The Old Testament is a goldmine for atheists. Whenever you hear Christians hold forth on how we would be bereft of morals if we didn't have the Bible, you can pull out one of the goodies from the 2,500 year old tome and watch the believer tie himself into knots trying to explain why that particular part of the Word of God can be safely ignored. It's great fun, especially when you remind them that Jesus said he was not going to change "one iota of the law".
Of course, there are some brave Christians who are willing to stand up for the Old Testament morality. YouTuber Jesusfreak777 made a valiant attempt to explain why slavery, as supported by the God of Abraham, was really a good thing. This animated version of his legendary YouTube sermon was made by Panman38 (the sound is speeded up, but otherwise, this really is the original rant of a God-fearing Christian):
Did you ever see a better illustration of religion's ability to make good people (I guess) support horrible acts?
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Now, God commands you to be my slave! Choose to serve or choose to serve...your choice!
Awesome...this is going to work great on the neighbors.
The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.
Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."
New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Some of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.
The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn human slavery. "Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.
"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul. Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."
In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867: "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."
The status of animals in contemporary human society is like that of human slaves in centuries past. Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical passages in favor of liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the same kind of response animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.
Some of the worst crimes in history have also been committed in the name of religion. There's a great song along these lines from the early 1990s by Rage Against the Machine, entitled "Killing in the Name Of".
Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement) rather than simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support must come freely and voluntarily (e.g., "The Liberation of All Life" resolution issued by the World Council of Churches in 1988).
Religious institutions can't be coerced into rewriting their holy books or teaching a convoluted doctrine to suit the whims or the secular political ideology of a particular demagogue. American liberals argue that principle of the separation of church and state (upon which the United States was founded) gives us freedom FROM religious tyranny and theocracy. Conservatives argue (the other side of the coin!) that one of the reasons America's founding fathers established the separation of church and state was to prevent government intrusion into religious affairs.
I agree with Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA), who said on Earth Day 1990:
"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this country without the voice of the religious community being heard. The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the power and support of organized religion. Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a reality."
....Riiiiight....
This argument doesn't work any better than it did 150 years ago. ...yet the same people keep making it, figuring eventually they will prevail.
sigh
Rated.
I'm the farthest thing from a fundamentalist, so I'm not going to defend this bizarre, well, whatever-it-is, although the point about slaves being treated by their masters as the masters would treat other Israelites is valid, for what it's worth (although not at all well-apprehended by this minister, who is probably just another of the semi-literate "Bible college" grads with the American south in particular seems to be lousy at the moment). It still didn't make being a slave a groovy gig. And of course Israel was one of a number of countries for whom slaves were a regular feature of conquest. But I will say that I still both shake my head and laugh at those who, like many in the comments here, seem to assume that if big, bad Christianity (or Islam or Judaism or whatever "organised" religion one wants to take a pick at today) hadn't come along, somehow we'd all be alright. Somehow humans would no longer be, well, human; we wouldn't be doing all the wicked things we do in the name of religion--we somehow wouldn't be doing them in the name of money or power or sheer malice, which is, sorry, why we actually do them.
I heard Terry Eagleton--the foremost Marxist critic of the 20th (and now early 21st) centuries--take apart Richard Dawkins and his ilk the other day, and was reminded that there are non-believers who examine the issues with some depth (Eagleton is, of course, not a Christian, but he's a scholar, and is justly irritated by the shallow understanding and poor methodology of someone like Dawkins, who is far too brilliant to have an excuse for this). I wish more of them were around. Alas, I wish in vain.
Hilarious post!
How about openly discussing how many many are subjugated, beaten, murdered, physically insulted and discriminated against by muslimitis??!!
The poster who wrote this is RIGHT ON and, I am not plagiarising as, I AM crediting the writer.
READ:
"
Why just Christianity?
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Posted by: Julian on Nov 9, 2009 2:07 AM
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It is understandable that when saying “religion” Americans mean Christianity. After all, they are getting it rammed down their throats every day and quite rightly react against it. However, the extreme intolerance of another religion is being rammed down European and British throats (to say nothing of North African, Middle Eastern and Pakistani) while its standard-bearers demand persistently that this intolerant creed be respected and tolerated while it calls for death to those who reject it (anyone remember Salman Rushdie?). Its own “holy book” is a living threat to human rights, especially the rights of women (in Europe, commonly seen clad in body bags) and the right of free speech (and I don’t mean free lies and racist speech). Every adherent is as bound to every anti-human clause in that book as every Christian a couple of millennia ago was bound to every anti-human sentence in the Bible.
But to attack this modern militant assault on human rights and on democracy is excoriated by many aghast atheists (who rightly recognise that Christianity should not be immune from criticism and even ridicule) as “bigotry”. They’ve even coined a word for it: “Islamophobia” (how about Naziphobia?). See a point by point comparison of the Koran with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Koranic scholar Ibn Warraq. It’s at
http://www.rationalist.com.au/
archive/83/32-34%20Human%20Rights%
20Ibn.pdf (join it up in a single URL).
As for choosing to leave this cult, the penalties are roughly the same as they were for trying to leave Jonestown.
One must also remember that the bigoted intolerance of some life choices (such as same-sex relationships) displayed in Christianity and Islam doesn’t need religion to sustain it. It was the same in atheist USSR and still is in atheist China. (Though euthanasia is available in China if you go about it the right way - try to spread democracy and they’ll do it for you). The real enemy of reason isn’t religion, it’s faith, drummed into the public daily in the USSR and China. Religion is only one form of it. The Enlightenment was the start of a world battle for evidence-based reason that will persist for centuries. "
Not worth my time. You cannot defend the indefensible, no matter who you are.
.
All I can say is that many atheists are closely related to religious fundamentalists in this sense -- both agree that the only legitimate reading of the Bible is a fundamentalist one. The fundamentalists happen to believe the reading, and the atheists don't. But they both read the Bible the same way.
The problem is that religions change and develop over time. I am unaware that there was any slavery in Israel at the time of Jesus, except the slavery that followed as being part of the Roman Empire. In addition, it's difficult to know what actually happened in ancient Israel, since the first five books of the Bible were not written down until around 800 b.c., as I recall.
Slavery was widespread throughout the ancient near east, as well as in Greek and Roman culture. Under your kind of analysis, we would probably throw out all of Greek philosophy as unworthy of consideration because Aristotle thought that there were "natural slaves." We'd also throw out all the writings of Roman authors as unworthy, because the Roman Empire was basically built on the institution of slavery. The U.S. Constitution is likewise worthless because it originally allowed slavery.
Of course one important difference is that the writings of Greek and Roman authors, and the Constitution, are not called the "word of God." But then one need not accept the fundamentalist interpretation of the phrase "word of God," and huge numbers of Christians don't. And even the fundamentalist Christians aren't practicing slavery, or advocating that it should be practiced.
I find it interesting that out of vast resources of all the theological libraries in the world, the tons of academic research that has gone into understanding the Bible and ancient Israel, that the thing that you select to represent the "Christian" point of view is a stupid cartoon from YouTube, that proves only that some people will believe anything. And the only thing you select to represent "Old Testament morality" is slavery. This is like making a critique of the United States of America based on a YouTube video produced by the Ku Klux Klan. Given the ideological orientation of the Open Salon editors these days, it would no doubt make the cover as well.
Most people I know say in effect they believe in enslaving their fellow man to "do right". This kid just didn't know enough to lie about it the right way, is all. I think all you fuckers believe in religion. A rose by any other name.
If slaveowners hadn't been gouging out their slaves eyes, there wouldn't have had to be a proscription against it.
Atheists don't really "believe" that the Bible is literally true. However, it is what was written down, a combination of history, fiction, and propaganda. And it is believed to be the truth even today by people like the guy who wrote this.
We in fact do know much about what happened in that area of the world at that time, through the magic of what is called Archeology. So we can say that many of the cities actually existed, but much of what is written about them is just untrue. Jericho existed, but it did not have stone walls.
It's not a matter of belief. We know about these things.
or, a modern comparison that i like: you can choose to be ruled by a democrat, and be ruled by a war-mongering lackey of the bankers, or be ruled by a republican, and...
Deargdruchtach: "I heard Terry Eagleton--the foremost Marxist critic of the 20th (and now early 21st) centuries--take apart Richard Dawkins and his ilk the other day, and was reminded that there are non-believers who examine the issues with some depth (Eagleton is, of course, not a Christian, but he's a scholar, and is justly irritated by the shallow understanding and poor methodology of someone like Dawkins, who is far too brilliant to have an excuse for this). I wish more of them were around. Alas, I wish in vain."
You're not going to throw that vacuous blowhard Terry Eagleton in my face? Good Dog! That man is a blithering idiot (and I seriously doubt that he is an atheist. He has been very coy about his own stance before, so if he has now come out as a non-believer, I guess that is some slight progress. But if he is an atheist, he is embarrassing us all).
Sorry, but I just can't stand that pompous fool. You might as well dangle a red handkerchief in front of a bull. I've written about him and his rubbish before. And I recommend P. Z. Myers' epic simily:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/elephants_wings.php
Just because someone sounds nice and evenhanded, that doesn't mean they have an ounce of sense in their head. If you encounter one person who says that a car moves because it is being pushed by invisible fairies, while another says that it is driven by an internal combustion engine, it is only a fool who nods sagely and says: "I think both of you have a point." Sometimes being evenhanded is just dead wrong.
mishima666: "All I can say is that many atheists are closely related to religious fundamentalists in this sense -- both agree that the only legitimate reading of the Bible is a fundamentalist one."
You're quite right. And there's a very good reason for that. The fundie position is at least internally consistent. The many believers who claim that the Bible tells them what God wants, but hemm and haw when you ask them about the nasty bits of that book, are simply trying to maintain their beliefs without accepting the whole package. I'm glad that they have enough sense to see that much of it is dangerous and immoral, but I have no respect for their capacity for logic. To admit that the Bible is untrustworthy in parts is to admit that it is untrustworthy, period. It's not as if we can carry out scientific tests to determine which statements, if any, are divinely inspired.
"Under your kind of analysis, we would probably throw out all of Greek philosophy as unworthy of consideration because Aristotle thought that there were "natural slaves." We'd also throw out all the writings of Roman authors as unworthy, because the Roman Empire was basically built on the institution of slavery. The U.S. Constitution is likewise worthless because it originally allowed slavery."
I'm not aware that anyone is claiming that these texts are the word of God. You can criticise the ancient Greeks as much as you like, and no one will raise an eyelid (I, for one, reject Aristotle's views on a whole range of subjects). If you criticise religious views, however, there are plenty of people - even quite a few atheists - who will come running to tell you that such behaviour is abominable.
"I find it interesting that out of vast resources of all the theological libraries in the world, the tons of academic research that has gone into understanding the Bible and ancient Israel, that the thing that you select to represent the "Christian" point of view is a stupid cartoon from YouTube, that proves only that some people will believe anything."
I choose these YouTube videos for two excellent reasons:
1. I find them funny, which is part of the point with these posts.
2. I have no patience for the vapid excuses of theologians. Sure, I could dig up the crap of moderate preachers, but you would only end up with the same stupid argument: "You've got to have faith." They just wrap that turd in prettier paper. But you don't need five volumes of 1500 pages to say that. And they can no more claim to know the one true faith than any idiot on the web. How do they know that Jesusfreak is not a prophet who channels God?
I know very well that the majority of Christians are not fundie apologists for slavery. But the believers who are willing to accept that their faith is purely personal and can have no consequences for anyone else is not my target. It's the fundies I'm trying to discredit here. And it's not as if they are few and far between.
"This is like making a critique of the United States of America based on a YouTube video produced by the Ku Klux Klan."
You could do that. And if the Ku Klux Klan had millions of members who were highly visible in the US media and were frequently invited to share their views on national TV, I think it would be well worth doing.
The video is correct that modern 15th to 19th century slavery was in some ways worse than biblical slavery, but misses the real reason for this. It was not that this slavery was "secular" - Lord knows slave owners thought they had the mandate of heaven and waved their bibles around. But, even in the 15th century, the overall moral condition of the world had advanced beyond the conditions of the ancient near-East. What had once been a set of rules designed to moderate and humanize a universal institution like slavery, were transformed by Christianity into rules to justify and maintain an institution that the world was gradually waking up to view as unacceptable.
From a Jewish perspective we don't learn that the laws of slavery provide a cook book for how to do slavery today... just the opposite. We learn from the laws of slavery the obligation to do justice within, and improve upon, the economic and legal relationships that pertain today. We, having brains upon our head, understand the laws in the historical context. We are historical relativists... because we are not idiots.
Fundamentalist nutters interpret the bible as an excuse to reduce ethical standards. Some of us biblical interpreters see it as chock full of commandments to improve upon and exceed the ethical standards of its day, and feel a "biblically" informed obligation to do the same today. (Of course it helps to have a century old interpretative tradition and not just try to figure it out through unmediated and uninformed context with a translation of an ancient text.) Me, I use the bible as a blueprint for democracy and socialism. Your mileage may vary. Maybe that's just me. Peace, out.
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)
Hurray for family values! And let's here it for sex slaves:
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
Things didn't get just ducky for slaves under the New Testament:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)
And:
Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)
This could be written off as the views of a few extremists if the "literal truthers" didn't try to control all aspects of our private and public lives - and often serve as politicians in order to do so. Jr. Bush hired Dr. Hager to head the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. This Ob-Gyn refused to prescribe birth control for unmarried women. He authored a book entitled, "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." In it, he combines biblical accounts of Christ healing women along with his own practice and tells women with PMS to read certain passages in the bible. As a doctor, he held the mistaken idea that birth control is an abortifacient.
His wife also divorced him for attempting to rape her anally while she was sleeping. He didn't deny that he tried to rape her but said he confused her anus for her vagina.
Some doctor.
Sadly, the only reason for an appointment for such a man is to appeal to the other "literal truthers" who walk among us.
Thank you for this post.
The Bible must be studied as whole for discernment of morality that can be applied to today. Sadly, many crimes have been committed through the lip-service of Christianity. Were these really Christians? No they only took the name of Christians. “The tree is known by it’s fruit.” Bad people do bad things no matter what they choose to call themselves. If Hitler states he’s a Christian, is he? If the Klu Klux Klan says they ‘re Christians are they? “You will be known by the great love you have for each other. ”
PS the New Testament was written between 63AD and 150AD. The earliest text being the letters of Paul (63AD) followed by Mark, Matthew, Luke (80-120 AD) and then by the gospel of John approx 150 AD. Each was written for slightly different audiences (cultural contexts) with different emphasis in mind.
Peace
Seriously?
AAAARRRGGGHHH!
I loved the beginning, when he says, "Now, we're all familiar with the negative imageries of slavery..." Like there's a positive imagery of slavery? And like slavery is about imagery and not an actual, bodily lack of freedom?
And he ends with something about the way God would "frown on" the way humans did slavery. Yeah, no bedtime snack for you people! You did the slavery thing again today!
BenAdam: "In the biblical world, in which slavery was in fact common, the bible does contain numerous laws which are clearly intended to humanize and ameliorate the condition of slavery."
True. In a historical context, there is nothing shocking about these rules. The problem arises when people insist that the text has eternal value because it is divinely inspired. And an atheist would argue that a moral god should have had the balls to ban slavery right from the get-go, rather than waiting thousands of years.
"We, having brains upon our head, understand the laws in the historical context. We are historical relativists... because we are not idiots. [...] Some of us biblical interpreters see it as chock full of commandments to improve upon and exceed the ethical standards of its day, and feel a "biblically" informed obligation to do the same today."
A fine comment. This is of presumably how most modern believers think. And I am glad that you do, even though I still have snarky things to say about your reverence for these 2,000+ year old texts.
BOKO: "OH THE BRUTALITY."
Jezuzfreek777 has no compassion for Philistines...
Greek v. Latin? I'm neutral on that topic. I think.
Emanuel Vianney: "The Bible was written in many different styles, by many different authors to communities of people living in the various times, cultural situations and historical contexts."
True. But there's a paradox here: In my experience, most believers seem stunningly ignorant of its historical background. I get the impression that few actually have read the Bible - and to the extent that they know the text, they have only absorbed it in bite-size excerpts during sermons. Atheists frequently put them to shame in debates. Fundamentalism becomes much harder if you actually know a thing or two about the texts and their history.
"Only a fundamentalist or an atheist would lift passages out of the bible and try to argue for their literal meaning or the later to disprove the validity of Christianity based on 21st century cultural identities."
Well, here's the thing: The Christian faith is not a 21st century phenomenon. It is based on the assumption that the Bible is truly a divinely inspired text, which contains true information about God and Jesus and practical advice on how God wants you to live your life. These are factual claims, and they can be tested - or at least, we can say something about the likelyhood that they are true. And when we find obvious errors and deeply immoral advice in the book, that does undermine its status as the revealed word of God. So it's hardly dishonest for us atheists to point out such examples.
And while the fundie tries valiantly to defend the text as it is, warts and all, the moderate believers have a huge problem when they try to explain how they can separate the chaff from the wheat. They allow themselves to be skeptical, but refuse to be skeptical about the central premise that the Bible is an important book because it was inspired by a god. They must accept a logical inconsistency which both the atheist and the fundie avoid.
Lainey:
Yeah, why did slavery get such a bad rap? It's been so misunderstood.