Is religion a "social evil"?

It's very well having people calling for more diversity (whatever that is ... ), but people of faith (as you call them) need to have the freedom to stand up for the truth. Look at the Jerry Springer business. Should we have rolled over and taken that lying down? Or Blueprint? Or the sex on tv nowadays? Or the legalisation of every sin in the Bible? Where does it all end?

Thank you PTL for that blurb against Blueprint, thereby confirming that a portion of believers are indeed Victorian nay-sayers who oppose scientific progress and can't handle science having disproven their fairy tale literalist beliefs. And that their desire to hang on to their unrealistic beliefs forms an obstacle to our progress.

Interestingly, other UK polls have shown that even many religious people view religion as a source of tension, as the number of people who think so exceeds the number of non-believers:

https://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/dec/23/religion.topstories3
https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2368534.ece

Religion seems to be biting back these days. Gone are the good old days when it sat happily in the corner sipping on shandy only piping up the odd turn when inadvertently asked for its opinion by the drunk who missed last orders. It is now being attacked from outside and within and needless to say it can't just sit back and say nothing, so on comes the tired old diatribe that pits one religion against another, one community against society as a whole, one man against his neighbour. I recall someone once described going to war over religion as ‘fighting to see who has the better imaginary friend.’ I suppose it is an irony that, in terms of tolerance, it proves time and again not to have any. Is it a social evil? No, it’s just the god-squad buying their stairway to heaven.

Hmmm. I think religion *is* the drunk who missed last orders. Taxi!

The first line of the article says alot;-

"A CHARITY set up by an ardent Christian to fight slavery and the opium trade has identified a new social evil of the 21st century - religion."

Ironically Steve Chalke et al ate still showing the church is at the forefront of the battle against slavery/trafficking.

ie "stop the traffik"


Churches are generally a very practical and positive addition to any community in the programmes they offer for mothers and toddlers, youth groups, pensioners groups etc.

Many go much further.

An elder in my church says that if the church in his town came out of community work the entire sector in the town would collapse.

I'm just off to help at the English lessons for foriegn nationals in our church this evening...

PB

PB

The flip side of this

"A CHARITY set up by an ardent Christian to fight slavery and the opium trade has identified a new social evil of the 21st century - religion."

Is that many from the literalist/Bible Bible believing churches supported slavery and segregation and did so well into the 20th century. Let me add that I am *not* saying that all Christians were like this.

PTL / PB

We (christians) need to be careful before we flag up our ‘successes’. For every claim of virtue there is a counter claim of evil.

Will suggests “the question people of faith need to ask is why the public today are so distrustful of religious believers” and gives a possible answer. I would suggest another one:

The trouble with a lot of popular christianity is that it is high on its own sub-culture and low on substance.

Here are some examples of what I mean. I will restrict my comments to the public face of popular christianity in Northern Ireland as in doing so I am only critiquing my own community.

(1) Love your enemies. Sounds good doesn’t it? Until we think through the problems of the last 40 years. Some might argue that ‘true’ christians weren’t responsible, but there *was* a lot of religious (christian) rhetoric fired about. Anyway true christians are supposed to love their enemies not simply avoid them. Silence isn’t always a virtue.

(2) Caustic grace. Yes I know its a contradiction, but it sounds something like this. “God loves you, but because you’re not as good as I am, you’re going to hell, so sharpen up and act like me.”

(3) Millions of pounds spent on buildings and sound systems and tiered seating and magazines and the creation of our own version of the music world (when ‘secular’ musicians are usually better) and a bundle of other stuff, in an attempt to be relevant while at least half the world starves. I could probably stop right here!

(4) A disengagement from the community around us. It’s all very well talking about mothers and toddlers and stuff, and even anti-slavery movements but this wasn’t always the case. We should face the fact and be honest about it.

(5) Quoting an elder in your church, doesn’t, unfortunately, amount to much, he is one of us. The church normally says good things about itself. Maybe when an atheist social worker says the same thing we might have earned the right to crow a bit more.

(6) Fundamentalists. Harsh, self-righteous, egotistical, often violent. We ought not to recognise them as defenders of the faith.

Honest self-examination is called for. Will asked a question, we should attempt to answer it, not simply offer apologies.

The point PTL, is not whether diversity is right or wrong, the point is that we, the religious, are deemed to be the problem.

Petermorrow, you ended your post saying

'we, the religious, are deemed to be the problem.'

While I'm an atheist and have little appreciation for any flavour of christianity or indeed most other religions that I know of, there are distinctions. I think if all believers were like you, far fewer atheist would feel the urge to speak out against religion.

greets,
Peter

Sorry Peter K

Just because a believer makes contrite noises doesn't make him less dangerous - I agree with Sam Harris that the moderates only give encouragement to the fundamentalist nutters!

.

Hi allybalder,

As I wrote, I have no thirst for beliefs. But if ALL believers were like petermorrow, there would be far fewer problems.

I'll agree with you that that is not realistic, that the practical reality is that a certain percentage will turn into dangerous nutters.

Of course Peter M may be an a journey to ecuminism, agnosticism, secularism, and god help him - Atheism and Humanism - or maybe we're setting him up for attack by ptl, pb et al
I suppose that's pretty courageous on his part?

.

Allybalder

Are you trying to be funny with regard to Peter Morrow or are you lacking in the manners Peter Klaver has?

No David - neither! - hopefully Peter - and even you are open minded and are on a journey - as I have been and still am!

Allybalder,

Where are you going?

D
I asked first!

Allybalder,

You said that you were on a jouney.I said no such thing.

These humanists on the blog will have a long time to wait before true religion dies out. How many humanists are there anyway?

To answer Will's question: I think the reason religion is falling in the public's assessment is that so few church leaders actually lead. We need leaders prepared to stand up and be counted and to take on the secularising aspects of our society. Where is rowan williams? He's practically an atheist, isnt he?

What is the worst blight our society is facing today? When I was young it was television. Television disconnected people from each other. It killed the art of conversation. People sat in front of what was euphemistically called "the boob tube" until they were buggy eyed. Today, I think it is the computer. The computer has made it possible for people to entirely escape the real world and hide in a caccoon that is completely impenetrable only coming out to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. Why if I were not sitting here at my computer right now typing on a keyboard looking at a screen imagining I am communicating with other people, I could be doing something useful, productive, intelligent...like watching television :-)

Religion? There are good religions and bad religions. At least I think there are. There must be some good religions out there somewhere? Anybody know of one? Somebody help me out here. Maybe among the Hopi Indians...oops, it is not politically correct to call them Indians (we only called them that because Columbus thought he'd found a passage to India when he discovered the new world, I learned that on television.) Hopi Native Americans. There, that's better. Wanna see me make it rain?

ptl said
These humanists on the blog will have a long time to wait before true religion dies out. How many humanists are there anyway?

Compare the influence that religion has today to that of even fifty years ago.
Then in Ireland at least 90% would have attended church regularly - now I doubt if it is 15%. Do you really think that trend can be changed?

I have three children and six grandchildren and I doubt if any of them are believers - of course the g/children are all under 10 so there's still a slight danger they will be corrupted!

Education! Education! Education!

.

If the influence of religion is reduced, I blame weak leadership amongst church leaders. We need more direction and strength.

PTL.

Don't blame your leaders.
The people are waking up to your snakeoil, thats all.

I think Christianity and the other fairy tales have had a pretty good run to last as long as they have without a shred of proof.

Come on in Religion - your time is up...

The future's bright, the future's enlightenment.

Have a great weekend.

Religion is not all bad, and certainly there are many individual believers doing good works. But the survey clearly implies that as a social force it has on balance a malign influence.

(1) Divided society:

Northern Ireland is a paradigm. Children in schools are divided on religious lines, Christians in churches are divided on religious lines, Catholics and Protestants live largely in segregated areas; there is segregated sport and culture.

Not all this division can be blamed on religion: a clash of nationalisms is also responsible. But when religion and nationalism combine, there you have a pretty lethal cocktail.

(2) Intolerance

Throughout history, religions have shown their intolerance by preaching hatred against their enemies and persecutions of heretics, women, gays etc. They have only become more tolerant in those countries like the UK where they have become less powerful. Where they retain power in some countries, their influence is generally pernicious.

Intolerance in NI is endemic to the society. A well-known religious leader, referred to by Germaine Greer last night on Let's Talk as one of the two 'bad men' ruling the province, has in the past referred to the Pope as the 'anti-Christ', and of Catholics he has said that they 'breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin'. Has he mellowed in his old age? Or is he still preaching this poison from the pulpit? I would be interested to know

Hi Brian

"Has he mellowed in his old age? Or is he still preaching this poison from the pulpit? I would be interested to know."

I presume you are referring to 'Dr. Chuckle'!?

From what I hear there are plenty of empty seats pretty close to his pulpit.

Maybe you could go along!

Then again....

Allybalder (post 9)

A noise is something like whoosh, woof, baa, tinkle, grrrrrrr. The literary description for words like this is onomatopoeia. I have tended to avoid these words on this blog as it is not an online version of the Beano.

I should also say that I don't feel particularly contrite.

I haven’t read any Sam Harris, but have come across his website. If what you attribute to him is correct, "that the moderates only give encouragement to the fundamentalist nutters!", then it would appear that I am only a colour on a spectrum of danger. Possibly pastel, or a lighter shade of pale, or possibly more FUN than MENTAL, but in DA house of danger none the less.

Funny, I hadn’t thought of myself as culpable for 9/11, but there ya go, we learn something everyday. Should I turn myself in? Seems to me though, that it's a bit like blaming science for Josef Mengele. But you'd need to have no brains to do that. With no meaning **none at all!**

Interestingly I see from your comments to david that we are both pilgrims. Common ground, eh!

MarcusAurelius2

It's raining here now.

Some people - believers or atheists - are fairly nasty pieces of work. Many more people - believers or atheists - are very nice people.

The truth: some people are bad, but far more are good. Thinking in terms "religion is a social evil" or "unbelief is a social evil" is the sort of shoddy black-and-white thinking that causes "social evil" in the first place.

G.Da

G. Da,

You are quite wrong. Reducing everything to a matter of personalities is one of the things that is wrong with the world. At this level, emotions, hatreds and personal animosities come more into play and trivialise and sour every issue. Why would we bother to debate on this blog or why would you bother to read it if it was merely a matter of who got one over the other? Aren’t you seeking understanding, the truth etc? Or you just playing a game?

Truth matters, and if religion is untrue, then religious people have a false conception of the world and they are living a lie.

Moreover, if you reduce everything to personalities you will not understand the social, economic, political and ideological forces which influence behaviour.

Do you deny that religion is a divisive force in NI?

Steven Weinberg said: "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things – that takes religion".

Hi Brian

It's weird, isn't it, how we can agree and disagree all at the same time.

Truth matters - Yes, absolutely yes! Firm unfaltering, unwavering agreement.

Reducing everything to personalities - Yes, dangerous, especially if we look no further than the moment.

Do ideologies influence behaviour - yes, but people also influence ideologies, especially bad people.

Is religion divisive in NI - Yes. I pointed this out in post 7, and almost got called courageous for doing so.

"Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things." - Yep, more agreement.

"for good people to do bad things, that takes religion" - Yes this is true too, does religion corrupt people? - Yes - but other things corrupt too, like money for example. The list of course is a bit longer so to limit it to religion is a bit 'Sam Harris' - (see my post 24, also see your post 22)

I notice however, that one variation of the statements is missing, and I guess that here we might disagree.

Whatever is it going to take for bad people to do good things?

And yes, I know there's more than one answer.

I agree that Weinberg's remark is a simplication. You are quite right. Money corrupts, ideology corrupts power corrupts (and absolute power corrupts absolutely). Religion is not the only source of malignity in the world, but nevertheless it is one of them.

A humanist/agnostic/atheist would probably argue that it would be better for the world if people were generally more sceptical and less certain of belief.

If Germaine Greer is correct and the two partners in chuckledom are bad men, then they have done a good thing, but there is no evidence that religion was the motivating factor.

petermorrow #25
Now that you understand my power, you'd better be nice to me, all of you. Get me piqued and I just might visit NI with 40 days and 40 nights of it again...or an ice storm...or a freak hurricaine....or a swam of locusts. How about frogs? brianmcclinton #29 you are right, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ooooh it feels good to have this much at my command.

Jesus, talk about missing the point.

G.Da

MarcusAurelius2

Request from my children. Could you make it snow here tonight, they're bored.

Geordie_Da

I don't think Brian McClinton is claiming to be Jesus.

petermorrow #32
Of course I could make it snow tonight. I could make it snow this very second. If you the wicked people of the world continue global warming, I just might make it snow in some places and it will never stop. How would you like...an ice age. I haven't done that one even on a small scale in about fifteen thousand years. Well maybe just a tiny one here and there but they don't count. Maybe I'll bring back the mastadons and wolly mamouths while I'm at it. William will have some living fossils to enjoy.

Marcus,

Living fossils? Why, you surpass yourself!

Anyway,

Should Caesar permit, I'll go. I've been at this computer too long. I've forgotten my wife's face and I barely know my son.

McClinton isn't Jesus?

Well there goes my belief system.

G.Da

Geordie_da, Mcclinton isn't Jesus? Next I suppose you're going to say I'm not god. You'd better watch it. One blink from me and pffff, you don't exist. I've had my on you for awhile already anyway. Remember, I am everywhere and I know everything. I know what you do, what you say, what you eat and drink, even what you are thinking. Who am I? Why I'm the CIA of course. :-)

I think religion isn't a bad tging. I think it's something in what a human being has to trust. It gives someting to beleive in. I't's part or our existence, part of our values.

I object to the suggestion that the National Secular Society is not eternal. However, I agree that religions are probably going to survive in some form or other for a very long time. Not because any one of them is correct, but because us humans aren't going to give up our liking for them too easily.

The word 'evil' has connotations I could do without, but I do think that religious ideologies detract more than they contribute.

Religions are straining to hold on to their credibility as the world changes faster than religions are adapting. The current reactions of the religious leaders to these threats seem to be counterproductive, actively encouraging divisiveness and opposing progress to hold onto political influence. I suspect this has a lot to do with religion turning up on this survey.

Our brains are amazing things but our higher functions are all too easily switched off by older, more basic traits such as fear and tribalism. For all its appeals to our good side, religions can be a dangerously easy way to directly access our mental weak spots.

Religion feeds tribalism by inventing additional ways to divide us for, as I see it, entirely unnecessary reasons. People in Northern Ireland were not fighting over transubstantiation, but the tribes were maintained by religion's ability (and eagerness) to separate us - taboos on inter-marriage, etc. There will always be tribes, but to invent additional ones seems a luxury we can ill afford.

Over-investment in ideologies, religious or not, always seem to lead to problems. If the system is seen as always much more important than any of the people in it then more of those people will get hurt. Religious ideologies have an additional risk factor in that their priorities do not need to be grounded to demonstrable entities. If nothing is more important than your immortal soul or you think you are doing your god's work then it is easier to justify going to extremes. A person who thinks that their god will reward them for killing would be much further out on their mental limb if religious institutions didn't regard enforcing interpretations of the will of the gods as a reasonable thing to do.

The presence of so many alternative interpretations should make believers reluctant to impose their version on others and more critical of those who do. The religious should see the need to discredit the taking of actions that impose on others based on revelation, not just seek to draw the line at bombing. Take the Catholic ban on contraception. Most Catholics in developed countries use their freedom to quietly ignore this ruling, but do little to object to its imposition in countries where the Church has greater political influence.


If religion is to hang around, my hope is that it transforms into a more personal, spiritual affair. The big religious institutions look past their sell-by dates. We would all benefit if they stopped acting as god's enforcers.

I would be happy for the NSS to go extinct first if it is due to the religious seeing the benefits of a level playing field. This does not require the elimination of religion.

Yes, William's remark about the NSS was rather unkind. Polls show that religion is declining in Europe. Where it is 'flourishing', to use William's word, is largely in theocracies or societies like the US and NI where it has for centuries had a largely malign influence. Is that what you want, William? More theocracies or more Northern Irelands?

The problem I seem to have is that even when I seek to offer a self-examination of religions as I did in post 7 we still have to put up with, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh religion, run away!” as if it were the most probable cause of all evil.

Interestingly in today’s Sunday Times there is a report on a new book published about the on going problems of organised crime in NI. It makes interesting reading, suggesting that in order to keep everyone on board during the peace process that the government ignored, paramilitary crime. The book is by Jon Moran, lecturer in criminology at Wolverhampton University. According to the report, Moran suggests,

“It makes no sense to say that crime levels are falling in Ulster.”


“The variety of drugs offered for sale on the streets of Belfast has increased”

“People argue that buildings are not being blown up by terrorists but in terms of organised crime things are getting worse”

This has nothing to do with religion. Furthermore this kind of evil exists all over the world. Could we broaden the debate please?

DEEP UNEASE OVER

LOSS OF 'MORAL COMPASS'






- claim from same survey.


Can humanists help?



Interesting how opposing camps can take such contrasting views on the same story.

Here is the Christian Institute on this same poll;-

"British society lacks common values and is plagued by selfishness, greed, drug and alcohol misuse and family breakdown, according to a widespread survey of Britons.

"The responses to an on-line survey conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) revealed a deep sense of unease about the issues troubling modern society, with many feeling that Britain had lost its 'moral compass'.

"The JRF ran the consultation on 'modern-day social evils' 100 years after its Quaker founder, Joseph Rowntree, identified as the key problems of his age poverty, war, slavery, intemperance, the opium trade, impurity and gambling.

"The new survey, which invited responses last year through a website, showed that people still ranked drugs and alcohol, poverty and inequality highly among the key 'evils' threatening modern society.

"These were all linked to family breakdown, which made a new addition to Mr Rowntree's original list, along with crime, immigration and young people as either the victims or the perpetrators of social evils.

"Behind the more concrete concerns, many of those responding to the survey identified social attitudes of individualism, greed, a decline of community and a decline of values as major social evils.

"One respondent said: "Everything seems to be based around money and owning things. The more you have, the more successful you are. There's nothing wrong with having enough, but there's pressure on people to go for more and more."
END OF CI ARTICLE.


I think it should also be pointed out that a website poll may not be the best at gathering an objective sample, as we saw when Dawkins won person of the year on this site a while back and some of the behind the scenes antics associated.

PB

Hello peab,

"Interesting how opposing camps can take such contrasting views on the same story."

This should not surprise anyone. Among certain groups of christians (most prominently the dishonest, distorting, fundamentalist YECs, you represent them well) it is common to completely ignore the overall storyline and grasp at the last tiny straw that does not adhere to the overwhelming 99+ % rest of the conclusions. For instance, you have quote mined Darwin about the eye no less, to argue against Darwinian evolution.

The pdf about the poll does extensively mention the negative views people have of religion. People are quoted as talking of religion as for instance

'undermines social cohesion' and 'a force for separating people'

'we should not be making any political or educational decisions based on religion'

'children should be taught to derive their conclusions from evidence and logic, not the ravings of deluded idiots'

'promote strong beliefs for which there is no objective evidence [and] undermine rational behaviour'

So you have focussed attention on another group of christians who have no problem with resorting to dishonesty to shore up their own views.
Thank you once again peab, you truly are the Flying Spaghetti Monsters gift to atheists.

Peter

I take it you had a nice wkdn then Pete?

;-)

Original Pb:

I think the blog story took the item from the Sunday Times NEWS report of the poll which appeared in the NEWS section of that paper on 20th April. It stated that the 'dominant opinion' among 3,500 people surveyed was that religion was a 'social evil'. The Christian institute seems to have omitted this 'evil' from its list, if your quote is full and correct

However, without seeing the survey report, neither of us can comment on whether or not the ST report is accurate and that the dominant opinion was that religion is a 'social evil'.

It is clearly listed as one of these evils, according to the people surveyed, whether you like it or not.

Brian - I agree that it would be helpful to see the report itself.


My question still stands though - what alternative moral compass have humanists got and can they point to a precdent in history where it has worked?

PB

Religion Ahhhhhhhhhhhh run away.

OK guys, let's assume there is no god.

Let's assume that religion is a construct of the mind doing more evil than good.

If this is true, it would have to be a construct of a mind over which the gods have no control, as there are none.

This evil, this religion, this faith would have to be the construct of a 'secular' mind.

In the end, if there are no gods, it is only humans who are evil.

Now, I've tried a little self examination, so its over to you!

Peter:

The word ‘evil’ is problematic and I prefer to use the word ‘bad’. I think that on balance religion as a source force has tended to encourage the bad in us more than the good.

This badness that religion tends to inspire comes more from the dogma than from the character of the people who preach it or the people who enact it. For example, if the sacred text says: ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ (Exodus 22:18), and people burn witches, this testifies to their ignorance, gullibility and obedience to authority rather than necessarily any bad intent. The same applies to messages such as ‘kill the infidel’ or ‘stone homosexuals’.

These are examples where religious belief encourages people to do bad things. Religion tends to thwart many of the good qualities below.

Original Pb:

My own moral compass has a number of points, of which four are outlined below

NATURE
Human beings are social animals, which means they are capable of good and bad. Life’s task is to develop the good qualities of sympathy, kindness, understanding etc., which arise out of a desire for the caring, love and mutual aid than most other animals also display, and to minimise the bad qualities which are also present in nature.

REASON
Reason gives us the ability to sympathise with another’s situation because we have to think out what it would be like to him or her in that situation. To empathise with others is to use our reason as well as our compassion. Reason also means that we take into consideration all our relevant desires and not just the desire that happens to be strongest at the moment. In other words, it involves us thinking about the consequences of our actions. We are rational in proportion as our intelligence informs and controls our desires.

FREEDOM
Mill put this as a basic moral principle, and he was right. We should be as free to think and do what we want so long as we don’t harm others: “over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign”. The extension of people’s freedoms in Europe in the second half of the 20th century bears Mill out. The first half  – of dictatorship, excessive obedience to political authority, denial of rights, censorship of all opposition  – led to the madness of Auschwitz and the Gulag.

HAPPINESS
Mill’s principle of freedom is not one of selfish indifference. He makes it clear that if we think others are wrong, we should remonstrate, reason, persuade and entreat. And the reason is that liberty is not an end in itself. it is not to be protected for its own sake but because it leads to greater happiness for ourselves and others. The free development of individuality, of unique capabilities, of people’s differences as well as their similarities, is a means whereby each person becomes valuable to himself and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others.

Mill said that human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

If humankind followed Mill’s path, instead of Moses, Jesus or Mohammed, I think we would be a happier race. Robert Ingersoll said that happiness is the only good. An exaggeration, perhaps, but it is a better message than that found in most ‘sacred texts’.

Now don't pick on something I didn't mention and make it the focus of your reply. Instead, address some of my points, please, and give us a clue as to your moral principles.

Thanks Brian

Your moral compass, in brief seems to be;-

That religion tends to thwart the following qualities;-


NATURE or mutual kindness

REASON or emphathy and self-control

HAPPINESS or the freedom to develop



I respect your request for a reasonable response Brian.


The Christian faith (and others) teaches loving your neighbour as yourself as half of its main creed. And it practises it. The Jubillee 3rd world debt cancellation campaign, stop the traffick (against slaver), Wilberforce, Red Cross, Salvation Army etc etc etc are just some of the examples.

While of course there are exceptions, they are just that. Countries with christian foundations demonstrate the highest humanistarian standards in the world today; countries with humanist foundations don't.

Countries with humanist athiest foundations have arguably the worst record in human rights in history.


The pursiut of happiness in and of itself is a selfish pursuit. The Christian faith teaches that fulfillment comes from serving others. It is not incidental.

thanks for the chat Brian, I appreciate the fact it is civil.

sincerely

PB



I dont think mutual kindness is the norm in nature to be honest. I see many predators and prey and in my experience there is a serious engine within man to exploit and abuse each other where there is no real deterrent.
(I dont deny men can also be self sacrificing).

2)

petermorrow.

I don't think religion is 'the most probable cause of all evil' or is entirely bad, but I do think it causes significant problems that are reasonable to explore on a thread titled 'Is religion a "Social Evil"'. I thought you made some good points in your original post, but they were a call for internal, self-examination and so I don't have much to contribute in that vein.

If you look at the most recent religions, such as Mormonism, it is easier to see their human origins and yet they have thousands of sincere followers who testify to their religion's authenticity. If you accept that any of these recent arrivals are human institutions then it should be easier to view them from the perspective: "If none of the claims are true, is that a sensible way to go about things?"

As I do not accept any of the god claims, I fully agree that any of the harm that humans do is caused by humans. But we are also responsible for the good we do as well - we are a mixed bag. I already rejected the word 'evil' in relation to religion precisely because I believe it to be a product of humanity, not some malign force. We have no gods to blame. That means that we have no gods to help either so we have to be self-critical. If we are to improve we have to try to get as realistic a view as possible of our strengths and weaknesses.

As I outlined in my earlier post, religions are not sufficiently well protected against our weaknesses and, in fact, rely on some of them in order to survive. They are not the product of minds doing evil, but have been slowly adapted and revised as they passed through many generations.

Rule by Royal decree survived for centuries but was superseded by democracy as we think it serves society better and has more controls against misuse. This change did not come easy and it is clear that our current system is still far from perfect. One human construct that seemed obvious at the time and, no doubt achieved great things along with its excesses, was rejected for what we now judge to be a better set of ideas. Universal suffrage is barely a century old but we already take it for granted.

Any human system, from democracy to the highway code, can be critiqued on its performance and altered as necessary - if PR looks more effective than 'first past the post' we can change it and review what happens. These are deliberate human constructs so we can make deliberate human changes if we feel the collective need. However, it is much harder to do this dispassionately with religion. The belief in an external source makes it resistant to this sort of deliberate amendment - unless you can convince enough people you are speaking on behalf of that source.

Original pb

I think your postscript ruined your good para about loving Christians etc. I agree that religions are not all bad and some good things have been done in their name. But it is also a feature of most religions to be negative and censorious and to want to stress the bad aspects of our nature, as you cannot resist doing in your postscript, which I expected.

Far from wrecking human rights, humanism is the basis of their development in most western societies. You keep mentioning the abolition of slavery, forgetting that for nearly 2,000 years Christianity sanctioned and practised it. It is present in both the Old and New Testaments, where slaves are told to obey their masters ‘in all things’ (Titus 2:9), ‘just as you would obey Christ’ (Ephesians 6:5).

What you also fail to grasp is that the campaign to abolish the slave trade and slavery in the UK was led by dissident and nonconformist Christians often accused of being hopelessly naive by their mainstream counterparts. The majority of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade were Quakers, following the philosophy of people like Thomas Paine, born a Quaker but describing himself as a Deist (“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church”; “My country is the world, and my religion is to do good”). The first parliamentary petition against the slave trade was presented to the British Parliament by 300 Quakers in 1783. In Ulster it was liberal and republican Presbyterians/C of I like Russell, Drennan, Neilson and Mary Ann McCracken who opposed slavery, not the reactionary elements who won through in the mid-19th century.

In the west, Orginal Pb, we are all humanists now in the sense that the humanist agenda, which can be traced back to ancient Greece and China, has largely triumphed. Freedom; reason, democracy, tolerance and human rights have all succeeded and are all testimony to the veracity of the humanist project. To be sure, there have been setbacks: the dominance of religion in the Dark Ages and the early Middle Ages created what Charles Freeman calls ‘the closing of the western mind’: “the Greek intellectual tradition... was destroyed by the political and religious forces which made up the highly authoritarian government of the late Roman Empire”. The early 20th produced a new authoritarianism, often religious in character, which created yet more destruction. Since 1945, Humanism, which is the very antithesis of authoritarianism, has once again reasserted its supremacy. The triumph of humane values is the product of Humanism, not the outcome of monotheistic religions.

Thanks Brian

I appreciate your civil response.

To be fair to me, the post script was a PS which never was.

It was a para I drafted but then thought I had deleted - hence no "PS".



On slavery and Christianity I have to disagree.

The early church had a large percentage of slaves because of the solidarity the church showed with them.

ie Paul said slave and free, male and female Jew and Greek were all equal in Christ.

And many NT writers in opening their letters described themselves as slaves of Christ. This was not an accidental turn of phrase.

Most people make your mistake without ever reading carefully the only book in the bible dedciated to slavery.

ie Paul's letter to Philemon.
It is a case study in freeing a slave which Paul circulated to all churches and which was retained in the canon.

There were constant slaves revolts in the Roman Empire and Paul had to be clear not to sympathise; political revolution is against scripture as well as extremely dangerous during those times. God is not the God of chaos!

Instead Paul deliberately instigated a revolution of love within the church on this matter and historical records show this had a major impact on the early church, who largely complied. The serious impact of the church on the Roman Empire at all levels is a matter of record.

While people often used scripture to justify slavery - and oppose it - theologically, only God will have the final say as to whether those responsible were truly his disciples.

I respect the fact you have given Wilberforce and friends their place, but you would not for a second sympathise with their biblical beliefs.

I understand the book of Philemon was widely published as a stand alone leaflet to oppose slavery in America, fyi.


You will also notice that slavery in the bible is not the slavery you understand.

It was primarily a social security safety net and a form of community service for criminals and POWs.

Kidnapping someone for slavery in the OT carried the death sentence. Paul wrote that slave traders would not inherit the kingdom of God.

Neither can I see at this time any explicit sanction of the trading of slaves as a commodity in the bible. Very much to the contrary.

So condeming slavery in the bible could be construed as similar to condeming prison sentences, community service or a social security system in our culture.

You will notice the absence of prison sentences under the OT law?


I sympathsise with your apparent worries over theocracies etc and I applaud the many valid contributions of those without faith who have helped shape our culture.

But you will notice all the athiestic regimes of history also had access to the humanist ideas which you claim came from China and Greece - and none of those socities have much of a humanitarian record without the magic ingredient of judeo Christian faith.

It is my understanding that this becomes startlingly apparent when you examine history on a person by person basis.

The scientific revolution is a good example, it was led by numerous Christians who saw it as an expression of their faith. This is beyond serious contention.

I understand British political economic, social and legal culture all follow a similar pattern.

thanks Brian
PB

PB

What "atheistic" regimes are you talking about? Since atheism is simply a statement, not a religion, philosophy, way of life etc I don't know what would qualify as such a regime?

Slavery was gone over with you before. I am delighted that you have found the passages in the Bible which you believe rule out slavery. However many, many Christians in the past and some to this day still support slavery/racism/segregation. Take the southern states on the USA in the last century. These were not atheistic regimes, nor liberal/secular rather they were Bible-believing and they believed that they were right 100% , they were speaking the word of God. You could also take the eg of pre Apartheid South Africa.

The point is that Christains have supported slavery in the past-that's a fact and it's not the same thing as saying that all Christains supported slavery. The same way that I would say not all Christains are like Paisley, Falwell, Bob Jones etc

Brian and Non-plussed

I appreciate your willingness to engage with the debate. Neither of you tend to respond at the level of personal attack on this blog. (I almost wrote blob !) Unfortunately others do.

Brian you prefer the word bad. OK, I can run with bad, even though the poll apparently found it necessary to use the word evil. It was on that basis that I used it. I assume that by bad you mean flawed rather than vile.

You say, “This badness that religion tends to inspire comes more from the dogma than from the character of the people who preach it or the people who enact it.”

I’m genuinely not sure I see the distinction. Are you saying that, generally, people are influenced to do bad things because of bad ideas?

Non-plussed

I agree religion can cause significant problems, this was part of the reason for my initial post. It was an attempt at a bit of honesty, in the hope that some other christians here might say, yes, hands, up we’re not all we claim. And that a few humanists might do likewise. You have come closest.

You are honest enough to recognise that you have no gods to blame and that humans are responsible for both good and bad. I can respect that point of view.

Where I struggle a little, and it is one of the reasons I am a christian, is that I see no ultimate escape from human badness in the process of critique and deliberate adjustment. Yes, I recognise the gains that have been made through time by the religious and the irreligious, but it seems to me that if humanity has capacity for good and bad, then we shall always have the bad with us, and sometimes, the bad is really bad.

Original Pb,

I’m afraid you’re very much on a losing wicket about slavery. The facts are: it is sanctioned in the Bible and many thousands of Christians had slaves. Biblical Christianity kept slavery alive in the west by giving it an ethical respectability. As Dylan Dog suggests, leaders of the southern states, both political and religious, frequently cited the Bible in defence of slavery. Check out Reverends Alexander Campbell, Nathan Lord and Bishop John England as examples.

DD is also right about South Africa. The early Dutch, German and Huguenot settlers in South Africa were deeply religious. As Brian Bunting writes: “The Bible was the fountain of their faith”. Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid were essentially spiritual principles. The Afrikaners believed that they were the elect, whereas the native Africans were, like the children of Ham, condemned to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. The Dutch reformed churches were in the vanguard of racism in South Africa. They gave apartheid the stamp of moral approval by backing it to the hilt on the ground that it was God’s will. The mixing of races, according to the 1966 General Synod of the NGK (the largest of the churches) ‘must be resisted with every resource as wrong and sinful’.

It was this narrow and crushing Puritanism that poisoned the minds of white South Africans for centuries. So, yes, Peter, people are influenced to do bad things by bad ideas. And puritanism is a bad idea that has greatly influenced Protestantism in Ulster for centuries, so much so that even as long ago as the 17th century, when Ulster Presbyterians attacked Cromwell’s Toleration Laws, John Milton’s ire was raised. What particularly annoyed him was that these ‘blockish Presbyters’ from ‘a barbarous nook of Ireland’ were daring to ‘brand us with the extirpation of laws and liberties; things which they seem as little to understand as aught that belongs to good letters or humanity’. Has much changed in the intervening 350 years? If the Pope is still regarded as the ‘anti-Christ’, you really do wonder how much progress has been made.

Nice people often have nasty minds because their thoughts have been corrupted by nasty ideologies. That arises partly from an excessive willingness to believe and share belief with others. Greater freethought and scepticism would greatly assist people in thinking more consistently with their better nature.

Hi Brian

So all religious people only do bad things but all humanists do only good things?

Sorry, Brian but a primary school child could do better than that.



Anyway, on slavery, you havent engaged with anything I have said.

So here is some food for thought on the matter which William posted for a thread on this blog in March last year;-




https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2007/03/shibboleth_on_slavery.html
Shibboleth is to Will and Testament what The Stig is to Top Gear. He's a masked crusader who occasionally pipes up to do battle against hermeneuticial abuse and theological misunderstanding. This week, our very own biblical Stig has been exercised about some commenters' views on slavery and the Bible.
IS THE BIBLE PRO-SLAVERY?

One hesitates to even begin delving into this topic. It is one of those issues where one set of people assume that the bible is invariably dark, bizarre and oppressive whilst another set of people assume that the bible must invariably conform to the canons of modern western liberalism. The truth is somewhat more nuanced, and we can only trace some general contours of the issue here.

The background to the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, was one where all the major cultures practiced and endorsed slavery. Whether it be the Egyptians of the mid second millennium BC or the Romans of the first millennium AD, slavery was a norm within society. Ancient Israel was not an exception to this, and even a cursory glace within the pages of the OT demonstrates this point. The OT law codes - for example the section known as the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 21 and following) - contain many laws regulating the keeping of slaves. One will look in vain for any text in the OT that simply and unequivocally condemns slavery, because the OT assumes slavery as a basic social norm.

In ancient Israel, the majority of slaves were actually Hebrew citizens who fell into debt and were forced to voluntarily enter into slavery on a time limited basis. Manumission was automatic after seven years or at other set times. The remainder of the slave populations seems to have been foreigners captured in war, which must have been a fairly insignificant number of people for most of the history of ancient Israel.

Scholars of the socio-economics of Ancient Israel note that if the lists of people recorded in Ezra are representative, the ratio of free people to slaves was about 5:1 , and that no part of the Israelite economy was dependant upon slave labour. It is assumed that most slaves were employed in non-skilled domestic labour.

Where the OT differs radically from the norms of the Ancient near East is that the good treatment of slaves is demanded and the human rights of slaves are upheld in many key OT passages. This was particularly true for Hebrew citizens who had temporarily become slaves, but many laws protecting the rights of foreign slaves are to be found in the OT. These include legal protections for foreign women who became slaves in Israel. See, for example, Exodus 21.20, 26, 27; Leviticus 19.20.

In conclusion, the OT does not denounce slavery as a social institution, but it does recognise slaves as human beings who were to be protected from abuse. So, whilst it may be far in advance of the practices of the Ancient world, it does not conform to modern sensibilities.

The New Testament has relatively little to say upon the issue of slavery. Most of the NT references are metaphorical, likening the relationship of Christians to their Lord as one of joyous, liberating slavery. This paradoxical language was apposite to its cultural milieu and does not imply an endorsement of slavery. Paul makes it clear that slave trading is abhorrent and places slave traders in the same category as murderers (1 Timothy 1.10 – some versions say kidnappers, but kidnapping for purposes of slavery is intended).

Nevertheless, some readers of the NT are critical of the fact that there is no outright and whole-scale condemnation of slavery.

Paul wrote against a cultural setting that denied that slaves were actually full human beings, but rather just relatively worthless chattels. Paul writes so as to wholly undermine this belief system. Paul had to be somewhat circumspect in what he said, lest he be construed by the Romans as a dangerous social revolutionary, but his words were radical in their context. He does not call upon Christian slaves to rise up against their earthly masters, nor does he call upon Christian slave owners to set slaves free. Rather, Paul adopts the strategy of encouraging both to see one another as children of Christ and to respect and love one another for that reason. Paul gently pressurises Philemon to release Onesimus on the grounds that it was wrong for a Christian to keep another Christian as a slave.
Paul’s words had the desired effect, and the patristic writings record that most Christian slave owners abandoned the practice on the grounds that it was impossible to keep a fellow Christian in slavery. For this reason, it was common for slave owners in the recent past – in 19th century America for example – to deny slaves access to the New Testament or to anything other than bastardised forms of Christianity.

William Crawley
ENDS


Thanks Brian
PB

PS slaves in the New Testament were primarily household servants with manual labour in that culture being done by casual labour often hired on a faily basis.

PB

Original pb:

“So all religious people only do bad things but all humanists do only good things”?

I certainly didn’t say that nor could I be rationally interpreted as saying it. But what I WILL say is that without religion MORE people would do MORE good things and FEWER bad things. Is that clear?

As for slavery, I think we have all heard your take on that before. It is historically inaccurate. The Christian church became the biggest slave owner in the Roman Empire. Popes kept slaves until the eighteenth century. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107-117) refused the request of Christian slaves to have their freedom purchased out of the common fund. Augustine (c. 354-430) taught that slavery was God's will and that Christianity did not make slaves free but made good slaves out of bad ones. (The City of God 19.5). Early in the 11th century Pope Benedict VIII condemned the children of priests to be slaves and Pope Clement did likewise to the whole population of Venice in 1309. Pope Paul III decreed slavery for all Englishmen who supported Henry VIII of England. Papal licenses were granted to the Kings of Portugal in the fifteenth century to conquer "heathen" countries and reduce their inhabitants to "everlasting slavery." As it says in Psalm 2: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance (as slaves), and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron."

Altogether, more than eighteen hundred years of Christianity supported the notion of slavery.

English North Americans embraced slavery because they were Christians, not in spite of it.
- Forrest G. Wood, The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century.

Slaves were often badly treated by their Christian owners. But at least you do admit AT LAST that slavery is sanctioned in the Bible. Haven’t you heard of the Ku Klux Klan? Read some of the slave stories. Here’s a couple from the American South. I can give you lots more:

Frederick Douglass,
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

“In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting and there experienced religion. He prayed morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his brethren, and was made a class leader and exhorter...
I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin whip upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote the passage of Scripture, "He who knoweth the master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." (Luke 12:47)?
I prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs”.


Moses Roper,
Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)

“There are several circumstances which occurred on this estate while I was there, relative to other slaves, which it may be interesting to mention. Hardly a day ever passed without some one being flogged. To one of his female slaves he had given a dose of castor oil and salts together, as much as she could take; he then got a box, about six feet by two and a half, and one and a half feet deep; he put this slave under the box, and made the men fetch as many stones as they could get, and put them on the top of it; under this she was made to stay all night. I believe, that if he had given this slave one, he had given her three thousand lashes. Mr. Gooch was a member of a Baptist church. His slaves, thinking him a very bad sample of what a professing Christian ought to be, would not join the connection he belonged to, thinking they must be a very bad set of people; there were many of them members of the Methodist church. On Sunday, the slaves can only go to church at the will of their master, when he gives them a pass for the time they are to be out. If they are found by the patrol after the time to which their pass extends, they are severely flogged.”

When Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the Southern Presbyterian Churcch issued this statement in 1864: “We hesitate not to affirm that it is the peculiar mission of the Southern Church to conserve the institution of slavery, and to make it a blessing both to master and slave." The Church also insisted that it was "unscriptural and fanatical" to accept the dogma that slavery was inherently sinful: it was "one of the most pernicious heresies of modern times" .


So stop trying to justify the unjustifiable and rewrite history to suit your conscience, please!

And what about apartheid, Pb? You haven’t answered it. Do you deny that it was religiously as well as racially inspired? Do you deny that Afrikaner leaders, from the time of Kruger and even earlier, were nearly all Calvinist to the core and believed that apartheid fitted their religious creed? Perhaps you will be telling us that apartheid, like slavery, was 'a kind of social security system.

PB!

"So all religious people only do bad things but all humanists do only good things?"

That was not what Brian said nor myself. We are simply pointing out the fact that a lot of Christians in the past supported slavery/racism and could quote the Bible chapter and verse to support their views. I made the point in my first post here that I was *NOT* saying that all Christains supported this view but as ever...

It is *you* PB you are seeing this in absolutes eg., all atheists bad and all Christians good. That is as much nonsense as your opening statement.

We are not criticising you PB only pointing out an historical fact.

And PB if you wish to point out articles by Will Crawley, check this one out...

ps. please note my comment at m4

Ooops the link is...

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2007/03/how_to_be_a_theological_racist.html

To reiterate PB I am delighted(and I am sure Brian too) that you find slavery abhorrent and racism too. We are simply pointing out that the Bible has been used(and still is in certain cases) to support slavery.

PB - Brian

First PB, it should be obvious from a good deal of my posts that Brian and I disagree. However suggesting that he holds the view that, "all religious people only do bad things but all humanists do only good things?" is misleading. At the very least the 'all' and 'only' words are a misrepresentation. Brian has also said:

"Religion is not all bad, and certainly there are many individual believers doing good works." - Post 22

"Money corrupts, ideology corrupts power corrupts (and absolute power corrupts absolutely). Religion is not the only source of malignity in the world, but nevertheless it is one of them." - Post 29

Does Brian like religion? I guess it's safe to say, probably not; Brian might even be happy with a resounding no, and on that point he differs for you and me. However, making the statement you did is 'only' going to loose you credibility.

Atheists and Christians do not disagree on everything and setting up false dichotomies is detrimental to society. I said on another thread that Christians are called to seek the peace of the city, this is something we can and should do with non-believers.


Brian, what you did say was, "that without religion MORE people would do MORE good things and FEWER bad things." post 58

This is interesting. Back in post 54 I said that I genuinely struggled to see the distinction between bad dogma and bad people. I'm still not sure I am clear. Surely if dogma is a human construct then bad dogma extends from bad people?

petermorrow.

Ideology's ability to radically reorder a person's value priorities is what leads to the 'good person doing bad' scenario. Gods, souls, eternal punishment and glorious leaders can be made to seem so much more important than any mere mortal concern - protecting them above all else might result in the worst of outcomes for the best of intentions.

There were a couple of recent cases in the states where parents watched their children die slow, painful deaths without calling for a doctor because they are convinced that, if they prayed hard enough, Jesus would save them if that was his plan. I think it reasonable to suspect distorted values caused by wrong beliefs, rather than simply say these are bad people. The origin of these beliefs may also have been sincere, if extreme, interpretation rather than deliberate desire to do harm. Ideas can almost take on a life of their own, as a succession of people develop and extend an initial set of assumptions. There seems a greater danger of this the fewer chances there are to test the claims of a belief system.

I don't think we can completely escape from our ability to do great harm, but feel our best chances of preventing it is to fully understand the circumstances that bring such horrors about.

When looking at what Hitler was able to 'achieve', I don't view this only as the dangers of one lone madman, or some peculiarities of the Germans - it could happen anywhere given the wrong circumstances and points to how fragile our veneer of civilisation can be. On a recent edition of 'The Big Questions' someone claimed that the existence of a real, non-metaphorical devil was the 'only reasonable explanation' for the crimes of Hitler. As someone else pointed out on the show, such an appeal to external causes only reduces our chances of understanding what really led to these events and what checks and balances would help prevent a repeat.

Such horrors can happen without religion, Stalin managed it, but religion is no defence against it. Hitler used religious rhetoric, enlisted support of the church to gain power, built on centuries of Christian anti-Semitism, and had his plans carried out in a majority Christian population. This does seem to weaken the case for religion as an antidote to such dangers.

Religion adds particular risks as it encourages acceptance of undemonstrable claims, reinforces divisions, and resists predictable change. Deliberate human systems will not solve all problems, but should at least be easier to adjust. I do not know to what extent any system can protect us, but would prefer to have more ability to influence their development than is possible with religion.

For comparison, not as a proposed replacement, consider the scientific method. Science could easily have kept an authoritative structure, given the many big egos involved in its development. Instead it presumes that people make mistakes, scientists sometimes see what they want to see and maybe even cheat. The whole system is set up to encourage challenge and testing. New papers are checked by anonymous peers. After publication, others try to reproduce the claim, or find holes in the data. The fastest way to get a Noble prize is to supersede an accepted theory. By setting the system up in recognition of our faults it helps protect against them. This is a very artificial system that can be tough on the people involved but, because the expectations and benefits are clear, everyone co-operates.

We have moved from discussing the truth claims of religions to their utility. In this vein, I would hate to think that the only way that we can have functioning societies is by inventing lies to get us to behave. Some American neocons talked of needing a Great Myth in order to bind the nation - post cold-war this meant finding a new enemy so the population pulls together to face the external threat. This seems too cynical to me.

Peter:
Bad dogma does not necessarily emanate from bad people. It may derive from:

FEAR
There is fear of the unkown, fear of death, illness, natural disasters, other people. 'Slaughter the Amalekites' may derive from the call for a pre-emptive strike, based on the fear that the Amalekites were trying to do the same to the Jews, or vice versa. Similarly, a call to attack Iraq may have derived from a fear that Iraq was a threat to the west (a mistaken idea, of course).

DESIRE FOR CERTAINTY
In this world of complexity, irrationality, chaos, chance, arbitrariness, etc, there is often a srong desire for something that will make sense of it. "I am the one and only true god, and all gods are false and must be destroyed" because 'they' are errors and lies and untruths must be crushed and destroyed.

DESIRE TO COMBAT 'EVIL'
All sources of evil must be wiped out. Witches are evil and must be burned, heretics likewise, and gays must be stoned to death.

ARROGANCE
we are the chosen ones, and others who are different are bad, or inferior or not deserving of equal rights: slaves, blacks, Catholics ('the pope' is the anti-christ') or Protestants (they don't have 'proper churches' - the pope).

Of course, the dogma originates with writers. Most of the people who readily accept the dogma do so for similar reasons to above but also because they are gullible and too readily obey 'authority' because it is written down in 'holy writ' or spoken by a figure 'in authority'.

Which brings us back to what I said before. We need less belief, more scepticism, more doubt and more questioning of authority, if we are to make a better world.

Of course I fully accept that Brian did not use absolute terms in comparing the historical moral impact of religion and faith.

However he most certainly is arguing in favour of the generalisation that religion is a social evil.

However this is not sustainable.

For example, how many millions were killed by the athiestic regimes of the past century?

I dont think any historical faith incident can come even close to that.

So for a balanced view of the matter this has to be acknowledged.


Interested parties might also google the Clapham Sect to see the impact on all aspects of UK this society had in education, animal rights, slavery, education, penal reform, industrial health and safety etc etc.

It was a direct growth of the ministry of John Wesley, who is widely credited with saving England from the horrors of the French Revolution.


Regarding slavery Brian,

We seem to be at cross purposes. You are saying that many people who claimed to be Christians down through history supported slavery and argued for it from the bible.

No dispute there at all.

My argument is that if you dont take verses about slavery out of context to suit your argument, but instead look at the complete package of what it says, there really is no argument.

It is quite clear that the bible actually argues AGAINST slavery in the Christian church in the manner of a progressive internal church revolution.
This is the clear purpose of the Letter to Philemon and its presence in the canon.


It is also quite clear that the biblical perspective on slavery could NEVER have supported the kidnapping and commercial trade in slaves.

So you are quite correct in your historical analysis but completely incorrect in your understanding of the whole counsel of the bible.

You will note the passage above previously published by the BBC on this matter was by a biblical scholar and not William Crawley.


we might also ask the question as to who gave the most support to slavery down through history, people of nominal or no faith, or people of committed faith?

Did humanists or athiests not have a strong hand in the slave industry in history?

This seems to be a huge blind spot in this debate.

PB

There's my sweet peab,

'we might also ask the question as to who gave the most support to slavery down through history, people of nominal or no faith, or people of committed faith?

Did humanists or athiests not have a strong hand in the slave industry in history?

This seems to be a huge blind spot in this debate.'

Peab, when countries like the European powerss and the US were dealing in slaves, the number of atheists would have been very low. Until Darwin made it clear that the coming about of life had nothing to do with any god(s), very few would have denied gods existence. So there would have been few humanists or atheists to do any slave trading.

Your post is classic peab-like. Come up with a thought that is unfounded, don't check anything by looking it up (heavens forbid), pose the question if your thought isn't true, and as long as others don't instantly provide evidence to the contrary (which you'd invariably ignore) basically assert it as being so. And if not asserting it 100% certain in this post yet, your follow-up posts undoubtedly would have done so.

Live with it peab, slavery was present for a long, long time under christianity, carried out by many, many christians.

"we might also ask the question as to who gave the most support to slavery down through history, people of nominal or no faith, or people of committed faith?"

Those of a committed faith-that is what the evidence shows PB and guess what they were(according to them) 101% right that the Bible supports slavery/racism and quoted the Bible chapter and verse to support it. In the deep south of the USA they were hardly nominal, they were mostly Southern Baptists!

Incidentally a lot of the justification for slavery/racism in Christianity was based on the two creation myths in Genesis. In that darker skinned people were "pre-Adamite" created before real people and therefore "sub-human".

I am delighted PB that you find slavery/racism abhorrent, however many Bible-believers in the past(and some in the present would disagree).

BTW PB remember this passage?Deuteronomy 21:10-14 the kidnap, rape and forced slavery of foreign slaves?

Anyway what is an "atheistic regime"? strange since athiesm is not a philosphy, political point of view nor way of life?

Oh good to see that you do not deal in absolutes!

DD - quote mining again, to use your phrase?

I dont pretend Deut 21 is easy to understand.

But this much is certain - it is clearly designed to stop Israelites raping women on the battle field.

Before they could take such women as wives they had to strip them of their beauty so they were not simply lusting after them.

Then they had to wait a month to decide whether they wanted them as wives.

If you shave all a women's hair and treat her as a human being for a full month before you take her as a wife - not a sexual plaything that is entirely different to raping women on the battlefield and leaving them there.

Jews did take other Jewish women for wives in similar manners.


So you see why this Jewish woman argues that Deut 21 is anti-rape legislation;-



https://www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/journal/vol1n1/v1n1elma.htm

Errr no PB that is not an eg of quote mining, I simply gave the passage!

You have proved Brians point about religion PB, it can force otherwise good people to do believe evil.

If you cannot see what is wrong with kidnapping women(after killing their families), shaving their heads and using them as sex slaves then I truly pity you.

In any case in the 19th Centuries the main supporters of the slave trade were those from the Bible-believing tradition-the fundamentalists who believed in the inerrant, unchanging Bible and they were 101% right!(that is not to say that I believe they were right).

Pb:

Hitler, of course, was not an atheist but a believer in 'positive' Christianity. The regimes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were not cruel because of atheism but because of the positive ideologies which they embraced. Look at the faces of Chinese boys adoring Chairman Mao as they recite the Little Red Book. This has absolutely nothing to do with atheism, which is negative and sceptical, and everything to do with their totalitarian notions of the 'good' society that united the people and dehumanised inferior or uncooperative others or outsiders.

Which again proves my point: one of the greatest threats to humanity is a totalitarian ideology, whether religious or political: the tragedy of belief to which I referred.

If these 'regimes' had been purely atheistic, then they would have been far more humane.

Hi Brian

On the point of self-examination I raised earlier in response to the theme of this thread, is there anything questionable about atheism?

Peter:

Of course, much depends on definitions of terms like 'atheism'.

I would make two points. First, the atheism which says that there is definitely no prime mover/force is too dogmatic. I don't think we know the answer to that question.
We have to be agnostic in this sense. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion states that, like Einstein, he is religious in that he is aware there may be things of beauty and sublimity that our mind cannot (currently) grasp.

Second, atheism is negative and therefore by itself is a poor guide to ethics and morality. We do need a positive philosophy, but in my view it should be liberal, flexible, provisional, tolerant, open and democratic, not rigid or all-embracing. It should cherish freedom of opinion and diversity.
In other words, it should be 'humanist'.

Brian

Would it be fair to suggest that by humanist you mean, that which is best for humanity?

Peter,

Yes, but that is a very loose phrase open to multifarious interpretations. Christians believe that Christianity is what is best for humanity; Muslims believe that Islam is; Adolf Hitler thought that Nazism was.

Humanism stresses 'humane values' such as love, kindness, freedom, equality, reason, tolerance, dignity democracy. It is not a censorious, oppressive or restrictive philosophy. In other words, 'what is best for humanity' is what brings out the best qualities in humanity.

I have said before that the Christian message of love is a good one. It is a pity that:
(a) It is mixed up with other elements that are less loving, much of which is in the Old Testament.
(b) It is a dogma as well as an ethic. "Believe in me or else..." etc.

Most of what I could say has already been said.

One minor quibble. While Southern Baptists often supported slavery, one of the most vocal theological defenders of slavery was a Calvinistic Presbyterian, Robert Louis Dabney. He's a major influence on neo-Confederates and Reconstructionists/Dominionists to this day. (I think there was someone who used to comment on this blog who quoted him several times in the past...)

DD

The first point you need to recognise is that this law was a major step forward in the nations at this time, where rape on the battle field was normal.

The second that you need to remember is that this is not endorsed conduct for those under the new testament. Galations, Romans, Hebrews.

The third is that you need to demonstrate what the moral standard is against which you are measuring; this law undoubtedly stopped much injustice and suffering in its day.


You argued that Deut 21 endorses
Kidnap rape and forced slavery of foriegn women.

But asking a tenative question is not the same as demonstrating your point to be true.

I agree that kidnap rape and forced slavery is wrong. However I believe that forced slavery as an alternative to prison is another matter.

We also need to be careful in that when you speak of slavery you mean people kidnapped to be treated and kept as animals and used for degrading work. But in the OT law these were people who volunteered for social security, or were working off debt or criminal offences or were POWs. The vast majority were Jews who were freed after seven years and set up in business by law at their masters cost.

There were mainly household servants and had a range of legal rights to protect their health and safety.

But if you want to argue that the OT advocates passage endorses rape you would have to take all the legal passages on those matters into account too, otherwise you are taking a verse out of context on a pretext.

For example, Exodus and Deut have other passages protecting women from rape which I would think could not reasonably be isolated from this passage.

Does this passage Deut 21 therefore endorse sex with women against their will.

It is certainly not explicit in the passage.

There is also no suggestion that these women would be "sex slaves" if the process was completed they were wives with full legal rights as such.

You might start by reading the scholarly article I referred you to by a Jewish women in order to add some depth to your understanding.

PB

It is certainly not explicit in the passage... esp when taken in context with the rest of the standard anti- rape legislation.

PB

Pb:
Trying to argue that the Bible does not fully endorse slavery is like trying to argue that Adolf Hitler didn't fully endorse anti-semitism in Mein Kampf! And we know what that led to...

Many fully fledged Christians interpreted it as sanctioning slavery. If it didn't, then obviously they didn't understand their Bible or it wasn't very clear on the subject.

"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery" - Rev Alexander Campbell.

It seems to me that you are arguing that all those thousands of Christians for over a thousand years who had slaves and treated them badly misunderstood the Bible. Why wasn't it written more clearly, then. Does God like ambiguity. Does he not mind that he may be interpreted to mean the opposite of what he intends?
Oh, dear!

DD

Can I qualify on Deut 21?

I think it is possible this passage might allow sex with a woman against her will, but I dont think you or I are qualified to comment here and now.

Primarily because there is so much other anti-rape legsilsaiton in the bible that cannot be easily divorced from this passage just like that.

But I am firmly stating that this legislation was introduced to stop battlefield rapes I would challenge you to find any other nation with such human rights at this time.



Brian

I never said the bible did not fully endorse slavery.

I said it deliberately phased it out.

I also said that your definition of slavery was radicallly different to that in the OT, so we are talking apples and oranges, if there is no qualification.

To underline the point;-

1 Tim:10

8 But we know that the law is good if someone uses it lawfully. 9 We also know that the law is not made for good people but for those who are against the law and for those who refuse to follow it. It is for people who are against God and are sinful, who are unholy and ungodly, who kill their fathers and mothers, who murder, 10 who take part in sexual sins, who have sexual relations with people of the same sex, ***WHO SELL SLAVES***, who tell lies, who speak falsely, and who do anything against the true teaching of God.11 That teaching is part of the Good News of the blessed God that he gave me to tell.



PB

Pb:

It is the liberal and secular state and societies, not the Bible, which we have to thank for ending slavery. Also, it is liberal and secular state and societies, not the churches, which stand as the guarantor of freedom and human rights. The truth is that human rights were and are being achieved today not because of the Bible but in spite of it.

Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Southern Confederacy in the USA stated: "It (slavery) was established by decree of Almighty God and is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments from Genesis to Revelation". He was right. Here is a list of references, some of which you have twisted to suit your own conscience (e.g. Deut.):

Exodus: 21:4, 7-9
Lev: 25:44-46
Deut: 15:11-17
Proverbs: 29:19
Joel: 3:8
Matt: 10:24-25
Luke: 12: 46-47
Luke 19:11-27
John: 13:16
1 Corinthians: 12:13
Galatians: 3:28
Ephesians: 6:5
Colossians: 3:11, 16
1 Timothy: 6:1-2
Titus: 2:9-10
1 Peter: 2:18

A couple of comments from above.

"When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money."
– Exodus 21:20-21

So, not only does the Bible explicitly allow beating your slaves but it also allows you to beat them to death, just as long as the slave does not immediately expire from the beating but lingers for a few days before dying. Pretty nasty, eh?

Now turn to this passage in the New Testament:

"The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes".
– Luke 12:46-47

Here Jesus works slavery into a parable as if it were the most natural thing in the world, favourably comparing God to a slaveholder who beats his slaves for not obeying him.

You talk about the meaning of the term 'slave'. It means someone who is bound in servitude as the property of another, or who is treated as subservient to another and made to work 'as a slave' on their behalf. Under these definitions, slavery is definitely sanctioned in the Bible. There’s no earthly point in denying it.

And let us not forget that in Genesis 3:16, as a result of the 'Fall', the wife is to be henceforth ruled over by her husband, thus relegating women to the status of a slave  – precisely how they were treated, by and large, for most of the next 2,000 years of Christendom  – and sanctioned by the Bible.

Now, what about racism in South Africa. Come on, tell us that the Christian racists there also sadly misintepreted Holy Writ. There's an awful of misinterpretation of the sacred text by Christians over the two millennia. Have they sorted out the true meaning yet?

I posted the following on the Expelled thread but PB wanted it copied here. Happy to oblige.


I found your posts attempting to justify biblical kidnap and rape to be truly appalling.

Even you must see that something is wrong when in order to justify despicable moral instruction in your holy texts you are reduced to claiming it as a bit better than what went before and now superseded.

Humans improve their standards by small degrees, gods are meant to do better.

And you think our legal system is "of course" derived from the morality of this era?

PB

I am truly shaking my head in disbelief in your attempts to try to justify the kidnap(after the murder of her family), forced subjugation and rape. You state it was to stop battlefield rapes and you ask you corroborating testimony from other cultures!? That's pretty disgusting PB, but the thing is PB I don't think you are a bad person-never did but I think you are a great example of what Steven Weinberg said: "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things- that takes religion".

In any case PB, it was your Bible-believing buddies who supported slavery.

DD

In summary,

I think my best take on Deut 21 at present is this.

It was normal practise for societies in this area at this time to rape women at will on the battlefield.

This regulation in the law was clearly aimed at stopping this by Israelites.

Anyone who wished to take such a woman FOR A WIFE had to strip her of her physical beauty and care for her for a month before made her his wife.

This put the brakes on battlefield spur of the moment lust/rape.

The female Jewish scholar quoted above argues this is anti-rape legislation.

Can anyone answer WHY?

It does not advocate the procedure, it regulates it.

Was this law a social evil for the time and place it was given? Absolutely not - on the contrary it was a great leap forward in human rights for the region and epoch.

There remains the question (for me) as to whether Deut 21 would have been required to have been obeyed in conjunction with other anti-rape legislation in the OT which would seem more in common with modern sentiment - but what foundation is there for that?

Are you so civilised today DD, Brian, Non-plussed when you support dicing up unborn babies in the womb or killing elderly people? Or perhaps none of you do????


Why did God allow Deut 21? He was constantly tempted to destroy Israel because of their disobedience and I (and Matthew Henry) think he thought this was the best he could achieve with the Israelites at this time. Christ says God allowed very lax divorce in the OT "because of the hardness of their hearts" but that this was rescinded under Him. In the OT men could divorce women very easily but Christ condemned this as an abuse of the law and called for marriage to be permanent, save for adultery etc. So it is clear God saw some OT law as very suspect.

The church is advised not to follow OT law in Romans, Galatians and Hebrews BTW. The NT in its own right does however make clear conduct and practises that are and are not acceptable in the church, some of which does echo OT law.

You will notice in Will's entry on slavery quoted above, the early Patristic writings showed that Paul's writings were largely successful in removing slavery from the early church.

This does not challenge the fact that many people later used the bible to justify a different type of slavery. But people like John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, would be one example of an unbeliever who was heavily involved too

To lay the blame fully at the door of the church is too simplistic, especially as the church (Wilberforce and Wesley) overcame it.





Brian -

you are completely missing the point.

Please name the humanists who ended slavery in the UK and invented the freedom of the press.

I put my money on Wilberforce and William III, two men who professed belief in Christ.

The role of the media in British society began under legal reform with William III.


I am sorry but, the ten commandments are most certainly the basis for UK law.

This is historical fact. No argument.

Brian you just keep on talking and talking and dont listen to a word.

The passages you quote are quite valid but you are willfully refusing to understand what all the passages together actually say.

This is actually what fundamentalists do!!!

Can you acknowledge that 1 Tim forbids commercial slave trading and kidnapping, for example?

If anyone wants an objective OVERVIEW on slavery on the bible, read the article posted by William Crawley on behalf of a scholar in post 56.

The passage you quoted about beating slaves resolved that anyone who beats a slave to immediate death will pay for murder.

If the slave died days later it is legally defined as manslaughter because it is presumed that the owner did not intend to kill his slave.

This is NOT an intruction to beat all slaves to within an inch of their life, but highlights the defence of the owner that he is unlikely to want to kill the slave as he would be costing himself money. It is a fair point by any standard.

In another passage, if the owner knocks a slaves tooth out the slave walks free etc etc.

All the passages are there Brian but only in an analysis such as post 56 or post 52.

You are plucking passages out at random which are quite valid but you are willfully refusing any attempt to understand the whole.

PLEASE CAN YOU PROVIDE A LIST OF HUMANISTS FROM THE FOLLOWING PERIODS TO SEE WHAT THEY WERE DOING TO IMPROVE THE LOT OF SLAVES;-

1) The time of ancient Israel (the Jewish law broke new ground in their rights).

2) The time of Paul in the Roman Empire (Paul taught the church that slaves were equal to their masters, trading in slaves would exclude one from heaven and he promoted a case study in freeing a slave, into the NT canon ie the Letter to Phileom).

3) The time of Wilberforce who was backed by John Wesley and the Quakers in abolishing slavery in the British Empire. Wilberforce was also backed by hymn writer John Newton.

4) Abe Lincoln who could not speak highly enough of the bible, also fought for the freedom of slaves.

5) Today, Steve Chalke is heading up Stop the Traffik, and international coalition against trafficking. The Salvation Army had a high profile campaign against sex slavery in Germany during the world cup. My church is active on the ground in tackling trafficking in our own community.

Please all of you supply the athiest heroes who have made any difference in these epochs in fighting for slaves???

Brian please give everyone your long list of athiests who were fighting for slave rights today?

Does this list of 4 epochs demonstrate religion as a social evil Brian?

Waken up please...


PB

PS just to repeat Brian, the passage about beating slaves was not an instruction to beat slaves but an assurance that anyone who killed a slave would pay for either murder or manslaughter.


Was that a social evil at that time do you think Brian?

PB

I just posted this on another thread but thought it should be copied here too.
PB





Non-plussed


Listen very carefully.


Enc Britannica quotation: "...while Christian emperors continued to uphold the legality of slavery, the Christian church accepted slaves as equals, admitted them to its ceremonies, and regarded the granting of freedom to slaves as a virtuous, if not obligatory, act.

"This moral pressure led over several hundred years to the gradual disappearance of slavery in Europe."




I have a bone or two to pick.


The first one is how is it you only accept reality when proven by [Christ's] scientific method and yet all of a sudden you have started delivering me moral absolutes about rape and kidap?

Where do these values come from? What authority have you for them? How does the scientific method demonstrate that these are valid?

I see your worldview unravelling, but of course, we had already established that by definition it could never have integrity because it is explicitly founded on chance and chaos.


The second is that you are jumping much too quick to proclaim a victory about what the bible says about slavery.

The question on that thread is "Is religion a social evil?"

I have clearly demontrated that both OT law and NT teaching were constantly improving the lot of slaves, in comparison to the surrounding cultures, to the point of freedom, as demonstrated by the Enc Britt Quote above.

IN all epochs these teachings were groundbreaking moral goods not evils, compared to the prevailing culture.

I am not saying *I* approve of Deut 21 which regulates the taking of wives in war, but I am saying, at the time Deut 21 was not a social evil but a social good, because it restricted and controlled the practise in a way that I understand was head and shoulders above rival nations.


I know this may be obvious but I am going to state it anyway.

Judeo-Christian faith can never be held responsible for creating slavery.

Slavery predated judiaism and was and is widespread across the globe today.

The staw man insinuated by the athiests here, by default, is that judeo Christian faith invented perpetuated, monopolised and still defends the worst types of slavery.

In reality I think it would be more accurate to argue that slavery thrived IN SPITE of the Christian faith, based on the evidence presented.


William Crawley's preferred scholar on the matter (In is religions a social evil thread) says Paul's teachings all but removed slavery from the early church.

This is echoed in the Enc Brit, which also gives Paul the credit for removing slavery from Europe!!!!


So is the Christian teaching on slavery a social evil or not non-plussed.

Please give us all a clear answer!


;-)


Why did God create imperfect law? If you actually read the NT it is clear. Hebrews and Galations and Romans teach that the law was "a schoolmaster to point men to Christ" and that the progressive old and new covenants were a gradual revelation to point to the perfection in Christ and to demonstrate that the law could never perfect man. There is no news, mystery or controversy in this. It is very, very, basic stuff.


I can trumpet the 10 commandments because they are proven to work. Just because the NT church is not obliged to keep all OT law that does not mean it is of no value.

I think it is logical to argue that if the NT phased out OT slavery it might be logical to take its lead on that without too much thought.


I have also listed the activities of Christians in campaigning for slaves through numerous epochs on that thread and asked you what humanists were doing at each stage.

In fact, what are humanists doing today about slavery/trafficking?

I will not hold my breath.

I only listed 7 of the commandments due to time pressures (as I clearly stated) and as an illustration.... I think I have made the point clearly enough with only 7 mind.

I could go on...


If you were to answer all 11 of my points in post 287 I might consider your request genuine. You could add a 12th, what happens to your personality/consciousness after you die?


The fact that "none of the 7 points I raised needed God to figure them out" is very very lame for you non-plussed.

It seems to show serious desperation.

It is very easy to say how obvious they are after you have benefited from a legal system hundreds of years old that is based on them... Benefit of hindsight etc..

I am still waiting for the strictly Godless authority from which you would base the legal system of your utopia, and preferably some precedent to show it actually worked at some time or place.

All the work to be done is on your side and there is plenty of it, so I will let you go on.



I take it from your comment that this has been "a very productive conversation" that you felt you made - and needed to - make up a lot of lost ground in our debate with me.

I accept the compliment.

PB




Enc Britannica quotation: "while Christian emperors continued to uphold the legality of slavery, the Christian church accepted slaves as equals, admitted them to its ceremonies, and regarded the granting of freedom to slaves as a virtuous, if not obligatory, act. Thismoral pressure led over several hundred years to the gradual disappearance of slavery in Europe."

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The bottom line is PB that you are trying to justify the disgusting-and we are meant to be "moral-less".

Brian - Non-plussed

I can think of a number of NI people who have been/are active in tackling slavery/trafficking today in Northern Ireland.

Former MLA Esmond Birnie and David Simpson MP, both committed Christians,

Sister Mahony, who works on the streets around city hall;

Mr Carlin of the Catholic Anti-Slavery Network;

Rev Rebbeca Dudley, whose groundbreaking research on the matter was taken in evidence by the NI Affairs Committee and headed up this matter with the Human Rights Commission.

I would be very interested to hear what the NI humanists have been doing on this matter in the same period???

William Crawley rebuked you all for being obsessed with attacking religion and suggested you get some positive ideas. The best Mr Klaver could think of was giving Dawkins books to MLAs.

So...

If many of the leading lights in NI regarding slavery/trafficking are openly people of faith, is their faith then a social evil???

I would be very interested to hear Brian explain how they might do an even better job without their faith.


The best place he could start is by showing what the NI humanist clubs in NI have been doing on this in recent years as they obviously havent had the blinkers of religion to hinder their moral excellence and political activity.

Im all ears Brian.


But from someone who argues in favour of incest I will not expect much sense....


PB

Pb:

Your interpretation of Exodus 21 is nonsense. Why can’t you accept that the Bible was written in a primitive, barbaric age and as such reflects the primitive, barbaric attitudes of that age? No sensible interpretation can deny such things without doing violence to the text itself, and nothing can be criticised as having been ‘taken out of context’. The bee in your bonnet to absolve the Bible from support for slavery is really an entirely futile endeavour. The God of the Old Testament is a cruel God, and expects his people to be cruel, as frequent references to the treatment of women, non-Israeli tribes and even the Israelites themselves (Abraham’s sacrifice, the slaughter of the Mideanite women and children, the flood, Jephthah burning his daughter alive as a sacrificial offering for victory, etc) make abundantly clear. Indeed, God frequently orders his people to commit genocide. You seem to imagine that God, who treats Israel’s enemies and women so badly, not to mention the Israelites themselves at times, wants everybody to treat slaves more humanely! Now that would be a real twist in the tale.

At times, you seem to believe that the Bible was ghost-written by God and its code of ethics is ‘objective’. But this implies that whatever it says about slavery is God’s unchanging word. So the dissident Christians who campaigned to abolish it were misguided and all the millions of mainstream white Christians who supported it and practised it were therefore correct all along! Why do you support those Christians who worked to abolish slavery if the unerring Bible sanctions it?

At other points (its code was ‘a great leap forward for its time’), you seem to imply that morality is relative and that the Bible was an ancient document, though a little advanced for that era. Again, “so it is clear God saw some OT law as very suspect”. Obviously, the laws you don’t like were not God’s laws. Talk about having your cake and eating it!

A good example of your double standards is the Biblical condemnation of homosexuality. This is taken literally. Thus Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination." In other words, homosexuality is wrong. Now take Leviticus 25:44: "And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have - from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves". In other words, you can buy slaves so long as they are from neighbouring nations. If you use Leviticus to justify a condemnation of homosexuals, then I’m afraid you are a supporter of slavery. But, of course, slavery is a lost cause, at least in the UK, whereas gays are still treated unfairly, so they probably deserve it.

Your interpretation of Exodus 21:20-21 is bizarre. Let us take the whole chapter, where the guidelines for the buying, selling and treatment of slaves is given. God says in verse 4 that if a male slave marries, his wife and children shall remain with the master when the slave departs because technically speaking they belong to the master. That’s a bit cruel, is it not, Pb? If the slave is imprudent enough to protest because he loves his wife and children and wants to stay on, the consequences can be pretty drastic. In verse 6 the master is directed to "Bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever". Phew! Pretty savage, eh? In 7-9 God even instructs men how they are to go about selling their own daughters into slavery. In 20-21, to repeat, God clearly says that if the master beats a slave to death, the master shall be punished. If, however, the severely beaten slave lingers on for a day or two, the master is off the hook. Then God says in 28-32 that if an ox gores a slave, the ox's owner shall give the slave master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned to death. Poor thing! Obviously, God is not kind to oxen.

The NT is no better than the OT. 1 Tim. 6:1-2 “Let slaves regard their masters as worthy of all honour." Matthew 10:24 and John 13:16 remind us that slaves are never better than their masters. In Titus 2:9-10 slaves are ordered to “be submissive to your master and give satisfaction in every respect". Also look at Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22 which say, “Slaves obey your master." Of the venerated Ten Commandments to which you refer, numbers four and ten recognise and therefore give tacit approval to slavery.

Peter, Jesus' favourite disciple, directs slaves to obey and fear their master without question, even though he may be cruel and unjust (1 Peter 2:18). This directive is repeated in Ephesians 6:5. In Exodus 21:26-27 and Proverbs 29:19 God tells the masters how to punish their slaves.

The early Christians supported slavery. John Chrysostom wrote: “The slave should be resigned to his lot, in obeying his master he is obeying God”. St Augustine wrote: “Slavery is now penal in character and planned by that law which commands the preservation of the natural order and forbids disturbance”.

In the 18th century Edmund Gibson, Anglican Bishop in London, made it clear that Christianity freed us from the slavery of sin, not from earthly and physical slavery: “The freedom which Christianity gives, is a freedom from the bondage of sin and Satan, and from the dominion of men's lusts and passions and inordinate desires; but as to their outward condition, whatever that was before, whether bond or free, their being baptised, and becoming Christians, makes no manner of change in it”.

Christian support for slavery was often based upon interpretation of passages which might be accurate or inaccurate but, as I have already stated, the ambiguity allows for it. Take this example. We read in Genesis 9 that Noah's son Ham comes upon him sleeping off a drinking binge and sees his father naked. Instead of covering him, he runs and tells his brothers. Shem and Japheth, the ‘good’ brothers, return and cover their father. In retaliation for Ham's ‘sinful act’ of seeing his father nude, Noah puts a curse on his grandson (Ham's son) Canaan: “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers" (Gen 9:25). Over time, this curse came to be interpreted that Ham was literally ‘burnt’, and that all his descendants had black skin, marking them as slaves with a convenient colour-coded label for subservience.

Some of those in the vanguard of the abolition of slavery were religious, and some were not. The Christian supporters of abolition in the 18th and early 19th centuries were in a distinct minority of Christians. The Quakers were generally regarded as hopelessly naive in their opposition to slavery by most other Christians.


The agnostics and atheists who supported freedom and human rights were the majority of atheists and agnostics. You have to accept that until very recently few prominent people have openly declared themselves as non-believers. This is especially true of MPs. Many of the known figures were first and foremost writers. Human rights had their roots in the 18th century Enlightenment and early 19th century reformers who were all atheists, agnostics or deists: in France, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, D’Holbach; in America most of the Founding Fathers, like Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin; in the UK, Hume, Bentham, Mill.


Atheists/agnostics who have worked on behalf of human rights in the modern era are too numerous to list in full. Here’s a sample:

Graham Allen MP, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tariq Ali, Shulamit Aloni, Baba Amte, Dan Barker, Lord Birt, Noam Chomsky, Nick Clegg MP, Robin Cook, Andrew Copson, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Baron Desai, Frank Dobson MP, Albert Einstein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Oriana Fallaci, Robert Fisk, Baroness Flather, Michael Foot, Bill Gates, Bob Geldof, Nadine Gordimer, Mikhail Gorbachev, Germaine Greer, Roy Hattersley, Christopher Hitchens, Lionel Jospin, Ludovic Kennedy, Neil Kinnock, Gladys Kinnock, Wujud Lafti, Richard Leakey, Ken Livingstone, Arthur Miller, Mo Mowlam, Taslima Nasrin, Pandit Nehru, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Harold Pinter, Mary Robinson, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Bertrand Russell, Brian Sedgemore MP, George Soros, Baroness Turner, Arnold Wesker.


I am still waiting for your response on Christian racism in South Africa.

DD

what is your moral standard you judge from?


if Godlessness is so modern - it isnt - then you have no authority or evidence that your ideas can mould a good society.

Israel was a very small nation in a region where battlefield rape was normal.

So why do you pick Israel out for condemnation for taking steps to improve the rights of women during battle?

Why not condemn all the other nations which thoughjt that battelfielf rape was fine?

Israel's law was clearly a social good in that time because it broke new ground in the region in outlawing battlefield rapes.



PB

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Deut 21 DOES NOT LEGALISE ENFORCED MARRIAGE OR RAPE - CLAIM.


I did say previously that I did not actually see any explicit endorsement of this as enforced marriage or rape in this passage.

This chap appears to be picking up on this.

worth a read.



https://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Deuteronomy_21:10



“...the Jews say that if she refused, and continued obstinate in idolatry, he must not marry her.” -Henry


1. It is all too infrequently recognized that this section of Deuteronomy actually represents the most humane extant law for the treatment of women and girls during warfare in the entire history of the ancient Near East. Rape of captive women by conquerors has been the inevitable consequence of military action throughout history. Deuteronomy makes it quite clear that such treatment of women –even enemy women- was forbidden. The Mosaic legislation not only precluded soldiers acting on impulsive sexual desires on the battlefield, it specifically precluded selling captive women as slaves (no “sex-slaves” here!). The only condition under which an Israelite soldier was allowed to have relations with a captive woman was that she be made a proselyte (which required her agreement) and that she be made a wife with all the rights and privileges accorded to any other Israelite wife. The couple, man and woman, were subject to all of the laws pertaining to Israelite marriage.


2. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 as Anti-Rape Legislation. No intercourse was permitted until and unless all the requirements and solemn rites were performed by both parties. Desire was not enough to legitimate intercourse with a captive female; there must be a willingness to allow her to become a part of one’s household and accord her all of the rights which belonged to a naturally-born Jew. Marriage could only take place after a period of mourning (the same mourning period pertained to Israel generally; cf. Num 20:29; Deut 34:8) . She was to be treated with humanity and sensitivity and could not be treated as a slave. Many ancient Rabbis maintained that the shaving of her head functioned not only as the standard purification rite accompanying freely chosen conversion, but also to make the captive woman appear less attractive, resembling a gourd or pumpkin shell, and this in his own house so that he would see her frequently (cf. Midrash Halakhah; Midrash Tannaim, Midrash Hagadol, bYevamot 48aff; Rashi; Maimonides, Toldoth Adam, and Torah Tmimah). If the marriage took place, it would only do so after a period of sober consideration and a willingness to make the same commitment which pertained to marriages generally.


3. Neither marriage nor conversion was forced. Israelites were prohibited from marrying any foreign woman, captive or not, unless she willingly underwent ritual purification by a solemn rite. The shaving of the head was specifically just such a rite (e.g. Num 8:7, etc.). The Midrash Hagadol stated that if the captive female did not wish to convert initially she was to be given twelve months to think it over. If she did not wish to become a proselyte, she faced the choice of living as a resident alien (non Jewish, but required to live according to the standards which pertained to Noah before the covenant Abraham or Moses; according to Midrash Hagadol if these standards were repudiated she would be killed, although it is apparent from Deuteronomy that if she had no place in Israel she was free to go: "you shall let her go wherever she wishes"). It is frequently considered inconceivable that a captive woman might actually view her conquerors in a positive light; the manner in which women and children were often -not just sometimes- treated in the ancient world, even by their parents, dispels this uncritical assumption.
ENDS

Brian

I am asking who from your group of humanists in NI have been working against trafficking.

I await an answer.

PB

Enc Britannica quotation:

"while Christian emperors continued to uphold the legality of slavery, the Christian church accepted slaves as equals, admitted them to its ceremonies, and regarded the granting of freedom to slaves as a virtuous, if not obligatory, act. Thismoral pressure led over several hundred years to the gradual disappearance of slavery in Europe."

Brian

On the radio recently you argued in favour of incest.

Is this a social evil?

How would you protect children from being groomed by their father for sex?


PB

Brian

Have you even read post 56?


PB

to answer your question on South Africa, of course I would be strongly against this.

Paul and John teach the equality of all tribes before God.


But South Africa does not discredit God any more than joyriders discredit cars or napalm discredits science.


would you mind please...

What is your verdict on post 56 and the enc britt quote about Christianity and slavery, post 93?

Thanks
PB

Pb:

Humanists in NI are always working for human rights. Indeed, it is a major humanist area. We have campaigned for children's rights, women's rights, ethnic minorities, terminally ill, gays, migrant workers, and modern forms of slavery in the Third World, either as members of a humanist organisation or as members of other organisations such as Amnesty, Oxfam, peace movement, membership of political parties. If we had the resources that some Christian organisations had, we would certainly do more.

Last year, the magazine that is now Humanism Ireland included several articles on slavery, past and present. It included one on the Ulster Christians who were campaigning for abolition in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The article pointed out that they were tapping into a tradition of democracy and anti-slavery that went back to the secular Enlightenment of the early 18th century.

You seem obsessed with a narrow concept of slavery. Perhaps you could define it. Is not the denial of the rights of many of those groups above not a form of slavery?

we will to differ on the Bible and slavery. I think there is ample evidence that the Bible approved of slavery. Do you think it disapproved? Does it condemn slavery anywhere? And if it doesn't, then you have to admit that the books included in it were fallible documents of their time.
Here's a bit from the the website Religious Tolerance:

"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts". Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.

"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral". Rev. Alexander Campbell

"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example". Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina

"The hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage". A statement by a prominent 19th-century southern Presbyterian pastor, cited by Rev. Jack Rogers, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

"The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what God hath joined".  United States Senator James Henry Hammond.

Quotation from the 21st century:

"If we apply sola scriptura to slavery, I'm afraid the abolitionists are on relatively weak ground. Nowhere is slavery in the Bible lambasted as an oppressive and evil institution". Vaughn Roste, United Church of Canada staff.

Overview:
The quotation by Jefferson Davis, listed above, reflected the beliefs of many Americans in the 19th century. Slavery was seen as having been 'sanctioned in the Bible'. They argued that:

Biblical passages recognized, controlled, and regulated the practice.

The Bible permitted owners to beat their slaves severely, even to the point of killing them. However, as long as the slave lingered longer than 24 hours before dying of the abuse, the owner was not regarded as having committed a crime, because -- after all -- the slave was his property.

Paul had every opportunity to write in one of his Epistles that human slavery -- the owning of one person as a piece of property by another -- is profoundly evil. His letter to Philemon would have been an ideal opportunity to vilify slavery. But he wrote not one word of criticism.

Jesus could have condemned the practice. He might have done so. But there is no record of him having said anything negative about the institution".

Now what those Christian racists and apartheid in south Africa?

Pb:

In the Bible Adam and Eve were the two first humans. Initially they had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain slew Able. Then in Genesis 4:17 a wife of Cain suddenly appears from nowhere. Who she was and from where she came is not mentioned: "And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived and bare Enoch".

If this woman was not a daughter of Adam and Eve, then they were not the only people originally created. If she was a daughter, then Cain had incest with his sister.

Adam and Eve later had other sons and daughters: first of all, Seth (130 years later!) and then unnamed others for the next 800 years! Presumably there was a fair amount of incest going on during these centuries. If Enoch, the son of Cain, had a sexual relationship with one of Adam and Eve's daughters, the sister of Cain, that would have been incest with an aunt. In any case, it is difficult for a Bible literalist to keep incest out of this story.

Perhaps you can tell us how the 930 years of Adam managed to remain an incest-free zone. If incest is a 'social evil', then the Bible story promotes a social evil because it implies that the human race was built upon it.

Pb:
We can all indulge in multiple posts and bombard the opposition.

Your attempts to absolve the Bible from immorality are ridiculous and self-defeating. You are dealing with a collection of documents that are a mishmash of history, myth, prophecy, poetry, parable and superstition. Good and bad, beautiful and ugly, savagery and tenderness are inextricably bound up in its pages.

It offers 2 contradictory stories of creation in Genesis: 1 and 2.

Many of the people and events it relates are unsupported by external evidence.

Many of the stories can be found in the myths and legends of other cultures (creation, flood etc).

It contradicts science: ‘the earth is set firmly in place and cannot be moved’ (Psalm 93) etc.

The Song of Songs is a collection of erotic poetry.

The Book of Jonah questions the very practice of prophecy which is central to the OT.

Leviticus and Deuteronomy contradict each other.

The book of Ecclesiastes seems to have slipped in by mistake since it seems to reject life after death and man’s special place in creation.

The cruelties that the Bible claims God ordered, approved or committed make the book unacceptable to those who apply modern standards of morality, justice and humaneness.

A belief in Holy War was common to all Semites at the time and the story of Joshua tells us about one. Joshua put everyone to death at Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, etc, as ordered by God.

The bible is anti-women from start to finish.

It supports slavery (despite your protests to the contrary).

The OT is contradicted by the NT which preaches peace (largely).

The Gospels offer contradictory accounts of the birth of Jesus, the ancestry of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus.

Of course, there is no single book called the Bible. Instead there a`re collections of writings by up to 40 different authors spanning a thousand years. ‘The Holy Bible’ is in fact a myth.

Pb;

Your post 96 is inane. the thread is: Is religion a social evil, as the survey answers suggest? The question here is: was apartheid bolstered by religion? I say yes.
So does Dylan Dog. Look at the various statements in support of it by the Dutch Reformed Churches, for example. Moodie (The Rise of Afrikanerdom) writes:"the divine agent of the Afrikaner civil faith is Christian and Calvinist". In 1982 the NGK, the largest of the churches, was suspended from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches because it espoused the 'heresy' of apartheid.

When slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire, the Afrikaner response to these threats to the 'proper relations between master and servant' was the Great Trek, a 'biblical' event in which a misunderstood people flee into the wilderness. Eventually, they founded the orange free State and the Transvall. The constitution of the latter stated: "the people will admit no equality between the white and coloured inhabitants either in Church or State".

What do you say? (we're not asking you what you think of apartheid). Why don't you pay attention to the argument?