Christianity Has Had No Effect Whatsoever On Human Morality

[Brickjectivity]

Here's a question from a Jew about slavery on a Jewish website. It conflicts with your claims.
My question is about slavery in the Torah. Why did the Torah allow it? It bothers me, though I know there must be some explanation. There follows a long explanation in which slaves are referred to as "servants" and how Jews were supposed to be nice to them.
Torah, Slavery and the Jews

I try to be helpful, and you go and find somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about to confirm things you claim with absolute certainty. You are on your own.

That's baloney. The Bible had quite a bit to say on the topic. Nothing in denial. If you have a single quote to offer to support your position use it.

Its not even about having a position. There isn't a debate to be had until you learn some things.

 

[Faithofchristian]

I'm talking about the kind where people are owned as property:www.openbible.info/topics/slavery

That would be man's slavery and not according to the Bibles slavery.

 

[joe1776]

You don't believe you are a product of your cultural environment?

I don't believe that my cultural environment has any influence on my moral instincts (conscience). I also think that my cultural environment is the product of human nature, morally both the good and the bad sides of our nature.

 

[Enoch07]

What? How am I supposed to do that? That's an absurd demand.

Not really, if your going to make claims you need evidence to back up those claims.

History show that in America the Quakers were in the forefront of Abolition. What history doesn't tell us is whether they were moved by conscience or by their religion. Why must I repeat myself on this point

Your the one hung up on it. As I said before I suspect it is a combination of both of understanding scripture and conscience. But the fact is it does not matter why they chose to condemn slavery. All that matters is what actions they actually took. The Quakers and Evangelicals took action to end slavery in America plain and simple.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Please quote me. What did I write that caused you to think I like slavery?

I am being sarcastic. I am referencing the Quakers and their strong anti-slavery sentiments which also lead white strong believing Christian men to attack Southerners, killing the ranch hands and freeing the slaves. It was very prevalent and tore the greater Baptist churches up completely from each other.

 

[joe1776]

I try to be helpful, and you go and find somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about to confirm things you claim with absolute certainty. You are on your own.

I went to the first Jewish Website I could find. But you know better?

Its not even about having a position. There isn't a debate to be had until you learn some things.

You aren't interested in debate. You're interested in making claims that would require your opponent to throw out common knowledge and accept you as an expert.

 

[joe1776]

I am being sarcastic. I am referencing the Quakers and their strong anti-slavery sentiments which also lead white strong believing Christian men to attack Southerners, killing the ranch hands and freeing the slaves. It was very prevalent and tore the greater Baptist churches up completely from each other.

The argument in the OP is concerned with WHY the Quakers took the position. I maintain that it must have been their conscience because their Bible condones slavery. I define conscience as moral instincts that all humans have whether they belong to a religion or not.

 

[joe1776]

That would be man's slavery and not according to the Bibles slavery.

Explain the difference, please.

 

[Augustus]

I don't believe that my cultural environment has any influence on my moral instincts (conscience).

So if you were born in 500BC Sparta you believe your conscience would've told you pretty much the same things it does as a 21st century Westerner?

I also think that my cultural environment is the product of human nature, morally both the good and the bad sides of our nature.

All cultures are a product of collective human nature + environment. This is very different from believing that the individual remains unaffected by the collective. We evolved to be affected by those around us as we require coalitions to survive.

For a scientific perspective see this for example.

 

[joe1776]

So if you were born in 500BC Sparta you believe your conscience would've told you pretty much the same things it does as a 21st century Westerner?

Yes, but the cultural influences which cause biases would change just as they would if we moved to a completely different modern culture.

We are born with a conscience. One of the things we learn from it is that it is, with rare exception, it is wrong to intentionally harm an innocent person. Now, the ways we might insult people will vary widely from culture to culture, so those have to be learned so that we don't accidentally insult people. However, insults cause harm, and it is wrong to intentionally cause harm to innocent others in all cultures. I doubt that was any different in 500BC Sparta.

 

[Sha'irullah]

The argument in the OP is concerned with WHY the Quakers took the position. I maintain that it must have been their conscience because their Bible condones slavery. I define conscience as moral instincts that all humans have whether they belong to a religion or not.

Religion is not defined by a book, I do not know of many Christians who act anything like the Bible offers. I bet most Greco-Romans would call me a poor excuse for a pagan and I do not even try to attempt to live up to any standard. I never did and never will. I can take the same book of Christianity and create a pure hard polytheistic cult without difficulty.

 

[Faithofchristian]

Explain the difference, please.

By man's Slavery, a person is a slave by inforcement for their life time.

By the bible, a person becomes a slave of their own free will.
And then after 49 years and in the 50th year, they are set free.

In the Bible in the book of Leviticus 25:1-10
Notice Verse 10--"And you shall hallow the 50th year, and proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof:
It shall be a jubile unto you; and you shall return every man unto his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family"

Notice the word ( Liberty ) which stands to mean --- The state of being free from oppressive restrictions, imposed by authority on one's way of life.

Therefore According to the bible, a person is not a slave for their life time nor by inforcement. But after 49 years and in the 50th year they are set free with their possession and to their family.

 

[joe1776]

By man's Slavery, a person is a slave by inforcement for their life time.

By the bible, a person becomes a slave of their own free will.
And then after 49 years and in the 50th year, they are set free.

In the Bible in the book of Leviticus 25:1-10
Notice Verse 10--"And you shall hallow the 50th year, and proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof:
It shall be a jubile unto you; and you shall return every man unto his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family"

Notice the word ( Liberty ) which stands to mean --- The state of being free from oppressive restrictions, imposed by authority on one's way of life.

Therefore According to the bible, a person is not a slave for their life time nor by inforcement. But after 49 years and in the 50th year they are set free with their possession and to their family.

I linked a website with 100 quotations about slavery in the Bible. I'm sure there are more. But you were somehow able to pick the only one that had it right?

 

[joe1776]

Religion is not defined by a book, I do not know of many Christians who act anything like the Bible offers. I bet most Greco-Romans would call me a poor excuse for a pagan and I do not even try to attempt to live up to any standard. I never did and never will. I can take the same book of Christianity and create a pure hard polytheistic cult without difficulty.

When I speak of the Christians, I mean the people who regard their Bible as a product of divine inspiration and try to live by it.

 

[Augustus]

We are born with a conscience. One of the things we learn from it is that it is, with rare exception, it is wrong to intentionally harm an innocent person. Now, the ways we might insult people will vary widely from culture to culture, so those have to be learned so that we don't accidentally insult people. However, insults cause harm, and it is wrong to intentionally cause harm to innocent others in all cultures. I doubt that was any different in 500BC Sparta.

Spartan youths had to stalk and kill innocent farmers from an inferior class (helots) to prove they were men, and to keep the helots under their boot. This was seen as a noble deed, praiseworthy. Had you been brought up there there, almost certainly you would have seen this as noble too. If anyone had tried to explain a contemporary liberal morality to them it would have made absolutely zero sense as it was so far detached from their worldview.

The idea that their conscience was anything remotely similar to that of a modern 21st century humanist is laughable.

Even today there are people who would prefer to kill their daughter than suffer the shame of their family 'honour' being besmirched and feel proud of it.

 

[joe1776]

Spartan youths had to stalk and kill innocent farmers from an inferior class (helots) to prove they were men, and to keep the helots under their boot. This was seen as a noble deed, praiseworthy. Had you been brought up there there, almost certainly you would have seen this as noble too. If anyone had tried to explain a contemporary liberal morality to them it would have made absolutely zero sense as it was so far detached from their worldview.

The idea that their conscience was anything remotely similar to that of a modern 21st century humanist is laughable.

Even today there are people who would prefer to kill their daughter than suffer the shame of their family 'honour' being besmirched and feel proud of it.

This is what I think: Humanity has been making moral progress. Logically, that means that older cultures were morally immature when compared to the best we have today. Slavery was a commonly accepted practice, for example.
But something changed, though. What drove humanity to abolish slavery? I think it was that set of moral instincts that we call "conscience" that finally, through nagging guilt, wore us down.

When you say "The idea that their conscience was anything remotely similar to that of a modern 21st century humanist is laughable," I can tell that your definition of conscience is not close to mine. Yours sounds like what I would describe as "the current level of public moral opinion." Your idea of conscience doesn't have the power to change anything.

 

[LuisDantas]

Not moral instincts as such, IMO. Morality, far as I can tell, is a necessary and unavoidable result of rational thinking as done by sentient beings.

 

[joe1776]

Not moral instincts as such, IMO. Morality, far as I can tell, is a necessary and unavoidable result of rational thinking as done by sentient beings.

As I have it, moral judgments are instinctive or intuitive. Bear in mind that knowledge begins with an observation of one of our senses. Since our long-ago ancestors could not see, hear, taste or smell wrongness, they must have felt it when a member of the clan was murdered. When they didn't feel it when the killing was in self-defense, they deduced "not wrong." We still have those instincts.

 

[LuisDantas]

Perhaps. But for a morality to develop, rational thought is absolutely indispensable.

 

[Serenity7855]

Religions have influenced politics, .

Religious texts that believers consider sacred, like the Christian Bible, condone slavery

I keep coming across this statement whilst browsing the forum as though I am being prodded by it, so I have to ask you for some clarification.

1. Are you saying that the text condones slavery or the interpretation of the text, which is oft time inaccurate, condones it.

2. As the Bible is considered, by all Christianity, to be the literal word of God is your statement suggesting that a God, loved, respected and revered by those who chose to follow him, is the promoter of slavery of His children on earth? Somewhat uncharacteristic of a caring loving Father in Heaven

3. Where, within the pages of the Holy Text, may I find the condoning of slavery by Christians? I have read the Bible and studied its pages many times yet I have not found any Christians condoning slavery yet.

4. How are you defining slavery. As a form of voluntary servitude to the benefit of the slave and his family, which a good many were, or do you mean the enforced enslavement of individuals, contrary to their wishes, that was not so common place.

I know it is but a short, and seemingly innocent sentence, however, the reader may be misled into thinking that God, a person of absolutely perfection and, therefore, incapable of any kind of immorality, would encourage the immoral act of forced slavery. I would suggest that you may not be completely aware of the type of slavery that existed in the Bible, or, you are intentionally depicting God in a bad light. I hope that the former is true as the latter is unkind and deceiving.