by tec 149 Replies latest jw friends
tammy: let me say this, I always enjoy your input. But
let me ask you a question. If you saw a child being beating
by an adult and knowing the person you are, you would
step in. That,s all I am saying. Jesus did not step up too
the plate on this one.
TEC said:
And again, slavery was a social structure that we chose. Our free will... and we used it to enslave others. But Christ did not enslave anyone. He served. He came to teach TRUTH... about God. Once we had that... then all the rest would follow. That is what knowing the truth, and being 'clean' within, means.
One thing that IS indisputable is that Jesus based many parables around the concept of slavery, eg the master of the vineyard, or the faith and wise slave (with the evil slave being chopped to pieces at his master's sword, for assaulting the other slaves: punishment not fit crime much?).
Of course, TEC would say that Jesus was relying on slavery as a rhetorical/teaching device, since it was understood by all, as the practice was so prevalent at the time.
However, doesn't the mere fact that Jesus would so non-chalantly rely on a brutal practice like slavery as a teaching device, without even giving it so much as a moment's thought, seriously raise an eyebrow that the Son of God may not have possessed the fore-sight to anticipate the image problem it MIGHT create for him, 2,000 years later? Isn't Jesus supposed to be concerned with stumbling others? Then why would HE use such a questionable example, vs say Aesop's anthropomorphic use of animals (500 years earlier)? There ARE alternatives that could be used to get the same point across.
Even today, no one in their right mind would use say, child molestation for example, as an analogy for how one Nation can dominate and exploit another: the example itself would prove such a distraction that it would over-ride the very point the person was trying to make.
And doesn't the use of the topic of slavery itself constitute de facto endorsement, making use of the practice by exploiting it's familiarity? Even for educational purposes, concepts are exploited by their use, and benefit is drawn from it. That constitutes Jesus benefitting from slavery, regardless if he actually owned slaves or not.
Any way you cut it, trying to make excuses for Jesus' use of slavery seems like tilting at windmills... It's certainly not making a strong case for the omnipotence of God.
Which leads to this:
I was asking, pure and simple, if love could enslave another human being. Because I do not see how a person who loves his fellow man, as Christ loved us and taught us to love one another, could enslave another person against their will.
So, you're at a stand-still of cognitive dissonance (and think of the Star Trek episode where the two robots were presented with an unresolvable paradox, and short-circuited). I ask YOU your own question:
How COULD Jesus support or benefit from a practice involving enslavement of another human being? How is THAT showing love for fellow man, slashing them to death, presumably against their will?
It's kind of late Snare&Racket so I am going to let this gentleman answer for me.
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Heh...
Yeah, that was one thing that always bothered me about "jesus"...
What, he couldn't foresee the British and American abolitionists' movements?
In addition to not understanding germs, bacteria and diseases...
Loving one another is not such a deep insight is it? We know that and we didn't get it from Jesus.
Tell me anything useful that he said that was original to him, anything that shows supernatural knowledge of wisdom.
What was unique in Jesus' teaching? That is a difficult one.
Maybe try John 15:14.
Jesus said if you want to be his friend then you have to do what he tells you.
The last time I met a philosophy as deep as that was probably in the playground in Primary 1.
Aside from some glowing fan fiction about Jesus, all this thread tells me is that tec doesn't support slavery.
There is zero evidence that Jesus condemned slavery (there's zero evidence that Jesus, if he existed at all, did anything attributed to him in the Bible).
If we are to believe that 'all scripture' (which we're supposed to pretend means either the Catholic or Protestant 'canons' to the exclusion of a bunch of other writings) is 'inspired' (by some conveniently unstated mechanism) by 'god' (who may or may not also be Jesus ), then we can only conclude that the 'Jesus' of the Bible condones slavery.
As has been noted above, the argument fails.
Jesus spent a lot of time explicitly condemning other "symptoms". One example:
Matthew 15:19-21
New International Version (NIV)
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Slavery is quite conspicuous in its absence here and in many other places where Jesus list specific "symptoms" that he doesn't approve of.
We could discuss how Paul had much more time to write details than Jesus did, how Paul didn't condemn slavery and really promoted it.
But Tammy will dismiss any of the Bible as the flawed writings of men if it doesn't simply make God and Jesus look good.
So then I could say that Jesus didn't say anything at all. How do we know that any words accredited to him are not more flawed writings of men?
But instead, I will play your silly game and indulge the topic.
Jesus did not come to end slavery. The words of Jesus and his followers makes it clear that men were to view themselves as slaves of Christ. How could he condemn slavery then tell people to slave for him? If anyone suggested that slavery was bad, the church edited it out.
Free yourselves from this bondage.
In this country (US) the Bible was used as justification
for slavery, 1600 yrs after Jesus death, and the Wt hands are
not clean in this thinking. Someone had the foresight to say "all men
are created equal", and put it in law.
