Ben Hur, slavery and Jesus

reply to post by WarminIndy

How many times do you guys miss the IF in your quotes?

If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city.

13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

How does the "IF" change anything?

The god of the Old Testament not only approves of slavery, he commands it!

WarminIndy

And the first words are IF and HOWVER if,

That doesn't mean condoning, it means IF and HOWEVER.

That means IF you are determined to buy slaves, THEN this is how you should treat them.

Lol! as has already been asked, what difference does that make to anything being discussed here? Are you saying that by adding 'if' or 'however' to those passages the endorsement of slavery that's made in the bible is then moral and fine by you?....

The preferable was not to own slaves, but if you think you must then this is how you treat them.

If that is indeed so, then perhaps there'd be a passage or verse saying as much?

Do you get it how Moses was giving these laws to people who had just been slaves, contrary to what people like an above named poster claims. Yes, purchasing of people happened. But if you think you must have slaves...

This is an example of how religion can make people accept despicable and aborant actions and/or commandments/passages without question.

Prezbo369

WarminIndy

And the first words are IF and HOWVER if,

That doesn't mean condoning, it means IF and HOWEVER.

That means IF you are determined to buy slaves, THEN this is how you should treat them.

Lol! as has already been asked, what difference does that make to anything being discussed here? Are you saying that by adding 'if' or 'however' to those passages the endorsement of slavery that's made in the bible is then moral and fine by you?....

The preferable was not to own slaves, but if you think you must then this is how you treat them.

If that is indeed so, then perhaps there'd be a passage or verse saying as much?

Do you get it how Moses was giving these laws to people who had just been slaves, contrary to what people like an above named poster claims. Yes, purchasing of people happened. But if you think you must have slaves...

This is an example of how religion can make people accept despicable and aborant actions and/or commandments/passages without question.

Yes. IF.

if
if/Submit
conjunction
1.
introducing a conditional clause.
synonyms: on (the) condition that, provided (that), providing (that), presuming (that), supposing (that), assuming (that), as long as, given that, in the event that More
on the condition or supposition that; in the event that.
"if you have a complaint, write to the director"
(with past tense) introducing a hypothetical situation.
"if you had stayed, this would never have happened"
whenever; every time.
"if I go out, she gets nasty"
synonyms: whenever, every time More
2.
despite the possibility that; no matter whether.
"if it takes me seven years, I shall do it"
3.
(often used in indirect questions) whether.
"he asked if we would like some coffee"
4.
expressing a polite request.
"if I could trouble you for your names?"
5.
expressing an opinion.
"that's an awfully long walk, if you don't mind my saying so"
6.
expressing surprise or regret.
"well, if it isn't Frank!"
7.
with implied reservation.
and perhaps not.
"the new leaders have little if any control"
used to admit something as being possible but regarded as relatively insignificant.
"if there was any weakness, it was naiveté"
despite being (used before an adjective or adverb to introduce a contrast).
"she was honest, if a little brutal"
synonyms: although, albeit, but, yet, while; More
noun
noun: if; plural noun: ifs
1.
a condition or supposition.
"there are so many ifs and buts in the policy"
synonyms: uncertainty, doubt; More

IF you take slaves...on the condition that you take slaves, on the supposition that you take slaves.....

This is not a direct command or endorsement, but people are going to do what people want to do.

"IF you have sex with that girl, she might get pregnant" Do you HAVE to have sex?
"IF you drive and text, you might wreck" Do you HAVE to drive and text?
"IF you wear green on St. Patrick's Day, you won't get pinched" Do you HAVE to wear green on St. Patrick's Day?

Did I endorse or command sex, texting or wearing green? No. So you are under the assumption that by saying IF, it means go ahead and do it?

reply to post by WarminIndy


Indy, Please address this!

If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

How does the "IF" change anything in this law? How is this NOT God commanding slavery?

windword
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Indy, Please address this!

If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

How does the "IF" change anything in this law? How is this NOT God commanding slavery?

IF they open their gates. They didn't have to and you didn't have to do force them to. You have the choice and you should recognize their choice also. But if you can't recognize your choice or theirs, then in a militaristic world where life was "kill or be killed", then perhaps your survival may be important.

The world back then was just like that, and if you think people just walked around saying "Oh, I'm Jewish, no one is going to kill me", then apply that to the Egyptians who took slaves, the Romans who took slaves, the Assyrians who took slaves....and yet none of them were given anything that said IF.

You can simply walk away. But what happens if they force you to open your gates? They didn't have IF in their laws.

WarminIndy

windword
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Indy, Please address this!

If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

How does the "IF" change anything in this law? How is this NOT God commanding slavery?

IF they open their gates. They didn't have to and you didn't have to do force them to.

How do you figure that? Please, read the passage again:

10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.

14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

You have the choice and you should recognize their choice also. But if you can't recognize your choice or theirs, then in a militaristic world where life was "kill or be killed", then perhaps your survival may be important.

What choice did the people whose city was under attack have, open their gates and become slaves or fight. The Hebrews are the aggressors here. God commanded them go out and conquer others, steal from them and enslave them. There is no getting around that.

The world back then was just like that, and if you think people just walked around saying "Oh, I'm Jewish, no one is going to kill me", then apply that to the Egyptians who took slaves, the Romans who took slaves, the Assyrians who took slaves....and yet none of them were given anything that said IF.

There is no justification for slavery. Slavery is lazy and it was for people who thought that they're too good for hard work themselves. See another city with nice buildings and flat, well worn roads, well kept vineyards, pastures, animals and food crops? No problem, just declare war on the city and take everything they have and enslave their people, move into their homes and force them into labor so that you don't have to get your hands dirty picking vegetables.

Then, claim that God told you to do it, and God gave it all to you, for obeying him in the first place and declaring war. That's the Old Testament.

windword

WarminIndy

windword
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Indy, Please address this!

If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

How does the "IF" change anything in this law? How is this NOT God commanding slavery?

IF they open their gates. They didn't have to and you didn't have to do force them to.

How do you figure that? Please, read the passage again:

10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.

14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

You have the choice and you should recognize their choice also. But if you can't recognize your choice or theirs, then in a militaristic world where life was "kill or be killed", then perhaps your survival may be important.

What choice did the people whose city was under attack have, open their gates and become slaves or fight. The Hebrews are the aggressors here. God commanded them go out and conquer others, steal from them and enslave them. There is no getting around that.

The world back then was just like that, and if you think people just walked around saying "Oh, I'm Jewish, no one is going to kill me", then apply that to the Egyptians who took slaves, the Romans who took slaves, the Assyrians who took slaves....and yet none of them were given anything that said IF.

There is no justification for slavery. Slavery is lazy and it was for people who thought that they're too good for hard work themselves. See another city with nice buildings and flat, well worn roads, well kept vineyards, pastures, animals and food crops? No problem, just declare war on the city and take everything they have and enslave their people, move into their homes and force them into labor so that you don't have to get your hands dirty picking vegetables.

Then, claim that God told you to do it, and God gave it all to you, for obeying him in the first place and declaring war. That's the Old Testament.

Since when is there no justification for slavery?

Notice that I am not saying there is, however, since you say there is not, can you show us when it happened that there was no justification?

The American Civil War, when it was CHRISTIAN Abolitionists who said it was wrong? I thought Christians were wrong, but as the Civil War and John Brown were started because it was Christians who said it was wrong, using the Bible to make the argument with. But it wasn't just American Christian Abolitionists, there were also British Abolitionists who were Christian also making the argument against slavery.

Let's see, you say slavery is just lazy and yet you have not provided any ancient world examples of slavery, all you do is keep putting back onto the Bible and the "Christian God" to condemn. Please, show us examples of slavery outside of the Bible, in the ancient world.

As it is your opinion that slavery is unjustified, because you are against the Bible, tell us if it is ok for other ancient cultures.

Hammurabi Laws on Slavery
Roman Slave Laws
Greek Slave Laws

The Roman Empire was built on slavery. That's the truth, and if you want to promote anti-Judeo/Christian rhetoric against God by using slavery as your example, then find something that is not morality based, show us something historically based, because your morality of the issue comes from Christian Abolitionists.

Either Christian Abolitionists were right about God and slavery or the God they believed in was not real, so their arguments are null. But it is your own moral reasoning, you haven't mentioned anyone else's moral reasoning to have slaves.

reply to post by WarminIndy


Okay, since you have been shown that the biblical god DOES endorse and even commands slavery, and that your previous argument about "IFS" and what is "preferable", is invalid, you pull a switch and bait. So now you're justifying the biblical god's command to enslave by claiming that everyone else was doing it too! LOL

You have missed my point. My point being, that guy in the Old Testament who condones all kinds of injustice and vile immorality isn't a god, God, or GOD. He's just another excuse for a bunch of dessert people behaving badly!

WarminIndy
Prezbo369
reply to [url= by graphuto[/url]

Warminindyetc etc etc
read much?

And the first words are IF and HOWVER if,
That doesn't mean condoning, it means IF and HOWEVER.
That means IF you are determined to buy slaves, THEN this is how you should treat them. Read much, etc. etc.? The preferable was not to own slaves, but if you think you must then this is how you treat them. Do you get it how Moses was giving these laws to people who had just been slaves, contrary to what people like an above named poster claims. Yes, purchasing of people happened. But if you think you must have slaves..Read more words.

This is easy for Moses to say as 'his' people were never enslaved (they were guests) Instead they as a nomadic people traveled homeless?? and stole what they could from their hosts (whom were unaware of the deception perpetrated upon them probably later percieved as pariahs later). Moses as a Jew was raised as an Egyptian. The whole "Ten Commandments" storyline tanks in the first reel; (he betrays those gracious benefactors that fished him out of the river and supposedly gave him access to the Esoteric traditions of Pre-dynastic doctines)? They were never slaves; they were in fact parasitical remoras. Why would Moses sanction/acknowledge slave ownership and treatment of if He Himself was only a slave to the luxury and entitlements given via his special status as a foundling; preposterous (or his people HIS PEOPLE? HE WAS RAISED AS AN EGYPTIAN) NOT; WRONG, he would be the posterchild saying "slave ownership just aint the right thang ever to contemplate methinks" yet collaborated with certain Arabic factions to ship South Africans to the Americas in the 18th-19th centuries in order to harvest certain spices; tea, coffee, cocoa, rubber, nutmeg, etc trade industries *english, dutch, french* concerns. It was normal and cotton, tobacco and sugar cane harvesting would be the next for the last importation to the good old USA.

WarminIndy
The Roman Empire was built on slavery. That's the truth, and if you want to promote anti-Judeo/Christian rhetoric against God by using slavery as your example, then find something that is not morality based, show us something historically based, because your morality of the issue comes from Christian Abolitionists.

The Roman Empire also died by it. Thankfully as that populace combined its genetics (who would have thought) good changes would have developed; apparently if there was a law against having children with imported slaves or undetermined race refugees seeking work or those not of Roman Citizenship this would not have happened (oh well it did) and took two centuries to achieve it; goodbye Roman Empire (thankyou to the slaves that built it). Maybe some good cultural anthropologists rather than Plato or Socrates would/could have warned them of this (laws of physical attraction) and its outcome. Immigrants (even if stolen and enslaved) are generally very crafty innovators because they have nothing to loose!! and everything to gain; can change paradigms by the fierceness of their foci.

reply to post by borntowatch


Slavery is created through scarcity. All of the resources are gathered and then the people are turned into slaves and forced to work to get back the natural resources that they should have already had for free (food, shelter, water).

The slave-masters are already selfish since they took all the resources in order to make people work for them to get a bit of resources in return. They even claimed the land which the people were living on for free for thousands of years!

If the slaves turn selfish to each other, then it makes things even worse, and this is the condition that most societies are in today. When people start to give to each other to help each other then there will be less scarcity and the enslavement will be weakened more and more over time.

arpgme
reply to post by borntowatch

arpgmeSlavery is created through scarcity. All of the resources are gathered and then the people are turned into slaves and forced to work to get back the natural resources that they should have already had for free (food, shelter, water).

Scarcity because most Roman 'ditizens'(ages 16 to 35) from Spain to the moon were involved in the invasion effort (too valuable to have them working in quaries).
Plus it was fairly easy, you take their lands and then force them as slaves to work their own fields for the benefit of the Empire (ingenious) and you dont have to have supply lines, what you conquered you could eat or inhabit; existing structures (no living in tents).

arpgme The slave-masters are already selfish since they took all the resources in order to make people work for them to get a bit of resources in return. They even claimed the land which the people were living on for free for thousands of years!

Yes again; very efficient, as the Empire grew it was on the backs of the land owners, (now slaves) to source/provide for the occupying army; in other words instead of burning the fields/killing the existing livestock as one way of conquering; the Romans turned this into a plus plus positive (enslave them), still wonder how they kept their paws off the women. What was it Richard 'Longshanks' of England said about the Scottish to his troops; rape the wives of Scottish men and wipe out the Scottish bloodline by obliterating its purity (as in dilute its bloodlines).

arpgme If the slaves turn selfish to each other, then it makes things even worse, and this is the condition that most societies are in today. When people start to give to each other to help each other then there will be less scarcity and the enslavement will be weakened more and more over time.

Slaves to government or to religious indoctrination, third or first world nations? Helping each other is always a mantra, in truth because there is scarcity of wealth or normal things such as food and shelter there will always be a 'Somalian Pirate/Pol Pot' metaphor operating somewhere.

originally posted by: windword
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Okay, since you have been shown that the biblical god DOES endorse and even commands slavery, and that your previous argument about "IFS" and what is "preferable", is invalid, you pull a switch and bait. So now you're justifying the biblical god's command to enslave by claiming that everyone else was doing it too! LOL

You have missed my point. My point being, that guy in the Old Testament who condones all kinds of injustice and vile immorality isn't a god, God, or GOD. He's just another excuse for a bunch of dessert people behaving badly!

No you have confused yourself, God does not condone slavery.
God allowed the law of the world, the sinful world, broken world to rule, slavery is part of that law. As it is now.
God allowed killing in wars and for justice, He didnt endorse it, allowed it.

God allows mankind to exercise freewill, God allows the law of tooth for tooth and eye for eye, simply to show us how bad life is if we do wrong.
Jesus came to end our selfishness, even within the law

a reply to: borntowatch

No you have confused yourself, God does not condone slavery.
God allowed the law of the world, the sinful world, broken world to rule, slavery is part of that law. As it is now.
God allowed killing in wars and for justice, He didnt endorse it, allowed it.

Go read the Old Testament again. God commands slavery, war and murder.

yeah truly you understand I have no doubt

christianthinktank.com... re ANE slavery. You say God condones murder, I say justice? War or is it defence or again justice?

a reply to: borntowatch

You say God condones murder, I say justice?

Okay. You can call stoning a sassy teenager justice. You call killing a couple of star crossed lovers, caught in the act, justice. You can call murdering pregnant women and dashing infants against rocks, war/justice.

But I say "Denial a'int just a river in Egypt!

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: borntowatch

You say God condones murder, I say justice?

Okay. You can call stoning a sassy teenager justice. You call killing a couple of star crossed lovers, caught in the act, justice. You can call murdering pregnant women and dashing infants against rocks, war/justice.

But I say "Denial a'int just a river in Egypt!

Tooth for tooth and eye for eye, what are you suggesting, you get to make the rules.

Like it or not, if I like it or not, sin carries the death sentence.
You can deny that, but thats the law according to God

a reply to: borntowatch

Life requires death. That's a fact. All living things die. Trees, fish, birds, lions, tigers and bears! Sin has nothing to do with death and the cycle of life.