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[Arx]

...Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

Yeah, terribly cruel, wicked stuff here. Imagine suggesting people get along instead of having a vicious cycle relationship.

[Magistrum]

That's... That's the point. Slavery is pretty evil by itself, but the author is bending himself in all manner to not say "free your slaves", because of sociopolitical ramifications, or because he is evil too, or he is too much of a coward.

[Dunamisdeos]

Frederick Douglas had lots to say about Christianity and Slavery, and he knew more about it than every presently living American combined. That statement is only slightly hyperbolic.

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.... Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie.... Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America!

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission.

These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”

So basically, fuck you if you use the Bible to justify slavery, it doesn't justify slavery, and if you claim that you are engaging in slavery by the will of God you are a fraud. This also applies easily to our modern problem of open racism in America.

To wrap it up on who is or is not a Christian and therefore qualified to represent us as a whole:

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

If some asshole in a suit and a good speaking voice tells you that he is a Christian and also supports crap like Slavery or Racism or whatever the hell else, you will know them by their actions. Thornbushes don't grow grapes, and Christians don't support Slavery.

I would also direct you to the entire book of Philemon where Paul, the literal architect of Christianity, sends an escaped slave back to his friend, but sends a letter ahead explaining how he is a human being that deserves to be treated as a brother, not a slave. I can go on and point out that the Slave Bible, the one distributed to American Slaves, omitted something like half of the actual Bible. Either it was to save paper, or the message of the bible doesn't support slavery folks, as evidenced by the people actively using it to justify their slavery. There are countless directions I can go here that go beyond "THAT ONE VERSE TALKS ABOUT SLAVES SO CHRISTIANITY SUPPORTS SLAVERY LOL".

I'm tired of trying to explain to people who claim to be Christians the remarkably severe, long lasting damage they are capable of inflicting on society and the people around them with their selfish, twisted actions while people who aren't even religious defend their actions for them.

[scriver]

Those arguments just convince me that Christianity is a Bad Tree, and that you will know a Christian by how they support slavery.

[Eschar]

Dunamis, you are amazing

[IcyTea31]

That's... That's the point. Slavery is pretty evil by itself, but the author is bending himself in all manner to not say "free your slaves", because of sociopolitical ramifications, or because he is evil too, or he is too much of a coward.

By how I've read Paul's writings, it's more that freedom-seeking in this life is a distraction from spirituality. According to him, one should be happy with what they have and patiently wait for an eternal reward instead of seeking to improve their worldly status. "Misery in slavery doesn't matter because the only thing that matters is the afterlife." But again, I'm not an authority on this (and I don't exactly agree with it).


In other news, my attempt at stepping down from the position of the band's treasurer landed me in the position of its secretary because nobody else wanted to join the board. Theoretically a promotion, but it's just more work. At least it will be more straightforward, but I was trying to reduce the amount of pressure on me so I could focus more on my studies.

[Dunamisdeos]

@Scriver, the Cheeselord

Your right, Frederick Douglas, the escaped slave who became a major Christian figure, doesn't know shit, the literal architect of Christianity including an entire book of the Bible that asks a man to not only free a slave but change his view on slavery, doesn't know shit, and the internet in 2019 has finally revealed the truth. Bravo.

Dunamis, you are amazing

:O

[Greiger]

I had a big long thing written out about my personal experience with the church in a rural northern bible thumping town that still has racist laws on the books, but decided against it.   Yea people who use religion to spread things counter to the entire concept of their religion are the worst.  And then you get rural towns where even if you know its garbage and not right, but if you stop going from that church you get ostracized from the community.

For years because of that experience, I was very strongly anti-christianity. Because for the longest time I thought all the crap coming out of that pastors mouth that I had to listen to for at least 5 years was legit.  It was actually relatively recently that I actually opened a bible and saw none of that racist crap in it that I was taught for the formative days of my youth when I stopped cringing the moment I heard someone identify as christian.  It's probably a minor miracle of parents and school I didn't become a horrible person by the time I was 9 years old and our family moved out of the state.

And yes Dunamisdeos, if this forum had a +1 system I would +1 you and then create a dummy account to do it again.

[TamerVirus]

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

2 Kings 2:23-24

Remember! Insulting bald people will result in bear mauling. Amen.

[Rolan7]

Huh, I don't recall ever hearing about Philemon, which is a bit strange for a whole book of the Bible.  It is short, though (1 chapter, 25 verses).

I agree with all or nearly all of those Douglas quotes.  Slave-owners were certainly using the Bible dishonestly for their own ends, and bringing shame to their professed faith, etc.  He said it better obviously.

What I don't see is an excuse of slavery in the Bible.  How does one see how God demanded it exist then, and conclude that He doesn't want it to exist now?  I see an appeal to love, and I'm glad that's enough for almost every modern Christian, but I am worried that the Biblical narrative inherently supports slavery for those willing to use it that way.

[TD1]

To quote the late fourteenth century John Ball (or, rather, to quote Froissart's quotation of a sermon by John Ball) just before he engaged in the most wide-spread rebellion of its time (the 1381 Peasants' Revolt), ‘what have we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in servage? We be all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve: whereby can they say or shew that they be greater lords than we be?'

[Dunamisdeos]

I had a big long thing written out about my personal experience with the church in a rural northern bible thumping town that still has racist laws on the books, but decided against it.   Yea people who use religion to spread things counter to the entire concept of their religion are the worst.  And then you get rural towns where even if you know its garbage and not right, but if you stop going from that church you get ostracized from the community.

For years because of that experience, I was very strongly anti-christianity. Because for the longest time I thought all the crap coming out of that pastors mouth that I had to listen to for at least 5 years was legit.  It was actually relatively recently that I actually opened a bible and saw none of that racist crap in it that I was taught for the formative days of my youth when I stopped cringing the moment I heard someone identify as christian.  It's probably a minor miracle of parents and school I didn't become a horrible person by the time I was 9 years old and our family moved out of the state.

And yes Dunamisdeos, if this forum had a +1 system I would +1 you and then create a dummy account to do it again.

I've experienced places like that. I left a church after realizing the reason they didn't have any local community outreach was that all the neighbors were black. They never talked about it openly, but they were serious about their beliefs that white people do not help black people no matter what the Bible says.

What I don't see is an excuse of slavery in the Bible.  How does one see how God demanded it exist then, and conclude that He doesn't want it to exist now?  I see an appeal to love, and I'm glad that's enough for almost every modern Christian, but I am worried that the Biblical narrative inherently supports slavery for those willing to use it that way.

To be honest I'm just a guy who's been a Christian for a long time. I don't have a theology degree, but I can reply how it was explained to me by people who do. It also ties into Philemon. We can see there that Paul could absolutely order his friend to do the right thing, but what he WANTS to do is for his friend to change his entire view on slavery. He comes to him based on what's right, not what Paul wants.

In the same way, God is setting forth the basis for these people to understand that slaves aren't cattle, they are people. The overarching theme of the Old Testament is that it is God setting the stage for Christianity to come later. He wants them to change their views on it, and is setting the foundations for that. The rules put forward in the Old Testament are not meant for Christianity as a whole, which Paul goes into in Acts. In this light, we can view those rules as stopgaps. This is further reinforced by the specific rules regarding slavery, in that you cannot maim them, a that a slave should be released after 6 years and given severance.

The part I'm a bit murky on is the treatment of slaves captured during war, which are subject to the same rules but do not have a set duration/severance.

Remember! Insulting bald people will result in bear mauling. Amen.

I recall overhearing a discussion about this, but I don't know much in terms of detail. I believe that it had less to do with the laughing at a bald person, and more to do with cultural implications of the time. Apparently that specific mockery carried some manner of contextual mortal insult/challenge. Also, IIRC Elijah was the one who previously called down torrents of actual fire from God in a public setting. The challenge may have been that he was full of shit and couldn't do miracles when people went after God. In which case, yeah, have some bears.

It had to do with obscure cultural references and reasoning derived from people who could read the Septuagint in raw dead languages. I ain't got more than that.

[scriver]

@Scriver, the Cheeselord

Your right, Frederick Douglas, the escaped slave who became a major Christian figure, doesn't know shit, the literal architect of Christianity including an entire book of the Bible that asks a man to not only free a slave but change his view on slavery, doesn't know shit, and the internet in 2019 has finally revealed the truth. Bravo.

Judge not lest you be judged, brother

One instance of anti-slavery in the Bible does not counterbalance the scores of instances supporting it, especially since nowhere in the letter does he make clear or even hint at that it is because slavery is bad in itself he wants him to free the slave. Nor does it counteract the ~1700 years of Christians accepting slavery as a given and even championing it. One bright man insisting Christianity and slavery is mutually impossible does not counterbalance the centuries worth of bright men thinking there's nothing mutually impossible about them. I think that you look on the Bible and Christianity and see only what you want to find.

So you may derisively snark about the "internet in 2019". But one could just as easily turn that around to how you, Dunamisdeos in 2019, reveals the truth. Apparently the truth is that there were no Christians at all before the 18th century when people started to resist slavery. The thousands and thousands of people who thought otherwise in earlier centuries were wrong, apparently, and wrong when they called themselves Christians. Apparently a defining trait of what makes a Christian is this one thing that people has only bothered thinking about in the last 300 years of Christianity's ~2000 years of existing. To me thinking such a thing seems only self-centered and self-important.

[Dunamisdeos]

Well, firstly, No, not one bright spot, the man who founded it.

And no, not just me, but piles of examples throughout history. We first of all have the aforementioned ACTUAL FOUNDER OF ACTUAL CHRISTIANITY, which really can't be overstated, saying that the right thing to do is to free a slave and including that statement as a separate section of the Bible unto itself. William Wiberforce was Christian member of Parliament in the 1700's who fought to abolish the British slave trade. Charles Spurgeon, a major name in modern Christianity, called slavery a "foul blot" in the 1800's. His work continues today in the form a charity he founded. The Quakers spoke out openly against slavery as early as the 1600's. They formed one of the earliest abolitionist organizations in the UK. The flippin' Pope came out against slavery in 1741 almost 100 years before it was abolished in Britain.

I could go on. But the point is that, no, I'm not being snarky when I say that to claim Christianity inherently supports slavery flat-out requires one to base that belief on narrow-minded things the internet says in 2019.

[Eschar]

About the bears. I'm not an expert but I think the bears are less 'don't mock bald people or God's siccing some bears on you' and more 'don't mock a known prophet of God, because you're mocking God's representative.'

Also, might "go up, you baldhead" be a reference to Enoch being taken up by God? In that case the mockers are basically saying "so if your God exists, why haven't we seen any miracles, senile old man?"