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Finding Faith

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Comments

  • #92
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    robindch wrote: »
    Wow. There's a major flaw in your historical thinking here.

    The rejection of slavery flowed from the idea that all humans had equal, individual rights, including slaves and women. This idea was enshrined in such documents the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the US United States Bill of Rights and so on. Each of them declared rights that were largely absent, or largely unactioned where they were not absent, from christianity.

    It's worth reading these documents and seeing how few of the rights that we now accept as normal were present in any serious way in christianity, or promulgated with any enthusiasm, where they were.

    Yes, the early abolitionists included some christians, but the same religion had singularly failed to produce abolitionists in any serious numbers in its previous 1,500 years of controlling Europe.

    A reasonable historian, not to say an informed one, therefore looks elsewhere for cause.

    .

    The flaw is in your atheist rewriting of history.

    A reasonable and informed historian would be aware that Pope Paul III in 1537 issued a Bull against slavery, entitled Sublimis Deus. This document predates The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Bill of Rights by 250 years. The Papal Bull condemned slavery on the grounds that all men, whatever their race, were created in the image of God, and confirmed the action of Eugene IV, who excommunicated those involved in the slave trade in the Canary Islands in 1435. Popes Gregory XIV (Cum Sicuti, 1591), Urban VIII (Commissum Nobis, 1639) and Benedict XIV (Immensa Pastorum, 1741) also condemned slavery and the slave trade prior to your cited sources.


  • #93
    Ekancone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Ekancone


    PDN wrote: »
    I think there is a major flaw in your reasoning here. The issues of slavery and women's rights are not examples of Christianity adapting itself in order to fit in with 'modern standards'. In each case it was Christianity, and the application of Christian principles and values, which changed the cultural norms and created these modern standards.

    What utter, utter tripe.


  • #94
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    Wicknight wrote: »
    That is completely untrue. :mad:

    For example women's suffrage in the 19th Century were fought against, often bitterly, by both Catholic and Protestant churchs in America and Europe. The common idea put forward at the time was that women should be sub-servant to their husbands (umm, wonder where that came from {EDIT} And Wolfsbane demonstrates these views are alive and well today{/EDIT}) and therefore it was unnecessary and ultimately undemocratic to give women the vote as it would effectively give the husband two.

    Women's suffrage was seen as unGodly and a threat to the foundations of modern, Christian, society.

    Catholic groups as well as Baptist and Methodist churches urged their members not to support women's suffrage, and in places such as South Carolina women's suffrage was officially off the books until as late as 1969 due to protests from the churches!

    There were certainly strands within Christianity, as there were with slavery, that opposed female emancipation - but they lost out. Historians agree that Christianity created many more opportunities for women in the Roman Empire than did existing cultural norms. There are many examples of women leaders in Scripture and in Church History, with women preaching, teaching, leading or founding denominations etc.


  • #95
    JimiTime
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,418 ✭✭✭JimiTime


    I have to admit, it certainly doesn't seem so. How do you explain his acceptance of it? He clearly legislates for it in the law. The whole 'he put up with it' arguement doesn't really hold water, it does seem to be encouraged in the Law. So what are the various christian explainations?

    My current understanding is that, all men where not equal under the Law. Obviously the Hebrews were the chosen people. The nations were lesser. Just as those who are written in the book of life have been chosen over the rest.


  • #96
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    PDN wrote: »
    The flaw is in your atheist rewriting of history.
    On the contrary, the sentence "Each of them declared rights that were largely absent, or largely unactioned where they were not absent, from christianity" is not a 'rewriting' of history, it is an exact description of what happened -- note the bit in bold as you may have missed it.

    A minute or two googling about Eugene IV and his "Bull against slavery", suggests that it's you who's rewriting history, not me.

    Here's why:

    Eugene IV's bull was named "Sicut Dudum" and the text is available here. From reading this, it is quite clear that Eugene's interest was not in humans in general or slaves in particular, but in protecting the people of the Canary islands who had recently become christians. The text of the bull, shorn of its pompous prose and grammar, is quite explicit in this and it's worth reading the document carefully. The bull is largely accurately summarized by this one sentence from article four:
    Pope Eugene IV wrote:
    We will that like sentence of excommunication be incurred by one and all who attempt to capture, sell, or subject to slavery, baptized residents of the Canary Islands, or those who are freely seeking Baptism
    Incidentally, this may explain why the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Eugene IV doesn't mention either the Canaries or slavery. His bull was not contra slavery at all. Quite the opposite, it's a bull decrying the specific case of persecution of christians only by christians only.

    And even if your revisionist reading of Eugene's bull were accurate -- which it is not -- the 350 years that passed between Sicut Dudum and the start of the abolutionist movement in Europe does not suggest that there was much enthusiasm for the idea amongst the overwhelmingly christian population or their christian rulers.

    .


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  • #97
    Ekancone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Ekancone


    JimiTime wrote: »
    I have to admit, it certainly doesn't seem so. How do you explain his acceptance of it? He clearly legislates for it in the law. The whole 'he put up with it' arguement doesn't really hold water, it does seem to be encouraged in the Law. So what are the various christian explainations?

    My current understanding is that, all men where not equal under the Law. Obviously the Hebrews were the chosen people. The nations were lesser. Just as those who are written in the book of life have been chosen over the rest.

    Thanks you for your honesty.


  • #98
    Ekancone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Ekancone


    You know, I would have a lot more respect for Christians if they came out and said:

    'God believes slavery is ok, I believe in God, therefore I must believe slavery is ok'

    What I find pathetic is the squirming people do to fit their interpretation of the Bible top suit themselves. I mean, some of you here believe that homosexuality is a sin because God says so in Leviticus, yet a few pages later he says you can have slaves as well. Why not believe in both? As I said, you would have far more credibility in my eyes if you did.


  • #99
    JimiTime
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,418 ✭✭✭JimiTime


    daithifleming wrote: »
    Thanks you for your honesty.

    Seriously, no need for thanks. I would honestly hope that we are all looking for the truth. I'm just thinking that maybe Christianity is trying so hard to distance itself from the concept of slavery, that maybe its being a little too presumtuous. I don't think I've heard a good explaination around the 'God disapproves of slavery' scenario. Now I'm not saying there isn't one, just I don't think I've seen it. It'd be good to discuss openly though.

    A similar topic I recall was the 'Does God condemn polygamy?'. Although there are many incidents where the 'One Man to One Woman' is encouraged, Polygamy is not condemned in scripture AFAIK. We are given the guidelines as to the best way, but the polygamous alternative doesn't seem to be condemned.


  • #100
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    robindch wrote: »
    A minute or two googling about Eugene IV and his "Bull against slavery", suggests that it's you who's rewriting history, not me.

    It's unfortunate that the "minute or two" you spent googling was evidently insufficient for you to read the article properly.

    Eugene stated that 'some' of the Canary Islanders had been baptised, but he banned the enslavement of all Islanders. Your quote is extremely selective in that it ignores the earlier statement that enslavement of any Islander would incur excommunication.
    On the contrary, the sentence "Each of them declared rights that were largely absent, or largely unactioned where they were not absent, from christianity" is not a 'rewriting' of history, it is an exact description of what happened -- note the bit in bold as you may have missed it.

    Actually, for the larger part of Church History (from the Fall of Rome to the discovery of the Americas) slavery was absent from the vast majority of Christendom.


  • #101
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    daithifleming wrote: »
    I mean, some of you here believe that homosexuality is a sin because God says so in Leviticus/QUOTE]

    Do any of the Christians here base their belief that homosexuality is wrong on Leviticus? I certainly don't.


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  • #102
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    PDN wrote: »
    The flaw is in your atheist rewriting of history.

    A reasonable and informed historian would be aware that Pope Paul III in 1537 issued a Bull against slavery, entitled Sublimis Deus. This document predates The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Bill of Rights by 250 years. The Papal Bull condemned slavery on the grounds that all men, whatever their race, were created in the image of God, and confirmed the action of Eugene IV, who excommunicated those involved in the slave trade in the Canary Islands in 1435. Popes Gregory XIV (Cum Sicuti, 1591), Urban VIII (Commissum Nobis, 1639) and Benedict XIV (Immensa Pastorum, 1741) also condemned slavery and the slave trade prior to your cited sources.

    Any "reasonable" historian would also know that punishments of the sublimis deus were revoked (or at least understood to be revoked) a year later in 1538 on the urging of the King of Spain, allowing the "New Laws" that had originally banned slavery to be revoked in 1545 after existing for only 3 years.

    The Catholic church went through a long period of approving of slavery, banning slavery, revoking these bans, banning it again. Despite calls as late as 1999 the Inter Caetera has not been revoked by the Church.

    That would seem peculiar if the Bible made it perfectly clear that slavery was immoral.

    Your claim that abolishism is rooted in Christianity is largely historical nonsense. The Church, did, from time to time, disapproved of slavery (and from time to time approved whole heartly)

    But they did it in such a half-hearted, and inconsistent manner, to be largely meaningless.


  • #103
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    PDN wrote: »
    There were certainly strands within Christianity, as there were with slavery, that opposed female emancipation - but they lost out. Historians agree that Christianity created many more opportunities for women in the Roman Empire than did existing cultural norms.

    Thats great but that isn't what we are talking about.

    Christianity, as in the doctrines of Christianity, do not view women as equals to men, and this doctrine has been used for centuries to justify a lesser status of women in areas of society and the family.

    The fact that the Christians were better than the Romans is irrelevant because I don't remember holding the Romans up as a shining example of feminism.


  • #104
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    PDN wrote: »
    It's unfortunate that the "minute or two" you spent googling was evidently insufficient for you to read the article properly. Eugene stated that 'some' of the Canary Islanders had been baptised, but he banned the enslavement of all Islanders.
    I was hoping to avoid having to quote the entire bull, but it seems necessary to expand on the single sentence quoted above from Sicut Dudum:
    Eugene IV wrote:
    [...] the said islands [...] have a short time since been led into the Orthodox Catholic Faith [...] Some of these people were already baptized; others were even at times tricked and deceived by the promise of Baptism, [...] very many of those remaining [...] have remained involved in their former errors, having drawn back their intention to receive Baptism, thus [...] causing no little harm to the Christian religion [...] We order [...] each of the faithful of each sex [...to...] restore to their earlier liberty all [...] who were once residents of said Canary Islands, and made captives [...] We will that like sentence of excommunication be incurred by one and all who attempt to capture, sell, or subject to slavery, baptized residents of the Canary Islands, or those who are freely seeking Baptism [...]
    So, the picture is quite clear -- the islands were acquired by christianity and the process of christianization was ongoing, when other christians invaded and enslaved the population. The pope didn't like having new converts enslaved, and demanded that the invaders set his new converts free, together with the ones that hadn't been converted yet, but were due to be. The pope did not care for any inhabitants who were not christians and who had no plans to be.

    If you're still in any doubt, do read the final sentence of the quote again, as it summarizes Eugene's turf-war text fairly well.


  • #105
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    JimiTime wrote: »
    I have to admit, it certainly doesn't seem so. How do you explain his acceptance of it? He clearly legislates for it in the law. The whole 'he put up with it' arguement doesn't really hold water, it does seem to be encouraged in the Law. So what are the various christian explainations?

    My current understanding is that, all men where not equal under the Law. Obviously the Hebrews were the chosen people. The nations were lesser. Just as those who are written in the book of life have been chosen over the rest.

    Much of the slavery mentioned in the Old Testament was where someone in poverty sold himself to another person and worked for him for a set period until he was released on the sabbath year. This is similar to how many Irish emigrants secured their passage to America in the 17th and 18th centuries - by selling themselves as indentured servants. Providing such an arrangement had regulated conditions of work etc then it made economic and social sense at the time.

    Other slaves in the Old Testament were captured POWs from wartime. Bearing in mind that the Geneva Convention was not in force at the time, such an arrangement was infinitely preferable to being killed or tortured.

    We often make the mistake of reading about 'slavery' in the Old Testament and thinking immediately of the brutal trans-Atlantic slave trade that was based more on the ideas of Aristotle than on the Hebraic experience.

    The New Testament does not explicitly condemn slavery. If it had, then I think it highly likely that it would have been stamped upon much more severely than it was. Any slave converting to Christianity would immediately have been deemed as having joined a subversive movement and subjected to the cruellest possible death. The logical extension of Christian values and virtues eventually made it clear to Christians that slavery was wrong.

    Some articulated this earlier than others. St. John Chrysostom [345 A.D. - 407 A.D.], Patriarch of Constantinople, said "Slavery is the fruit of covetousness, of extravagance, of insatiable greediness" in his Epist. ad Ephes., Homil. XXII. 2.

    Slavery was largely absent from areas where Christianity was the dominant religion from the fall of Rome until the discovery of the Americas. This can be contrasted with nations under Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist dominance that permitted and practiced slavery. Clergy and missionaries repeatedly tried to prevent the enslavement of Indians in South America. Papal bulls and excommunications were issued against the subject, but often proved ineffective since the Papacy needed the political and financial backing of European princes (think of modern governments that make mealy-mouthed declarations about human rights in China but do nothing concrete because they want the benefits of trade with China).

    The fact that slavery flared up again from the 14th to the 19th Centuries is, in my opinion, a shameful indictment against Christendom. The fact that churches attempted to use the Bible in support of slavery is often cited by opponents of Christianity, but is in fact simply due to the fact that slave-owners tried to fight fire with fire. The primary motivation and arguments of the abolitionists were based on the Bible - therefore the slave owners attempted to use the Bible to justify the continuance of the practice. They failed.

    Today slavery is still present in many parts of the world, mainly in those areas that have the least Christian presence and the least exposure to the Christian Gospel. No doubt Robin et al will claim that is simply a freak coincidence.

    Slavery has, interestingly, been fairly common practice in regimes that have proclaimed themselves to be officially atheist.


  • #106
    Ekancone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Ekancone


    PDN wrote: »
    Much of the slavery mentioned in the Old Testament was where someone in poverty sold himself to another person and worked for him for a set period until he was released on the sabbath year. This is similar to how many Irish emigrants secured their passage to America in the 17th and 18th centuries - by selling themselves as indentured servants. Providing such an arrangement had regulated conditions of work etc then it made economic and social sense at the time.

    Other slaves in the Old Testament were captured POWs from wartime. Bearing in mind that the Geneva Convention was not in force at the time, such an arrangement was infinitely preferable to being killed or tortured.

    Ok, does God say that it is ok to treat certain other human beings as being your property?

    Yes.

    Everything else you said is just 'slight of hand' nonsense and avoiding the central point being made here. God (you know, the eternal, all-knowing one who is meant to be above the shifting zeitgeist you speak of) says it is fine to treat certain members of society as your property, should you wish to. It is there in black and white, the Lords own words which are ever-lasting and unbreakable, remember? Who are you to shift the context of the Lords eternal words like that?


  • #107
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    PDN wrote: »
    Other slaves in the Old Testament were captured POWs from wartime. Bearing in mind that the Geneva Convention was not in force at the time, such an arrangement was infinitely preferable to being killed or tortured.

    Is it also infinitely preferable to, you know, not being captured and enslaved? :rolleyes:

    You say it as if those were the two options available.
    PDN wrote: »
    The logical extension of Christian values and virtues eventually made it clear to Christians that slavery was wrong.

    And that homosexual marriage isn't a sin ... oh wait, sorry, my mistake, we aren't supposed to apply "logical extensions of Christian values" to that one ...
    PDN wrote: »
    Slavery was largely absent from areas where Christianity was the dominant religion from the fall of Rome until the discovery of the Americas. This can be contrasted with nations under Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist dominance that permitted and practiced slavery.

    I think they made up for that after the discovery of the Americas ...


  • #108
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    PDN wrote: »
    Slavery was largely absent from areas where Christianity was the dominant religion from the fall of Rome until the discovery of the Americas.
    Except of course, it wasn't.

    While feudalism, for example, held sway, the majority of the population lived as serfs, the effect of which on the average punter was quite similar to slavery. I don't immediately recall that many popes, or many other religious, spoke out against serfdom.
    PDN wrote: »
    Today slavery is still present in many parts of the world, mainly in those areas that have the least Christian presence and the least exposure to the Christian Gospel. No doubt Robin et al will claim that is simply a freak coincidence.
    I wonder if you could provide some reliable statistics to back up this quite startling claim that slavery is negatively, but causally, correlated with levels of christianity?


  • #109
    Ekancone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Ekancone


    Wicknight wrote: »
    And that homosexual marriage isn't a sin ... oh wait, sorry, my mistake, we aren't supposed to apply "logical extensions of Christian values" to that one ...

    Thats the one that always gets me. If there is one message that Christianity gets across is that the most outcast members of society are the ones who should be brought in the closest. Why does this not apply to (practising) homosexuals?


  • #110
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    daithifleming wrote: »
    Thats the one that always gets me. If there is one message that Christianity gets across is that the most outcast members of society are the ones who should be brought in the closest. Why does this not apply to (practising) homosexuals?

    And that love is the important point. All condemnation of homosexual in the Bible is associated with lust and fornication.

    Though having discussed this on this forum I'm not sure how many Christians here accept that a homosexual couple can actually love each other the way a heterosexual couple can.


  • #111
    Ekancone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Ekancone


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZaisF3iLKg


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  • #112
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    daithifleming wrote: »
    Thats the one that always gets me. If there is one message that Christianity gets across is that the most outcast members of society are the ones who should be brought in the closest. Why does this not apply to (practising) homosexuals?

    I don't see that practising homosexuals are the outcasts of society. Are you seriously arguing that the large number of openly homosexual entertainers, business people or politicians are treated as outcasts by Western society? I would think that fervent Muslims, for example, are much more the outcasts.

    Christianity does indeed stress that we should show love to those who are the outcasts of society. In Jesus' day that included tax collectors and prostitutes. However, it was never taught by Jesus, or His followers, that people could therefore join the church and continue working as tax collectors or prostitutes.

    A society that has developed Christian values will indeed show tolerance to homosexuals and avoid persecuting them. That is why you can be a homosexual in most Western European countries and not risk the death penalty (as in Iran or China) or imprisonment (as in Cuba or the former Soviet Union).

    However, to argue that this should somehow mean that practising homosexuals must be accepted as church members betrays a depressingly low level of logical or theological understanding.


  • #113
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    Wicknight wrote: »
    Christianity, as in the doctrines of Christianity, do not view women as equals to men, and this doctrine has been used for centuries to justify a lesser status of women in areas of society and the family.

    Nonsense. If this were so then we should expect to find that societies with the longest exposure to Christian teaching and values would be more patriarchal than those with little or no exposure to Christian teaching and values. That is manifestly not the case.

    Human society in general reduces women to a subservient role. This is for the very simple reason that men are, on average, physically faster and stronger than women (I am trying to think of any athletic event where the women's world record exceeds that of the men). Also, women have to endure the effects of both pregnancy and the menstrual cycle. Human nature is essentially brutish and so, in almost every culture, men have exploited their physiological advantage in order to oppress women.

    The same is true of slavery. Human nature means that those with power exploit those who lack power - therefore slavery has been a feature of many, if not most human societies.

    History is clear. Judaism, and Christianity, even with the all too prevalent failings of their very human adherents and leaders, have, for the most part, represented an improvement over most contemporary societies when it comes to the issues of slavery and women's rights.

    The fact that the Christians were better than the Romans is irrelevant because I don't remember holding the Romans up as a shining example of feminism.

    No, it is very relevant, because this all began with your false claim that Christianity has adapted in the areas of women's rights and slavery to conform with modern values. In fact Christianity, by improving the lot of women, and by accepting slaves as full members of the Church, bucked the trend of the 'modern values' of the time.

    Christianity, as I have pointed out, has for the most part of its history, avoided and proscribed slavery. In fact, the periods when professing Christians did practice slavery have actually been those times when it prostituted itself by conforming to the surrounding cultural values.

    The conquistadors did not introduce slavery to South America. The existing Indian tribes had been enslaving one another for centuries. The Spanish invaders, who came from a society where slavery was extremely rare or unknown, eagerly (and shamefully) embraced the practice even though they were opposed by many missionaries and clergy. As such their activities clearly represent disobedience to Church teaching and a refusal to live by Christian standards.

    The same is true of African slavery. Slavery had been common among West African tribes for generations, and a thriving slave trade to the Muslim world operated long before the first sugar cane was harvested in the Caribbean. When Europeans arrived in Africa they slotted right in with the prevailing 'modern values' of the continent. The slave trade from West Africa to the Muslim world continued long after those with a passion to see Christian values reflected in society ensured that slavery was abolished in Britain and North America.

    The truth is that Christianity, both in respect to womens rights and slavery, has been revealed at its worst when it conformed to 'modern values' and at its best when it transcended 'modern values' and became an agent for societal transformation and improvement. Such an assessment may not be considered politically correct, and will probably be rejected by those who learn their history from skeptics.org instead of reading real books.


  • #114
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    Wicknight wrote: »
    And that love is the important point. All condemnation of homosexual in the Bible is associated with lust and fornication.

    Though having discussed this on this forum I'm not sure how many Christians here accept that a homosexual couple can actually love each other the way a heterosexual couple can.
    I think most Christians would think homosexuals can 'love' one another the way heterosexuals do. Love can be proper or improper. Just loving someone doesn't make it right. Incestuous fathers have been known to love their daughters. Many an adulterous affair is not down to lust, but love.

    Homosexual love is a perversion of love, a misuse of it.


  • #115
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    robindch wrote: »
    Except of course, it wasn't.

    While feudalism, for example, held sway, the majority of the population lived as serfs, the effect of which on the average punter was quite similar to slavery. I don't immediately recall that many popes, or many other religious, spoke out against serfdom.

    Now you're clutching at straws.

    Serfdom was undoubtedly an unjust economic system, but it was not slavery. Next you'll be telling us that MacDonald's employing burger flippers at minimum wage is also slavery.
    I wonder if you could provide some reliable statistics to back up this quite startling claim that slavery is negatively, but causally, correlated with levels of christianity?
    Check out this entry in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism

    Scroll down to where there is a list of nations together with the dates that they abolished slavery. There are a few exceptions, but the pattern is clear to anyone with even a smattering of knowledge about the religious history of the various nations. Those with long exposure to Christianity, on average, abolished slavery much earlier than those lacking such exposure.


  • #116
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    PDN wrote: »
    daithifleming wrote: »
    I mean, some of you here believe that homosexuality is a sin because God says so in Leviticus/QUOTE]

    Do any of the Christians here base their belief that homosexuality is wrong on Leviticus? I certainly don't.
    Me neither.


  • #117
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    JimiTime wrote: »
    I have to admit, it certainly doesn't seem so. How do you explain his acceptance of it? He clearly legislates for it in the law. The whole 'he put up with it' arguement doesn't really hold water, it does seem to be encouraged in the Law. So what are the various christian explainations?

    My current understanding is that, all men where not equal under the Law. Obviously the Hebrews were the chosen people. The nations were lesser. Just as those who are written in the book of life have been chosen over the rest.
    Jimi, do you agree the 'he put up with it' arguement applies to divorce? God clearly legislates for divorce in the law. Was Jesus mistaken?


  • #118
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    Wicknight said:
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wolfsbane
    God did not approve of slavery in the OT. He tolerated it and restrained it, just as He did with divorce:

    It is this type of nonsense double-think that I'm complaining about Wolfsbane.

    It is nonsense for two reasons -

    Firstly if God didn't approve of slavery why "tolerate and restraint it"? Why not outlaw it?This is God we are talking about after all. He out outlawed lots of other things, including adultery and homosexuality.
    Secondly, and this is where your argument really falls down, he told the Hebrews they could take slaves from their conquests in neighbouring lands.
    Indeed. But He also tolerated easy divorce and remarriage, leaving it until Christ came to be banned. Why? He tells us it was due to the hardness of man's heart. The implication is that enforcing it would have meant virtual destruction of a hard-hearted nation.

    For slavery, the ban on it for Israelites shows it was not good, the toleration of it regards non-Israelites may have been to re-inforce the truth that only Israel was God's people. When Christ came, the Gentiles were brought into the people of God. Gone are the types and shadows that prefigured the Church and the unbelieving world. No need now for physical distinctions, differing rights, clean and unclean, etc. So the same standards apply to all nations.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wolfsbane
    If it was morally acceptable, why forbid it for God's people?

    If it is morally unacceptable why only forbid the taking of Hebrew slaves

    You just invalidate your first point above, that he had to tolerate it. He didn't tolerate Hebrew's taking other Hebrews as slaves. If he can out law that why not out law the taking of slaves from conquered lands if he hated slavery so much? In fact why tell the Hebrews that they can take slaves from conquered lands?
    Yes, I take your point that toleration may not be for the same reason as for divorce. God was teaching His people spiritual lessons by the distinctions between Israel and the nations. Slavery may have been tolerated as a means to that end. Remember, the nations were in rebellion against God and He was free to discipline them by slavery or death.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wolfsbane
    Men and women have equality of status before God, but differing roles in His order.

    The "equal status before God" is an excuse Christians have been using since the start of the women's right movement. Women aren't simply interested in equality before God, they would also like equality before men (those dreaming hussies).
    Christians have been using it since the NT was written. And women who don't like it are rebelling against God, not men.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wolfsbane
    The man is the head, the woman in submission to him; in the church and in the family.

    Which is sexist inequality (see my post to PDN, and PDN see this post).
    If you want to so define it, fine. It is the Christian view of man and woman.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wolfsbane
    Man is to rule for the woman's benefit, however, not abusively.

    Oh well that is all right then.

    And they aren't to beat their slaves either
    Indeed. And if they are in a position to abolish slavery, they are to do that too - as in fact Wilberforce and his fellow evangelicals did. :):):)


  • #119
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    daithifleming said:
    Regarding Slavery:

    Biblical passages recognized, controlled, and regulated the practice. The Bible permitted owners to beat their slaves severely, even to the point of killing them. However, as long as the slave lingered longer than 24 hours before dying of the abuse, the owner was not regarded as having committed a crime, because -- after all -- the slave was his property.
    See mine to Wicknight on toleration of enslavement of the gentiles.
    Paul had every opportunity to write in one of his Epistles that human slavery -- the owning of one person as a piece of property by another -- is profoundly evil. His letter to Philemon would have been an ideal opportunity to vilify slavery. But he wrote not one word of criticism.

    Jesus could have condemned the practice. He might have done so. But there is no record of him having said anything negative about the institution.
    He made it clear enough that slavery is not a good condition to be in. Indeed, everyone understood that. But slavery was a political/economic institution, not something Christians had any control over. Like Communism, it was a bad way of doing things and gave rise to great abuses. Feudalism and Capitalism have their problems too. Indentured apprenticeships were common in my day.

    Are any of these intrinsically evil? Even slavery, if voluntarily entered into to pay debt, would have been better than alternatives of prison, etc. But the outrage that led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire was the enforced nature of it. It involved kidnapping and transportation.

    Christians ought to oppose even voluntary slavery - but in the NT they were powerless to abolish it. They were to treat their slaves, if they had any, well. If they were slaves themselves, they were to bear it well, working diligently for their master, but if they could get their freedom they were to do so. Slavery was not regarded as a good idea.
    1 Corinthians 7:21 Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it. 22 For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.


  • #120
    Ekancone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Ekancone


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    daithifleming said:

    See mine to Wicknight on toleration of enslavement of the gentiles.

    He made it clear enough that slavery is not a good condition to be in. Indeed, everyone understood that. But slavery was a political/economic institution, not something Christians had any control over. Like Communism, it was a bad way of doing things and gave rise to great abuses. Feudalism and Capitalism have their problems too. Indentured apprenticeships were common in my day.

    Are any of these intrinsically evil? Even slavery, if voluntarily entered into to pay debt, would have been better than alternatives of prison, etc. But the outrage that led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire was the enforced nature of it. It involved kidnapping and transportation.

    Christians ought to oppose even voluntary slavery - but in the NT they were powerless to abolish it. They were to treat their slaves, if they had any, well. If they were slaves themselves, they were to bear it well, working diligently for their master, but if they could get their freedom they were to do so. Slavery was not regarded as a good idea.
    1 Corinthians 7:21 Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it. 22 For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.

    Thats all well and good, but wasn't GOD the one who said that it is ok to take slaves? Correct me if im wrong, but, isn't HE the authority on whats right and wrong. And aren't YOU the ones who are meant to follow his every command?


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  • #121
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Wicknight said:

    Indeed. But He also tolerated easy divorce and remarriage, leaving it until Christ came to be banned. Why? He tells us it was due to the hardness of man's heart. The implication is that enforcing it would have meant virtual destruction of a hard-hearted nation.

    Please quote me the Bible passage where Jesus says that God tolerated slavery because of the hardness of man's heart?
    wolfsbane wrote: »
    For slavery, the ban on it for Israelites shows it was not good, the toleration of it regards non-Israelites may have been to re-inforce the truth that only Israel was God's people.

    The ban on it for the Israelites was for the same reason white American's couldn't own other white American slaves.

    No one would seriously say that because of that pre-civil war America was actually really anti-slavery. :rolleyes:

    Again it is this nonsense double-think that really annoys. The Hebrews were not only permitted to own slaves, but actively encouraged by Moses to go out and take slaves from conquerored civilisations.

    To say that God therefore was actually against slavery but some how had his hands tied is ludicrous.
    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Remember, the nations were in rebellion against God and He was free to discipline them by slavery or death.
    He was free to and he did

    God encouraged and promoted the slavery of other nations.
    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Indeed. And if they are in a position to abolish slavery, they are to do that too - as in fact Wilberforce and his fellow evangelicals did. :):):)

    And I hope some day Christians will abolish their anti-women and anti-gay views as well ...


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