What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Jenny A]

Really?  Where does it prohibit slavery in the Bible?  Didn't the Catholic church actually own slaves in North and South America?

The America abolitionist movement pitted church against church with many churches declaring slavery to be the will of god.  The earliest anti-slavery proponents were free-thinkers. http://www.freethought-trail.org/profile...use&Page=1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought  Funny it should take atheists to get the ball rolling.

As for the prohibition of slavery in the Bible, my response would be that general principles espoused in the Bible led to the elimination of slavery as it was practiced in times much closer to our own. It was the TRAJECTORY of Christianity that made this eventually possible.

You might want to learn a bit about William Wilberforce.

Sorry but no, far from being trajectory of change for the better, the Christian era saw a new form of slavery in serfdom during the middle ages.  The church did ransom Christian slaves and prohibit the holding of Christian slaves.  But  Papal Bulls such as ]Dum Diversas, sanctioned slavery of non Christians and were used to justify enslavement of natives and the appropriation of their lands during the 14 and 15 hundreds.  By 17th and 18th centuries a less personal and much more brutal form of slavery than that which was mostly practiced during the Roman empire.  That more brutal form of slavery was instituted by Christian imperialists, and sanctioned by and engaged in by the Catholic church.  It was supported by protestant pastors citing scripture in Southern states of the U.S.

It's still a Christian era and slavery has mostly ended.  Christians argued on both sides of the issue.  Freethinkers almost entirely on the side of abolition.  Sure doesn't look like a general Christian trajectory towards abolition to me.