Where does evil come from?

[The_vagabond7]

mrstickball said:

The_vagabond7 said:

Most american slave owners were christians too. The fact that most all americans were christians in slave times means you can say pretty much anything and apply it to christians in that time. Most american Cannibals in the 1800s were christians, and most abusive husbands in america were christians too, so lets all think about that.

You can sugar coat the slaves of the old testament, but they were slaves and treated as such.

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

Want to try and put a positive spin on being able to beat your property half to death as long as she survives for 24 hours after the beating?

My actual thoughts on good and evil I'll put in my next post.

What is interesting is that I just read that section in the Bible about slavery. You forgot the part that says that if the owner did so much as knocked a tooth out from the slave, they were to be freed immediately. Any permanant damage resulted in forefiture of the slave.

I'm wondering. Do you read the Bible on a regular basis, or are you just hunting for areas to attack Christians to justify your own code of morality?

No actually, I spent the first twenty two years of my life studying all religions in depth before I decided they were all bunk. I've read the bible cover to cover multiple times in multiple translation, and it was definitely slavery. As for your point here....

Yes it says not to permanently injure them. You can beat them, just don't permanently injure them. That's not really something to be proud of. I mean did you read that chapter or any of the other sections on slavery? It only partially deals with slavery (will get to the slavery aspect in a second), but it's not flattering. If you give your slave a wife, and they have kids, they are born into slavery and you retain possession of the wife and children. You can hold his wife and children hostage as your property and he has to choose between being your servant forever with his family, or being free. You can sugar coat this, but any way you look at it, humans beings are being passed around bought and sold and treated as another human beings property, you can even sell your own daughter into slavery with the expectation that either the slave owner or one of his sons will marry her one day. But oh, don't worry, the daughter you just sold into slavery must continue to receive food and water if her male master decides to add more women to his harem, he can't just forget about you, and if he decides to give her to his son it's like she's family now! So I guess it's not so bad after all selling your daughter to another man. Also being a woman, she never gets to go free unless her master decides to free her, women don't get the six years and freed on the seventh or work til the next jubilee year that jewish men do (note there are some scholars that disagree with this point). You buy her for keeps. Also, if you are a foreign slave you do not get to go free on the seventh year, they own you until they decide they are done with you.

The whole manservant thing really only applied to jewish men. There was a distinct line between debt slaves and foreign slaves. If you were a woman or a foreigner you were being sold into slavery, and you only hope was that they either do irreperable harm to you, or decide to let you go, or somebody else bought you and gave you freedom.

from leviticus 25

39“‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. 40He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. 42Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. 43Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.

 

note if one of your "countrymen". Gods people are not to be slaves, merely hired workers for a time. It goes on.

44“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45You 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. 46You 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.

 

Notice to distinction between the two groups. Jewish men had it cushy (just like in everything else in their culture), it was women and foreigners that were actually slaves. The israelites got special care as "slaves" , they were even allowed to buy themselves if they happen to have sold themself into slavery to a non jew, they could also be bought by their family, or they had to be released on the jubilee year as the passage goes on. God gave special favor to jewish men, but everybody else was a slave. And the foreigners either got sold into slavery or taken forcibly into slavery during one of their brutal conquests. But don't worry, they got to take the sabbath off too, because god is kindly and just.

And this goes along way towards how the non abolitionist christians felt justified in slavery. The bible never condemns it, merely instructs one how to do it properly (make sure god's men get the sweet end of the deal). You like to point out that abolitionists were christians, but like I said, so was everybody else in america all the slave owners included. Both of whom were pointing to the bible and drawing the exact opposite conclusions from it. Which sounds more like they had their own sense of morality and were making an appeal to the authority of the day to justify their cause.