Why Do We Think Slavery is Evil?

[Won2blv]

Is this Drich stealth-posting as a JW?  We don't need your hackneyed mealy-mouth obsequious apologetics for OT slavery, especially not your utter garbage comparisons to Kobe Bryant  This kind of discourse is as tiring as it is disgusting.

Sorry, but I guess more than one person has hackneyed mealy-mouth obsequious apologetics for OT slavery. I appreciate the logical reasoning that I could only get from a freethinking atheist though

[Minimalist]

A meaningless term when this crap was concocted.  This was tribal thinking.  Archaeology has shown that there was precious little difference between the Canaanites and the so-called "Jews."  Until the Persian era they were virtually indistinguishable.

Was Solomon before or after Persia?  Why did the queen of Sheba tell Solomon's court she is "dark BUT  lovely" if there was no difference?

Why did Rhett Butler tell Scarlett O'Hara that he frankly, didn't give a damn?  Why does any fictional character do anything.

There is no attestation of any Solomon in the archaeological record nor the historical record.  He's a biblical creation.

Oddly, there may have been a model for him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalmaneser_V

Shalmaneser V (Akkadian: Šulmanu-ašarid

Solomon?  Sulmanu??  You tell me.

Jerusalem...if it was even called that...in the 10th century was a miserable little hilltop village of a few hundred people.  After overrunning the northern kingdom the Assyrian empire made a vassal state of Judah in the 8th century and was, in fact, a great and rich empire.  It was exactly the kind of glorious capital which the later fiction writers of the OT used as a model for Jerusalem.  There was even a model for Solomon's so-called temple near Aleppo in Syria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain_Dara_%...al_site%29


Not only is the OT bullshit....it isn't even original bullshit.

[Homeless Nutter]

I don't believe that anyone can really make a strong case as to why slavery in on its own is evil. You can make the emotional arguments. [...]

By your "logic" - no one can make a strong case against rape either. So someone gets raped - so what? They and their family will be distraught - but that's just emotions, right? Who gives a s**t? They may become pregnant - but then you can just terminate the pregnancy, kill the child or raise it - unless you can give me a non-emotional argument against any of those options. 
 
Humans are not machines. Emotions are a fact of life. Ignoring/dismissing them leads to nothing good. Emotions start revolutions - and those are rarely in society's best interest.

And of course - as I mentioned before - slavery is not economically viable, when you can hire poor people to work for pennies only when there is work to be done; and if they get sick, or die - that's their problem. New ones will come the next day. That's pretty un-emotional, the way I see it.

[Tonus]

Bryant is not a slave of the Lakers, but if he wanted to play for the Heat, it would be the owners of his basketball skill that would only be allowed to trade or release him. He is free to do what he wanted but not play in the NBA unless the team owner allowed it.

That's because he would be under contract, and it's a contract that is subject to rules in a CBA that he agreed to when he became a member of the NBA Player's Union. Under the terms of his contract, both Bryant and the Lakers have restrictions on what they can or cannot do. Most importantly, the Lakers cannot change the terms under which Bryant works without either his direct consent or the consent of the Player's Union.

People in the OT had just a few options of livelihoods. They were the property of their masters, but it is not like they had too many options. And their entire livelihood was cared for. I don't think its as a demeaning of a situation when its pretty much your only way to a means of life. So think about that point about being forced against their will. If you were a slave in those days and you had a place to sleep and food to eat but your labor was owned by the person providing all of this, what are your options in that time?

Under such conditions, is there an arrangement that could work better than having one person own another? In relatively small communities with limited options, would it be necessary for a person to enter into a contract to be owned by someone else? Assuming we're talking about an agricultural community, why wouldn't those who could work become salaried employees of those who could afford it? Or if there was no system of fiat currency, why not offer room and board to those who had labor to offer? How does ownership of another person make this arrangement better or worse in the environment you describe?

[Won2blv]

Bryant is not a slave of the Lakers, but if he wanted to play for the Heat, it would be the owners of his basketball skill that would only be allowed to trade or release him. He is free to do what he wanted but not play in the NBA unless the team owner allowed it.

That's because he would be under contract, and it's a contract that is subject to rules in a CBA that he agreed to when he became a member of the NBA Player's Union.  Under the terms of his contract, both Bryant and the Lakers have restrictions on what they can or cannot do.  Most importantly, the Lakers cannot change the terms under which Bryant works without either his direct consent or the consent of the Player's Union.

People in the OT had just a few options of livelihoods. They were the property of their masters, but it is not like they had too many options. And their entire livelihood was cared for. I don't think its as a demeaning of a situation when its pretty much your only way to a means of life. So think about that point about being forced against their will. If you were a slave in those days and you had a place to sleep and food to eat but your labor was owned by the person providing all of this, what are your options in that time?

Under such conditions, is there an arrangement that could work better than having one person own another?  In relatively small communities with limited options, would it be necessary for a person to enter into a contract to be owned by someone else?  Assuming we're talking about an agricultural community, why wouldn't those who could work become salaried employees of those who could afford it?  Or if there was no system of fiat currency, why not offer room and board to those who had labor to offer?  How does ownership of another person make this arrangement better or worse in the environment you describe?

I don't know the answers to some of the questions you raise. My point is mainly that in those times, people weren't saving up for retirement. They weren't golfing on the weekends. And they were definitely not checking out the latest hot restaurant. However you put it, they needed food, shelter and clothing. Maybe there could have been a better system. But regardless, gods purpose was to not make this system a perfect world but rather to go back to his original plan of having a peaceful world in paradise. So it wouldn't make logical sense for him to employ a system that was perfect because he knew it would require perfect humans to carry it out.

[The Grand Nudger]

You imagine that they (early ag societies) had less free time than we do now, less discretionary wealth (regardless of opportunity to spend it), but this isn't -actually- true. The amount of manhours devoted to a task and the amount of manhours directed towards the sustainance of any given individual haven't actually changed that much. Wealthy planters have always been wealthy, their methods have -always- been designed to increase their wealth...they have -never- been the inescapabale effect of subsistence ag. Those who entered into slavery, voluntarily or involuntarily, have always done so in service of the enrichment of those who already possessed much, and the enslavement of others has -never- been the deciding factor in that enrichment or the manner in which those enslaved could improve their situation.

The crops do all the work, the help, however arrived upon, only -increases- the wealth generated. It's never been lack of opportunity, it's -always- been lack of license.

[Won2blv]

I don't believe that anyone can really make a strong case as to why slavery in on its own is evil. You can make the emotional arguments. [...]

By your "logic" - no one can make a strong case against rape either. So someone gets raped - so what? They and their family will be distraught - but that's just emotions, right? Who gives a s**t? They may become pregnant - but then you can just terminate the pregnancy, kill the child or raise it - unless you can give me a non-emotional argument against any of those options. 
 
Humans are not machines. Emotions are a fact of life. Ignoring/dismissing them leads to nothing good. Emotions start revolutions - and those are rarely in society's best interest.

And of course - as I mentioned before - slavery is not economically viable, when you can hire poor people to work for pennies only when there is work to be done; and if they get sick, or die - that's their problem. New ones will come the next day. That's pretty un-emotional, the way I see it.

I don't agree, rape can bring physical and emotional harm to a person. A woman especially may have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy or stds. So I guess the biggest argument for me against the biblical slavery is that the master was allowed to beat the slave. But then again I make the point that in a Hebrews case they would have known this stipulation in advance of their going into that agreement. So they must have not felt it was immoral that they could be beaten for one reason or another

[Won2blv]

You imagine that they (early ag societies)  had less free time than we do now, less discretionary wealth (regardless of opportunity to spend it), but this isn't -actually- true.

Even if they had free time and little bit of coin in their pouch, its not like they could pop on down to Sears or take a weekend off to visit stonehenge. Planet money podcast had an interesting piece about the history of light. 4,000 years ago a days wages got you 10 minutes of light. 100 years ago a days wages got you 5 hours of light. Today a days wages gets you 20000 hours of light. The point I am trying to make is that we live in unprecedented times. Where we're at today compared to just 100 years ago is amazing and I do think it skews our understanding of the past

[Nope]

So they must have not felt it was immoral that they could be beaten for one reason or another

Or they were desperate. If I am not mistaken, the bible allowed for the master to keep the wife and children of the newly freed slave.

[Homeless Nutter]

...
This editor seems to be f-ing up even more often now.