Remember when "atheist" had a negative connotation?

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

Wrong.

Secular people are over-represented among the push for women's equality in Saudi Arabia. Secular people were under-represented in the abolition movement. It was a movement that began with the Quakers and Puritans and remained a generally although not exclusively Christian phenomenon.

Wrong.

You don't suppose, just for a second, that maybe abolition of US slavery 'started' with the slaves?

I got a dollar says when the slavers came looking for folks in the villages, those folks at ran and hid. You're suggesting it wasn't until your little Quakers and Puritans told them they should be free that jumped on the bandwagon?

Amazing.

wtfunny wrote:

Christians will want to take responsibility for abolition, of course (of which their faith had, in the grand scheme of the movement, little to do with it). But not, say, the Inquisition (of which their faith had 100% to do with it).

You can't hold xians and xianity responsible today for what went on hundreds of years ago.

Right?

And the Soviet Union locked up and tortured way more people for dissident views than the Inquisition ever did. 20 million to the gulags. Are you as an atheist accepting responsibility for it?

Overall, Christianity has played a huge role in the uplift from the inequality and slavery of the Roman Empire to today. By contrast, the first atheist movement - communism - resulted in the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century and massive oppression.

wtfunny wrote:

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

Wrong.

Secular people are over-represented among the push for women's equality in Saudi Arabia. Secular people were under-represented in the abolition movement. It was a movement that began with the Quakers and Puritans and remained a generally although not exclusively Christian phenomenon.

Wrong.

You don't suppose, just for a second, that maybe abolition of US slavery 'started' with the slaves?

I got a dollar says when the slavers came looking for folks in the villages, those folks at ran and hid. You're suggesting it wasn't until your little Quakers and Puritans told them they should be free that jumped on the bandwagon?

Amazing.

Slavery has been a universal human institution. I'm sure slaves in all societies have wanted abolition, but there had never been an abolition movement among the slave-owning castes until the Quakers and Puritans came along.

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

wtfunny wrote:

Christians will want to take responsibility for abolition, of course (of which their faith had, in the grand scheme of the movement, little to do with it). But not, say, the Inquisition (of which their faith had 100% to do with it).

You can't hold xians and xianity responsible today for what went on hundreds of years ago.

Right?

And the Soviet Union locked up and tortured way more people for dissident views than the Inquisition ever did. 20 million to the gulags. Are you as an atheist accepting responsibility for it?

Note that I'm not actually expecting you to. People with power do horrible things because power corrupts. But it's interesting that Christians are expected to own the Inquisition when atheists skate on the guillotine, the gulag, and the great leap forward.

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

And the Soviet Union locked up and tortured way more people for dissident views than the Inquisition ever did. 20 million to the gulags. Are you as an atheist accepting responsibility for it?

Note that I'm not actually expecting you to. People with power do horrible things because power corrupts. But it's interesting that Christians are expected to own the Inquisition when atheists skate on the guillotine, the gulag, and the great leap forward.

When you get right down to it, Continental Europe has been an experiment in secular rule ever since the Enlightenment and it's been a complete disaster ever since. By contrast, the more religious Anglosphere avoided these problems.

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

And the Soviet Union locked up and tortured way more people for dissident views than the Inquisition ever did. 20 million to the gulags. Are you as an atheist accepting responsibility for it?....

Note that I'm not actually expecting you to. People with power do horrible things because power corrupts. But it's interesting that Christians are expected to own the Inquisition when atheists skate on the guillotine, the gulag, and the great leap forward.

You're right that the Soviet Union executed more people in a few decades than the faithful have for centuries and centuries and centuries and .... Good point.

But you miss the point, of course .. you're simultaneously claiming ownership of something a small minority of the Xian faithful engaged in one short period of time, and denying ownership something else that the faithful engaged religiously (pun intended) for centuries; simply because the latter occurred centuries ago .. as did the former. It makes no sense.

Why would the xian faith NOT own the inquisition?

You're also completely ignoring the reality that just as some Quakers and Puritans opposed slavery, they were simultaneously opposed by a very large xian populace who devoutly served and adhered to it, and fought vehemently to perpetuate it.

And continuing jeff's line of ignoring the real point, which is the bible's support and condoning of slavery. Your god hasn't said a single word against slavery.

Ever.

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

Note that I'm not actually expecting you to. People with power do horrible things because power corrupts. But it's interesting that Christians are expected to own the Inquisition when atheists skate on the guillotine, the gulag, and the great leap forward.

Christianity as an institution DID IN FACT OWN the Inquisition.

Atheism did not own any of the travesties that you list.

If by "the guillotine" you refer to the French Revolution - that could reasonably be said to be owned by the peasant class. Sorry but no relation to atheism.

Both the gulag and the great leap forward were owned by the Communist Party - again not atheism.

Care to try again?

Secular people in Saudi Arabia??? HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA

You mean all 2 of the atheists in SA were for the law? I'd agree, except one of them was in prison getting whipped for the crime of blasphemy.

If Christianity was responsible for the abolition of slavery, why did it take 1500 years for them to abolish it in places where Christians were the overwhelming majority?

The main flaw in the argument that the Bible condones slavery is that some people very deceitfully (or at least mistakenly out of an ignorance of history) try to equate “slavery” in the ancient nation of Israel with the African slavery of America and Europe, when the facts show that these two forms of slavery were nothing alike whatsoever. Pay attention, Wtfunny.

Slavery in ancient Israel was voluntary, not racist and done as a way for a man to provide for his family. If a person was in financial debt to another, the debt could be paid off by becoming a servant in the household of a wealthy landowner. Famines, droughts or marauders could bring financial ruin to a lesser off family and thus slavery allowed the family to have security and safety by “selling onseself” as a servant.. It was a purely financial arrangement. Once the debt was paid, the slave was free to go. The debt could even be paid by a “kinsman redeemer” ( a relative of the slave who had enough money).

The Bible states this principle in Leviticus 25:

And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family: After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubile: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him.

African slavery was not a financial arrangement. The slave, kidnapped, forced into bondage because of his race, was considered property of the slave master and was forced into slavery. It was not a system of debt repayment.

Back in the days of OT Leviticus slavery was sanctioned due to economic reasons. Back then, there were no such thing as bankruptcy laws so people would sell themselves into slavery to rectify debts. A craftsman could use his skills to literally "pay off" a debt. Or a convicted thief could make restitution by serving as a slave. (Exodus 22:3). Again, once the debt was paid the "slave" was free to go.

Kidnapping a person in the Bible for any reason, but especially for slavery was a capital offense punishable by death:

And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

This is a major and fundamental difference between the two systems. At this point all comparisons end. African slavery was based on the kidnapping of millions of Africans from their homeland, forcing them to travel to another continent and work under inhumane, abusive conditions until death. In ancient Israel any “master” who tried to steal another human being was a sinner who could be killed for that offense.

This is confirmed once again in the New Testament in 1 Timothy 1 when the Apostle Paul lists various types of sinners that have no place in the Kingdom of God:

Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; — 1 Timothy 1:9-10.

And for the American slave owners who professed to be Christians, they misused scripture to justify their actions for one primary reason: naked greed for money.

When the Scriptures are examined in context it becomes quite clear that God teaches compassion, mercy, equality and justice for all. We are all one race, the human race, in God's eyes.

Bible and slavery wrote:

When the Scriptures are examined in context it becomes quite clear that God teaches compassion, mercy, equality and justice for all. We are all one race, the human race, in God's eyes.

You mean like when God murdered every man, woman AND CHILD on the face of the Earth with the exception of Noah's family? That kind of compassion and mercy?

Bible and slavery wrote:

Slavery in ancient Israel was voluntary, not racist and done as a way for a man to provide for his family.

Voluntary slavery......now I've heard it all. I'd say "you can't make this stuff up," but that seems to be exactly what Christians do.

wtfunny wrote:

And continuing jeff's line of ignoring the real point, which is the bible's support and condoning of slavery. Your god hasn't said a single word against slavery.

Ever.

The Israelites were commanded to free all their slaves every 25 years. For them a slave would have been someone who racked up too much debt to pay in one lifetime and thus agreed to work. Some would understand the parable of the two debtors to be anti-slavery.

Sloetry in Motion wrote:

If Christianity was responsible for the abolition of slavery, why did it take 1500 years for them to abolish it in places where Christians were the overwhelming majority?

Maybe because it was at least 1500 years before the Atlantic slave trade existed?

pay attention to what?

The bible suggests it's not OK to steal another man's slave. Nothing more, nothing less.

Christ walked in a world ruled by Rome. People were considered property. Whipped, bought and sold and used for entertainment. This was the culture of the day, and not a single word condemning it.

Simply a list of rules how to treat your slaves well (don't poke them in the eye).

Your revisionist history starts to clarify for me how things are presented these days about much of US history. Keep this up and you'll be telling us about the Native American realtors who sold their land to the US.

Slavery (and slaves) came in many forms in ancient Israel, just as is the case for the approximately 10 000 slaves found there today. They're not all simply working off their debt

The most asinine thing you've written though, is this

"Back in the days of OT Leviticus slavery was sanctioned due to economic reasons"

Do you know how completely f**ked up that argument is? Whose economic reasons? Do you know what was the primary reason southern slaveholders gave for the perpetuation of slavery there? One guess.

"When a society forms around any institution, as the South did around slavery, it will formulate a set of arguments to support it."

The same is true of religions.

Some Things Are Funny wrote:

Bible and slavery wrote:

When the Scriptures are examined in context it becomes quite clear that God teaches compassion, mercy, equality and justice for all. We are all one race, the human race, in God's eyes.

You mean like when God murdered every man, woman AND CHILD on the face of the Earth with the exception of Noah's family? That kind of compassion and mercy?

I'm not looking. I'm not listening. You can't make me.

Typical runner or sockpuppet wrote:

Slavery has been a universal human institution.

Except, of course, it hasn't.

I'm sure slaves in all societies have wanted abolition, but there had never been an abolition movement among the slave-owning castes until the Quakers and Puritans came along.

Really?

You should perhaps read up on that. There have been plenty of people who fought against the institutions of slavery, since well before christ was even born.

And why do you have to resort to stealing my handle? Another troll who wants to play games. grow up, kid.

Bible and slavery wrote:

And why do you have to resort to stealing my handle? Another troll who wants to play games. grow up, kid.

He did grow up which is why he no longer believes in Santa.

It is the ancient Isralites themselves who were the first victims of brutal, un-Biblical slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, who enslaved them out of racist hatred. This is the closest such thing to African slavery we see in the Bible. And how did God respond to this slavery?

With mercy, as He raised up Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery and punished Egypt with 10 supernatural plagues, the final one being the death of all their firstborn sons which was the origin of the Passover, still celebrated in Jewish homes today. So the first recorded revolt against racist, oppressive slavery in ancient history was in the Bible and it was led by God.

You are an atheist and will always rage against Christians, God and the Bible, I get it. Have a great day.