• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Would religion matter if you're a slave?

Euronymous

SSilence
This question is for religious theists specifically. Would there be a point to having religious faith if you're a slave? I mean, what good would worshiping God or Yahweh do if you're bound by chains?

Any answers?...
 

Grandliseur

Well-Known Member
Would there be a point to having religious faith if you're a slave? I mean, what good would believing in God or Yahweh do if you're bound by chains?
I'm sorry, but if you look around yourself, the word slave is much maligned, depending on where and when you speak of it. Many people in Asia live and work in sweatshops where they barely make enough for food.

Please look at this fascinating train travel Nepal history. It describes a people today that can barely survive. We are all in chains, some are called slaves, others don't have the moniker attached but are worse off. Many in western countries work at minimum wages where if you are late for work you are fired, and while at work have to endure much indignity. Now, a new kind of self-employment has arisen so that companies can get around the minimum wage laws, where people are paid for per item work, yet, do not have enough work to pay for their living expenses.
(
)

You need to look beyond the word to see who is a slave, or worse, while the label is avoided. What is this thing going on, even in the US, with human trafficking?! Labels are words, conditions in reality are what counts.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
This question is for religious theists specifically. Would there be a point to having religious faith if you're a slave? I mean, what good would worshiping God or Yahweh do if you're bound by chains?

Any answers?...

The Baha'i Faith prohibits all forms of slavery
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
This question is for religious theists specifically. Would there be a point to having religious faith if you're a slave? I mean, what good would worshiping God or Yahweh do if you're bound by chains?

Any answers?...

Id say that religious faith would be at its highest during times of trouble. We're a "slave" to this life; and, therefore, many people depend on religion to make sense of everything.

Religion/moral lifestyle/spirituality saves lives from slavery or let people live to adjust in it.
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
This question is for religious theists specifically. Would there be a point to having religious faith if you're a slave? I mean, what good would worshiping God or Yahweh do if you're bound by chains?

Any answers?...

Sorry, I'm not your target audience, but why would it make a difference?
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
According to Nietzsche, Christian values and morals are the values and morals of slaves. That is, Nietzsche argued that the reason Christianity was so popular with slaves in the ancient world was precisely because its values and morals were the sort of values and morals that slaves typically had or at least could relate to.
 

ajay0

Well-Known Member
Slaves in islamic countries became free upon embracing Islam.

The royal dynasty in Kuwait had actually descended from black slaves who embraced Islam.

Balban was a slave who later became a Sultan solely on the basis of his merit and work skills.
 

The Kilted Heathen

Crow FreyjasmaðR
Slavery doesn't necessitate chains. Sometimes it's simply the lowest class of a society. Your question also hinges on the assumption that it is the duty of the gods to provide us with the best lives possible at all times.
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
Well, I mean, I see no point in worshiping a deity that's supposed to help you, yet let's you be enslaved.

Pretty similar to praying from a foxhole, which is supposedly the point at which everyone finds God. Not that there is any credibility in that view, but still...why single out slavery?

Just curious, really.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Well, I mean, I see no point in worshiping a deity that's supposed to help you, yet let's you be enslaved.
I'm not Christian, but they believe that the help that you need is spiritual not physical. Mortality is fleeting but the soul is eternal, deliverance happens after death, etc etc.
See: the book of Job.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Does one volunteer to become a slave?

What is called voluntary slavery is a form of indentured servitude common in ancient cultures. Indentured servitude includes involuntary servitude, most often due to debt or destitute poverty. This form of slavery was common in ancient cultures like the Hebrews, where Hebrews were indentured to Hebrews. In the ancient Hebrew culture described in the Bible foreigners were slaves, bought and sold, and prisoners of wars.

The Baha'i Faith forbids this kind of slavery.

Are the Baha'i somehow exempt from enslavement?

No human is exempt from involuntary enslavement when it exists and condoned in society and cultures that follow ancient scripture law.
 

sandy whitelinger

Veteran Member
This question is for religious theists specifically. Would there be a point to having religious faith if you're a slave? I mean, what good would worshiping God or Yahweh do if you're bound by chains?

Any answers?...
My answer is that the benefits to me as a spiritual being are enhanced by my closeness to a spiritual source and are not dependent on my circumstances.
 

sandy whitelinger

Veteran Member
I'm sorry, but if you look around yourself, the word slave is much maligned, depending on where and when you speak of it. Many people in Asia live and work in sweatshops where they barely make enough for food.

Please look at this fascinating train travel Nepal history. It describes a people today that can barely survive. We are all in chains, some are called slaves, others don't have the moniker attached but are worse off. Many in western countries work at minimum wages where if you are late for work you are fired, and while at work have to endure much indignity. Now, a new kind of self-employment has arisen so that companies can get around the minimum wage laws, where people are paid for per item work, yet, do not have enough work to pay for their living expenses.
(
)

You need to look beyond the word to see who is a slave, or worse, while the label is avoided. What is this thing going on, even in the US, with human trafficking?! Labels are words, conditions in reality are what counts.
To many who first glimpse the type of pschological slavery you speak of as applying to themselves run back to the safety of the previous image of themselves. Freedom can be illusory.
 
Top