Why are some people so adamant that God does exist?

[ASimon]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ASimon
I don’t know any Christians (much less Catholics) who actually condone slavery. But I know plenty who think it’s a reprehensible act for someone like me to point what the Bible actually has to say on the subject. It doesn’t matter that none of them think slavery is a good idea - they refuse to even acknowledge the fact that the book around which they organize their spiritual lives ever even hinted otherwise. Which tells me that there isn’t quite this uniformity of thought and belief, even within the Catholic ranks.

Who refuses to acknowledge that? Give me sources.

Well, for one - Charlemagne about had a conniption earlier in this thread when I brought it up.

How little do you know… What Catholic distances themselves? Are you just making stuff up here? Yes.

And so what about the last sentence? If and only if it were to somehow contradict Catholic teaching, THEN we have a problem. The Church teaches what is true. We do not hold Sola Scriptura.

And that’s why it’s an infinitely expanding tautology. Every bit of indisputable scientific truth discovered is immediately incorporated in whatever way it can best be made to fit the pre-existing dogma. So it’s always ‘exactly as we thought, all along.’

That’s how you can think the Bible is the Perfect Word of the Creator of the Universe, while simultaneously disavowing large, incovenient chunks of it as factually incorrect, or morally suspect.

So, you really don’t care what others have to say on the topic. Why bother debating then if you are not willing to be objective? Subjectivity and bias are hardly reasonable. Wouldn’t you agree?

That’s the whole point. I’d love to hear what others have to say on the subject, if they would only tell me. But they never do. They go so far as to tell me that I’m wrong, and give a half-thawed explanation why (“It’s a metaphor. It’s symbolic.” “You’re not reading it right.” Etc.), but they never actually offer me a different reading that’s in any way coherent or consistent.

I am biased against arguments that don’t offer anything other than to obstruct the conversation from going further.

Are you bitter? While there are some who do that, go read Catholic doctrine and see if this is the case. You will learn that Catholics are far from what you accuse.

If all you want to do is remember those nuggets which you assume are bad/contradictory, go for it. You see what I did there? It was a useless statement, just as useless as yours. Except yours was useless and you were oblivious about it.

No, in principle, yours is actually a perfectly useful statement. The only problem is that it doesn’t apply to me. On the other hand, my statement may, in fact, apply to you. But even if it doesn’t, you’ve already admitted that it applies at least to some Catholics.

Thanks for misconstruing my point. But what else should I expect from atheists?

Jesus did die for his sins, as well as everybody else’s. In no way does that eliminate personal responsibility as Fundamentalists think.

Actually, it’s not a fundamentalist belief either (I don’t know any fundamentalists who read Jesus’s sacrifice as meaning a negation of personal responsibility). But I certainly read it to mean that, and frankly, I don’t understand how it could mean anything else. While I can see forgiving somebody for a wrongful act, while still acknowledging that the act occurred, if forgiveness is to mean anything, it has negate the ‘weight’ of the responsibility of it (if you take my meaning). Otherwise, the ‘forgiveness’ aspect meant nothing.

If Person A wrongs their best friend, Person B, then Person B can say they forgive them. But if Person B goes on to lord it over Person A, making comments about it at odd moments, referring to it constantly, then I think it’s fair to say that the “forgiveness” was superficial at best.

True forgiveness, while it can’t wipe away the wrongful act from history, can ultimately wipe away the stain of it. And my point was that this is something to be handled between two people (or however many are directly involved). It is not for a 3rd party to drop in and forgive Person A for their wrongful act, either on their own behalf, or on behalf of Person B. That’s presumptuous at best, and if it could actually be done this way, it would mean the negation of personal responsibility.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ASimon
*I’m saying it’s not a real choice, in any practical sense, when someone with that much power over you gives you the option, of either abasing yourself to him (to earn an eternal reward), or not abasing yourself to him (and being dealt the most horrific punishment imaginable). This is not a choice, and being allowed to choose it is not a gift. *

You said that already. I am asking you to explain why you believe that.

If you still don’t understand what I mean, then I don’t know of any other explanation that will make you understand.

 

[karebear92]

That’s how you can think the Bible is the Perfect Word of the Creator of the Universe, while simultaneously disavowing large, incovenient chunks of it as factually incorrect, or morally suspect.

That’s the whole point. I’d love to hear what others have to say on the subject, if they would only tell me. But they never do. They go so far as to tell me that I’m wrong, and give a half-thawed explanation why (“It’s a metaphor. It’s symbolic.” “You’re not reading it right.” Etc.), but they never actually offer me a different reading that’s in any way coherent or consistent.

I haven’t read your whole debate, so I am merely guessing on what you guys are still talking about. I apologize if I sound like an idiot.

The simple answer is it is only to get us into heaven, which doesn’t require an A in history or any other field of science.

Second, the fundamentalist reading of them is a new phenomenon. Its original audience would understand that it is not to be taken literally. It is a a human-developed misconception that it is to be taken literally.

Third, the divinely inspired Word of God is indeed divinely inspired. But that does not mean that God wrote it down on paper. It is written through a human with limited knowledge. So that human cannot scientifically understand how God created the universe or things of that nature. It is divinely inspired to teach the spiritual and moral law of God, and since it is written through humans, their limited knowledge must be taken into account.

Lastly, one must take the social context into account, and when discussing Jesus’ parables and teachings, what He is trying to teach. He has to use something they understand. Think of Santa Clause, we use Santa Clause to demonstrate to those who cannot yet conceptualize the reason or meaning behind the spirit of Christmas. Santa Clause is something they can understand. But that does not mean that once they understand the truth behind Santa Clause that there is no longer spirit of Christmas, as Santa Clause was just used to demonstrate the spirit of Christmas, but he wasn’t the spirit of Christmas.

So Jesus then uses a servant/master scenario to demonstrate a point. He uses them in the same way we use Santa Clause: it is something they understand, but that has no bearing on the morality of beating servants, as that wasn’t his point. It was just used to demonstrate a concept, which is entirely different from the medium (servant/master) He used to demonstrate it.

Actually, it’s not a fundamentalist belief either (I don’t know any fundamentalists who read Jesus’s sacrifice as meaning a negation of personal responsibility). But I certainly read it to mean that, and frankly, I don’t understand how it could mean anything else. While I can see forgiving somebody for a wrongful act, while still acknowledging that the act occurred, if forgiveness is to mean anything, it has negate the ‘weight’ of the responsibility of it (if you take my meaning). Otherwise, the ‘forgiveness’ aspect meant nothing.

If Person A wrongs their best friend, Person B, then Person B can say they forgive them. But if Person B goes on to lord it over Person A, making comments about it at odd moments, referring to it constantly, then I think it’s fair to say that the “forgiveness” was superficial at best.

True forgiveness, while it can’t wipe away the wrongful act from history, can ultimately wipe away the stain of it. And my point was that this is something to be handled between two people (or however many are directly involved). It is not for a 3rd party to drop in and forgive Person A for their wrongful act, either on their own behalf, or on behalf of Person B. That’s presumptuous at best, and if it could actually be done this way, it would mean the negation of personal responsibility.

But what if person A is continually wronging person B. Then person B would have to eternally forgive them. But if person A rejects person B’s forgiveness, then person A and person B’s conflict is not resolved.

The actions are against another person, most generally, but the sin is against the perfection of God, and therefore it is between God and the person.

I didn’t have time to go back and read all of the posts, so I apologize if I missed the point you were originally trying to make. And if I did, please kindly just let me know that I didn’t understand it.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon

Well, for one - Charlemagne about had a conniption earlier in this thread when I brought it up.

As I recall, it was you who had the conniption fit, since you seemed to be begging the question that Jesus was in favor of slavery and of beating slaves.

I don’t think it’s a conniption fit to assert that this is a monstrous accusation.

But as I am a Christian, I would not think of punishing you for your ignorance by turning you into a slave and beating you.

 

[ASimon]

Hi karebear - thanks for checking in.

The problem here is that I don’t think what you’ve written really solves the quandry I’ve posed here. God didn’t physically write The Bible - okay, I’ve got that. Did he dictate it directly to its authors, like a guy will stand over one’s shoulder? You said it was divinely inspired - but that we have to allow for the limitations of human knowledge in that era. Why do we need to do this? Why couldn’t God have dictated the literal truth of creation (whatever it turns out to be) to the authors of the text? Because they wouldn’t have understood it? I personally don’t think you’re giving people enough credit there.

You brought up Santa Claus, so let’s try a thought experiment. Two parents needs to explain to their child exactly how so many wrapped gifts show up under the decorated tree one morning in late December. Now, this child has obviously limited knowledge about the way the Universe is actually organized, but what do the parents do? They could tell their kid the less interesting truth (Mom and Dad went to the store and bought them, then stayed up all night wrapping them and putting them under the tree). But instead they recount one of the more fantastical myths in the history of the world (An obese man living at the North Pole spends the entire year overseeing the manufacture of millions of toys by his vertically challenged employees, and then on December 24th, he gets into his sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, and delivers them all to worthy children across the world in the course of a single evening).

And what happens? The kid believes it! And why? Is it because it’s so obviously true, based on the kids understanding of the world? No, they believe it because the source matters. If the source is authoritative enough, you don’t have to know anything about anything - you will helplessly believe anything they say. And when it comes to the Bible’s authorship, I can hardly imagine a source more authoritative than God.

But let’s suppose I take your point anyway - that we must account for the limitations of human knowledge at the given time and place. Given this, why are we under any obligation to take any of it seriously? Or to put it another way, how do we know what’s supposed to be timeless, and what’s just a simple product of the time and place it was written? We both probably think slavery is a horrible thing. But if we were having this conversation 200 years ago, it would not have been difficult to find an observant Christian who disagreed with us, and would cite the Bible as proof.

So I would say the same thing about the “social context” argument you made. For one thing, I don’t think it would’ve been terribly difficult for the denizens of even an ancient culture to have understood Jesus’s point by way another metaphor. And I still cannot understand why Jesus did not take the time to specifically repudiate the practice of slavery. Far from it - I have to say, given what’s written, he seems to implicitly endorse it.

But what if person A is continually wronging person B. Then person B would have to eternally forgive them. But if person A rejects person B’s forgiveness, then person A and person B’s conflict is not resolved.

The actions are against another person, most generally, but the sin is against the perfection of God, and therefore it is between God and the person.

Again, I can’t say that this does anything but restate the problem I’m having. Let’s take theft, since we agree that’s a sin in Christian theology. I steal a family heirloom from you, and on top of that, I break it, so you can never see it replaced. You can either forgive me for stealing it, or not forgive me, according to what your beliefs and conscience dictate. Let’s say you can’t find it in you to forgive me - this heirloom was just too dear to you, and moreover, I knew how dear it was to you when I stole it (but I was only concerned with my own selfish aims).

According to Christian theology, ultimate forgiveness can only be sought and granted from God. And all I need to do is ask God for forgiveness, be sincerely sorry and want it for myself. Whether God ultimately forgives me has nothing to do with you and what you want. You can argue that it’s the Christian thing to do to be in a forgiving mindset against any transgression, but that doesn’t address my problem either. In Christian terms, there’s no reason, in principle, why somebody can’t spend their entire life sinning and causing harm to others, and be forgiven by God at some later date. And since the stakes of being forgiven amount to the difference between heaven and hell, that person’s primary concern would be with getting God’s forgiveness above all. That God is perfectly willing to do this, given certain conditions (again that don’t concern you), seems to me to do great damage to the idea of personal responsibility.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon

And I still cannot understand why Jesus did not take the time to specifically repudiate the practice of slavery. Far from it - I have to say, given what’s written, he seems to implicitly endorse it.

Another conniption fit? You don’t get to bury that sentence in a long-winded post and get away with it.

Again, your ignorance of the Gospels is appalling. If you had read them, you would remember:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Do you think anybody would make a slave of another because he would like himself to be made another’s slave?

Does “Do unto others” sound like an implicit endorsement of slavery, or an explicit recommendation of conduct that precludes the furtherance of slavery … an institution that largely died out as a result of the triumph of Christianity in Europe?

Jesus understood full well that the heart must be changed before institutions could be changed. He could have railed against slavery? He did … by preaching love.

 

[ASimon]

ASimon

And I still cannot understand why Jesus did not take the time to specifically repudiate the practice of slavery. Far from it - I have to say, given what’s written, he seems to implicitly endorse it.

Another conniption fit? You don’t get to bury that sentence in a long-winded post and get away with it.

Again, your ignorance of the Gospels is appalling. If you had read them, you would remember:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Do you think anybody would make a slave of another because he would like himself to be made another’s slave?

Does “Do unto others” sound like an implicit endorsement of slavery, or an explicit recommendation of conduct that precludes the furtherance of slavery … an institution that largely died out as a result of the triumph of Christianity in Europe?

Jesus understood full well that the heart must be changed before institutions could be changed. He could have railed against slavery? He did … by preaching love.

I’ve addressed this already.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon

**I’ve addressed this already. **

If you have addressed this already, why do you keep pressing the point that Jesus seems oblivious to the question of slavery, or at least implicitly endorsed it?

 

[ASimon]

ASimon

**I’ve addressed this already. **

If you have addressed this already, why do you keep pressing the point that Jesus seems oblivious to the question of slavery, or at least implicitly endorsed it?

Because he does.

Pretend for a second that the Bible is not the best book ever written on any subject, and suddenly what I’m saying makes a lot more sense.

 

[djeter]

Maybe others can help me out here?

Joshua

When Catholics stand and say Glory to God in the HIghest and Peace to his Peoples on Earth, there is a profound meaning at work there. The idea that *All glory is God’s *simply rejects all others. Not being to accept *Jesus is Lord *is pretty natural. I would expect people to be adamant in their sin. Look at the homosexual lobby that demands everyone else change their POV. Why are you surprised? I don’t understand your attitude.

Fr. Robert Barron has written:

"Much of the theology at Mass is packed into that statement. Peace will break out on earth, in that accord with God’s first and deepest desire, when we all come together in a common act of worship. Aristotle remarked that a friendship will never last as long as the friends are simply in love with one another. In time, he said, such a relationship will devolve into mutual egotism.

Rather, a friendship will endure only in the measure that the two friends fall together in love with a transcendent third, with some great value or good that lies beyond the grasp of either of them. This Aristotelian principle applies in regard to our relationship with God. The indispensable key to peace, that is to say, a flourishing friendship among the members of the human race, is that we all fall together in love with the transcendent Creator.

Only when we give glory to God in the highest — above nation, family, culture, political party, etc. — will we, paradoxically, find unity among ourselves. To put this in more explicitly scriptural language, only when we sit together at the meal hosted and made possible by God will we truly sit together in peace." More here.

What ever made you think Peace on Earth is that easy?

dj

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ASimon

**Because he does.

Pretend for a second that the Bible is not the best book ever written on any subject, and suddenly what I’m saying makes a lot more sense. **

Well, I have to even pretend that you have read the Bible. It seems you haven’t.

As this seems to be a dead end, I give you the last word.

 

[OMGJ]

Because he does.

Pretend for a second that the Bible is not the best book ever written on any subject, and suddenly what I’m saying makes a lot more sense.

Hi ASimon…

I think you’re having difficulty here because of your understanding of slavery during Jesus’s time. The Jewish view of slaves was different from the Roman view which is also different from the New World/North American view of slavery. From the Catholic Encyclopedia found on this site:

The first missionaries of the Gospel, men of Jewish origin, came from a country where slavery existed. But it existed in Judea under a form very different from the Roman form. **The Mosaic Law was merciful to the slave **(Ex., xxi; Lev., xxv; Dent., xv, xvi, xxi) **and carefully secured his fair wage to the laborer **(Dent.,) cxiv, 15). **In Jewish society the slave was not an object of contempt, because labor was not despised as it was elsewhere. No man thought it beneath him to ply a manual trade. **These ideas and habits of life the Apostles brought into the new society which so rapidly grew up as the effect of their preaching. As this society included, from the first, faithful of all conditions—rich and poor, slaves and freemen—the Apostles were obliged to utter their beliefs as to the social inequalities which so profoundly divided the Roman world. “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal., iii, 27-28; cf. I Cor., xii, 13).

But as Charlemaine said, Jesus did not endorse slavery. In fact, He and His Apostles spreading His Word challenged the social norm by saying, “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal., iii, 27-28; cf. I Cor., xii, 13).

How do you think they would have reacted to that?

 

[ASimon]

Hi ASimon…

I think you’re having difficulty here because of your understanding of slavery during Jesus’s time. The Jewish view of slaves was different from the Roman view which is also different from the New World/North American view of slavery. From the Catholic Encyclopedia found on this site:

Quote:
The first missionaries of the Gospel, men of Jewish origin, came from a country where slavery existed. But it existed in Judea under a form very different from the Roman form. The Mosaic Law was merciful to the slave (Ex., xxi; Lev., xxv; Dent., xv, xvi, xxi) and carefully secured his fair wage to the laborer (Dent.,) cxiv, 15). In Jewish society the slave was not an object of contempt, because labor was not despised as it was elsewhere. No man thought it beneath him to ply a manual trade.

Hi OMGJ,

What you’ve got here really isn’t a big departure from the institution of slavery as was often realized in the American pre-Civil War South. Given that for most people alive at the time, manual labor was all there was to do, having that type of job would not likely been contemptable in that time period either. And there were probably slaveowners who did not fit the Simon Legree mold of the wicked plantation owner. The ‘enlightened ones,’ you might say, who thought they were doing their African brothers a favor in keeping them under the lash. Certainly better than letting them loose in the wide world with no education or means to support themselves. Much more compassionate, that. Also, they fed them. And the ones who didn’t work in the house got their own little hut on the outskirts of the property. The fact is, slaveowners of this sort (or of any sort) probably didn’t consider this an immoral institution, any more than slaveowners of any other era did. People have a way of rationalizing their behavior that way.

But aside from that, let’s take what you have here at face value. If slaves of Judea were, in fact, fairly paid for their services, then they were arguably employees rather than slaves. So we’re all good, right? Well, no - because there’s still the question of the parable, where the master comes home, finds his shiftless employees have not prepared his house for his arrival, and beats them according to whether they should’ve known better. This is still not moral behavior, and it still gave Jesus an opportunity to repudiate it in that moment. And he did not.

But as Charlemaine said, Jesus did not endorse slavery. In fact, He and His Apostles spreading His Word challenged the social norm by saying, “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal., iii, 27-28; cf. I Cor., xii, 13).

How do you think they would have reacted to that?

I’m not sure it was a consequential challenge of any social norm. Let’s unpack it. There is no difference between Jew and Greek, bond and free, nor male and female. Did they mean this in any real-world sense? Frankly, I don’t see how they could. Setting aside issues of gender politics in the 1st century AD, there were and are obvious real-world differences between men and women. Ditto for Jews and Greeks. And that’s where I think the preface is important: “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ.”

My reading of this is, once you’ve turned yourself over to Christ, the worldly definitions and labels that separate you from one another will fall away, perhaps metaphysically in this life, than actually in the next one. In God’s kingdom, all are one in Christ. You may be one with Christ in this life (and no different from the freeman), but it feels like a distinction without difference. And anyway, if the slave was not the object of contempt in Jewish society, as you claim, then how would any statement of authority that slaves were equal be problematic to the slave-owning Jews of the time?

 

[karebear92]

Hi, ASimon

No, I don’t believe God dictated it in the way we would think of dictating. I believe He inspired people to write, and then through divine guidance or revelation, He kept the men from erring on any moral or spiritual issues (which the man was trying to express). I believe that is only for part of the Bible, and some of them are written by those who experienced it. It just depends on the individual story, as each one has a unique history.

In other words, it was God’s divine guidance and law that was expressed through men, and written by the men. Obviously I do not know how God did this.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong on this.

You shouldn’t take many of the Biblical stories seriously. In order to take God’s Word seriously, you have to take God seriously. You can’t believe something is divinely inspired if you don’t believe in anything divine.

Lets say some lucky child’s parents were never taught the truth about Santa Clause, and the next day they woke up and under the tree were a ton of presents delivered by Santa Clause. Well, then obviously that would take Santa Clause from myth to reality. That is what God did. The entire Old Testament was leading up to the coming of Christ, and He came. God (Santa Clause) delivered the present (Christ), so the prophetic authorship must have been inspired by God.

Science is found through discovery. Our understanding of it is relative with time. There is a truth to how God created the universe, by Word. We believe that is scientifically how it happened, but how He created by word is for us to discover gradually over time, though we will never be able to understand it fully. Since scientific discovery is relative to time, its use in the bible should not be taken literally.

God, however, is perfect. In saying so we must accept three things: 1) God is perfect and sin is anything against His perfection, 2) anything that is God’s will is moral and anything against it is immoral, and 3) since God is eternal, the first two must also be eternal (the reason things in the Old Testament were allowed was addressed earlier, so I am not going to rewrite it. If you want me to I will however). If the above is true, then all matters regarding this (God’s love, morality, and sin) must all be eternal, so all matters relating these truths in the Bible are eternal and inerrant. That, in my opinion, is the difference between the two.

As others have mentioned, Christ did discuss the morality of slaves. The point that I was trying to make, however, was that Jesus was trying to relate the message in a way that we could understand (the servant explanation someone else gave is true, too, but I don’t think it fully explains what Jesus was saying). In that parable, the master is God and the servant is us (He is discussing sloth). The fact of the matter is God is superior to us in every way. He is our master. The same is not true for humans, and the audience that He was addressing would have understood that. He was addressing the relationship between Him and humans, not the morality of servanthood. To take this out of context and say He is promoting slavery is, well, just that, taking it out of context.

That was my point with Santa Clause. If a parent uses Santa Clause to express the spirit of Christmas, and then the child discovers that Santa Clause is not real, it has no bearing on the spirit of Christmas, as Santa Clause was used to express that. If you use Santa Clause to express the spirit of Christmas, and then I say, “well, that doesn’t work because by doing so you are promoting breaking and entering,” you would say that I am missing the point.

Ultimate forgiveness can only be granted by God because the sin is only against Him. It is only morally wrong to steal from the person because He says it is. If He didn’t say it was, then there would be nothing to ask forgiveness for.

Before I respond further, if you killed my child, should I forgive you? Could you ask for forgiveness? In other words, how does one seek forgiveness and how does one give it? What is the purpose of seeking forgiveness?

I don’t know if you live in the U.S., but have a happy Thanksgiving.

 

[ASimon]

Hi, ASimon

Before I respond further, if you killed my child, should I forgive you? Could you ask for forgiveness? In other words, how does one seek forgiveness and how does one give it? What is the purpose of seeking forgiveness?

Just taking this point - if I killed your child, it’s not for me to judge whether you “should” forgive me for it. I may sincerely want your forgiveness, and I could ask you for it, but I wouldn’t think you’re under any obligation to ever grant it. All you need to do to ask for forgiveness is to literally ask for it (or do it tacitly), and all you need to do to grant it to literally grant it (or do it tacitly). I think one genuinely seeks forgiveness to assuage a guilty conscience.

 

[OMGJ]

Hi OMGJ,

What you’ve got here really isn’t a big departure from the institution of slavery as was often realized in the American pre-Civil War South. Given that for most people alive at the time, manual labor was all there was to do, having that type of job would not likely been contemptable in that time period either. And there were probably slaveowners who did not fit the Simon Legree mold of the wicked plantation owner. The ‘enlightened ones,’ you might say, who thought they were doing their African brothers a favor in keeping them under the lash. Certainly better than letting them loose in the wide world with no education or means to support themselves. Much more compassionate, that. Also, they fed them. And the ones who didn’t work in the house got their own little hut on the outskirts of the property. The fact is, slaveowners of this sort (or of any sort) probably didn’t consider this an immoral institution, any more than slaveowners of any other era did. People have a way of rationalizing their behavior that way.

Actually that’s incorrect. Slavery in the time of Jesus was different from how the Romans viewed it and it was completely different from the slavery of the American Civil War. It was an accepted social institution and they had rules on slavery under the Mosaic Law. I lifted the following from an old post on slavery:

*1. The Term of Slavery was 5 years - After that the slave was set free - Slavery under the Mosaic Law was TEMPORARY - NOT PERMANENT.

1. The Master was responsible to take care of the needs of the slave and the slave’s household before his own needs - If there was only enough food in the house to feed the children and the slave, that’s who got fed - The owner went hungry! The same for clothing, shelter and medical care (note the story of the Chief of the Synagogue finding Jesus to cure his servant girl).
2. Work Rules - Slaves were not allowed to be worked on the Sabbath, “beyond human endurance”, in dangerous conditions or to be beaten to produce more - And slaves had to be allowed to rest during the heat of the day the during summer months (May-Sept.).
3. At the end of 5 years, THE SLAVE CHOSE whether to stay with his Master - The Master had NO Choice in the matter!*

But aside from that, let’s take what you have here at face value. If slaves of Judea were, in fact, fairly paid for their services, then they were arguably employees rather than slaves.

What you would call “employees” they had called servants and slaves. It’s very important in studying the Bible to read it in the context of their time. Back then how someone would become a slave is usually a case when one person owes another but could not pay them back. They would enter into slavery to that person and the master would have to abide by the Law in governing his slave.

So we’re all good, right? Well, no - because there’s still the question of the parable, where the master comes home, finds his shiftless employees have not prepared his house for his arrival, and beats them according to whether they should’ve known better. This is still not moral behavior, and it still gave Jesus an opportunity to repudiate it in that moment. And he did not.

Well, that was already explained to you but it seems that you would only subscribe to your interpretation of the passage. Though I’m going to give it a go and I pray that you’d see it for what it’s suppose to be. It seems that you get hung up on the “beating the slaves” part and that what you want to have happened was for Jesus to speak out against beating their slaves because it’s morally wrong. But Jesus did speak out against it when He said “Love thy neighbour as thyself”. In an era when the norm was “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” that was BIG.

But to address the beating of the slaves, you have to consider His audience. Jesus was speaking to the Jews when He related the parable and to them, the beating is how they can relate with punishment. The passage is a parable/lesson on what would happen to believers who “knows the master’s will” but instead does evil (“beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk”) and to those who did not know and did the same thing. They would both be punished (the beating) but the punishment would be more severe for the one who knew and still did wrong. In order for the Jews to understand Him, Jesus had to speak in ways that they can relate.

My reading of this is, once you’ve turned yourself over to Christ, the worldly definitions and labels that separate you from one another will fall away, perhaps metaphysically in this life, than actually in the next one. In God’s kingdom, all are one in Christ. You may be one with Christ in this life (and no different from the freeman), but it feels like a distinction without difference. And anyway, if the slave was not the object of contempt in Jewish society, as you claim, then how would any statement of authority that slaves were equal be problematic to the slave-owning Jews of the time?

Through baptism, everyone is accepted into the Body of Christ and becomes one with Christ. In a society that’s “profoundly divided”, you don’t think that would have had an impact?

 

[OMGJ]

Nope. It’s the “Do unto others…” vs. “Don’t do unto others…” that I was comparing. "I wasn’t comparing “Love thine enemies” to anything Confucius said or didn’t say.

Oh and I wanted to respond to this. What tonyrey was trying to point out is that there’s a big difference between action and inaction. Confucius teaches to NOT act in a manner you don’t want to be done to you while Jesus teaches to DO to others good deeds (assuming it’s good deeds that you want done to you). Jesus basically says go and be good to each other, in other words, love one another. There is no such requirement from Confucius to do anything at all!

Also, tonyrey pointed out, Jesus’s “others” means everyone which includes your enemies. So in actuality, the two teachings are not the same.

 

[emisher]

To the issue of slavery and Jesus:

A question for thought—

The Bible specifially condemns many things. But that doesn’t stop millions of people from ignoring those condemnations. (including millions of Christians, sadly)
Jesus is aiming at the heart, which is the only real remedy for slavery or any other social ill. He is brining an entirely new vision of the human person, a new dignity.
All are equal before God, I have to agree is radical for that time period (or any time period)

Jesus and the Bible can pronounce all kinds of things are wrong but if the violence in human heart is not addressed first, all the pronouncments in the world won’t matter.
It would be like a person going into the ER with a snake bite and the doctor only puts antibiotic cream on the skin. Unless he gives an antidote to the poison all the skin care won’t do anything.
Also we have to remember science’s role in the perpetuation of the negative view of people of color:

This is from the Publisher’s Weekly review on Amazon for an interesting book called Skulk Wars about this very thing:

Is there a greater paradox in North American history than the Indian? Labeling them either superhuman or subhuman, noble or savage, we’ve had a hard time placing the people that Columbus mistakenly called “los Indios.”
When Native Americans began disappearing after centuries of maltreatment, *scientists promoting bogus racial theories arrogantly collected Indian cultural artifacts and physical *remains, robbing graves and decapitating those killed in battle, before packing off their religious items, skulls and bones to museums. Is it any wonder that many Indians today bitterly resent and mistrust both anthropology and archeology, referring to them
as “vulture cultures”?
In 1996, one of the continent’s oldest and most complete skeletons, Kennewick Man, was unearthed in central Washington. When some scientists claimed it possessed Caucasoid features and openly questioned the origins of the continent’s early inhabitants, Indians were incensed and demanded the return of the remains, setting off yet another furor in this ancient tug-of-war over history written in bone. Thomas, an eminent anthropologist, deftly describes the ongoing battle over Kennewick Man and past stormy relations between Indians and the scientists bent on studying them.

With wit, logic and much reasoned sympathy for Native Americans, he lambastes science for failing to see Indian peoples as they really are, while exploring the sensitive and difficult question of who ultimately owns history. Thomas’s impassioned plea for mutual respect is a welcome bridge across a dark chasm of American history. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

amazon.com/Skull-Wars-Kennewick-Archeology-American/dp/0465092241

This is of course only one example of the danger of science.

I’ve always found it consololing that while the increasing secular culture of Renaissance Europe and beyond, was dabbling in the trafficking of blacks, it was the Catholic popes who were the ones condemning such things, as early as the 15th century.

 

[ASimon]

Oh and I wanted to respond to this. What tonyrey was trying to point out is that there’s a big difference between action and inaction. Confucius teaches to NOT act in a manner you don’t want to be done to you while Jesus teaches to DO to others good deeds (assuming it’s good deeds that you want done to you). Jesus basically says go and be good to each other, in other words, love one another. There is no such requirement from Confucius to do anything at all!

Also, tonyrey pointed out, Jesus’s “others” means everyone which includes your enemies. So in actuality, the two teachings are not the same.

You approach an injured man on the street. Now, put yourself in the man’s place for a second - what you like to have done to you in that circumstance? Speaking only for myself, I’d like somebody to come to my aid - summon the appropriate medical professionals. What would I NOT want to see done to myself? Lots of potential answers here - I wouldn’t want someone to injure me further, to steal from me, to act as though I were not in need of medical attention - you get the idea.

Now let’s step back. I approach the man in the street. According to Jesus’s Golden Rule, what would happen? I’d summon the appropriate medical professionals. If I approached the same man with Confucius in mind, what would happen? It would amount to the same thing - I would not do all the things I just mentioned above, which, by process of elimination, would leave me with the one thing I would want done for myself - the summoning of the appropriate medical professionals. Just standing there in a paralytic fog of inaction would not be an honest keeping of the Confucian Golden Rule.

Take any act of charity you’d want to imagine - like Habitats for Humanity. Why does someone use their time and resources to build low-cost housing? They do it to help alleviate homelessness. That seems a nice example of Jesus’s Golden Rule. But what about Confucius? Well, if you are homeless, you can ask yourself what you would not like to have done to you in that circumstance. I would not like society to ignore my plight. So a Confucian has just as many options open to them as the Christian to fulfill their obligation. They can pick up a hammer and start building houses, or start a soup kitchen, or an employment agency focused on getting folks.

If you’re observing the Confucian Golden Rule honestly, then it amounts to exactly the same thing as Jesus’s Golden Rule - you’re just approaching things from a different philosophical bedrock.

And again I submit - while I’m all for tolerance, charity and understanding of folks I don’t know, explicitly loving your enemies is not a good thing. Your true enemies aren’t wasting their time trying to love you back.

 

[OMGJ]

You approach an injured man on the street. Now, put yourself in the man’s place for a second - what you like to have done to you in that circumstance? Speaking only for myself, I’d like somebody to come to my aid - summon the appropriate medical professionals. What would I NOT want to see done to myself? Lots of potential answers here - I wouldn’t want someone to injure me further, to steal from me, to act as though I were not in need of medical attention - you get the idea.

Now let’s step back. I approach the man in the street. According to Jesus’s Golden Rule, what would happen? I’d summon the appropriate medical professionals. If I approached the same man with Confucius in mind, what would happen? It would amount to the same thing - I would not do all the things I just mentioned above, which, by process of elimination, would leave me with the one thing I would want done for myself - the summoning of the appropriate medical professionals. Just standing there in a paralytic fog of inaction would not be an honest keeping of the Confucian Golden Rule.

You have the option in the Confucian Golden Rule to NOT do anything at all whereas in the Christian teaching inaction is not an option. The problem with your example is you stumbled upon the injured man. But in Christ’s teaching it explicitly says to actively DO good. You don’t have to go out of your house and seek this injured man for you to help. You can sit in your room and go about your business and you’re perfectly fine within the Confucian Golden Rule. If you did that, in the Christian teaching, God’s going to “spit you out”. (Rev 3:16)

And again I submit - while I’m all for tolerance, charity and understanding of folks I don’t know, explicitly loving your enemies is not a good thing. Your true enemies aren’t wasting their time trying to love you back.

Jesus’s teaching is a hard pill to swallow. But don’t underestimate the power of love. It’s been known to change hardened hearts.

 

[ASimon]

You have the option in the Confucian Golden Rule to NOT do anything at all whereas in the Christian teaching inaction is not an option. The problem with your example is you stumbled upon the injured man. But in Christ’s teaching it explicitly says to actively DO good. You don’t have to go out of your house and seek this injured man for you to help. You can sit in your room and go about your business and you’re perfectly fine within the Confucian Golden Rule. If you did that, in the Christian teaching, God’s going to “spit you out”. (Rev 3:16)

This is simply incorrect in anything other than the most superficial reading of the Confucian Golden Rule. You can’t simply sit in your room and go about your business - not as long as there are “others” out there with lives that could be made better. Because if you were one of those “others,” you would “not want” somebody to sit in their room and go about their business while you were in need. You would not want your plight to be ignored, so you cannot ignore the plight of others and be in any way keeping with letter or the spirit of the Confucian Golden Rule.

For the record, Confucius also went on at some length about the value of charity, benevolence, tolerence, etc. - so, even if you wanted to discount his version of the G.R., he wasn’t exactly mute on the concept of actively doing good in the world.