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Christianity v. Secular Humanism

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
To be fair, most Abolitionists during the years leading up to the Civil war were religious folks.
True, but the Bible was used on both sides. In fact atheists and other secular folk were almost nonexistent at the time. The number of people of other religions was very small too so both sides of the argument were almost forced to be Christian.
 

night912

Well-Known Member
Bible slavery is indentured servitude, not an episode of Roots. There are more capital punishment laws for slave owners in the Bible than any other class of person!
True, but it only takes one law, the most important one for slavery, to replace all of those. If there was a law making slavery a sin, putting it at the same level as murder, adultery, obeying the sabbath, etc, there wouldn't be a need for those laws. It also eliminates the possibility of using loopholes to get around being punished for a person owning another person as property.

Bible slavery is indentured servitude, not an episode of Roots.
Okay, let's put your claim to the test.

Leviticus 25
39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God.


You should treat your fellow brother as a hired worker, and you should let him go on the year of jubilee. So after 6 years, you no longer own him and if he a family prior to his enslavement, they're also free to go. Indentured servitude? Sure.

And that concludes the short documentary on indentured servitude. Coming up next on ABC, Roots, a television adaptation of the novel by Alex Haley, showing his family tree from his African ancestors, to African American Slave, to himself. Starring Levar Burton as Kunta Kinte, an indigenous African man turned American slave.

And now, Roots.

Leviticus 25
44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

1. You can buy a slave from another nation. In the first episode of Roots, John Renyalds, an plantation owner living in the British colonies of America, bought a slave named Kunta Kinte. Didn't he arrived on a ship that sailed from his home nation in Africa? So that would make Kunta Kinta a slave bought from another nation.
  • Biblical slavery is an episode of Roots? :heavycheck:

2. In the bible, someone who is a slave i the form of indentured servitude must be let go after 6 years. But a slave who is not, can be passed down as an inherited property. And the slave master owns the slave for how years? According to the bible, it says FOREVER. So biblical slavery consists of two different types of slaves. Was Kunta Kinte freed after 6 years of being a slave? No, he was a slave for the rest of his years, and died a slave.
  • Biblical slavery is an episode of Roots? :heavycheck:
3. You can buy/own slaves from the same clan as that particular slave that you have just bought. After becoming a slave, didn't Kunta Kinte get married and had a child? Didn't John Renyalds, his slave master, owned his family at some point of their lives as slave?
  • Biblical slavery is an episode of Roots? :heavycheck:
The results are clear. Your claim took the Roots test three times. And failed all three times. Better luck next time defending your immoral beliefs that you got from the bible.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Yes, i do.
I also know a lot of atheists who converted (mostly to Muslim) after going to prison.

So what?


I know a lot of people who can not accept that there are those who did not get their morals from the Bible.
I suspect it causes to much confusion to their worldview.

Or are you going to claim that the Bible is everywhere?
If so, why all the missionaries to introduce the Bible to those who know nothing of it?

Or perhaps it is your claim that they do not have morals?

The problem for you here is that the Bible is not the only "source" for morality.

What is your source for morality?
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
True, but it only takes one law, the most important one for slavery, to replace all of those. If there was a law making slavery a sin, putting it at the same level as murder, adultery, obeying the sabbath, etc, there wouldn't be a need for those laws. It also eliminates the possibility of using loopholes to get around being punished for a person owning another person as property.


Okay, let's put your claim to the test.

Leviticus 25
39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God.


You should treat your fellow brother as a hired worker, and you should let him go on the year of jubilee. So after 6 years, you no longer own him and if he a family prior to his enslavement, they're also free to go. Indentured servitude? Sure.

And that concludes the short documentary on indentured servitude. Coming up next on ABC, Roots, a television adaptation of the novel by Alex Haley, showing his family tree from his African ancestors, to African American Slave, to himself. Starring Levar Burton as Kunta Kinte, an indigenous African man turned American slave.

And now, Roots.

Leviticus 25
44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

1. You can buy a slave from another nation. In the first episode of Roots, John Renyalds, an plantation owner living in the British colonies of America, bought a slave named Kunta Kinte. Didn't he arrived on a ship that sailed from his home nation in Africa? So that would make Kunta Kinta a slave bought from another nation.
  • Biblical slavery is an episode of Roots? :heavycheck:

2. In the bible, someone who is a slave i the form of indentured servitude must be let go after 6 years. But a slave who is not, can be passed down as an inherited property. And the slave master owns the slave for how years? According to the bible, it says FOREVER. So biblical slavery consists of two different types of slaves. Was Kunta Kinte freed after 6 years of being a slave? No, he was a slave for the rest of his years, and died a slave.
  • Biblical slavery is an episode of Roots? :heavycheck:
3. You can buy/own slaves from the same clan as that particular slave that you have just bought. After becoming a slave, didn't Kunta Kinte get married and had a child? Didn't John Renyalds, his slave master, owned his family at some point of their lives as slave?
  • Biblical slavery is an episode of Roots? :heavycheck:
The results are clear. Your claim took the Roots test three times. And failed all three times. Better luck next time defending your immoral beliefs that you got from the bible.

You present an interesting problem herein. You cherish freedom--ideological, speech, liberty, freedom from slavery as well. Why? How did freedom become moral to you? Some of the most prosperous members of life work in collectives--ants and bees. China has 8 million people in gulags, South Africa has had problems with whites persecuting blacks and vice versa.

Many of the leaders of these nations and others would say they have rights to persecute other persons. From where did you derive such a strong moral abhorrence of slavery?
 

night912

Well-Known Member
You present an interesting problem herein. You cherish freedom--ideological, speech, liberty, freedom from slavery as well. Why? How did freedom become moral to you? Some of the most prosperous members of life work in collectives--ants and bees. China has 8 million people in gulags, South Africa has had problems with whites persecuting blacks and vice versa.

Many of the leaders of these nations and others would say they have rights to persecute other persons. From where did you derive such a strong moral abhorrence of slavery?
You've reached the midway point and have acknowledged that biblical slavery is an episode of Roots. All you have to do now is to accept that your moral compass is superior to that of the bible and that there's no need to defend that which is immoral. The final half of your journey will be harder, but it's also more important. Go back and read your comments. Your religious beliefs made you subconsciously flipped a switch in your head, turning off the mechanism that helps you detect irrational ideas, preventing you from examining your own religious beliefs.

Look at it closely and you will see that with each time you attempt to defend that religious belief, your defense becomes more and more irrational with each rebuttal you've made. You began knowing that the there are two different types of slavery in the bible, but no longer being capable of detecting irrational ideas, you defend the religious belief by pretending that the bible does not mention anything about chattel slavery, which you do acknowledge it to be immoral. The type of slavery that is strongly shown throughout the episodes of Roots. You used indentured servitude to block out chattel slavery.

Now your way of thinking has become even more irrational. Above, slavery itself is ignored in regards to immoral, and is only mentioned merely as a reference. Trying to shift the burden of proof to me is bad enough, in regards to being illogical, but what's even worse is that you've switched the narrative of "immoral", throwing away slavery and replacing it with freedom. You wanting to have a discussion about freedom being immoral just shows how irrational you've become due to your religious belief.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
You've reached the midway point and have acknowledged that biblical slavery is an episode of Roots. All you have to do now is to accept that your moral compass is superior to that of the bible and that there's no need to defend that which is immoral. The final half of your journey will be harder, but it's also more important. Go back and read your comments. Your religious beliefs made you subconsciously flipped a switch in your head, turning off the mechanism that helps you detect irrational ideas, preventing you from examining your own religious beliefs.

Look at it closely and you will see that with each time you attempt to defend that religious belief, your defense becomes more and more irrational with each rebuttal you've made. You began knowing that the there are two different types of slavery in the bible, but no longer being capable of detecting irrational ideas, you defend the religious belief by pretending that the bible does not mention anything about chattel slavery, which you do acknowledge it to be immoral. The type of slavery that is strongly shown throughout the episodes of Roots. You used indentured servitude to block out chattel slavery.

Now your way of thinking has become even more irrational. Above, slavery itself is ignored in regards to immoral, and is only mentioned merely as a reference. Trying to shift the burden of proof to me is bad enough, in regards to being illogical, but what's even worse is that you've switched the narrative of "immoral", throwing away slavery and replacing it with freedom. You wanting to have a discussion about freedom being immoral just shows how irrational you've become due to your religious belief.

You have redacted my moral thought process to cultic, suppressive thought. I have had many influences on my morality, politics, religion, etc.

By demonizing me as your argument opponent, you are losing the chance to learn from me. But I want to learn from you. May I ask you some questions?

Is human slavery sometimes evil or always evil? If always, do you accept absolute morals and their creator? How could absolute morals exist, that haven’t evolved over time, without a moral creator rather than moral evolution?

If we’re evolved animals without souls, why do you eat eggs from chickens treated “inhumanely”? Why do you eat beef or pork from animals that are treated worse than human slaves?

I can give you a very thorough defense/apologetic for Bible slavery, but I'd like to know your answers to the above, so we aren't bogged down in a few verses of a book you don't believe in, containing myths you think never occurred. It's like reproving the morality of Dune or LOTR, to you, or Game of Thrones, perhaps. All fictional, yes?
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
Take a person you would consider flawed, like Stalin or Mao Tse Tung. Do you realize they "adopted their own" morality?

I know that Biblical morality is immoral.
So where does that leave me?

Please keep in mind that I am not the one claiming a superior morality.
I am not the one pushing morality onto others.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Take a person you would consider flawed, like Stalin or Mao Tse Tung. Do you realize they "adopted their own" morality?
That is merely a claim of those that attack them. We all "adopt our own morality". That is one of the reasons that there are on the order of 40,000 different sects of Christianity alone. It is a tautology since almost anyone could be said to have adopted an ideology of others that one approves of if he is perceived to be good and his own if he is perceived to be bad. There are countless Christians that have been evil as well, but then we get the excuse that they were not "True Christians".
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
I know that Biblical morality is immoral.
So where does that leave me?

Please keep in mind that I am not the one claiming a superior morality.
I am not the one pushing morality onto others.

It leaves you a-biblical, so, for example, you can commit adultery and destroy your spouse and children, watch porn and therefore contribute to the mafia and human trafficking, etc.

I'm not pushing morality onto others--I don't expect consistent moral behavior from non-Christians.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
That is merely a claim of those that attack them. We all "adopt our own morality". That is one of the reasons that there are on the order of 40,000 different sects of Christianity alone. It is a tautology since almost anyone could be said to have adopted an ideology of others that one approves of if he is perceived to be good and his own if he is perceived to be bad. There are countless Christians that have been evil as well, but then we get the excuse that they were not "True Christians".

I cannot help you understand as long as you apply a false NTS fallacy to the reasoning.

There are countless atheists that have been evil as well, but then we get the excuse that . . . ?

The excuse for an atheist being evil IS THEY ADOPTED THEIR OWN MORALITY.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I cannot help you understand as long as you apply a false NTS fallacy to the reasoning.

There are countless atheists that have been evil as well, but then we get the excuse that . . . ?

The excuse for an atheist being evil IS THEY ADOPTED THEIR OWN MORALITY.
LOL! Seriously dude, there are just as many Christians that do the same. They merely claim that they get it from the
Bible. And based on logical and humane reasoning secular logic beats Christian morality for superiority. You really should not complain about the reasoning of others when you fail to understand secular morality yourself.
 

Wandering Monk

Well-Known Member
I cannot help you understand as long as you apply a false NTS fallacy to the reasoning.

There are countless atheists that have been evil as well, but then we get the excuse that . . . ?

The excuse for an atheist being evil IS THEY ADOPTED THEIR OWN MORALITY.

So, you adopt whataboutism? Why do you give religion a pass for abandoning the moral high ground? Isn't it supposed to be the example of high morality?
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
It leaves you a-biblical, so, for example, you can commit adultery and destroy your spouse and children, watch porn and therefore contribute to the mafia and human trafficking, etc.
Except that there are many a Christian who engage in those activities.
Please keep your no true scotsman nonsense for someone who might fall for it.

I'm not pushing morality onto others--I don't expect consistent moral behavior from non-Christians.
Do you expect it from Christians?
 
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