Where does evil come from?

[The_vagabond7]

mrstickball said:

 

As for the last two paragraphs, I would argue that the reason slavery was abolished was due to Christians. Christians were not the reason they were forced into slavery, however. Yes, there were some Christians that were pro-slavery, and I will not argue that, but again, I will point to the issue that the major forces in slavery were not pastors, or clergymen...But in the abolitionist movement, they were. 

Do not forget that when the Puritans came to America, they had no slaves - only servants. The idea of race-based slavery became an issue almost 100 years after the Puritans landed in the US.

I digress though, the OT laws concerning slavery are a.....Questionable. I guess it's a good thing that most Christians accept the NT as the guide for faith and practice, as opposed to the OT which is still the rule of thumb for Judiaisim.

I'll let it go, but your explanation makes little sense. How can you "disciplinary action" your slave to death? When it says the rod, it means the rod, unless you're doing something else to discipline your slave that is harmful enough that you have to see if they live through it or not before deciding whether or not the slave owner will be punished. And yes the bible definitely condones beating kids, hell it condones beating them to death with stones if they disobey their parents or bring shame to them. It's not like the israelites somehow found physical and capital punishment to be distasteful. I'd look up the exact verses, but I assume you know them already.

 

As for selling a woman into slavery it distinctly says that he can add more wives after he marries his slave woman as long as he continue to feed her, and sex her, and that she is not free to go unless she displeases him. Exodus 21:7-11 reads

7“If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as menservants do. 8If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself,^b he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

The only way she gets to go free is if the man she is sold too is not pleased with her, then he can get a full refund, but he cannot sell her to foreigners (a generous acomodation by the ultimate law giver.) or if he stops feeding her after he gets a new wife. As long as he marries her or gives her to his son, they can continue to add more women for themselves as long as they continue to feed and clothe and get it on with her. She is sold into servitude permanently.

I don't blame you for the fallback position of "well the OT is screwed up, that's why we christians prefer the NT." Even modern jews don't use the OT in a literal sense because it's so screwed up. You don't see them still stoning disobedient children in modern day Israel. But you can't disown it, Jesus didn't claim that the Law was screwed up, or that the things god commanded his people to do were barbaric or....questionable. He merely came to "fulfill" the law, he still considered it to be the perfect Law of god, and that a single letter of it should never be changed, but in following him you would no longer be bound to the Law. The OT still stands for christians, and is a history of how god deals with humanity. It's just not used as the Law of the land these days because that would look like Iran or other middle eastern theocracies, which is not pretty.

 

Edit: Oh forgot the last point. You can argue that it was abolished because of christianity, but you wouldn't have much evidence for it beyond some of the leaders against it were christian clergy in a country that was almost 100% christian. You really think that in the south there weren't any preachers that were pro-slavery it was only laymen? Christianity is merely incidental to the history of slavery in the US, it's like trying to point to some other common feature such as mustaches and trying to say that there was a correlation between the two. Maybe people in the south had more mustaches in the north, meaning clean shaven faces were a key catalyst in the freeing of slaves. Both sides used the bible to justify their actions, so you can't claim that the bible was only used in one side of it.