Why does God condone slavery?

[edhopper]

Last edited Sun Mar 28, 2021, 10:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Why does the God of the Old and New Testament condone and at times endorse slavery?
Surely this is one of humanities great sins. Won't a loving and just God condemn one person taking all freedom from another? Shouldn't one of the Ten Commandments, the basis of all of God's laws, be a prohibition of slavery. After all the story of Exodus is all about the Hebrews getting their freedom from Egypt through God's actions. Shouldn't all people be free? But the Hebrews are explicitly allowed to have slaves, and even sell their children into slavery.
Could this not have been a commandment if God was just and good?
"Thou shall not have slaves, nor allow others to be made slaves"

It also belies the whole argument of free will. Slaves cannot exercise free will.

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. The Bible was written by people. Writers/transcribers were elitists.

Those people accepted slavery as a societal fact in cultures where the vast majority of people were illiterate. The Bible wasn't written by slaves. Those writers of the Bible books were writing to an audience of those who could read and those who were powerful. So the Bible writers' blind spot was the immorality of slavery. They just viewed it as a given, that it wasn't a moral issue.

[edhopper]

4. This would be a historical / atheist view

Last edited Tue Mar 22, 2022, 10:20 AM - Edit history (1)

but if one believes in the God of the Bible, it does not answer the question.

[old as dirt]

60. Anthropology, Music and Religion: She Blinded Me With Science.

This would be a historical / atheist view

I agree with this, but how can we convince our fellow atheists not necessarily to accept science as part of their own personal bieliefs, but at least to allow the discussion of science?

A&A Forum: https://www.democraticunderground.com/123060022

Pope Francis: "There cannot and must not be any opposition between faith and science"

Thomas Dolby: "It's Poetry In Motion".

Pope Francis: “Science is a great resource for building peace!”

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248240/pope-francis-there-cannot-and-must-not-be-any-opposition-between-faith-and-science

Here's a music video about Science and the Violin.

Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science

One way for us to try to understand the cultures here in America who have historically fought the Wars for Catholicism is through the use of Science.

When my wife tells me something about her religion, and I want to verify it, and learn more about it, I consult an expert in the subject. I consult science.

I'll check out what Dr. Paloma Muñoz has to say. She's an expert in my wife's religion. And she's helping to preserve it. This is what science looks like in the 21st century.

Trabajo de campo 2013 con la agrupación SON DEL TUNO del Patía Cauca, Colombia. Tesis doctoral LAS ALMAS DE LOS VIOLINES 'NEGROS'

[brooklynite]

47. "They just viewed it as a given"

I suspect that violence and theft were also seen as "givens", but somehow they took time to add those to the "Thou shalt not" list...

[old as dirt]

61. Theft works both ways.

People fought slavery with cattle rustling.

Catholicism 101: Multiculturalism and cattle rustling; "The devil makes me laugh"

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1218324695

[Thunderbeast]

2. Could it be

that the biblical god of the Bronze Age bible was invented by the wealthy and powerful...for whom slavery was critical to maintain both?

There is a straight line between the Old Testiment and the current "Prosperity Gospel" congregations where wealth is revered as evidence that those enjoying wealth and power deserve it by divine blessings.

The sheep of their flocks get the crumbs of the economy and a promise of a great afterlife. Slaves throughout history were co-opted and subjugated with the same mythology.

[edhopper]

7. That would be the historical/agnostic answer

What is the answer for those that believe in the Biblical God?

[Thunderbeast]

10. I find no obligation to provide an explanation to meet their delusions.

[edhopper]

12. Well played

[Shermann]

3. The Bible is Morality version 1.0

We can (and should) draft an updated and improved version.

[edhopper]

5. So

you are not an originalist?

[vlyons]

6. There is no creator God

God is a concept, fabricated in the minds of people, and as such, completely subjective, because concepts are subjective. The gods described in religious scriptures were created by humans, who needed to justify slavery, which was a big lucrative business, and source of free labor and wealth.

Many Bible stories are good allegories, just not history.

[edhopper]

8. Sure

But for those who believe in the all-loving God, what is the answer to this?

[vlyons]

19. You don"t have to believe in god to practice loving kindness

Belief in god is just that -- a belief, a concept. The Dalai Lama has said that his religion is very simple. It's the practice of loving kindness. If you want to believe in god, that's not a problem for me. If you want me to believe in your god, you'll be waiting a long long time for that to happen.

[edhopper]

21. I would submit

that belief in God often results in the opposite of loving kindness.

But that is another discussion.

[vlyons]

25. read Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism"

Many many so-call "religious people" use religion to enhance, extend, and glorify their egos. Religions are filled with con artists, grifters, false prophets and gurus. None of them will make you a wise and virtuous person, but they might teach you to not be a sucker.

[vlyons]

28. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

Buddha quotes (Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

[edhopper]

30. That is a great quote

thanks.

[LakeArenal]

9. Theoretically, there were for stones of rules.

One was destroyed by a pissed off Moses.

Maybe there were rules we missed.

Rules are only for those who obey them as we have seen recently by asswipes that yell Constitution Constitution while insurrecting.

However, if there was god, where is all the smiting. Fewer rules and more smiting!!!

[edhopper]

16. Ah!

That would be the Brooksian School of the Bible.

[EarnestPutz]

20. "Oy!" He says, when he drops the third tablet. Cracks me up every time.

[Ferrets are Cool]

11. Please don't try to make sense of that novel. It will make your head explode.

For example, try to explain why God sent bears into town to murder 42 children who made fun of Elisha.

"And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them." 2 Kings 2:24

What God would do that? Just for making fun of an old man?

[Girard442]

13. I was raised Southern Baptist and you'd think that would give me some insight.

Not so much. At age thirteen I couldn't make head nor tail of the theological arguments. Fifty years later, still can't.

[edhopper]

15. I have had these discussions

about these unfathomable contradictions. And it always comes down to I am not wise enough to understand or God is too mysterious to understand.

[Girard442]

17. Try reading Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" if you haven't already.

Biting. Really biting.

[Dream Girl]

22. Same for me. I never bought into any of it as a child. The Bible stories seems just like

Santa and the Easter bunny. Plus I nevergot how God could be so cruel as to let people burn in hell for all eternity. I was like WTF. That said, I have had several paranormal experiences starting at age four. I have seen ghosts. The last time was about 10 years when I saw a ghost at a trendy SOHO NY hotel. For me there is definitely some thing else but I sure don’t know wat it is.

[edhopper]

31. I saw a werewwolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's

and his hair was perfect.


Sorry

[Dream Girl]

33. Trader Vics? Pina Colada? What's that?

How old are you anyway? 90?

[edhopper]

34. Old enough to be

a Warren Zevon fan.

[Dream Girl]

35. I think some people are more attuned to spiritual presence. As I very young child I didn't find it

Scary. But these experiences were most definitely real . You certainly don’t have to believe me, but knowing what I know, your snark just seems ignorant, intolerant and kinda dumb in an arrogant white male know-it-all kind of way.

[edhopper]

36. It was a joke

sorry to kill your buzz.

[DEbluedude]

37. Ahh Ouuuu!! n/t

[vlyons]

23. What I want to know

is how did 2 penguins from Antarctica, and 2 armadillos from Texas, and 2 of every kind of the hundreds of thousands of beetle species in the Amazon make it to Noah's arc.

Then I'd like to know if Jesus was born of a Virgin birth, where did he get his male chomazomes. Then explain please how he escaped earth's gravity to ascend into heaven without a rocket or an oxygen supply.

And where exactly is heaven? Google maps doesn't know either.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

26. Those and

I never knew how an inorganic compound (water) was presto! change-o! converted into an organic compund (wine).

Or how God spoke to a prophet (Balaam) through the mouth of a jackass. Or how a burning shrub could speak.

And then there is Lazarus rising from the dead....

[Under The Radar]

29. I remember some similar experiences in the '60's

[Under The Radar]

27. Often wondered why Mary's father didn't beat the shit out of Joseph

[edhopper]

14. I see your responses

and yet, we have millions of Jews celebrating this right now as if it happened and God actually chose them. I say this as one raised in the Jewish faith, and there was never a hint that this event was ahistorical and apocryphal. or that the meaning of freedom from slavery did not include anyone else.

[vlyons]

24. Try to see the Bible stories as allegories

not as history.

[edhopper]

32. I do

most believers do not.

[Voltaire2]

43. and what moral hidden meaning is one supposed to obtain

from the passover 'allegory' of an angry manipulative vindictive tribal god murdering all the first born sons of the egyptians?

Saying it's just 'allegories' is a cop-out.

[sanatanadharma]

18. Sadly, there is no answer satisfactory to the OP, but the believer does answer...

"God works in mysterious ways. Without the lenses of faith and belief there is no answer or understanding."

My answer is that all scripture (at best) is the overflowing absolute-infinite talking to small, limited minds of minuscule capacity to understand themselves; what to speak of understanding the answer to everything.

The Logical-positivists point out that a question to which no answer is ever possible is not a real question.
Questions like where is the universe located? In itself or in that which is outside of itself?
The Qanon phenomena is simply the newest mental-masturbation of mankind and mankind is rarely kind.

Or, God knows that flawed humanity can not, will not accept a universe of compassion and identity with others.
Why bother talking to the ten-fingered ones about an eleventh commandment?
Here and now in the human condition, answers must come. God is not relevant, as proved by her/is self-proclaimed followers.

[edhopper]

38. An understanding that cannot be explain

because it is not really an understanding, it is an acceptance based on faith alone. It is avoidance of understanding.

[localroger]

39. As a practical matter, civilization such as it was could not have existed without slavery

I have read that there were a couple of times when it was suggested to make Roman slaves wear an identifying mark or special clothing, but it was realized that there were so many slaves that if it became too easy for them to identify one another it would actually make rebellion easier. The invention of agriculture pretty much necessitated the co-invention of slavery, and while modern technology has finally made it theoretically possible to separate the threads of civilization and oppression the habit of oppression is now so ingrained that it has proven to be a hard one for humans to break, whether in the form of actual or de facto (e.g. wage) slavery.

[edhopper]

40. But as always

it could function as an equal collective. But instead it is always a hierarchy with those at the top reaping all the rewards.
Not to get to Marxian.

[localroger]

41. We are not too far from a situation where most human labor is really unnecessary

Whether we throw those would-be laborers away like trash or give them decent lives will define us as a species.

[edhopper]

42. I fear those who rule us

will choose the former.

[Voltaire2]

44. oh we have already chosen the former.

That has been obvious for decades now.

[ismnotwasm]

45. Read "Answer to Job"

By Carl Jung. Basically says the God of the Old Testament was an immature child and Jesus was his softer, more adult aspect. Jung didn’t write that until he was in his 70’s, or he didn’t publish it anyway. Only Jung would have the gonads to psychoanalyze God

[edhopper]

46. A 13 billion year old diety

or older, goes from childhood to adulthood in 2000 years. That's a long childhood.

[Steelrolled]

48. I think this is another form of the question

"Why does God allow pain and suffering in the world?"

A similar question was asked by a seven year old Japanese child to Pope Benedict. The gist of his answer was "we do not have the answer". People can speculate but I think that answer is most honest.

[edhopper]

49. I disagree

pain and suffering come from many things in our life that are not controllable. Now we can ask why did God not create a paradise without pain and suffering, but that is more an argument about creationism.
But for slavery, we have several times where God prohibits things humans do, some bad, some more neutral. If he can prohibit pre-marital sex, eating shell fish and carving idols (the later so important, he made it a Commandment) he surely could have said slavery was evil. I am not asking why there wasn't divine intervention to stop slavery. Just an indication from the all loving God who made laws about everything to say "Don't do that". Instead he said it was A-OK with him.

[Steelrolled]

50. As you say, he could have prohibited slavery

but didn't. He could have prohibited other bad things. He clearly didn't prohibit eating animals, which we are more-or-less OK with now, although it is possible that in the future, we will view that as pure evil. I don't know why slavery didn't make the cut, but it is an interesting question.

Somewhat related to this, I have heard historians discussing the nature of and attitudes toward slavery in Biblical times, as it is often spoken of very matter-of-factly.

[edhopper]

51. intersesting fact

the last country to abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981. Of course slavery still exists in other forms today.

[Iggo]

52. 'Cause the guys who wrote the book say he does. (n/t)

[old as dirt]

53. Speaking of free will, one of the first stories...

...that my wife told me about her religion when I first met her was about how her ancestors ran away some 500 years ago.

They were called "cimarrones", and were among the very first "illegals" here in América.

In the Patía valley they climbed a mountain, to the top of el cerro del Manzanillo, to see if they could see África. When they couldn't see África, they played their drums and cried.

Whenever their descendants were sad, like their ancestors before them, they would also climb to the top of el cerro del Manzanilla, and look out to see if they could see África, and when they could not, they would play their drums and cry.

Over time all of those tears coalesced to form a lake.

El cerro del Manzanillo is a magical mythological and geographical place.

As it happens, my wife was born very close to it, and when she was a child more than half a century ago, there was a rumor going around Patía that la Virgen María had appeared at the top of el cerro del Manzanillo, so her and her friend climbed to the top to see if they could see Her.

[edhopper]

55. And did she?

Kidding. Interesting story of a people who were denied free will and fought back. But it also shows they did not chose to be in America and dreamed of Africa.

[old as dirt]

57. I guess I see it as an exercise of Free Will.

Last edited Sat Dec 25, 2021, 02:43 PM - Edit history (3)

Here's an early legal case in Iowa that discusses Free Will. (My bold)

Iowa's First Test Case of Slavery

The first known case testing the legality of slavery in the Iowa territory was heard in 1839. The case was Rachel, a Negro Woman v. James Cameron, Sheriff. Chief Justice Charles Mason of the Iowa Territorial Supreme Court - who also sat as district court judge in Des Moines County - presided over the case in Burlington.

The legal proceedings began on May 2, 1839, with the filing of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by Thomas S. Easton of Burlington. Easton claimed that he was "the owner of a certain negro woman named Rachel aged about 45 years and a slave for life to your said Petitioner." He had purchased Rachel - "a plain Cook, Washer, and Ironer" - at a slave auction in New Orleans on June 27, 1835, for the sum of $385. Easton's petition alleged that Rachel was "wrongfully, illegally, and fraudulently held in custody and detained" by Burlington's mayor, David Hendershott.

Judge Mason issued a writ of hebeas corpus, and on May 6, Hendershott appeared Hendershott appeared in court and swore that he was not illegally detaining Rachel. He asserted that Rachel "voluntarily remains with me of her own free will and accord as she of right lawfully may according to the constitution and the laws of the land". Rachel herself appeared in court to confirm Hendershott's testimony.

Undeterred, Thoman Easton on May 7 filed another legal action - this time for "replevin" - claiming that Rachel was his "proper goods and chattel" and demanding her return from Hendershott. The same day the sheriff, James Cameron, took Rachel from Hendershott pursuant to a writ issued by the court clerk. But before the sheriff could deliver Rachel to Easton, Rachel petitioned Judge Mason to issue a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that she was not Easton's property, and that the sheriff was unlawfully detaining her. She signed the petition with her mark.

Judge Mason ordered that Rachel be brought before him "forthwith". All of the parties appeared in open court to present their arguments, following which Judge Mason adjourned court until the next morning. When the court reconviened at 9:00am, on Wednesday, May 8, 1839, Easton had agreed to dismiss his writ of replevin. Judge Mason thereupon ordered "that the said negro woman named Rachel be discharged from custody". Easton was ordered to pay court costs of $2.43.

While the record is silent on the reason for Easton's change of position, Judge Mason at the hearing evidently made known his legal opposition to slavery and his intention to rule against Easton, who then agreed "voluntarily" to dismiss his case. Certainly, this was the essence of the case as reported by the local newspaper: "It has been decided by Chief Justice Mason, at the present term of court, that Slavery cannot exist in Iowa. This case settles the question, at least for the present"

Outside In: African-American History in Iowa: 1838 - 2000

(page 62)


https://www.amazon.com/Outside-African-American-History-Iowa-1838-2000/dp/0890330131

[edhopper]

58. Someone chooses of their own free will

not to have free will. That is a a lecture or two in a philosophy class.

For the record I don't think people have free will in the complete sense. And I hate the Free Will argument apologist make for God. It really falls apart quickly.

[old as dirt]

59. What would those two philosophy classes...

What would those two philosophy classes have suggested that Rachel do?

It seems to me that she made the choice most bennificial to her.

Am I missing something here?

It's not like she was kidnapped or something. She confirmed Hendershot's testimony. She was in the custody of the person of her choice.

The impression that I get is that she chose wisely.