prejudices, horribly taught. (returning to the original topic, we need to find out what aspects of the bible's observations on proscribed behaviour fall under fact or fiction so they can be taught even to non-believers as valuable)

Even regarding murder where Kant views an assisted suicide as " he [the afflicted person] uses a person merely as a mean to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life" is subject to conflicts in peoples conscience balancing 'a hell on earth' of pain versus preserving the life of a loved one.

Regarding diplomacy I'm not sure that that's in the same area, that's just an attempt to learn from history which has displayed that a winner takes all approach often results in bigger problems down the line. Intellectual rather than conscience.

robindch

philologos wrote: »

I subscribe to the idea of penal substitution.

Would love to hear some preacher rave on about penile substitution.

Any sermons on this later today?

ShooterSF

So Phil are you saying even us Atheists have our morality hardcoded into us by God and that's why we don't go around raping and killing each other?
Otherwise I don't get how, given that I don't believe in any deity, I still know what's right and wrong legally and ethically.
But the problem with it being hardcoded into us is that morality changes over time. Once people felt it was fine to keep slaves. Surely then that was coded into those people but not me.
Maybe I just need sleep...

philologos

ShooterSF wrote: »

So Phil are you saying even us Atheists have our morality hardcoded into us by God and that's why we don't go around raping and killing each other?
Otherwise I don't get how, given that I don't believe in any deity, I still know what's right and wrong legally and ethically.
But the problem with it being hardcoded into us is that morality changes over time. Once people felt it was fine to keep slaves. Surely then that was coded into those people but not me.
Maybe I just need sleep...

The conscience is a tool which has been given to use to discern what is ultimately right and wrong. It's built for it. There's a purpose to guilt, and there's a purpose to being led to do what is right over what's wrong even when what's right is to your detriment, and what's wrong is to your benefit. People at the same time, can choose to suppress the conscience and ignore what it is pointing to. Some people become surprisingly good at this.

As for morality changing - I would argue that irrespective of how cultures have chosen to ignore their consciences at one time or another, there is still an objective standard to which we'll all be accountable to either by humanity or by God at the end of all time.

That's how I see it, and I think that's pretty much how ethics works in practice we handle objectivity in moral decision making rather than subjectivity. Subjectivity is a wholly unuseful mechanism for dealing with ethical behaviour in and of itself. There is no guarantee that you are more right than anyone else when you are wronged. There is also no guarantee that what you consider right is actually right.

Sarky: It can be explained inadequately as far as I see it. In respect to RichieC it was the right argument to go down as he was using an objective term in describing "good person".

Ellis Dee

robindch wrote: »

Would love to hear some preacher rave on about penile substitution.

---

It seem to me that most of those bible-thumpers would know a lot about things penile - being such dicks themselves. :pac::pac::pac:


The question that mention of preachers prompts is, of course, why do they exist, who needs them?

If there was a god, sky fairy, great universal spirit or whatever you want to call the putative deity, who would need some clown to tell everyone else what said deity wants?

Surely a being capable of creating a whole universe and maybe even a multiverse and so on ad infinitum would be able to keep us all posted on what and what not to do?

ShooterSF

But even God's morality changes. Most Christians will write off most of what's in the OT as old laws. Heck on the slavery issue one of the commandments demands you don't covet your neighbours manservant. And what of meat on Friday?
TBH phil if there's one objective set of iron clad rules for life set out by a god then he's done a very poor job of listing them. Sprinkling them in between metaphors and parables and no longer relevant stuff in a huge book is poor thinking and never bothering to update it or release official translations is lazy (and nasty considering we get punished for not following it) Heck our Constitution written by lowly man is much clearer than the bible.
The rules are all over the shop. He lists nothing specific about copyright laws or when things should become public domain yet I know that I should redeem my first born donkey by sacrificing a lamb.

Sarky

Oh, those laws were obviously just corruptions of... Eh, I don't know how to finish that, I don't do the whole mental gymnastics thing very well.

Galvasean

I never got the whole "Old Testament rules no longer apply" idea. If they don't apply then why not just take them out of the Bible altogether?
Imagine a rulebook for a boardgame that spent 100 pages detailing various rules, then said, "Now discard pages 1-50". Just seems like a waste.

philologos

As for God's morality, I don't believe it did change. The same ethical principles exist in the Old as in the New, what is different is how they are judged. One is under the light of the law of Moses, the other is in light of the grace of Christ. The Bible clearly shows this in both the Old and New Testaments, simply looking at Jeremiah 31:31-34, and the book of Hebrews in the New Testament will tell you as to what impact Christ's coming into the world has on our relationship with God. Reading through the Bible as a whole is what is advisable. How can one criticise a book without aiming to be familiar with it? That's my objection to most atheists use of Scripture. Even though the penalties of the Old Testament are no longer in place due to the coming of Christ, the ethical commands of the Jewish law stand.

As for the slavery issue, I went through this systematically in 2009 on this thread. People commonly confuse the concept of colonial slavery with the concept of slavery in the Old Testament which was generally a means for repaying ones debt.

Meat on a Friday? What about it. This was a rule of the RCC, it isn't Biblical. My point simply put is that our conscience gives us an insight into what is commonly right and wrong. The mechanics of how we deal with ethical disputes is grounded in objectivity, and across cultures for the most part there is strong agreement as to what is at its most fundamental ethical and unethical. Saying that someone is a "good person" like RichieC claimed earlier in the thread depends on an objective source of right and wrong. He claimed that it should be obvious to any person as to what is right and wrong. I agree, it should be obvious because God has given us our consciences and His standards.

As I said to Sarky earlier. I believe of all ethical texts there is none as honest about human nature as the Bible. I'm quite happy to show you passage by passage why I think this is so at any point.

Sarky

philologos wrote: »

How can one criticise a book without aiming to be familiar with it? That's my objection to most atheists use of Scripture.

So you'll read up on quantum mechanics, then? Or will you keep parroting the old "it doesn't seem reasonable" line despite not knowing what you're talking about?

Wasn't Moses supposed to be talking directly to god, face to face? How did god manage to be so vague in a direct conversation that stoning people to death was seen as the will of god, then?

You're trying to dismiss what people knew to be moral back then by making excuses for it based on with what people think now. Ignoring moral relativism doesn't make it go away, no matter how hard you try.

philologos

Absolutely, although I would want a good explanation as to how it precludes God's existence also if I am to understand it as an alternative to divine creation rather than a part thereof. If you are proposing it as an alternative, I'm perfectly entitled to ask why it is an alternative, with all due respect.

I believe that sin deserves death (Romans 1), but that Jesus Christ took the penalty I deserved on the cross so that I could be forgiven. It is because of Jesus Christ that Christians look at the Scriptures retrospectively. I.E - The New Testament influences how we read the Old Testament. Otherwise your question seems to be why aren't we Orthodox Jews?

I'm not trying to dismiss anything. I believe that the Jewish Torah teaches ethical principles in much the same way as the rest of the Bible does. The only detail that differs for the most part is the inclusion of Gentiles (in respect to ceremonial laws) particularly in respect to Ephesians 2 and Mark 7, and the punishment for sin in light of Jesus Christ. Christianity has been explicit about these two details from the get-go. This isn't anything new by any means.

Again, if you think by saying that God standards for what is moral is the exact same as it was in the Torah law with differing consequences that I am saying that God's morality has changed, you might want to read my posts again.

When push comes to shove, there's still a reason behind why we can claim something is good rather than evil, one which seems to contradict the idea of relative morality on a daily basis.

Sarky

philologos wrote: »

Absolutely, although I would want a good explanation as to how it precludes God's existence also if I am to understand it as an alternative to divine creation rather than a part thereof. If you are proposing it as an alternative, I'm perfectly entitled to ask why it is an alternative, with all due respect.

You believe that there's a magic man who can do anything. You're going to find any explanation falling short of something that vague and fantastical.

I believe that sin deserves death (Romans 1), but that Jesus Christ took the penalty I deserved on the cross so that I could be forgiven. It is because of Jesus Christ that Christians look at the Scriptures retrospectively. I.E - The New Testament influences how we read the Old Testament. Otherwise your question seems to be why aren't we Orthodox Jews?

So God decieved everyone as to what was moral until Jesus came along and said "Wait, no, you're doing it wrong." Moses got it completely wrong after talking directly to god. I assume you have a perfectly logical reason as to why god would f*ck around with the lives of a few hundred generations of people other than making Jesus look better by comparison. Isn't he a magic man who can do anything?

I'm not trying to dismiss anything. I believe that the Jewish Torah teaches ethical principles in much the same way as the rest of the Bible does. The only detail that differs for the most part is the inclusion of Gentiles (in respect to ceremonial laws) particularly in respect to Ephesians 2 and Mark 7, and the punishment for sin in light of Jesus Christ. Christianity has been explicit about these two details from the get-go. This isn't anything new by any means.

Again, if you think by saying that God standards for what is moral is the exact same as it was in the Torah law with differing consequences that I am saying that God's morality has changed, you might want to read my posts again.

If you believe in god, you're going to have a to do a whole lot of mental backflips to reconcile the old law of god with the new one and still maintain that there was an objective standard of morality there all along, because both moralities bear almost no resemblance to one another.

Why was god such a harsh bastard before Jesus came along? Why wasn't he observing his own moral code?

When push comes to shove, there's still a reason behind why we can claim something is good rather than evil, one which seems to contradict the idea of relative morality on a daily basis.

There's no contradiction. We pretend there's an objective standard. We create it ourselves.It started off as natural selection and now we're actually thinking about human rights. We're figuring things out by ourselves, discarding the bits that don't work. Like we have ALWAYS done. Before the Jews existed. Before civilisation existed. It has only ever been us.

Why does that terrify you so much?

Sarky

Here's a map from Wikipedia detailing use of capital punishment worldwide.

Looks for all the world like the more religious a country is, the less likely they are to follow that commandment about not killing. How come? Surely they're the people most likely to believe that killing is wrong?

robindch

philologos wrote: »

As for God's morality, I don't believe it did change. The same ethical principles exist in the Old as in the New, what is different is how they are judged.

Writes a sentence about wearing clothes of two different cloths, eating shrimps, not cutting your hair, women being ritually dirty, wizards being stoned to death, people with flat noses not allowed to approach an altar, murdering a guy, a girl and her mum if all three have sex, a girl + a guy being thrown out of their community if they have sex while she's menstruating etc, etc, etc.

philologos wrote: »

Even though the penalties of the Old Testament are no longer in place due to the coming of Christ, the ethical commands of the Jewish law stand.

So those ethical commands are still in place? Do you refuse to have sex with your girlfriend when she's menstruating?

philologos wrote: »

People commonly confuse the concept of colonial slavery with the concept of slavery in the Old Testament which was generally a means for repaying ones debt.

I die a little bit inside when I see sentences which imply a steadfast denial of the most basic facts of history.

Plautus

People commonly confuse the concept of colonial slavery with the concept of slavery in the Old Testament which was generally a means for repaying ones debt.

Someone should have told Nicholas V when he wrote Dum Diversas in 1452, or maybe the Portuguese and Spanish Conquistadores. Or the Christian Confederate Staters (and slavers.) Slavery as payment of debt, indentured servitude, continued well into the 17th century. Irishmen died in the colonial sugar plantations satisfying debts, you know.

And Christian slavers thought that the Pauline argumentation helped their position. Of course, today it's taken for granted that they erred and 'misinterpreted' the will of God.

Convenient, isn't it.

philologos

Sarky wrote: »

You believe that there's a magic man who can do anything. You're going to find any explanation falling short of something that vague and fantastical.

There's nothing magical about the occurrence of divine creation as far as I can tell.

Sarky wrote: »

So God decieved everyone as to what was moral until Jesus came along and said "Wait, no, you're doing it wrong." Moses got it completely wrong after talking directly to god. I assume you have a perfectly logical reason as to why god would f*ck around with the lives of a few hundred generations of people other than making Jesus look better by comparison. Isn't he a magic man who can do anything?

That's not what I said. I said what differs is simply put ceremonial laws that applied to the Jewish people specifically, and the punishment that was given to breaking the Law of Moses. This has as far as Christians have been concerned satisfied through Jesus Christ.

This is all a part of one plan. Not two. All things in the Old lead to their conclusion in the New. That's what essentially what Christians believe about Biblical law.

Sarky wrote: »

If you believe in god, you're going to have a to do a whole lot of mental backflips to reconcile the old law of god with the new one and still maintain that there was an objective standard of morality there all along, because both moralities bear almost no resemblance to one another.

Not particularly. All I have to do is read through God's plan for mankind from beginning to end. I find it particularly clear. Others may disagree.

Sarky wrote: »

Why was god such a harsh bastard before Jesus came along? Why wasn't he observing his own moral code?

He was observing his moral code, in that people were punished for wrongdoing.

Sarky wrote: »

There's no contradiction. We pretend there's an objective standard. We create it ourselves.It started off as natural selection and now we're actually thinking about human rights. We're figuring things out by ourselves, discarding the bits that don't work. Like we have ALWAYS done. Before the Jews existed. Before civilisation existed. It has only ever been us.

Why does that terrify you so much?

It doesn't terrify me at all. It just doesn't make good sense as far as I can tell. It seems more reasonable that we appeal to an objective standard because there is one rather than going to the convoluted conclusion that there isn't. Simply put from the way we act as far as I can tell there is more evidence in favour of objective morality than relative morality. One describes reality in practice, and as far as I can tell, the other doesn't describe ethical realities at all.

Apparently you think disagreeing with your interpretation with stated reasons as to why I disagree is being "terrified"?

Plautus wrote: »

Someone should have told Nicholas V when he wrote Dum Diversas in 1452, or maybe the Portuguese and Spanish Conquistadores. Or the Christian Confederate Staters (and slavers.) Slavery as payment of debt, indentured servitude, continued well into the 17th century. Irishmen died in the colonial sugar plantations satisfying debts, you know.

And Christian slavers thought that the Pauline argumentation helped their position. Of course, today it's taken for granted that they erred and 'misinterpreted' the will of God.

Convenient, isn't it.

Read this link to a thread where I explained what the difference was between the concept of slavery in Biblical Israel from colonial slavery. That thread went through a whole swathe of objections in respect to it and I'm fairly sure that I hold the same view as I did then in 2009. So I don't know how productive repeating my opinion would be.

Plautus

Read this link to a thread where I explained what the difference was between the concept of slavery in Biblical Israel from colonial slavery. That thread went through a whole swathe of objections in respect to it and I'm fairly sure that I hold the same view as I did then in 2009. So I don't know how productive repeating my opinion would be.

That thread is 19 pages long, and I have no idea where the salient points of your argument are situated therein (and no interest in doing this donkey-work.) Paul urged slaves to remain as they were when they were called to Christ. He proposed nothing so radical as to demolish the institution of Slavery. Subsequently, the vast majority of the Christian world found succour in his and other arguments for the maintenance of the institution.

Whether or not you can summon up 'No True Scotsman' to explain this away (the Pope - more like the whore of Babylon, eh?) is of scarcely any relevance, as the moral relativism shows through plain enough.

philologos

Plautus wrote: »

That thread is 19 pages long, and I have no idea where the salient points of your argument are situated therein (and no interest in doing this donkey-work.) Paul urged slaves to remain as they were when they were called to Christ. He proposed nothing so radical as to demolish the institution of Slavery. Subsequently, the vast majority of the Christian world found succour in his and other arguments for the maintenance of the institution.

Whether or not you can summon up 'No True Scotsman' to explain this away (the Pope - more like the whore of Babylon, eh?) is of scarcely any relevance, as the moral relativism shows through plain enough.

If you're not interested in reading the posts, I don't see how your criticism could be representative of it. If we want to discuss this, then lets do that. If not then no worries.

I went through the passages that were raised to me, and I presented the broader case that is presented in the Torah in relation to slavery and how this differs from conceptions of slavery which are with us from the colonial era.

The reason I've linked is simple. The territory was covered significantly in that discussion. I left with a better understanding of the POV that was being presented in this forum, and I would hope that others went away with an idea of how Christians would respond to that particular objection.

fisgon

philologos wrote: »

As for God's morality, I don't believe it did change.
.

This is simply and demonstrably false.
An eye for an eye - Old Testament
Turn the other cheek - New testament.
These two ideas are fundamentally contradictory, you cannot logically believe them both. The morality obviously changed from Old to New.

Plautus

philologos wrote: »

If you're not interested in reading the posts, I don't see how your criticism could be representative of it. If we want to discuss this, then lets do that. If not then no worries.

I went through the passages that were raised to me, and I presented the broader case that is presented in the Torah in relation to slavery and how this differs from conceptions of slavery which are with us from the colonial era.

The reason I've linked is simple. The territory was covered significantly in that discussion. I left with a better understanding of the POV that was being presented in this forum, and I would hope that others went away with an idea of how Christians would respond to that particular objection.

I'm not interested in picking through the fragments of a 19 page thread from two years ago, more like.

This dichotomy you're promoting is interesting, between Old Jewish slavery and Colonial slavery. I think it's rather tendentious. We're dealing with a model of slavery which, by the time of the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman Empires, doesn't change significantly even in the 'colonial period' (and the Romans and Greeks had colonies; I presume you're referring to the discovery of the New World or the interior of Africa.)

And that model is as follows: you can own humans, humans can be pressed into slavery to satisfy debts and humans are themselves spoils of war. The killing or maltreatment of slaves is the destruction of property, not murder.

Which means St. Paul, or St. Augustine even, are in play when they tolerate slavery and see nothing wrong with the institution at all once it is carried on with homage due to God. Nicholas V clearly sees a difference between believers and non-believers when he writes Dum Diversas in 1452 - pagans can be enslaved. The White Plantation Owners believed that by propagating the Christian faith and encouraging bible study and church-going amongst their slaves they were fulfilling their duties and making the slavery acceptable before the eyes of God.

And what is clear is that Paul et al. have since been re-interpreted because the idea of ownership of humans is considered utterly repugnant. I don't know what the vicissitudes of Jewish life at the time of the Torah being authored have to do with Christians having changed their tune rather a bit.

philologos

If you're not interested doing that, that's fine. My point is that I've presented my case on that thread and I don't see much point in rehashing it every time so I link.

Plautus

philologos wrote: »

If you're not interested doing that, that's fine. My point is that I've presented my case on that thread and I don't see much point in rehashing it every time so I link.

You can't state the argument somewhat concisely? It's just that the relevance of the Torah, and the (real or imagined) difference of slavery described there to how it is in the Christian New Testament evades me.

The point is that Christians preside over slavery with no major qualms for the next 1,800 years. They then change their minds: and those before who cited Paul had apparently been 'misinterpreting' him, and God's will, all along.

robindch

Plautus wrote: »

Someone should have told Nicholas V when he wrote Dum Diversas in 1452 [...]

Interesting link. I was aware of the earlier (1435) Sicut Dudum, in which Pope Eugene IV demanded freedom for all those inhabitants of the Canary Islands who'd been carted off into slavery following an invasion by christians who were obeying something that the pope called "fictitious reasoning".

The demand, however, only applied to christians and unbaptized inhabitants were, by implication, fair game as slave-meat.

Stephen Fry put it rather well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGFS_hkHfCc

ShooterSF

philologos wrote: »

If you're not interested doing that, that's fine. My point is that I've presented my case on that thread and I don't see much point in rehashing it every time so I link.

I've had a quick flick through. Unfortunately this is a mental week for me but the discussion seems to focus on the rights and demands of a slave. Here we're talking moral objectivity, a moral code from god that doesn't change.

As for God's morality, I don't believe it did change.

And yet passages like the following litter the OT

Deuteronomy 21:10-14
10When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

11And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;

12Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;

13And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.

14And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

Now either that is the law in regard taking women as a prize of war or it isn't. I'll guess you say it isn't, and then that leads into the problem that your god has done a pathetic job of laying out the rules we're to follow. I probably have to reference other passages, read other people's take on the issue, apply context and allow for translation. That's if it isn't (i) a parable (ii) a metaphor or (iii) removed by Jesus later on. Mind boggling is not the description a book on how to live your life should aim for.

Edit - by the way if it isn't and you would be so kind (I'll search for it later if you have clarified) but when is it ok to take a woman as spoils for war just in case I'm missing some minor context? There most be at least some times or it would be a pointless passage to include (again unless it's a parable or metaphor).

Galvasean

What the heck could that be a metaphor for?

ShooterSF

Galvasean wrote: »

What the heck could that be a metaphor for?

I know but I'm covering as many outs as possible just to be safe... but at a guess don't accidentally leave the mayo out all night and then try and sell it on to your unsuspecting neighbour?