Is Christianity Inherently Supportive Of Slavery And Misogyny?

[WinterHold]

[Deesse23]

Hebrew servants went free after 7 years....

Not necessarily. Exodus 21 nicely explains how to exploit a loophole. How convenient for slavers back then, eh?
Still havent read your bible, eh?

3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.

4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.

5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:

6 Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.

[vulcanlogician]

Still, reasonable Christians are going to be more prone to take approach 1. That makes their position more defensible, but then other issues crop up. 

Right; so my question is do you think misogyny can still be justified using the more conservative bottom-up approach? Is there a way to begin with something like the two greatest commandments in your premises and logically reach the conclusion that hatred and contempt for women is the way to go?

IDK. I mean, a lawyer certainly could.

The question becomes why were the misogynistic things written in the first place? Can someone who thinks the Bible is the revealed word of God justify ignoring something if it's in there? So we have two lines of logic we can use.

1. The Bible is the revealed word of God.
2. The revealed word of God ought to be regarded as true.
3. The Bible contains misogynistic ramblings.
Therefore, those misogynistic ramblings ought to be regarded as true.

The Golden Rule being foundational....

1. I ought to only do unto others as I would have them do unto me.
2. Misogyny is hurtful and disrespectful to some people.
3. I wouldn't want people being hurtful or disrespectful to me.
Therefore, I ought not be misogynistic.

It seems there is a tug of war between following the Golden Rule, and seeing the Bible as the revealed word of God. I suppose whatever wins that tug of war in someone's inner dialogue may determine how well the Golden Rule does. I want the Golden Rule to win. But that doesn't mean that's what Christianity is all about. I think if either side holds more sway over the average Christian, it's the revealed word side.

[Pat Mustard]

[Deesse23]

Right; so my question is do you think misogyny can still be justified using the more conservative bottom-up approach? Is there a way to begin with something like the two greatest commandments in your premises and logically reach the conclusion that hatred and contempt for women is the way to go?

IDK. I mean, a lawyer certainly could.

The question becomes why were the misogynistic things written in the first place? Can someone who thinks the Bible is the revealed word of God justify ignoring something if it's in there? So we have two lines of logic we can use.

1. The Bible is the revealed word of God.
2. The revealed word of God ought to be regarded as true.
3. The Bible contains misogynistic ramblings.
Therefore, those misogynistic ramblings ought to be regarded as true.

The Golden Rule being foundational....

1. I ought to only do unto others as I would have them do unto me.
2. Misogyny is hurtful and disrespectful to some people.
3. I wouldn't want people being hurtful or disrespectful to me.
Therefore, I ought not be misogynistic.

It seems there is a tug of war between following the Golden Rule, and seeing the Bible as the revealed word of God. I suppose whatever wins that tug of war in someone's inner dialogue may determine how well the Golden Rule does. I want the Golden Rule to win. But that doesn't mean that's what Christianity is all about. I think if either side holds more sway over the average Christian, it's the revealed word side.

Specifics override the general. The golden rule is general, specific misogynist commands clearly override this, age / which was first/last notwithstanding.

If general rules would override specifics.....why even have specifics? This "love thy neighbor overrides any immoral command you find elswhere in the bible " bullshit is nothing but a smokescreen.

[The Grand Nudger]

This thread has been a disgrace and an insult to the members of this board. Worse, that insult has come from the most inexplicable angles. It's managed to reduce even my own already dim view of the state of the faith of the christians on this board.

Do you know what moral grandstanding is?

Do you know what a moral thought looks like?  We've got Huggy approving slavery, Tack pretending he doesn't have eyes to see, you calling anyone who mentions the nasty shit in your magic book a duplicitous asshole.

Honestly, fuck all of you.  You're all disgusting.

[awty]

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?

What a surprise...no answer from the Breezy one.

I guess that what's supposed to be divine can be likened to politics, science, etc.

Just another load of BS.

*yawn*

[Spongebob]

One interesting angle to view this from is the early Christian era of Rome. The Roman Empire was strongly reliant on slave labor. But the practices and laws regarding slavery began to change in the late era and into Byzantium as Christianity emerged as a force within the empire. Christians were certainly not comfortable with other Christians being held as slaves, but were they as opposed to others in slavery, I'm not sure.

[The Grand Nudger]

Christianity has a long and productive relationship with slavery. Without slavery and servitude and exploitation and abject poverty there would be no christianity. Not as we know it christianity, no christianity at all. The method of expansion in the early movement was to fill a void in what we would call the social services of a state. To some extent, rome supported this (which, in hindsight, they might have determined to be a mistake). The roman intelligentsia and officials and functionaries looked down their nose at their servants and both nurtured and despised their christianization for a whole host of reasons.

When it became clear that the administrative state had failed the least of roman society, and given how much of rome-as-a-state was dependent on that least of it's members, christian authority picked a side. The right side, I think. The last pagan critics of christianity in rome hovered around the nature of the body of the faith. Complaining that the poor illiterate and unfortunate populace had been manipulated to their detriment by charity - food specifically.

Rather than deny that this was the sop, the christian authorities of the time simply conceded that they had, in fact, and explicitly, fed the poor as a way to spread the gospel - and condemned the roman state for having failed to feed those same people. The fear of the roman upper classes of christians was based on their having become a disaffected mob with cause.

Just like today, however, the economically anxious were represented by their betters, people who's interests were decidedly not their constituencies. This has been a recurring theme for abrahamism all along the way. Oceans of ink have been spilled wondering why a people who imagined themselves to have so recently escaped slavery in egypt and actually had just escaped subjugation elsewhere would then become a society based upon it. Why the bottom up christianization of rome by oppressed people would lead to a state even less tolerant and representative than the one it had replaced. Why immigrants to this country would flee their homes out of imposed poverty or abject intolerance and maintain an even more ruthless system here - not as the primary beneficiaries of that system...even..but as the middle agents purchasing their own humanity by denying the same of others.

I think the truth of the matter is borne out by an explication of that history. The belief in the rightness or wrongness of slavery, in abrahamism, is negotiable. Its always there for christian slavers to grasp at, and their christian slaves can (and do) come to think otherwise, for example. Advocating for it, denying it's very existence in practice or writ, and concern trolling over a moral response to it..all, are on the slavers side of that line...all, are optional.

[tackattack]