Protestantism

» HeadZenCards - God on Slavery

Here are ten passages from the Bible that clearly demonstrate God's position on slavery:

Genesis chapter 17, verse 12:

And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, needs be circumcised.

In this passage God understands that people buy other people and, quite obviously, is comfortable with the concept. God wants slaves circumcised in the same way as non-slaves.

Exodus chapter 12 verse 43:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "These are the regulations for the Passover: No foreigner is to eat of it. Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him, but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it.

God again shows that he is completely comfortable with the concept of slavery and singles out slaves for special treatment.

Exodus Chapter 21, verse 1:

Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,' then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.

Here God describes how to become a slave for life, and shows that it is completely acceptable to separate slaves from their families. God also shows that he completely endorses the branding of slaves through mutilation.

Exodus Chapter 21, verse 20:

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.

Not only does God condone slavery, but he is also completely comfortable with the concept of beating your slaves, as long as you don't kill them.

Exodus Chapter 21, verse 32:

If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull must be stoned.

Not only does God condone slavery, but here God places a value on slaves -- 30 shekels of silver. Note that God is not sophisticated enough to understand the concept of inflation. It is now 3,000 years later, and a gored slave is still worth 30 shekels of silver according to God's word.

Leviticus Chapter 22, verse 10:

No one outside a priest's family may eat the sacred offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired worker eat it. But if a priest buys a slave with money, or if a slave is born in his household, that slave may eat his food.

Here God shows that the children of slaves are slaves themselves, and that he is completely happy with that concept.

Leviticus Chapter 25, verse 44:

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Here God states where you may purchase your slaves, and clearly specifies that slaves are property to be bought, sold and handed down.

Luke, Chapter 7, verse 2:

Now a centurion had a slave who was dear to him, who was sick and at the point of death. When he heard of Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his slave. And when they came to Jesus, they besought him earnestly, saying, "He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue." And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this he marveled at him, and turned and said to the multitude that followed him, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave well.

Here Jesus shows that he is completely comfortable with the concept of slavery. Jesus heals the slave without any thought of freeing the slave or admonishing the slave's owner.

Colossians, chapter 3, verse 22:

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, work heartily...

Here God shows that he is in complete acceptance of a slave's position, and encourages slaves to work hard.

This sentiment is repeated in Titus, chapter 2 verse 9:

Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to be refractory, nor to pilfer, but to show entire and true fidelity.

Once again God shows that he is quite enamored of slavery.

God loves slavery.

If the Bible is written by God, and these are the words of the Lord, then you can come to only one possible conclusion: God is an impressive advocate of slavery and is fully supportive of the concept.

As you can see, these slavery passages present us with an immense contradiction:

On the one hand, we all know that slavery is an outrage and a moral abomination. As a result, slavery is now completely illegal throughout the developed world.

On the other hand, most Christians claim that the Bible came from God. In God's Word, the "creator of the universe" states that slavery is perfectly acceptable.

Beating your slaves is fine. Enslaving children is fine. Separating slave families is fine. According to the Bible, we should all be practicing slavery today.
The intensity of this contradiction is remarkable. It shows us quite clearly that God is imaginary.

If God were to exist, and if he were playing any role whatsoever on our planet, he would eliminate this connection between himself and slavery. There is no way that a loving God would allow himself to be perceived as condoning and encouraging slavery like this.

Here is the thing that I would like to help you understand: You, as a rational human being, know that slavery is wrong. You know it. That is why every single developed nation in the world has made slavery completely illegal. Human beings make slavery illegal, in direct defiance of God's word, because we all know with complete certainty that slavery is an abomination.

What does your common sense now tell you about a Bible that supports slavery in both the Old and the New Testaments?

Given the fact that the Bible clearly condones slavery, your common sense should be telling you that God is imaginary.

From www.godisimaginary.com

-- posted by HeadZenCards

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» HeadZenCards - Paul on Slavery

In response to God on Slavery posted by HeadZenCards:

1 Tim. 6:1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

6:2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.

6:3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;

6:4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

6:5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

Paul says to withdraw thyself from the strife of opposing slavery. That attitude is why slavery continues to this day.

-- posted by HeadZenCards

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» Brian Tubbs - God on Slavery

In response to God on Slavery posted by HeadZenCards:

If you want to know my response to this, Oliver, go to these links....

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

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» Migisi - Preferred death before slavery

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Some interesting Jewish history here.
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Masada
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...
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(quote) "After Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70, the Great Revolt ended - except for the surviving Zealots, who fled Jerusalem to the fortress of Masada, near the Dead Sea. There, they held out for three years. Anyone who has climbed the famous "snake path" to Masada can understand why the surrounding Roman troops had to content themselves with a siege. Masada is situated on top of an enormous, isolated rock: Anyone climbing it to attack the fortress would be an easy target. Yet the Jews, encamped in the fortress, could never feel secure; every morning, they awoke to see the Roman Tenth Legion hard at work, constructing battering rams and other weapons. If the 960 defenders of Masada hoped that the Romans eventually would consider this last Jewish beachhead too insignificant to bother conquering, they were to be disappointed. The Romans were well aware that the Zealots at Masada were the group that had started the Great Revolt; in fact, the Zealots had been in revolt against the Romans since the year 6. More than anything else, the length and bitterness of their uprising probably account for Rome's unwillingness to let Masada and its small group of defiant Jews alone.
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"Once it became apparent that the Tenth Legion's battering rams and catapults would soon succeed in breaching Masada's walls, Elazar ben Yair, the Zealots' leader, decided that all the Jewish defenders should commit suicide. Because Jewish law strictly forbids suicide, this decision sounds more shocking today than it probably did to his compatriots. There was nothing of Jonestown in the suicide pact carried out at Masada. The alternative facing the fortress's defenders were hardly more attractive than death. Once the Romans defeated them, the men could expect to be sold off as slaves, the women as slaves and prostitutes.
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"Ironically, the little information we have about the final hours of Masada comes from a man whom the Jews there considered a traitor and happily would have killed: Flavius Josephus. When he wrote the history of the Jewish revolt against Rome, he included an extensive, largely sympathetic section on Masada's fall. According to Josephus, two women and five children managed to hide themselves during the mass suicide, and it was from one of these women that he heard an account of Elazar ben Yair's final speech. Josephus probably added some rhetorical flourishes of his own, but Elazar's speech clearly was a masterful oration: "Since we long ago resolved," Elazar began, "never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice.... We were the very first that revolted [against Rome], and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom." Even at this late juncture, Elazar could not accept that the main reason the revolt had failed was because Rome's army was vastly superior. Instead, he dwelt on his belief that the Lord had turned against the Jewish people. Finally, he came to an inescapable conclusion: "Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery, and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually." Elazar ordered that all the Jews' possessions except food be destroyed, for "[the food] will be a testimonial when we are dead that we were not subdued for want of necessities; but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death before slavery."
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"After this oration, the men killed their wives and children, and then each other." (end quote)
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They slaughtered their own families, and each other, on the mere expectation that they'd become slaves. Yet, the Jews enslaved entire cultures - and bought, owned, and sold off nonJews themselves.

-- posted by Migisi

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» EvilChihuahua - God on Slavery

In response to God on Slavery posted by BrianTubbs:

Awesome articles, Brian. I heard somewhere that many of the slaves (also written as servants) in Biblical times were people who offered themselves willing to, say, pay off a debt. They weren't slaves for very long and had a great deal of freedom. Is this true?

-- posted by EvilChihuahua

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» HeadZenCards - Preferred death before slavery

In response to Preferred death before slavery posted by Migisi:

And all it would have taken was a word from the supposed LORD GOD to end it, but he was in favor of it, for all time, forever, especially for his followers.

Come right this way, true believers: try on these chains and call them heaven.

-- posted by HeadZenCards

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» pink101 - Preferred death before slavery

In response to Preferred death before slavery posted by Migisi:
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What does history have to say about the Roman motivation to destroy the Jews at Masada?
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If they had just left them alone, those Jews would have eventually died out for lack of resources, right?
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-- posted by pink101

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» Migisi - Preferred death before slavery

In response to Preferred death before slavery posted by pink101:

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If they had just left them alone, those Jews would have eventually died out for lack of resources, right?
.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...
(quote) "After Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70, the Great Revolt ended - except for the surviving Zealots, who fled Jerusalem to the fortress of Masada, near the Dead Sea. There, they held out for three years. Anyone who has climbed the famous "snake path" to Masada can understand why the surrounding Roman troops had to content themselves with a siege. Masada is situated on top of an enormous, isolated rock: Anyone climbing it to attack the fortress would be an easy target. Yet the Jews, encamped in the fortress, could never feel secure; every morning, they awoke to see the Roman Tenth Legion hard at work, constructing battering rams and other weapons. If the 960 defenders of Masada hoped that the Romans eventually would consider this last Jewish beachhead too insignificant to bother conquering, they were to be disappointed. The Romans were well aware that the Zealots at Masada were the group that had started the Great Revolt; in fact, the Zealots had been in revolt against the Romans since the year 6. More than anything else, the length and bitterness of their uprising probably account for Rome's unwillingness to let Masada and its small group of defiant Jews alone." (end)

-- posted by Migisi

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» HeadZenCards - God on Slavery

In response to God on Slavery posted by BrianTubbs:

Brian, the LORD GOD is supposed to be all-knowing. This means he would know that words in the Bible about slavery would be used to justify horrors in the future, when men's legs would be lopped off if they tried to escape, when infants would be separated from their mothers and disposed of as trash, if the property owners considered them scrawny.

All the LORD GOD would have had to have done is put a few sentences into his supposed "word".

I guess that he and his "Holy Ghost" were too busy scaring children during the time of the scribes to see to it that future infants would not have to serve earthly masters.

-- posted by HeadZenCards

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» Brian Tubbs - God on Slavery

In response to God on Slavery posted by HeadZenCards:

Against my better thinking, I'll respond to this, though I know it's a waste of my time. Maybe someone ELSE reading this exchange will benefit.

Brian, the LORD GOD is supposed to be all-knowing.

Remember this, Oliver. And apply it consistently.

This means he would know that words in the Bible about slavery would be used to justify horrors in the future, when men's legs would be lopped off if they tried to escape, when infants would be separated from their mothers and disposed of as trash, if the property owners considered them scrawny.

Yes. And this has happened throughout ALL of human history - even to many of His most devoted followers.

All the LORD GOD would have had to have done is put a few sentences into his supposed "word".

It's interesting that you, Pink, and Migisi often say that we should use REASON and THOUGHT - that we should not turn off our brains. Well, anyone exercising any level of objective, balanced THINKING would see that the slavery of the Bible's day was NOT THE SAME as the slavery which led to the American Civil War. The northern abolitionists pointed this out time and again, but the southern fire-eaters were too committed to their selfish interests to listen.

There are repeated biblical injunctions, Oliver, to be kind, to be loving, to be gentle, and so forth. There are specific prohibitions against murder, against stealing (which would include kidnapping), etc.

You ignore all that, though, and assert that God failed to "put a few sentences into his supposed word" to clarify His stance on slavery. Very nice. You ignore these very "sentences," and then claim they aren't there.

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