RE: To Christians...Theocracy?
January 10, 2015 at 4:03 am
(This post was last modified: January 10, 2015 at 4:32 am by Grasshopper.)
(January 8, 2015 at 3:02 pm)Nope Wrote:(January 8, 2015 at 2:30 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: Bump. Good topic.
Sadly, none of the theists on this site are answering. I'm not certain why they are avoiding this thread.
That's because it's an Atheist forum. But I'll try
So yeah . . . First you'd need to decide what theocracy we're talking about. Theocracy based on the bible or theocracy based on what Jesus taught. Personally I find religious theocracy to be un-workable. The reason being no priest, or religious figure or any non democratically elected person really has no business being in power. Power corrupts, but corrupts less when elected.
Now for arguments sake lets say a religious person was elected and changed the laws to become all Christians. First off this wouldn't work because jesus said his kingdom was not of this world and forcing people to follow ridiculous laws restricts freedom.
Secondly, jesus is often mistaken to support slavery. He was simply acknowledging that this institution existed in his time and would continue for a few years. Now the hebrew slaves were usually people who had some debt or something they had to repay with labor on the farm or in the house. ROMAN slaves who were caught and sold were called something else. There's a different word in hebrew for those kind of slaves which I can't recollect now. But the two types are miles apart.
And by the way, slavery was practiced world over. There was the slave trade in Rome, in the arab world where they'd cut off their tongues for punishment. Then there was the slave trade in the Indian Ocean which spanned from Africa to india. Then there were chinese eunuchs for the emperor. Even christians were taken as slaves by barbary pirates and ottomans. In fact so many slavic people were captured that the word slave refers to them (unconfirmed source but still)
It should actually be said that Christian countries were the first to abolish slavery. France abolished it just before the revolution, when it was still religious. The Atlantic slave trade was nothing more than an imperialist practice to get more labour and to dominate others and get rich fast both of which jesus preached against.
Sorry this isn't the answer to your theocracy question. Ill answer later. I'm just baffled that people think Christianity is the root of all evils like slavery.
