Question for Jews, Christians and Muslims

[Koldo]

No its impossible to teach a shepherd over 3000 years ago the principle of nuklear physics. All the additional information needed is not possible to teach people from back then.

Too bad we can't give it a try. It seems surely possible to me. Although useless.

Morals? So you got the unrestricted slavery of non jews who can do with their slaves whatever they want and on the other hand you have strict rules for jewish slave holders of what they are allowed to do and how to behave towards their slaves.

Is that better than no slavery? No.
Is it better than unrestricted slavery? Yes.

So far so good, but...

It was already possible to teach "no slavery" back then. This is the problem.
There was no need for restricted slavery, because the concept of "no slavery" was very easy to understand. This is not nuclear physics.

It is so obvious...

 

[Flankerl]

No we just grew up with another starting bonus. As a shepherd never learned mathmatics during his childhood or other relevant ideas that are pretty useful for understanding physics.

Go back in time with a helicopter. Congratulations you are god.

 

[Koldo]

So, are you telling me that someone that never learned math during childhood won't be able to learn math during his adulthood?

Do you have any evidence to back up your claim?

EDIT: Also, how is this related to morals? I've already stated this is a much more simple issue than teaching nuclear physics.

 

[Autodidact]

Well according to traditional judaism you cant own a person as property since the meaning of slave differs from other cultures. But if i continue on that people will see me as some evil slave holder.




You are Hashem. You've "shown" yourself to some... backwater shepherd in the middle of a desert.
Explain nuklear physics to him.


You have to understand the stories from the point of view from back then. Even if Hashem wanted to how should he explain this shepherd how physics work, how chemistry works, how the universe was created etc.
You keep it simple so that your target audience understands it.

Back then slavery was something normal. And iam sorry but the living conditions of slaves owned by jews were probably overall better than those of non jews as there are quite some rules for the jew who owns slaves.

Well, He could have been silent on the subject. Instead He specifically tells us who we can buy. Also, how much do you know about the surrounding cultures and what their rules are? Aren't you just assuming the worst about them? For all you know it was better to be a Babylonian slave than a Hebrew slave.

 

[Autodidact]

Well according to traditional judaism you cant own a person as property .

On what do you base this? G-d has told us specifically that we can.

Your male slave or female slave whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may acquire a male slave or a female slave. מד. וְעַבְדְּךָ וַאֲמָתְךָ אֲשֶׁר יִהְיוּ לָךְ מֵאֵת הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר סְבִיבֹתֵיכֶם מֵהֶם תִּקְנוּ עֶבֶד וְאָמָה: 45. And also from the children of the residents that live among you, from them you may acquire [slaves] and from their family that is with you whom they begot in your land, and they shall become your inheritance. מה. וְגַם מִבְּנֵי הַתּוֹשָׁבִים הַגָּרִים עִמָּכֶם מֵהֶם תִּקְנוּ וּמִמִּשְׁפַּחְתָּם אֲשֶׁר עִמָּכֶם אֲשֶׁר הוֹלִידוּ בְּאַרְצְכֶם וְהָיוּ לָכֶם לַאֲחֻזָּה: 46. You shall hold onto them as an inheritance for your children after you, as acquired property, and may thus have them serve you forever.

There is G-d talking to you, telling you explicitly that you may in fact own other people as property. And you say you can't. On what basis?

 

[Autodidact]

Exactly the opposite, and I tried to show the relevancy of slavery in modern life, but you were the one insisting we keep focus on the type of slavery that no longer is relevant.

O.K., if they are relevant today, then slavery is permissible today. Do you think slavery is permissible? Right?

 

[Autodidact]

Slavery is wrong because no one has the right to see themselves as being of greater value than another because in the eyes of God every soul is of great and equal worth.

In order to teach some people you have to avoid assaulting that which would cause them to turn away from your instruction even if the situation, one like the concept of slavery, is objectionable to you. Christ often taught the people the Gospel wrapping it around their incorrect social values without condoning such values in an effort to get them to listen and hopefully to change; that does not make what He did not come right and decry with directness an acceptable social venue. A slave master seeks to usurp the authority of God over another of God's children and no one has the right to do that.

Is it prohibited anywhere in your scripture? Is the OT verse that explicitly permits it part of your scripture?

 

[Autodidact]

No its impossible to teach a shepherd over 3000 years ago the principle of nuklear physics. All the additional information needed is not possible to teach people from back then.


Morals? So you got the unrestricted slavery of non jews who can do with their slaves whatever they want and on the other hand you have strict rules for jewish slave holders of what they are allowed to do and how to behave towards their slaves.

Is that better than no slavery? No.
Is it better than unrestricted slavery? Yes.

How do you know it was unrestricted? Have you studied the laws and customs of all the people of the Ancient Near East?

btw, I don't find the rules so strict. You can beat a slave, as long as you don't put out an eye or tooth or actually kill him. That seems fairly lenient to me, as well as grossly immoral.

In any case, G-d isn't supposed to be just an iota better than a desert nomad, is He? Isn't He supposed to be perfect?

 

[Autodidact]

No we just grew up with another starting bonus. As a shepherd never learned mathmatics during his childhood or other relevant ideas that are pretty useful for understanding physics.

Go back in time with a helicopter. Congratulations you are god.

Great, here I go:

Commandment # 11: Thou shalt not capture or buy another person and own them as a slave, neither shall you sell them, leave them or receive them as an inheritance, for all people are my children.

 

[Koldo]

Great, here I go:

Commandment # 11: Thou shalt not capture or buy another person and own them as a slave, neither shall you sell them, leave them or receive them as an inheritance, for all people are my children.

Yea, simple as that.
The problem of slavery can be solved with a couple lines of text.
It could have been so easy to write just this....
I wonder why God wouldn't have thought of this, if the OT is the word of God.

 

[Evandr]

Is it prohibited anywhere in your scripture? Is the OT verse that explicitly permits it part of your scripture?

So you think it OK to be somebody’s slave?

Like I said, the epistles of the Bible were written and then translated and messed with and translated again. Any verse that you might be speaking of has a high probability that, if not mistranslated or misinterpreted was meant to speak to people on their level. It is the same reason that African Americans were denied the priesthood in the beginning of the LDS church. Joseph Smith was going to (and did) have one heck of a time getting people to listen to him in the first place let alone trying to convince them that people with black skin were as worthy as those with white skin (which they were then as they are now), it was simply too ingrained into their psyche that it was not true and that had to change before success on any front of equality was attempted. For him to try to do so at that time would have had his words fall on deaf ears and, if he was not murdered a lot sooner than he was, the church would never have been established. Joseph Smith understood this and, more importantly, so did our Heavenly Father. Sometime you have to cater to the stupid and often unjust idiosyncrasies of the masses to get them to listen in the first place after which you can work to change what is wrong with the society and it's concepts of how we should treat one another. You will notice that there is no indication anywhere that Jesus Christ ever indicated or even implied that he was better than a slave or anybody else for that matter, Christ often pandered to the ingrained temporal character flaws of the people so they could be taught but he never altered the sacred principles of the Gospel itself for any reason. God will never ask us to do something that we have not the ability to do; that is why the law of Moses (an eye for an eye) was instituted among the people of the old testament instead of the higher law (turn the other cheek) until the time of Christ. They were simply not capable of accepting and sustaining the higher law so it was not asked of them. We do not live under the conditions of the Old Testament and we are thusly held to the higher law, a law that says all men are created equal in the sight of God and therefore slavery is not acceptable under any current circumstance nor do I believe that it ever will be again.

 

[PolyHedral]

God is not Joseph Smith, though. He's God. He has infinite charisma, arbitrarily high clout, and a gigantic part of the Bible is people doing things simply because He told them to, actual logic getting thrown to the high winds.

There are no stupid people where God is concerned, nor are there any unwilling to listen. Attempting to imply that there are is post-hoc justification.

 

[Koldo]

So you think it OK to be somebody’s slave?

Autodidact said "NO!" about a thousand times.
Where have you been?
Autodidact has stated clearly ever since the first page that slavery is wrong.

Like I said, the epistles of the Bible were written and then translated and messed with and translated again. Any verse that you might be speaking of has a high probability that, if not mistranslated or misinterpreted was meant to speak to people on their level.

If such is the case, how do you know what is "God's word" in the OT and what is not?
How can you ,or anyone else, draw the line between God's message and human doings?

For him to try to do so at that time would have had his words fall on deaf ears and, if he was not murdered a lot sooner than he was, the church would never have been established.

For a first, God can not be murdered. Many people claim that the OT is the word of God, if such is the case then God would not be afraid of being murdered. Agree?

Second, why do you think that forbidding slavery would make people ignore the OT?
Remember the 10 commandments?
It is the word of God, right?! We must abide to it whether we like it or not, right?!

Joseph Smith understood this and, more importantly, so did our Heavenly Father.

This is off-topic, but did you ever speak literally to the heavenly father to know if he did indeed forgive him?

Sometime you have to cater to the stupid and often unjust idiosyncrasies of the masses to get them to listen in the first place after which you can work to change what is wrong with the society and it's concepts of how we should treat one another.

This is not necessary.
A mere illusion of necessity.

You will notice that there is no indication anywhere that Jesus Christ ever indicated or even implied that he was better than a slave or anybody else for that matter, Christ often pandered to the ingrained temporal character flaws of the people so they could be taught but he never altered the sacred principles of the Gospel itself for any reason.

It doesn't change the fact that for a quite long time people had the message from "God" saying that slavery was allowed under certain conditions.

God will never ask us to do something that we have not the ability to do; that is why the law of Moses (an eye for an eye) was instituted among the people of the old testament instead of the higher law (turn the other cheek) until the time of Christ.

So you think it was beyond their ability to say "no" to slavery?
Are you serious?

They were simply not capable of accepting and sustaining the higher law so it was not asked of them. We do not live under the conditions of the Old Testament and we are thusly held to the higher law, a law that says all men are created equal in the sight of God and therefore slavery is not acceptable under any current circumstance nor do I believe that it ever will be again.

As i just said, the problem is that slavery was accepted for quite some time. And this alone is an absurd. Also, are you telling me that people back then could accept the "no murder" and the "no stealing" commandments, and yet not accept a "no slavery" law? Do you really believe in this absurd?

Also, i am not capable of turning the other cheek when someone slaps my face, so should i stick to the old testament? Maybe the new testament is beyond my abilities, right?
Can i have you as my slave in this case?

 

[Autodidact]

So you think it OK to be somebody’s slave?

No.

Like I said, the epistles of the Bible were written and then translated and messed with and translated again. Any verse that you might be speaking of has a high probability that, if not mistranslated or misinterpreted was meant to speak to people on their level. It is the same reason that African Americans were denied the priesthood in the beginning of the LDS church. Joseph Smith was going to (and did) have one heck of a time getting people to listen to him in the first place let alone trying to convince them that people with black skin were as worthy as those with white skin (which they were then as they are now), it was simply too ingrained into their psyche that it was not true and that had to change before success on any front of equality was attempted.

Or, more likely, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were both racists, as was all the LDS leadership until society pressured them to get a revelation to cut it out.

For him to try to do so at that time would have had his words fall on deaf ears and, if he was not murdered a lot sooner than he was, the church would never have been established.

I don't see why. Frederick douglas wasn't murdered.

Joseph Smith understood this and, more importantly, so did our Heavenly Father. Sometime you have to cater to the stupid and often unjust idiosyncrasies of the masses to get them to listen in the first place after which you can work to change what is wrong with the society and it's concepts of how we should treat one another. You will notice that there is no indication anywhere that Jesus Christ ever indicated or even implied that he was better than a slave or anybody else for that matter, Christ often pandered to the ingrained temporal character flaws of the people so they could be taught but he never altered the sacred principles of the Gospel itself for any reason. God will never ask us to do something that we have not the ability to do; that is why the law of Moses (an eye for an eye) was instituted among the people of the old testament instead of the higher law (turn the other cheek) until the time of Christ. They were simply not capable of accepting and sustaining the higher law so it was not asked of them. We do not live under the conditions of the Old Testament and we are thusly held to the higher law, a law that says all men are created equal in the sight of God and therefore slavery is not acceptable under any current circumstance nor do I believe that it ever will be again.

What's hilarious is that you think this gibberish is the only logical, coherent, reasonable theology on the planet.

Anyway, would you answer my questions? Thanks.

 

[Zardoz]

O.K., if they are relevant today, then slavery is permissible today. Do you think slavery is permissible? Right?

You simply refuse to see what a slave is today. I'm outa here.

 

[Flankerl]

Well, He could have been silent on the subject. Instead He specifically tells us who we can buy. Also, how much do you know about the surrounding cultures and what their rules are? Aren't you just assuming the worst about them? For all you know it was better to be a Babylonian slave than a Hebrew slave.

Oh yeah because antiquity was said to be a heaven for slaves as they had so much rights.

So he could have been silent. But did you even think about the possibility that he probably knew that we wouldnt have been able to keep the commandment? So he gave us rules to actually for having slaves. Please tell me were there other cultures that had such rules? I dont think so.


Also you should probably ask yourself why you care for slaves of the antiquity more than the slaves who live right now. Because you know its a real problem.


Yes there are rules for jews on how to have a slave and the proper treatment in ancient times. Yet there is probably no jew who owns a slave.
It seems that the issue solved itself.

So, are you telling me that someone that never learned math during childhood won't be able to learn math during his adulthood?

Do you have any evidence to back up your claim?

EDIT: Also, how is this related to morals? I've already stated this is a much more simple issue than teaching nuclear physics.

Yeah i think that people back then wouldnt have been able to understand something like that because even today its something not many actually understand even if they have the proper background.



Ugh.
How many times have jews strayed from the law? Far too often. Yet in ancient times it was just normal to own a slave. So perhaps hashem knew that we wouldnt be able to keep the commandment. So we got rules on what to do and what not.

But i bet your average slave in assyria, greece or rome had it so much better.

 

[Wombat]

Briefly, Christian scripture permits slavery; and indeed, a lot of Christians fought a war in the Nineteenth Century to try to retain it!

Islam still permitted slavery but placed certain restrictions on it.

And the Baha'i Faith prohibits it outright in its scriptures! I quote:

"72 It is forbidden you to trade in slaves, be they men or women. It is not for him who is himself a servant to buy another of God's servants, and this hath been prohibited in His Holy Tablet. Thus, by His mercy, hath the commandment been recorded by the Pen of justice. Let no man exalt himself above another; all are but bondslaves before the Lord, and all exemplify the truth that there is none other God but Him. He, verily, is the All-Wise, Whose wisdom encompasseth all things."
--The Book of Laws, p. 45

Peace,

Bruce

And yet the allegation has been made that central figures in the Baha'i faith bought, owned and sold slaves-

http://www.angelfire.com/mo/baha/AFRICANS.html

"*The Báb, (Muhammad Ali Shirazi--considered by Baha'is to be an infallible "Manifestation of God") the Forerunner of Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Baha'i Faith, was a merchant who bought and sold black slaves from Africa.

*Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Baha'i Faith (considered by Baha'is to be the "Supreme Manifestation of God"--superior to all other Prophets including Jesus!), owned black slaves, and sold one of them (Isfanahar) to pay a debt.

*Baha'u'llah forbade the slave trade in 1873 with His Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book), but never forbade Baha'is to OWN black slaves; which continued among Baha'is well into the early 1920s. He forbade Baha'is to be involved in the violent black slave trade where Arabs on the East coast of Africa would rade black villages, killing all the men, capturing the women and boys. The women would be sold as concubines (sex slaves), and the boys would often be castrated to serve as slaves in harems. The Báb was involved in importing these blacks slaves to Iran in the 1840s.

*White Baha'is (Persians) continued to own black SLAVES until Iran, Egypt, and the Arab countries were FORCED to end the slave trade in the late 1890s by France and England, then controlled by Evangelical Christian governments."
....................

The research Dept at the Baha’i World Centre affirms, at least in relation to the Bab, historical record indicating he did in fact own slaves-
"...the legal status of the servants in the household of the Bab is in Black Pearls, where Abu'l-Qasim Afnan states that Mubarak and a female servant named Fiddih were acquired by the Bab (pages 4-5, 21). Afnan further states that "the bill of purchase" for Mubarak "still exists among the Bab's business accounts." We note that this document is not held in the Archives at the Bahá'í World Centre, and this matter will no doubt be researched further in the future.”




"There is no religion higher than truth" Theosophist Creed.
The religion of truth makes all matters worthy of pursuit and investigation.

 

[Koldo]

Yeah i think that people back then wouldnt have been able to understand something like that because even today its something not many actually understand even if they have the proper background.



Ugh.
How many times have jews strayed from the law? Far too often. Yet in ancient times it was just normal to own a slave. So perhaps hashem knew that we wouldnt be able to keep the commandment. So we got rules on what to do and what not.

But i bet your average slave in assyria, greece or rome had it so much better.

Non sense, right?

You know very well that many disobey the other commandments, right?
If such was the case then he wouldn't have created any commandment at all.

Also, funny enough, it is a lot easier to ask someone to don't have a slave than to ask someone to don't steal. Ha.

 

[BruceDLimber]

And yet the allegation has been made that central figures in the Baha'i faith bought, owned and sold slaves.

"Allegations" prove nothing and ones like this are often made by opponents for their own purposes.

Given that the pedigree of what you posted is unclear, I can't even comment on its truth or falsehood.

But that said, it's my understanding that they owned hired servants, not slaves.

Bruce

 

[Autodidact]

You simply refuse to see what a slave is today. I'm outa here.

What is a slave today?

But yes, if I were defending slavery, I'd get out of here too. You have a difficult position to defend.