Is Christianity Inherently Supportive Of Slavery And Misogyny?

[vulcanlogician]

OK so since I asked, I've seen a verse that state not to have Israelite slaves. Are there any prescriptive verses that say to go get some non-Israelite slaves, or do they all describe behaviors towards slaves? If you can't produce any then the Bible does not prescribe or endorse slavery. I'm not the one splitting hairs. I haven't even focused on the semantic arguments of servant vs slave, while the entirety of this board is splitting hairs on what to endorse means. If the argument and definition of endorse were the same then I would agree that the Bible is descriptive, and therefore implicitly supports, certain treatment of slaves and doesn't say no to all types of slavery. But you can't even make that case by your own quotation of scriptures, as slavery is prescriptively limited against certain people.

As a Christian, IMO, I believe the Bible does teach slavery to one God, and that all men have masters. I doubt our definitions of slavery would match in this case though. Looks like we're not making any headway on this topic, anyone want to prod forward on misogyny?

How official do you need the endorsement to be? Maybe the words, "Go enslave people," are nowhere to be found in the Bible, but an endorsement can be inferred. No Israelite slaves? "Open season on all non-Israelites" is what I hear. 

Explicitly excluding Israelites is the key here. To me, that really makes it count as an endorsement. You might have a better argument if that weren't in there.

[The Grand Nudger]

They are. There’s no maybe.

- and that’s what they did.

The head in the sand approach is only marginally less disgusting than huggy’s stamp of approval. The Huggster, as much as he resorts to silly and pointless lies about slavery and human life expectancy, is being just that much more honest than that about what’s in the book.

[Huggy Bear]

Clearly, the entire diversion is pointless- as it doesn’t change the fact that you and your god endorse slavery.

Hey, fun fact, you know who knew…for a fact….they wouldn’t live to be 900 or whatever silly shit you believe?

Slaves.

So you don't know what it means, since you're unwilling to engage, not addressing any of your nonsense until you answer the question.

---

I like how you guys whine about people being indentured servants but when asked to provide an alternative solution none are given beyond "help everyone for free"...

There is literally no currency other than labor...

When poor Europeans wanted to immigrate to the US back in the day, they would offer to become indentured servants because they had no other way to pay for the fare. Since you guys consider it to be immoral, how would you handle it differently?

[The Grand Nudger]

Promises promises.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Is Christianity Inherently Supportive Of Slavery And Misogyny? The answer is, unfortunately yes. Or at least it can and sometimes does.

It seems to me that there are two broad strategies that are implemented when approaching Scripture; and given that they lead to different conclusions, they often reflect Christian/Atheist differences:

Approach 1 interprets the Bible bottom-up. As such, Christian's often lay the basics and fundamentals down at the base of the pyramid (things such as God is love or Treat your neighbor as yourself) and work their way up to less essential and more debatable parts of Scripture. And if a verse seems odd given the whole, it can be left with a question mark without consequence; or if it leads to a problematic interpretation, they can retreat to a lower step and course-correct. (Differences between religions often occur at the base of the pyramid, whereas differences between denominations occur near the top.)

Approach 2 interprets the Bible top-down. It takes the parts that seem problematic or debatable (things such as Paul said women should be silent in Church or There are verses about slavery), and makes them a starting point through which the rest of Scripture is interpreted. It inverts the pyramid, so to speak. In atheism this might lead to easy rejection of the whole structure, given that if the inverted base is removed, the entire pyramid collapses. And in radical Christian groups it might lead to extremism, given that a single verse shapes their entire interpretation of Scripture. 

My argument is that Approach 1 is the only appropriate approach. Whereas Approach 2 often results in a Strawman. For example, it leads to conclusions that many Christians would reject (such as your argument that Christianity inherently supports  X or Y). It also opens the door to "nutpicking," when you look for members that use Approach 2 to justify things like misogyny, and make them representative of Christianity.

Given this framework I would ask: Do you think that "If you're a Christian, and you want to justify your misogyny," that you could still do so using Approach 1?

[arewethereyet]

Seems to me that an all powerful god would have had a book written that didn't need interpretation. What's with all the riddles, conflicting verses, this is just a story but this is the truth stuff?

Just say what you mean and move on.

It's a jumble of cluster that's supposed to be figured out.

[John 6IX Breezy]

It's a jumble of cluster that's supposed to be figured out.

No; this has nothing to do with the Bible and everything to do with how people process information. You'll find the same differences in approach used in politics, science, and anywhere that communication is happening. You're not escaping interpretation by escaping religion.

[arewethereyet]

It's a jumble of cluster that's supposed to be figured out.

No; this has nothing to do with the Bible and everything to do with how people process information. You'll find the same differences in approach used in politics, science, and anywhere that communication is happening. You're not escaping interpretation by escaping religion.

Read all the words Breezy.

Are you really comparing what is written by a god to what is written by man?

[Angrboda]

Is Christianity Inherently Supportive Of Slavery And Misogyny? The answer is, unfortunately yes. Or at least it can and sometimes does.

It seems to me that there are two broad strategies that are implemented when approaching Scripture; and given that they lead to different conclusions, they often reflect Christian/Atheist differences:

Approach 1 interprets the Bible bottom-up. As such, Christian's often lay the basics and fundamentals down at the base of the pyramid (things such as God is love or Treat your neighbor as yourself) and work their way up to less essential and more debatable parts of Scripture. And if a verse seems odd given the whole, it can be left with a question mark without consequence; or if it leads to a problematic interpretation, they can retreat to a lower step and course-correct. (Differences between religions often occur at the base of the pyramid, whereas differences between denominations occur near the top.)

Approach 2 interprets the Bible top-down. It takes the parts that seem problematic or debatable (things such as Paul said women should be silent in Church or There are verses about slavery), and makes them a starting point through which the rest of Scripture is interpreted. It inverts the pyramid, so to speak. In atheism this might lead to easy rejection of the whole structure, given that if the inverted base is removed, the entire pyramid collapses. And in radical Christian groups it might lead to extremism, given that a single verse shapes their entire interpretation of Scripture. 

My argument is that Approach 1 is the only appropriate approach. Whereas Approach 2 often results in a Strawman. For example, it leads to conclusions that many Christians would reject (such as your argument that Christianity inherently supports  X or Y). It also opens the door to "nutpicking," when you look for members that use Approach 2 to justify things like misogyny, and make them representative of Christianity.

Given this framework I would ask: Do you think that "If you're a Christian, and you want to justify your misogyny," that you could still do so using Approach 1?

Since the bible includes revelation, approach 2 becomes equally legitimate. The fact that Christian beliefs don't square with the text doesn't make it a strawman.

For example, given certain basic beliefs about God, one might obtain a deductive argument that rules out specific beliefs a Christian accepts. That is a problem with the believer, not the argument.

[The Grand Nudger]

It would be trivially easy for a Christian to disavow the endorsement of slavery in the Old Testament. Just not by pretending it wasn’t there, or that atheists were making bad faith arguments or attacking straw men. That doesn’t work at all. It just announces that you’re willing to be a shitty person in defense of some shitty sentences written by shitty people before Christianity was a twinkle in a con mans eye.

Say it with me. Jews didn’t and still don’t get everything about a god right.

Jesus…… Christ.