Christianity and slavery.....

[sandy whitelinger]

What else did you want?

The original poster I quoted made Biblical slavery sound horrible.

 

[Brickjectivity]

You mean the Roman Catholic church. 'Catholic' is something else, and in this case its important to be pedantic about it. Roman Catholics may be catholic, or they may choose not to be catholic. Catholic translates to 'Universal' but it implies equality, so someone who endorses inequality is by definition not catholic whether or not they call themselves 'Roman Catholic' or 'Catholic' or whatever. There could be a non-Christian who is catholic, for example. You could be a catholic atheist, just not a Christian catholic athiest or Roman Catholic athiest. Normally the term 'Catholic' refers to someone who believes in Jesus but its an independent word that is used independently, particularly in the original Latin.

I'm in no way excusing anyone for pro-slavery positions by the way.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The original poster I quoted made Biblical slavery sound horrible.

Ah. I misunderstood what you were after. I thought you wanted support for the idea that God endorses actual slavery in the Bible.

Other posters had put forward arguments that Biblical "slavery" was more akin to being a servant or working off a debt and didn't connote actual ownership in the sense that we think of it today. I was trying to show that the Bible really does describe slaves as the property of their masters.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You mean the Roman Catholic church. 'Catholic' is something else, and in this case its important to be pedantic about it. Roman Catholics may be catholic, or they may choose not to be catholic. Catholic translates to 'Universal' but it implies equality, so someone who endorses inequality is by definition not catholic whether or not they call themselves 'Roman Catholic' or 'Catholic' or whatever. There could be a non-Christian who is catholic, for example. You could be a catholic atheist, just not a Christian catholic athiest or Roman Catholic athiest. Normally the term 'Catholic' refers to someone who believes in Jesus but its an independent word that is used independently, particularly in the original Latin.

I'm in no way excusing anyone for pro-slavery positions by the way.

I capitalized "Catholic". I think you know what I meant.

I realize that the Vatican sometimes tries to portray itself as speaking for all of Christianity (or maybe all of "legitimate" Christianity), and I agree that it doesn't actually do that, but it does speak for a significant portion of Christianity.

Edit: and if we want to quibble about semantics, then "Roman Catholic" isn't strictly accurate either, since it doesn't include the Eastern Rite Catholics that are in communion with the Vatican.

 

[Barrackubus]

I suppose the Biblical authors didn't see that much of a need to address the issue. Certainly though, there are interpretations that can help imply the Bible never wanted slaves. Martin Luther King Jr is a great example of how the Bible can inspire men to put an end to racial injustice.

Slavery is mentioned in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 2:13 and compares it to wickedness. It's a great example of how most Christians today probably interpret the Bible.

By your own admission you discredit the authorship of the Bible as being of divine authorship. Any holy book is alleged to address the condition of humanity from the perspective of the divine, not human authorship. And certainly since are supposed to be dealing with the setting free of humanity from yokes and bondages and all the other conditions of spiritually slavery then the parallels can be vividly drawn out from there.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I capitalized "Catholic". I think you know what I meant.

Sure, totally. Thanks for your reply.

 

[Barrackubus]

The original poster I quoted made Biblical slavery sound horrible.

How is Biblical slavery any better than other types of slavery, or is slavery Biblically sound, I spent some time researching even in instances of American Slavery as well as Biblical slavery, a scheduled criteria had and could have been met in which a slave could earn his or her freedom.
There are also laws in the biblical account preventing an owner from being overly abusive and up to preventing the owner from murdering the slave. And there was also the law preventing slave labor being done on the Sabbath.
And a host of other biblical differences, that essentially means a life of non freedom, bondage inflicted never ending work for most people forced to be slaves to another group of people.
Either way it is a great misjustice in the face of human rights and the choices of other human persons.
How then can an individual consider this apparent travesty within the pages of this specific holy book and still value such teachings as an absolute moral compass for others to live?
The amazing thing is that this god has a lot of lawyers....his ways are above our ways....blah blah blah.....
Show us the wisdom in this, where then is the spiritual and god like quality are we to ream from this???