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.
It’s entrenched in the christian culture. I suspect very few would complain if defined as slaves of Christ. (Same for other religions)
We also have numerous passages from the bible explicitly condoning slavery. We also have people like you and CharlieM trying to explain those away, denigrating the suffering of actual slaves, without simply saying “The bible is wrong where it condones slavery.”
You keep dodging the reason why I brought this up. Your dismissal of slavery as less important than rules about women’s menstrual cycles shows how your religion corrupts your natural sense of empathy.
Prove me wrong. State explicitly that “The bible is wrong where it condones slavery.”
Have you actually read the relevant passages Bible? Or did you at least learn about slavery at school? Neither, looks like.
The Bible recognizes both voluntary and involuntary slavery. Voluntary slavery was term-limited, whereas involuntary was basically captivity. And surely you can rebel against involuntary slavery too and choose to die that way, if you think that’s a legitimate choice.
Voluntary and involuntary slavery are different, and why not different terms for different sexes. Of course modern people have a problem that there are two sexes. Some of them want none and some want five or more (LGBTQ etc.). You are free to want things like that, but reality is what it is. That’s why it’s called reality.
Except in one case slavery is metaphorical and in the other it is literal.
In employment ,you choose to trade a commodity for another commodity .Unless your boss can sell your children, literally put you in chains, force you to work without pay, beat you senseless , you are not a slave.
Erik,
There you have it. Another christian spewing obnoxious rationalizations for his bible. “voluntary and involuntary slavery”, both endorsed by your holy book and you’re incapable of questioning the obvious lack of moral in it all.
A christian fundamentalist lecturing about reality always makes me chuckle. Keep you homophobia to yourself please.
I never saw you questioning the morality of it all either. All I saw you say was “disgusting”. When something disgusts you, then it’s immoral?
Wait, are you actually saying morality is real? Do you understand that you are going against the majority opinion of the members here on this point?
What is morality for you? Is it moral to scoff at things you don’t understand, at lessons you have not learned from history etc?
It would be a huge step forward if we could begin to discuss the morality of slavery and everything else if we both admitted that it’s our moral judgment and not some external source what might get us somewhere. If you don’t allow your moral judgment to parse the bible, you can’t pretend it’s a valid source of morality
write up some sample questions in order to evaluate the children’s moral training.
Sure, but what would that be like? You say “Disgusting!”, I say “Is not!” Where’s the huge step forward?
So slavery is not disgusting because of the bible. Homophobia is fine because of the bible. But if the bible said the opposite, you’d believe the opposite no questions asked. You forfeit your moral judgement and that makes you an amoral person. No point in discussing morals with you and the issue is not that we would not agree.
It’s not a fact, it’s you attempting to justify the bible’s support of slavery by saying “We have the potential to be free in the way that matters most.” If you really believe that, you should experience slavery for yourself and see what really matters most.
That was one form. As noted in the OP, the bible also condones permanent slavery with the slaves treated as inheritable property.
No.
I actually asked what the issue was. I guess this is your answer.
So? Do you have some other point to make than “I don’t like that”?
Do you think the Bible should be subject to moral scrutiny or not?
It always strikes me as deeply perplexing that so many people in these discussions take it for granted that secularists have no objective standard for moral judgment. Even secularists themselves accept this assumption, and I do not understand why. What ever happened to Aristotle? Mencius? Or Kant? Or Mill? I mean, I understand why most folks wouldn’t want to read Rawls or Habermas, but there’s several millennia of reflection about ethics in non-theistic terms to be found in every major human civilization!
Go ahead. I’m still waiting for you to make an actually moral point.
“Disgusting” is not a moral point. Don’t you agree?
Two points, actually:
1) The bible is not a good source of moral directives.
2) Some Christians are unable to state simply that “The bible is wrong where it condones slavery.” In fact, they disparage the suffering of slaves rather than contradict their holy book.
My subjective morality is more aligned with decency, compassion, and empathy than your “objective” morality.
I’m more persuaded by the greatest of modern philosophers, Sir Terry Pratchett:
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little–”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET — Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point –”
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
— Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Tell me Dazz, from a strictly objective Darwinian point of view, what is the difference between keeping domestic animals and keeping human slaves?
In ancient times slavery was a normal way of life for all major cultures. The teachings of Christ were incompatible with slavery which meant that any genuine follower of these teachings would not wish to be a slave owner. But most of us are weak and prefer to give priority to our own welfare at the expense of others. Through the impulse of Christ slavery has become much less common in modern society. It is not because of Christ’s teachings but despite his teachings that slavery has persisted.
I prefer to look within for moral guidance rather than slavishly follow words taken randomly out of a set of books, especially words meant for an ancient group of people far removed from the culture I find myself in.
Do you seriously think that anyone you are arguing with here would desire to become slave owners through reading the Bible?
That’s clearly right.
We ought to feel disgust at acts that are morally wrong, but simply feeling disgust itself is no indicator of moral wrongness. The bigot who feels disgust at an inter-racial couple is not thereby correct that inter-racial marriages are morally unacceptable.
In addition, I think there’s actually a pretty compelling argument to be made that disgust can be a morally problematic emotion. Disgust is deeply bound up with the desire (or need?) for purity. I think that the need for purity is a deeply dangerous.
We can see how the need for purity works out when we’re talking about race, about sexual orientation, about transgendered individuals, and so on. The inability to tolerate ambiguity, the need for reality to conform to fixed categories, is at the root of much historical and contemporary injustice. Disgust can often be the emotional accompaniment of injustice, when injustice is motivated by the need for purity.
Patrick,
Cute, but not correct.
The fact that justice and mercy are “fantasies” according to the perspective of reductive physicalism means that there’s something wrong with using reductive physicalism as the perspective from which to think about justice and mercy.
Pratchett is a satirist, not too many steps removed from the countryman who wrote “A Modest Proposal.”
As for fantasy and morality, I would take the moral teachings of The Harry Potter books over the Bible any day of the week, especially Sunday.
Morality is not a thing. Moralizing is something we do.
Again conflating “Darwinism” with a world view? Please Charlie, stop.
Sure. I have no doubt I would most likely see things differently if I had been born in the age of the old testament.
The problem is that the bible is so inconsistent that you can draw this conclusion and someone else can draw the opposite one. Then you both will resort to a no-true-Scotsman and declare victory
No, but I see people here rationalizing slavery, and it’s a fact that others have used the bible to justify it in the past. If you think slavery is wrong, can you do as Patrick asked and openly declare that the bible is wrong where it condones slavery?
I feel that for symmetry I should start talking about speciation here. Everyone interested in the subject should read Coyne & Orr’s aptly titled Speciation, which shows good evidence that most speciation is allopatric and results from incidental effects of selection acting for other reasons in different environments.
I think it’s an important fact about morality that stories play an important role in how we acquire a moral point of view. Through stories we can imaginatively play with other perspectives, consider the world through other people’s eyes, and do so in a way that engages our moral emotions (esp. empathy).
But the crucial role of emotionally engaging stories in moral education doesn’t mean that morality itself is exclusively emotional, nor does it mean that the moral point of view is itself fictional.
If it is not grounded in emotion, what is it grounded in?
I have no feelings about whether an appliance is called avocado green or key lime green. I have feelings about how people treat each other.
One kind of statement is about morality, and the other is not.
I said that it is not grounded exclusively in emotion. I never denied that morality has an emotional component.
Isn’t this mainly a disagreement over the meaning of “objective”?
I would argue that any other component you might care to name would, itself, be grounded in emotion. I’m open to hear your list.
I think the issue is conflating objective with absolute
I’m a moral nihilist in the sense that I don’t believe anyone has succeeded in demonstrating that an objective moral standard for moral judgement exists(whether they be theists or not).
Could you give it a shot?
At the risk of stepping into the Cartesian Skepticism thread, I’ll say that emotions are real and provide an objective grounding for morality.
“Bad feeling” does not equate to immoral, but I find it difficult to think of anything considered immoral that doesn’t involve someone feeling bad, even if it is Yahweh.
My simplistic way of looking at morality is that we don’t need moral philosophy for things that feel good or bad immediately.
Moral thinking usually involves actions having delayed consequences, or group consequences.
Oh, I agree that justice, mercy, honor, honesty, integrity, and similar concepts have real world referents. I just have not yet come across an objective justification for finding them valuable. Some people seem to function just fine without those characteristics. Others value faith above them. I prefer not to associate with either group.
I may be guilty of that. I’ll ponder it, thanks.
I think that morality consists of the norms for successful cooperation, which are crucial for a species that depends on cooperation for its characteristic way of life. Since the flourishing of each individual is necessary to the long-term stability and flourishing the community — and conversely — we can evaluate any particular moral framework in terms of how well or poorly it rewards and punishes the flourishing of each individual and the community as a whole. The adequacy of any specific moral framework then depends on how well or poorly those persons living according to its norms are able to cooperate successfully over short-term and the long-term. The more a society depends on hierarchy and stratification, the more obstacles there are to successful cooperation, and therefore the less adequate the moral framework embedded in that society.
If that’s not “objective” enough for you, you might consider thinking if the kind of objectivity you’re denying is the right kind of concept for understanding what morality is. As newton pointed out above, we should not conflate objectivity with absoluteness. (That’s been one of my themes for a long time now as well in all of our discussions here.)
The greater good is always a consideration in thinking about morality, but appeals to the greater good are the bread and butter of tyrants.
Morality cannot be grounded in the greater good. There is no calculus capable of balancing individual and societal goods.
What we have instead is politics, with all its flaws.
It’s true that appeals to the greater good have an ideological use, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no such thing as the health of the community as a whole.
True, there’s no “calculus,” but so what? That seems like imposing on morality a conception of objectivity taken from mathematics. If one insists on mathematics as the sole picture of what objectivity has look like, not even science will count as objective.
Yes and no; you’d still need some argument as to why democracy is better than other forms of political organization. I myself think that democracy is morally better than other forms of political organization. Is that supposed to be controversial?
Yes. See tyranny of the majority.
That looks like the very beginning of an argument as to why liberal democracy is morally better than illiberal democracy.
Democracies have their own cancers. Venezuela and Turkey have elected leaders.
There is no form of government that guarantees sustainable outcomes.
Sustainable beneficial outcomes are irrespective of the FORM of government, but guaranteed where the mutual system of obligations between governors and governed is recognized, respected, and honored. Democracy obviously doesn’t guarantee this, and absolute monarchy doesn’t preclude it.
Your earlier post mentioned “objective moral standards”. If there are objective moral standards, somebody ought to be able to write them all down. But when you press people to write them down, they begin to equivocated.
What I think we actually have, are some very broad guidelines. But they are too broad to be considered standards. And the individual has to make a subjective interepretation of those guidelines, when an actual decision is called for.
Right, if “norms for successful cooperation, which are crucial for a species that depends on cooperation for it’s characteristic way of life” is what morality consists of, then there are objective facts to discover about which norms lead to more or less “successful cooperation”. Then I take it that you mean to say that, those facts if they could be homed in on (I would agree they don’t need to be known with certainty, or be absolutely binding in any and all circumstances) would be the “standard” against which moral acts are measured.
This is all fine and good, except your definition of morality is subjective.
I see now that what I should have made clear is that I don’t believe there is an objective morality, as opposed to an objective moral standard. Once morality is defined, there might very well be objective facts about that morality as defined. But the defining of what morality is about is the subjective part.
A theist might respond that morality is about bringing glory to god (another subjective definition of morality). Or a non-theist might say morality is about advancing the well-being of ants. I don’t see any way to get around this
Don’t forget lox wars.
You won’t find an atom of money or orange juice or football or pain either. What the hell is that supposed to prove? Your fave philosopher doesn’t seem much better at it than you are.
Patrick would prefer the tyranny of Ayn Rand.
I was going for the beginning of a discussion about what constitutes a legitimate government. I don’t think that majority rule meets that criteria. It does seem to me that one would need to justify whatever the criteria is on a moral basis, which gets back to the lack of either an authoritative or objective moral code.
I think the mark of a truly great government is that everyone hates it.
Rumraket, to KN:
There isn’t. I’ve explained this to KN many times. He just doesn’t get it.