Why Do We Think Slavery is Evil?

[Drich]

Everyone who is apart of this discussion so far have been discussing NT examples. of which both (again indentured servant is ANOTHER WORD FOR SLAVE)
Chattel (the common understanding of slavery) along with Indentured servants were both mentioned.

I'm not saying 2000 years ago all slaves were treated well. I am saying as a Christian, slaves and free alike were equals before God. The book of Philemon is about a run away slave and Paul's request the Philemon take him back as a brother.

No matter how much you insist, indentured servitude and slavery are not the same. Your fucking God even made the distinction clear in the verses I quoted above.

The NT makes no declaration that slavery is immoral, in fact it marches on with the understanding given in Mosaic law. If anything, Paul fucked up when it came to returning Philemon to Onesimus.

Deuteronomy 23:15-16 "15 You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.

Paul ignored God and followed Roman law that dictated slaves be returned to their masters. Yes, Paul included a plea for leniency in Onesimus' treatment but Paul would have known that Roman law allowed masters do what they wished to returned slaves including execution. I don't know how anyone can argue for a softer NT stance towards slavery when it doesn't prohibit the practice and the founder of the fucking religion specifically ignores God's law on the matter by returning a slave to his master.

Maybe for getting on your soap box you should at least ask me what support I have for my understanding of the word, rather than assume that I am speaking without support..

If you would have I would have pointed to the koine word: δοῦλος doulos
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexi...1401&t=KJV
It is translated into the word Slave or Servant 120 times interchangeably (context being the true determination of the word.) and 6 times it is specifically used to describe a bond servant/slave (indentured servant.)

So again despite your protest there was one word that described what we in modern English use many different words to describes the different attributes of a "doulos."

[KevinM1]

Indentured servitude is still immoral, you nit. And it's completely unlike employment.

You absolutely suck at analogies.

[Cato]

It is translated into the word Slave or Servant 120 times interchangeably (context being the true determination of the word.) and 6 times it is specifically used to describe a bond servant/slave (indentured servant.)

Read the verses I posted. You are the one ignoring context.

[Rhondazvous]

So should I stop using Dark & Lovely shampoo?

No Solomon. That's deep. I'm going to study that.  Particularly if there are any extra-biblical writings about the queen of Sheba.

Our original discussion was about how the  Jews treated non Jewish slaves and whether the difference was due to racial or tribal differentiation. I don't even know how to begin to argue such a point here. What would race mean during that time?  Or even now. I knew a guy from Sri Lanka who had really straight hair but his skin was as black as the ace of spades. Yet. he did not think of himself as black in the same way that I am black. So what the fuck does it mean?

 I guess the first depends on how happy you are with your hair.  Long training has taught me to always say "that looks nice, dear."

There is the Kebra Nagast...but that is just Ethiopian bullshit.  There was a very valuable spice trade between Assyria and SW Yemeni kingdom of the Sabeans.  One would expect that this lucrative trade would result in extravagant wealth on both termini of the route and certainly Nineveh in Assyria qualified.  In the 8-7th centuries BC even the vassal states of Assyria along the route, Judah, Edom, Moab, prospered.  But Solomon and Sheba?  No. Just bible bullshit.  Perhaps the ruler of Sabea sent a couple of female slaves to Shalmaneser to give a proxy blowjob?  I could buy that.

Take a look at this wall painting from the tomb of Seti I.



Seti was pharaoh c 1300 BC.  Above are the various subject peoples of his empire.  Libyans, Nubians, Canaanites, Hurrians, and Egyptians....all under the watchful eye of Horus.
No one is depicted any differently.  All are Seti's loyal subjects.  Clearly the painter comprehended the difference in skin tone as well as costume but that's about the extent of it.  Egypt would have been one of the few places where different "races" came together.

Certainly people knew that there were black people in the world as in the early 7th century the 25th Dynasty (the Nubian Dynasty) pharaoh Taharqa campaigned against the Assyrians in the region.  I doubt that anyone would have regarded such a powerful king and his army as inferior to anything.

In fact, the whole concept of racial inferiority or superiority is probably the baby of the Abrahamic religions. Where else do you see this? Now if the ancient Hebrews we dark of complexion, that poses a problem for the Muslims since in the Hadith we are told that Muhammad was white. How then could he be the descendent of Ishmael? It poses a problem for a lot of folks. This isn't a digression from the current discussion since the Muslim-led transcontinental slave trade predates the European transatlantic slave trade by several hundred years.

[Rhondazvous]

Everyone who is apart of this discussion so far have been discussing NT examples. of which both (again indentured servant is ANOTHER WORD FOR SLAVE)
Chattel (the common understanding of slavery) along with Indentured servants were both mentioned.

How many lies can Dritch tell in one day? As many licks as it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop. In my op I quoted both ot and nt examples of slavery. Did I not?

I'm not saying 2000 years ago all slaves were treated well. I am saying as a Christian, slaves and free alike were equals before God. The book of Philemon is about a run away slave and Paul's request the Philemon take him back as a brother.

If they are equal in the eyes of an all-powerful god, seems like they wouldn't be slaves. Oh, don't tell me. It's spiritual equality. Over yonder by and by. Bullshit. Yours is a god who supports the status quo.

[Drich]

How many lies can Dritch tell in one day? As many licks as it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop. In my op I quoted both ot and nt examples of slavery. Did I not?

Keep reading/reread that post again sport. I addressed your concern already.

If they are equal in the eyes of an all-powerful god, seems like they wouldn't be slaves. Oh, don't tell me. It's spiritual equality. Over yonder by and by. Bullshit. Yours is a god who supports the status quo.

So you start out telling what God should do if he were to see them as equals then acknowledge that He doesn't... :Thinking: hmmm if their were only some way, maybe something written down that tells us what God is really thinking...
kinda like col 3:11 and Gal 3:28 which says:
26-27 You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This shows that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 28 Now, in Christ, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, male or female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus.

Social equality is foolishness, unless everyone serves society as a slave. But, that is not what people want is it? everyone wants to be a King. So who serves Kings? Other Kings? or slaves? but we can't have slaves in this society so what will we do? Oh, that's right we will move the tedious slave like work out of country (textiles, electronics/consumer goods.) So it becomes a moral issue for someone else, and simply rename the slaves we can't live without, even if they work the same way slaves did in this country 200 years ago. But, now it's ok because they have been deemed migrant or agricultural workers and not the 's' word.. That way things like child labor laws/restrictions and the pesky minimum wage does not apply, and you can still get literal slave labor out of them, but at the same time satasify your selfrighteousness so that you can buy cheap 'organic' food without giving the slaves that provide for you a second thought..

If slavery is so wrong why do you support it/the products of slavery?

[Redbeard The Pink]

The thing that's both good and bad about morality is the fact that it's completely subjective. While this means it has the opportunity to change and grow with time and culture, it also means it's a little hard to argue whether something is definitely right or wrong.

It's also a little tough to talk about morality without getting emotions involved, since morality is sourced by a combination of empathy, social cues, and a desire to lessen suffering. The closest thing to a cardinal human moral would probably be the golden rule, and by that standard it's easy to see why slavery is wrong: you wouldn't want to be made a slave yourself and would think it wrong if it were done to you, so that makes it wrong to do it to someone else. While it's far from an absolute standard of objective morality, it's a pretty good rule of thumb, which is probably why some version of it survives in most if not all human cultures we know of. It transcends even the idea of god.