Why Do We Think Slavery is Evil?

[Esquilax]

How can you ask if slavery is wrong based on obvious human error, and manipulation. It is obvious that at the time of these writings slavery was deemed ok by the corrupt men of that time. It is not the word of God.

How did you determine that?

[Minimalist]

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.

Is that a problem for theists? Jews were just the offspring of Abraham whom god made a covenant with.

Abraham is as phony as all the rest of the bullshit.  What else have you got?


And to the OP, which deserves an honest response:

Why Do We Think Slavery is Evil?

Because some of us have evolved beyond the primitive barbarism of the fuckers who wrote the OT.

[Simon Moon]

All I have to do to determine of something is evil, is to ask the group of people at the receiving end of action how they feel about it.


Philosopher, John Rawls' 'The Veil of Ignorance' works quite well to determine the morality of various issues (e.g., slavery in this example).

[IATIA]

First of all, it is difficult to know without accurate information of what was really going on those millennia ago.

In those days, most of the 'slaves' may have been just as happy or happier as a 'slave' with room and board as long as they were treated well. Even if they were not 'slaves', and were working for someone, they may actually have been treated worse by an employer than a master and maybe not even have as good room and board as the slaves. They did not have unions in those days so, IMHO, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Now days, how much better off is a minimum wage worker than a slave? Is slavery really gone?

[Rhondazvous]

That an argument begins with a subjective value judgement such as "do you want to be a slave" doesn't actually -mean- that the argument is an appeal to emotion, or even fallacious.  -All- value judgments begin this way, and -all- arguments pursuant to those value judgments originate from this point.  

The key is this, as it is in -any- argument, after having agreed that you do not wish to be a slave...what can be reasonably and logically inferred from that starting point, can you make a slave of another?

I would never agree to be a slave because I would rather have my current job and freedom to do as I wish. But this is completely disingenuous to the day and age of the bible. Slaves were not denied the freedom to start a coffee shop or be able to work at best buy. They were basically denied the ability to hoe someone else field. And like I mentioned in another post, the Hebrew slaves willingly entered into this agreement so they obviously didn't feel that it was demeaning or immoral to be a slave or to hold slaves. Non Hebrews weren't given the same rights and prospect of freedom but I know that God did command the Jews to be kind and accepting to the alien residents. Even reminding them that they were slaves in a foreign land and mistreated.

As I pointed out in the op, the law of god made a difference between how Jewish slaves wwere treated and how the Jews were allowed to treat everryone else that they enslaved. Was biblical slavery cruel?

Exodus 21:20-21
20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.

21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money


This may be a step up from American slavery where no master ws ever punished for killing his slaves, but would you exonerate a man who beat you if you lived on for a day or two? Maybe I shouldn't ask you that since you seem to think it's okay to treat others in a way you wouldn't want to be treated.


Maybe I should rephrase my question as from where do we get the idea that enslaving gentiles is evil.

[Nope]

First of all, it is difficult to know without accurate information of what was really going on those millennia ago.

In those days, most of the 'slaves' may have been just as happy or happier as a 'slave' with room and board as long as they were treated well. Even if they were not 'slaves', and were working for someone, they may actually have been treated worse by an employer than a master and maybe not even have as good room and board as the slaves. They did not have unions in those days so, IMHO, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Now days, how much better off is a minimum wage worker than a slave? Is slavery really gone?

There are photos online of slaves in the US who have scars from whippings. I would imagine that non Hebrew slaves in the bible had similar treatment. Humans are not usually good at having complete control over one another.

McDonald workers don't have to witness their children being sold or know that their wives or daughters have been raped. I agree working for minimum wage is horrible but it isn't as bad as slavery.

[IATIA]

This may be a step up from American slavery where no master ws ever punished for killing his slaves, but would you exonerate a man who beat you if you lived on for a day or two? Maybe I shouldn't ask you that since you seem to think it's okay to treat others in a way you wouldn't want to be treated.

I do not think anyone has actually said it that way but, if I go downtown now, I could probably find someone that would be quite happy working for room and board. Would they be considered a slave? May perhaps you should tell us what you think constitutes slavery.

[Rhondazvous]

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.

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?

[Rhondazvous]

All I have to do to determine of something is evil, is to ask the group of people at the receiving end of action how they feel about it.


Philosopher, John Rawls' 'The Veil of Ignorance' works quite well to determine the morality of various issues (e.g., slavery in this example).

That's even better than asking how we would feel. We might be masochists. But how does the person receiving the action feel about receiving it?

From the 42 Precepts of Ma'at: I will not be the cause of the shedding of tears.

[Rhondazvous]

First of all, it is difficult to know without accurate information of what was really going on those millennia ago.

In those days, most of the 'slaves' may have been just as happy or happier as a 'slave' with room and board as long as they were treated well.  Even if they were not 'slaves', and were working for someone, they may actually have been treated worse by an employer than a master and maybe not even have as good room and board as the slaves.  They did not have unions in those days so, IMHO, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Now days, how much better off is a minimum wage worker than a slave?  Is slavery really gone?

No, the question doesn't require that we know what was actually happening back then. It is a matter of perception not reality. The question is where did we get the idea that slavery is evil since the scriptures don't condemn it. Since the biblical god doesn't exist, we know right away that we're not talking about what happened, but about the writings as they came down to us.