[quote]magick wrote:
It’s GOD. He’s supposed to know everything and anything. As such, it makes no sense to me that God will not definitively proclaim a certain thing right or wrong.
[/quote]
I’m not following your train of thought at all. Why would God be required to “proclaim” anything at all? And to make proclamations about everything? So, what should He say? I’m sure you could do a better job than Him right? Slavery is not “good” or “bad”. It was a part of the social structure of all civilisations prior to your grand daddy. It’s not “good” or “bad” that human societies are rigidly stratified and hierarchical; it’s merely the way things work. It’s in man’s nature to form such social structures. Mosaic law actually regulates such social structures in an ethical way. For example, the requirement for a Jew to give protection to any runaway slave that asks for sanctuary. That’s what the bible does. I don’t understand what you’re saying about God having to make some proclamation about slavery. He’s not Abe Lincoln. He set man on a path of ethical behaviour. No such metaphysical system existed before the Hebrews.
What are you talking about “neutral cannot exist with God?” What does that mean? And what does it mean in the context of what you quoted from me? I said slavery is neutral. It can be good in some ways, bad in others. And there are degrees. There are slave owners who abuse their slaves and maltreat them. And there are slaves who become part of the family and are loved and trusted and tested as a family member. This is the reality. It’s not black and white. And so I wouldn’t expect God to make some universal condemnation of slavery.
[quote]
Stop pussyfooting around. It’s not like you.[/quote]
Pussy footing? I’m the only one who’s talking straight about slavery. Everyone else is either taking the moral high ground or not saying anything. So I’ll say it again as simply as possible:
Slavery was simply a part of the structure of society before recently. In the ancient world it was so common and accepted people never would’ve even considered that it should be abolished. Most societies in the ancient world, particularly the roaming tribes of Hebrews coming into to Canaan, were living on the very edge of existence. At any time a half million people; 200,000+ warriors with their families and baggage train, might just suddenly arrive at the gates of your city or into your village and demand that you surrender and give everything you have; land, livestock, gold/money, possessions and daughters. If you refuse you’ll be annihilated. To lose a battle and have your life spared and be sold as a slave was the best case scenario.
And again, as slavery was a part of every society, so to it was practiced in different ways. In Greek and Roman societies slaves treated differently according to their prior status. An aristocratic slave would have a lifestyle far better than most the “free” Roman commoners. An aristocratic slave like Plutarch might have his own little house and a library. And many slaves had an opportunity to be freed or retired and given a small stipend from their former owner for the rest of their life.
So “slavery” can take many forms and it can take the form that is at least, relatively ethical given the kind of society; the environment and the alternatives and so on. Be honest with yourself. Would you rather a loincloth and “freedom” or a relatively secure existence and reasonable treatment and living conditions? Maybe even a shot at emancipation in ten years and your former owner will help you set up a small business in town. And “town” is the important word here. Man cannot survive on his own. He needs to band together and to form a civil society. Such relations are hierarchical and stratified and slavery is usually a part of the social structure. For one thing, it can be seen as a way to incorporate enemy prisoners of war into the society so you don’t have to kill them. Obviously, they didn’t have a functioning prison system; merely dungeons and again, that’s a less desirable option than slavery.
Obviously we don’t want slavery today. We have reached a level of advancement in which slaves are not needed and in which a society as stratified as that is not desirable today. But I don’t understand your beef with slavery in the ancient world. It makes no sense unless you really have no idea what it was like in the ancient world and in Canaan for the Israelites(runaway slaves) in particular. I think it’s really quite silly when people take the moral high ground on something like this as if we’re talking about something that’s happening today. There is no comparison. As I said, in the ancient world most people lived on the edge of existence and death and war were ever present. Mosaic law regulates such things in an environment of existential conflict and hardship. Life is a struggle. God does not make everyone’s life trouble free and “fair”. Atheists understand this more than most I would’ve thought. The universe is radically indifferent to man’s suffering. But Mosaic law is an ethical system that brings light to the darkness of an indifferent universe of suffering and “unfairness” and so on.
To sum, I do not follow your train of thought at all about God “proclaiming” anything about slavery. To me it sounds irrational to say that God should be obligated to “proclaim” slavery “bad” when it was just the form that human social structures took at the time. What matters is how you treat your fellow man and that is one of the things that Mosaic law deals with. And it hasn’t even been possible to abolish slavery until recently; until the 19th Century.