Martin Luther King and many of his peers were incredibly brave men. After almost 100 years since the abolition of slavery, black people were still treated as sub-human. Odd how this could happen in a Christian nation. We hear it lauded all the time being told how lucky we are that our Founding Fathers were all whacked out Christians like the so high and moral fundies are today. So how is it that Judaism and Christianity justified slavery for five millenniums? Because the Bible tells me so. Apparently, Jesus was a Caucasian even though he was a Jew in Palestine in 4 A.D.
Many fundies in the past (somewhat underground today) believed black people were from a cursed son of Noah. Noah had 3 sons. Noah, an alcoholic (wouldn't you be after all that?), got drunk and naked after the flood. Ham saw his Dad and told his two brothers about it. The two brothers covered their eyes and covered their drunkard father. When Noah sobered up and found out about it, he cursed Ham. Noah's curse was the children of Ham would be slaves and they would be slaves to Noah's two other "good" sons. They of course believe his skin was marked. (Evolution explanation makes more sense to me)
Bible's view on slavery
Exodus 21 - The people of God can sell their daughter's into slavery. Beating a slave is ok if you don't kill them.
7 When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.
...
20 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
Leviticus 25 - The people of God can buy slaves but can treat people of other faiths as harshly as they like.
44 Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You 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. 46 You 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.
Proverbs 20:30
Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being
New Testament
1 Peter - If you are a slave you count yourself lucky if you suffer your whole life because remember Jesus had a bad weekend for you.
18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. 19 For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. 20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
In this age of electing Obama has fundamentalism woken up to the immorality of the Bible and their history. Do they admit it has errors? No, you won't get that. Whenever cornered they say Oh, they were not TRUE Christians, but I am or you have an evil heart and don't understand the wonders of Gawd. They surely know how to point the finger elsewhere even though they love the "truth".
You can still find Christians who live in the past and need to take us back there. They have stones in hand ready to kill anyone with a different outlook on life.
From their Statement of Principles
We believe the United States is a Christian country. We believe that the United States of America is a Christian country, that its people are a Christian people, and that its government and public leaders at all levels must reflect Christian beliefs and values. We therefore oppose all efforts to deny or weaken the Christian heritage of the United States, including the unconstitutional prohibitions of prayers and other religious expression in schools and other public institutions
We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind.
He kind of looks like Jesus doesn't he? Well, he looks like he loves all caucasian-kind.
Not all Christians are this way, but it is astounding to see how many of them remain. The more literally they take the bible the more evil they perpetuate and accept.
Charles Darwin was more loving than God. He had much empathy for the slaves of time and the horror they experienced. Christians are afraid that evolution will make us immoral. Holy Shit.
Evolution teaches all life is equal.
Hello. I think you misunderstand the point of Exodus 21:21. It puts explicit limits on the application of the death penalty for killing someone. That is not giving the thumbs up for all other actions.
ReplyDeleteThe Hebrew word can mean "slave" e.g. Deuteronomy 16:12, but "servant" seems a better translation in most cases.
If we read the whole corpus of scriptures about servants/slaves, then a picture emerges that God instructed ancient Israel in a system of "servants" that actually was quite good, and contained many regulations designed to protect the poor.
Exodus 21:16 Kidnapping is banned. That would prevent the style of slavery the Africans suffered, who were deported to America as slaves.
Exodus 21:26-27 If a servant is hurt by their master, they must be let free. That is quite different than the accusation, based on a misreading of Exodus 21:21, that "the Bible says it's fine to beat your servant as long as you don't kill him".
Deuteronomy 23:15-16 If a servant flees, don't return them to their master. Give them a decent place to live and don't oppress them.
You refer to 1 Peter that speaks to those who are a slave. Is it reasonable to give someone advice on how to bear with the injustices perpetrated against them, without endorsing those injustices? Jesus Christ, God as a man, was unjustly and painfully killed. We see him as an example for the Christian life, but that hardly endorses the injustices committed against him.
The following has a lot more detail on the topic of "servants" in the Old Testament:
http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html
This is just sanitizing the Bible. The same God who allowed Job to have everything taken from him but his life just to win a bet with the devil and the same God who told the children of Israel to kill every man, woman and child and animal in cities he told them to conquer, the same god who will burn people in hell for eternity who don't believe who were born into sin by his will only living a handful of decades isn't going to worry about men owning other human beings or women's rights. The good news is we have grown morally beyond the Bible. It was a good start as many other religions were but to stay there and justify its immorality is a crime against humanity.
ReplyDelete