The Christian Bible condones slavery explicitly in numerous passages. One of those reference often by slave owners in the Antebellum South comes from the story of Noah.
Genesis 9:24-27
9:24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
9:25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
9:26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
9:27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
The book of Joshua also demonstrates the Christian god’s support of slavery:
9:27 And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the LORD, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose.
In fact, there are numerous biblical instructions on how to acquire slaves, making it clear that buying people for money is perfectly acceptable.
Exodus 21:2-7
21:2 If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
21:3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
21:4 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.
21:5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
21:6 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.
21:7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.
Leviticus 22:10-11
22:10 There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.
22:11 But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat.
Or slaves can be taken in war.
Deuteronomy 20:10-14
20:10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
20:11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
20:12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
20:13 And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
20:14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
Leviticus goes on to make it clear that slaves are inheritable possessions.
25:44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.
There are also many biblical instructions on how to treat slaves. Genesis 16:6-9 says that angels will force slaves to return to their owners.
16:6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.
16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.
16:8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.
16:9 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.
Beating slaves as long as they don’t die immediately is perfectly fine.
Exodus 21:20-21
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.
21:21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.
Leviticus shows that slaves are property, not covered by the laws protecting other people.
19:20 And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.
The New Testament doesn’t fare any better. Slavery is explicitly condoned in many places.
Luke 12:46-47
12:46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
Luke 17:7-9
17:7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?
17:8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?
17:9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.
1 Corinthians 7:21-22
7:21 Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
7:22 For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant.
Ephesians 6:5 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.
Colossians 3:22 Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.
1 Timothy 6:1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
Titus 2:9-10
2:9 Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again;
2:10 Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
1 Peter 2:18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.
Nowhere in the Christian Bible is slavery explicitly condemned nor are any of the verses that explicitly support the practice repudiated. Of course, numerous verses are interpreted to be anti-slavery. The fact that both slavery proponents and abolitionists were able to quote scripture in support of their views demonstrates clearly that the bible is, at best, ambiguous. Surely a book intended to provide moral guidance could have found room in the Ten Commandments for “Thou shalt not own slaves.”
The rational conclusion is that the bible is an amalgamation of writings by many different men, each with his own political goals and views on morality. It is only those who hold it to be the inerrant word of their god who find themselves in the position of attempting to defend the odious passages that clearly support slavery. That attempted defense is a blatant and appalling demonstration of religious belief overriding common decency and empathy.
You did. You gave a list of things it may be, and did not say which one it actually is. There are an infinite number of possibilities to choose from.
For all you know this may be the final doubt I have before committing to Christianity. Act like you are supposed to act! Like your book commands!
That’s a claim you are unable to support. I know ‘just saying things’ and expecting people to just believe you is part of the mindset you have but it’s somewhat unconvincing to the rest of us.
Be careful what you ask for, he will do just that.
fifthmonarchyman thinks he’s entitled to his own facts.
But seriously, apparently a hanging man if the rope or the branch broke from which he was hanging, he would fall headlong.
https://schteppe.github.io/p2.js/demos/ragdoll.html
Go on, give it a go. To make it hit the ground head first there must have been quite a wind!
Yet no wind was mentioned.
And the tree could have broken at the exact right angle and pulled the body after headfirst (I can’t see it but…).
Yet no falling tree was mentioned.
The point is you can use an infinite number of things that were not mentioned to “explain” the meaning of the text. But it just makes you look desperate.
One can hope, but experience with other fundamentalists suggests that he’ll just periodically dock with the mothership to sooth that dissonance for the rest of his life.
fifthmonarchyman never includes the actual verses when discussing biblical contradictions. I suspect that is because they completely undermine his argument:
Matthew 27:5
And he [Judas] cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
Acts 1:18
Now this man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.
Those two verses contradict each other both in the manner of Judas’ death and what he did with his reward money.
When all else fails, call it a metaphor. That doesn’t actually eliminate the contradiction in the text, of course.
While we’re on the topic, what is the metaphor that explains the difference between buying a field and throwing the money on the floor of the temple?
No, you are assuming that the bible is inerrant and refusing to accept any evidence to the contrary, no matter how clearly it is written in the book itself. If I were editing any other book with this many internal contradictions I would definitely mark them up. You’re the one applying a double standard.
Apparently they were as indoctrinated as you are.
I have a question for you that will hopefully put an end to some of this back and forth: Can you conceive of any evidence that would convince you that the bible is not inerrant? If not, then your claims are purely statements of your faith, not rational explanations of or conclusions from the evidence. If you’re willing to state that clearly, there’s no more reason to discuss the evidence with you.
John 12:40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
Romans 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned.
Jesus is the author of the bible? Got any evidence to support that claim?
Well and succinctly put.
Except in the numerous passages sanctioning slavery already provided and 1 Timothy:
2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
I have no idea what “the principles of atheism” could possibly mean. All I meant is that Kant’s argument for the wrongness of slavery is logically independent of theism.
That was intended as a counterexample to Mung’s insinuation that one cannot assert that anything is morally right or wrong without assuming some variety of theism.
Remind me again how many women are in positions of power in the institutions of Christianity? Remind me how long it took for women to be ordained?
Yes. Someone who interprets the Old Testament as indicating timeless and universal spiritual truths and someone who interprets the Old Testament as indicating the particular history and worldview of the ancient Israelites are not playing the same game. Even though the pieces are identical, the rules of interpretation are completely different. That’s why I don’t engage in conversations about Biblical interpretation; I know that I’m not able to play the same game as people of faith play. I don’t know those rules and I’m not interested in learning them.
(I do appreciate knowing about those rules, because of the influence of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religious thought on Western philosophy, science, ethics, literature, art, politics, and so on.)
@ Tom Mueller
I’m wondering about getting one of Ehrman’s books. Any recommendations?
Yet the bible is supposed to be a book of its times. And in those times women were second class citizens and slaves were owned, however fun the enslavement might have been. You remember that whole equality thing that happened in the last half dozen decades? If “that mindset” was not found in Christians or the Bible why did women have to fight for equality in America, a country founded (apparently) on the Bible and biblical beliefs.
If “that mindset” was not found in Christians or the Bible why did slaves have to fight for freedom in America, a country founded (apparently) on the Bible and biblical beliefs.
Tom,
It’s in the comment I linked to, of course.
And you just did it again:
That quote is from Patrick, not me. The OP is by Patrick, not me. How could you miss that? It clearly says
And:
This thread is full of example after example of you misreading texts, both ancient and contemporary. The texts, no matter how explicit, are unable to penetrate your preconceptions.
If you want to do scholarship, Tom, you need to learn to read for comprehension.
KN,
That wasn’t Mung’s question. He asked
…and you replied:
But Kant isn’t such a philosopher. Agreed?
I forget, what are the principles of atheism?
My only principle — and it’s not a principle, just a rule of thumb — is that lots of claims have been made about magical things — garden fairies, UFOS, deamons, Yeti, gods of various types and description, spoon bending, and so forth — and I’m a doubter.
I see no linkage between being skeptical of extraordinary claims and moral principles.
I have morals mostly because my parents were kind and generous and likable, and I have tended to copy them. I could come up with all kinds of rationalizations, but my history is probably responsible for my behavioral tendencies. And my preferences for political leaders and for certain kinds of rules and laws.
I’ve never actually met anyone in real life who was moral or immoral based on anything other than the kind of person who raised him or her.
Eh, pretty much. Like I said, I have no idea what “the principles of atheism” are. It’s not like atheists have a unified creed or institutionalized authority-figures.
Being an atheist is merely committing oneself to saying, “whatever it is that exists, in any meaningful sense of ‘exists’, nothing satisfies any conception of ‘God’.” That’s a really big tent! It can include naturalists, Platonists, empiricists, and rationalists. And for much of Western history, the distinction between atheism and pantheism was treated as a distinction without a difference — and maybe rightly so.
I just thought that Kant is a good example of a historically influential philosopher who gives an argument against the permissibility of slavery that’s logically distinct from theism. But I have no idea if that’s what Mung was asking for or not.
Sure they do! Richard Dawkins is the head Atheist and we all worship his noodly appendages.
Mung will no doubt return to explain himself, but my understanding of his request is that he thinks morality must be justified.
That is, it must be derived from some principle.
I personally think morality is just a label for tendencies to be benevolent.
It is not always clear what is in the long term best interest of people, so we have debates and political struggles over the details.
KN,
No, Mung was asking for “an atheist philosopher who provides an argument against slavery based on the principles of atheism”, whatever those are supposed to be. Kant doesn’t qualify because his argument against slavery isn’t based on the “principles of atheism” or even on atheism itself.
Not even that. Many atheists, including me, don’t commit themselves to asserting that “nothing satisfies any conception of ‘God’.” We just don’t see any evidence for such an entity.
petrushka,
That’s too restrictive. For example, lots of people base their morality not on benevolence but on obedience to their particular God. Yahweh even commands the Israelites not to be benevolent:
fifth,
You still haven’t addressed the contradiction I noted earlier:
Woodbine,
The best part, for me, is watching fifth contradict himself while remaining clueless that he is doing so.
Before, he was telling us that God didn’t forbid slavery in the Bible because when people know that something is forbidden, they do more of it.
Now he’s telling us that the Holy Spirit lets us know that slavery is forbidden so that we won’t enslave people.
He seems unable to take a single step without contradicting himself.
Fifth,
When you’re contradicting yourself right and left, it’s pretty obvious that what you are saying is not the revealed truth of an omniscient God. You’re just a confused guy trying to convince himself that he possesses “spiritual gifts”.
The evidence suggests otherwise, to put it mildly.
Matthew 7:19-20, KJV:
Your views are fruity, but they are not “good fruit”. Shall we cast you into the fire, or would you prefer that we treat you more humanely and less biblically?
On the one hand, I think that morality is not something that can be “derived” from “self-evident” first principles. The 17th-century conception of logic is not even true of logic and mathematics anymore, and it’s certainly not true of morality.
On the other hand, I think that there are moral concepts, such as fairness, equality, and justice, that cannot be explained entirely in terms of feelings of benevolence or empathy. If that were the case, we would never even be capable of recognizing that we’re acting unjustly when we dehumanize those who aren’t of our ‘tribe’ (race, religion, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.).
There is something at work in human nature that allows us to understand sometimes — in practice, very rarely! — that justice is impartiality. Justice is different from the affective, pro-social bonds that function as the ‘glue’ of primate societies. There’s that, too — we’re social primates — but there are real cognitive and affective differences between us and other primates.
So while there is a ‘stratum’ of morality that we share with other social primates, I think there’s something else at work in human beings as well, and that something else does have a deep connection with rationality. It’s just that deductive validity is not the whole of rationality, and there’s much more to rationality besides deductively valid arguments. And certainly there are good reasons for rejecting the 17th-century conception of what deductive validity is!
By the way, the idea that morality has some deep connection with religion is not utterly crazy. There’s a nice argument by Nourenzayan in Big Gods that the rise of permanent settlements with a few thousand people, many of whom were basically strangers, led to the emergence of gods with moral functions. This is in sharp contrast with hunter-gather societies, where tribes are around the size of 100-150 people (which means that everyone personally knows everyone else — there are no strangers within the tribe) and the gods or spirits almost never take an interest in moral issues.
The really interesting question at work in the 20th and 21st century experiment in “secularism” is precisely the extent to which respect for the rule of law, free and equal deliberation, and the norms of liberal democracy can take over the socio-psychological role that gods had played in every previous civilization: enabling us to trust strangers.
That’s exactly what I meant.
It’s because you are an empiricist (in your first-order epistemic commitments) that you think that something could satisfy the concept of God only if there was evidence.
Presumably if you were presented with some set of observations that satisfied your criteria for what counts as evidence, you would then revise your ontology and say that there is something that satisfies the concept of God after all, or (to say the same thing) that God exists.
There are no “institutions of Christianity” beyond the local assembly. If you ever visited a local assembly you would find that women have always held all most all the positions of power often to the exclusion of their husbands.
Women were ordained in the first century by the apostles themselves.
quote:
Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.
(1Ti 5:9-10)
end quote:
peace
says who?
That is the fault of the evil mean who treated them like that it’s not God’s fault. Just as it’s not God’s fault when a man mistreats women or keeps slaves today
The whole “equality thing” happened in the bible 2 thousand years ago It just has taken a while for “secular” society to catch up
quote:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
(Gal 3:28)
end quote:
peace
America was not founded on the Bible.
It was founded by theists many of these were deists and not even Christian. Many of the colonies actively persecuted my Bible believing spiritual forefathers.
check it out
http://www.brucegourley.com/baptists/persecutionoutline.htm
peace
KN,
That’s not my view. There might be something that satisfies the concept of God even if there is no evidence for it.
Of course it is. God could just as easily not created anything at all.
It might not be god’s fault but you can sure ask forgiveness for doing it and everything is then a-ok. Right? What a wicked god you worship.
And you are just not getting it are you? We’re not talking about a man hitting a woman who also happens to be his slave we’re talking about the founding principles of multiple entire civilizations for most of recorded history. Women as second class. Slaves traded like livestock without a second thought.
Funny how one verse invalidates many more. Tell me, is there a single verse that overrides everything else? What is it? Start with one and tell me.
Except of course for the, you know, actual slaves.
Oh, I know, I’m just lumping you in with that lot automatically as the most likely fit. But good to know, I suppose. You may have the odd redeeming quality yet.
fifth,
As OMagain points out, your God could easily have prevented the evil from happening. He’s omnipotent, right?
Every act of evil, every injustice, every atrocity, every bit of suffering happens with his full acquiescence. He could prevent them, but he actively chooses not to.
Remember the dog that ate the living baby’s head? Your God stood by and did nothing while that happened.
Yes, the Bible condones slavery.
Now tell us: Is slavery objectively morally wrong?
Just where do you get off judging a culture far removed from yours in so many respects? Are you a Jew who just came out of slavery yourself?
The facts about slavery don’t matter then. So you condone slavery yourself.
Predictable. But so pathetic.
Surely your argument must rely on the effects of the words you quote, because if the words had no effect then you are tilting at windmills.
So?
I just love how you drink at the fountain of the lips of a liar. What is my version of events, if you know?
You asserted that Kant is an atheist philosopher. Do you actually believe that?
An atheist who doesn’t care about the actual facts. Who woulda thunk it.
I didn’t say that Kant is an atheist philosopher. I said that Kant’s argument for the wrongness of slavery is logically independent of theism. More generally, Kant does not derive the principles of morality from theistic assumptions. And Kant does argue that we cannot know whether or not God exists. That makes him an agnostic — indeed, a ‘strong agnostic’, since he thinks it is impossible for us to know that God does (or does not) exist. (This is because of what he thinks the conditions of any possible knowledge are.)
It is also true that Kant does think that faith plays a necessary role in morality (and also in science), but it’s difficult to see exactly what that role is and it’s been highly debated in all the years since Kant wrote.
Briefly put, Kant seems to have thought that we must have faith that we will eventually be rewarded with happiness for having lived a morally good life. Without this assumption, he worries that we would be tempted to chose happiness over morality. But we cannot know that we will be (nor can we know that we won’t be).
Is Kant an atheist? Not really. He’s a strong agnostic about what we can know, and he does not derive morality from theism, but he thinks that we must have faith that God exists for the sake of morality.
Is that the same as saying that it is logically possible that God exists, though there’s no evidence for it (at present)?
I said, name an atheist philosopher. You responded, Immanuel Kant. Therefore, you claimed Immanuel Kant is an atheist philosopher. QED.
Those are the facts. If you care.
here
Why be an atheist if you don’t care about what is true?
Mung,
Since we are talking about what is true, you actually asked for a philosopher who argued against slavery based on what you called “the principles of atheism”. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as “the principles of atheism.” Be that as it may — Kant does not rely on theism at any point in his argument for the immorality of slavery.
Lizzie wept
I asked for an atheist philosopher.
Here it is again:
Your response:
Since we are talking about what is true.
Lizzie condoned. She appointed Patrick, and Neil, and Alan.
Barry was unavailable
If there is no Being that satisfies the concept of God, what is your objection to the Bible verses you seem to despise?
Atheists are supposed to be logical. Reasonable. Truth seekers. Respect evidence.