Freethought & Rationalism Archive

WVIncagold · 02-13-2008, 09:48 AM

isnt serving a king for all eternity slavery? sounds to me that xtians cant wait to don the yoke of slavery any chance they get.

Headache · 02-13-2008, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST...istianity.html

"File not found"
Do you have a working link?

Toto · 02-13-2008, 12:52 PM

Fixed the link.

I don't know what there is to discuss. Christianity arose in a slave-based society and accepted slavery, the same way it now accepts modern capitalism, including usury, "wage slavery," modern corporations, etc, not to mention divorce, rock music, women preachers, and other aspects of modern society. Christianity's flexibility has been the key to its survival.

Clivedurdle · 02-13-2008, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

We can discuss Jesus as a myth or invention of Constantine, so why the silence about this? Is this a taboo subject?

Slavery is taken to be an add on, part of the culture, but reading around it does look like a deliberate possibly defining feature, that was reinforced in Islam with submission. (http://www.religionnewsblog.com/9287...s-murdered-for)

What is the problem? Maybe xianity is actually worse than we believed? Why the rose coloured spectacles about xianity?

The truth will set us free!

The Failure of Christianity by Emma Goldman

Quote:

Both Nietzsche and Stirner saw in Christianity the leveler of the human race, the breaker of man's will to dare and to do. They saw in every movement built on Christian morality and ethics attempts not at the emancipation from slavery, but for the perpetuation thereof.

Xianity and its daughter Islam do look like cuckoo religions built on the unwilling back of Judaism deliberately to make slavery acceptable

Thank you Toto!

Clivedurdle · 02-13-2008, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Fixed the link.

I don't know what there is to discuss. Christianity arose in a slave-based society and accepted slavery, the same way it now accepts modern capitalism, including usury, "wage slavery," modern corporations, etc, not to mention divorce, rock music, women preachers, and other aspects of modern society. Christianity's flexibility has been the key to its survival.

The Blogger quoted at the beginning - Jewish - thinks it is a conspiracy - not a cock up.

That Xianity was deliberately invented by very senior people in the Roman Empire as a method of social control - a weapon of war - against one quarter of the Roman population - the slaves.

I think this argument is actually very powerful and makes a lot of sense.

It does require throwing out a huge amount of propagandist garbage - that the pharisees were conservative and Jesus radical - rubbish - it was the other way round,

- that Judaism, xianity and Islam are similar religions - rubbish - arguably Judaism has always been far superior in terms of ethics.

Think about this in terms of effects on the planet - what Empires and armies and wars has Judaism fought compared with xianity and Islam.

What is the balance sheet for each religion in terms of people harmed and killed and helped - of their own religion and others?

The other part of the propagandist garbage is that xianity was only copying its mileu.

But that forgets rule one of the Art of War - don't even let your enemy know you have conquered him!

It was deliberately designed to keep the slaves in place.

Try replacing every servant in the New Testament with slave.

Dump the assumption that it is morally superior to Judaism. Dump the character assassination of the Pharisees - the first anti slave group!

Toto · 02-13-2008, 01:15 PM

The blogger quoted at the beginning appears to be Joel Bainerman, and anti-missionary opposing Christian attempts to convert the Jews. He does not provide any support for his idea that the Pharisees were opposed to slavery.

Clivedurdle · 02-13-2008, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

For example

http://www.angelfire.com/wi/famtree/longwr1.html

Quote:

Simply stated, the Pharisees and Essenes were at variance with the Sadducees (and the Romans) on the issue of slavery.

As to the Pharisees, Josephus says; "...they follow the conduct of reason..." Meaning a) ethics, and b) that the leaders of the Pharisees were not 'religious', as in following after 'beliefs' over practicality, and c) "...they also pay respect to such (as) that are in years..." (i.e., they honored and respected their elders). And furthermore, "...they do not take away the freedom from men..."

Which indeed means that they were adverse to the idea of slavery. (Ref. Josephus, Whiston translation, page 376-377).

Is this not what Josephus says about the Pharisees? Would not an anti slave group be a direct threat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus

Clivedurdle · 02-13-2008, 01:33 PM

Quote:

The new religion was a concoction of the best components taken from earlier and pre-existing religions and belief systems, along with some new concepts that would be "unique to Christians" to give these poor, destitute slaves some reason to smile when they get up in the morning. That is what the Romans gave them: a drug called Christianity, which enabled the slaves to better accept their lot in life.

:devil1:

Toto · 02-13-2008, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

For example

http://www.angelfire.com/wi/famtree/longwr1.html

Is this not what Josephus says about the Pharisees? Would not an anti slave group be a direct threat?

This quote is taken out of context. It does not seem to have anything to do with slavery - just free will vs. fate.

Quote:

Now the Pharisees simplify their way of life and give in to no sort of softness; and they follow the guidance of what their doctrine has handed down and prescribes as good; and they earnestly strive to observe the commandments it dictates to them. They also show respect to the elders, nor are they so bold as to contradict them in any thing they have introduced. Although they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since it has pleased God to make a combination of his council-chamber and of the people who wish to approach with their virtue and their vice.

From here

Clivedurdle · 02-13-2008, 01:49 PM

Quote:

PhariseeJewish history
Main

member of a Jewish religious party that flourished in Palestine during the latter part of the Second Temple period (515 BC–AD 70). Their insistence on the binding force of oral tradition (“the unwritten Torah”) still remains a basic tenet of Jewish theological thought. When the Mishna (the first constituent part of the Talmud) was compiled about AD 200, it incorporated the teachings of the Pharisees on Jewish law.

The Pharisees (Hebrew: Perushim) emerged as a distinct group shortly after the Maccabaean revolt, around 165–160 BC; they were, it is generally believed, spiritual descendants of the Hasideans (q.v.). The Pharisees emerged as a party of laymen and scribes in contradistinction to the Sadducees, i.e., the party of the high priesthood that had traditionally provided the sole leadership of the Jewish people. The basic difference that led to the split between the Pharisees and the Sadducees lay in their respective attitudes toward the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) and the problem of finding in it answers to questions and bases for decisions about contemporary legal and religious matters arising under circumstances far different from those of the time of Moses. In their response to this problem, the Sadducees, on the one hand, refused to accept any precept as binding unless it was based directly on the Torah, i.e., the Written Law. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed that the Law that God gave to Moses was twofold, consisting of the Written Law and the Oral Law, i.e., the teachings of the prophets and the oral traditions of the Jewish people. Whereas the priestly Sadducees taught that the written Torah was the only source of revelation, the Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in the Law; men must use their reason in interpreting the Torah and applying it to contemporary problems. Rather than blindly follow the letter of the Law even if it conflicted with reason or conscience, the Pharisees harmonized the teachings of the Torah with their own ideas or found their own ideas suggested or implied in it. They interpreted the Law according to its spirit; when in the course of time a law had been outgrown or superseded by changing conditions, they gave it a new and more acceptable meaning, seeking scriptural support for their actions through a ramified system of hermeneutics. It was due to this progressive tendency of the Pharisees that their interpretation of the Torah continued to develop and has remained a living force in Judaism.

The Pharisees were not primarily a political party but a society of scholars and pietists. They enjoyed a large popular following, and in the New Testament they appear as spokesmen for the majority of the population. Around 100 BC a long struggle ensued as the Pharisees tried to democratize the Jewish religion and remove it from the control of the Temple priests. The Pharisees asserted that God could and should be worshiped even away from the Temple and outside Jerusalem. To the Pharisees, worship consisted not in bloody sacrifices—the practice of the Temple priests—but in prayer and in the study of God’s law. Hence the Pharisees fostered the synagogue as an institution of religious worship, outside and separate from the Temple. The synagogue may thus be considered a Pharasaic institution since the Pharisees developed it, raised it to high eminence, and gave it a central place in Jewish religious life.

The active period of Pharasaism, the most influential movement in the development of Orthodox Judaism, extended well into the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. The Pharisees preserved and transmitted Judaism through the flexibility they gave to Jewish scriptural interpretation in the face of changing historical circumstances. The efforts they devoted to education also had a seminal importance in subsequent Jewish history; after the destruction of the Second Temple and the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, it was the synagogue and the schools of the Pharisees that continued to function and to promote Judaism in the long centuries following the Diaspora.

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02-13-2008, 09:48 AM	#21
WVIncagold Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: West Virginina Posts: 4,349	isnt serving a king for all eternity slavery? sounds to me that xtians cant wait to don the yoke of slavery any chance they get.

02-13-2008, 12:52 PM	#23
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Fixed the link. I don't know what there is to discuss. Christianity arose in a slave-based society and accepted slavery, the same way it now accepts modern capitalism, including usury, "wage slavery," modern corporations, etc, not to mention divorce, rock music, women preachers, and other aspects of modern society. Christianity's flexibility has been the key to its survival.

02-13-2008, 01:15 PM	#26
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	The blogger quoted at the beginning appears to be Joel Bainerman, and anti-missionary opposing Christian attempts to convert the Jews. He does not provide any support for his idea that the Pharisees were opposed to slavery.

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