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Rightwing groups across US push new bans to limit ‘obscene’ books in libraries
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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But do you know what it does portray as a good thing? Slavery!
I mean, it's a 1000 year old book. Slavery was accepted and normal in those days.
Slavery has never been acceptable, and I would expect a "holy book" meant to be a model for morality, regardless of when it is written, to at the very least be ambivalent on the topic of owning other humans as property.
Actually, that's too generous. If I were to follow the teachings of a book, it would need to be explicitly anti-slavery. Something that would be particularly important in a time where slavery is "accepted and normal." And really, a super fucking low bar.
We've got 10 commandments. At least 2 of them are about Yahweh being jealous of other gods, and yet none of them are about slavery.
Jesus could have easily said, "don't own people as property," and yet he didn't.
No, he actually specifically outlined rules for owning and punishing your slaves. He (more than, imo) tacitly approves of slavery.
If you want to have this argument, you're gonna lose.
Slavery was very much and accepted socio economical practice in those days. The mentioning the bible does are often not reminiscent of the 18th century slavery we're all familiar with. Slavery I'm those days was often a kind of servitude, for a couple years, tto pay off debt. The bible recognises that for what it is and tries to humanise slavery by saying things like to treat your slaves as your brother
You should probably take a step back and realize you're defending slavery. That's gross. You should be ashamed.
You can try to justify it all you want, but the fact is that it was just as unacceptable then as it is now, and an all-knowing, all-caring god should understand that no problem.
Regardless of the socio- economic conditions.
And yeah, it's not like Jesus was well known for upsetting the socio-economic status quo or anything... It's not like he fashioned his own whip to drive money changers from the temple.
B b b but money changing in the temple was the accepted practice in those days!
We are talking about the Roman era here, mate. The Romans conquered outside societies and enslaved them. Slavery in this context meant that these "foreigners" could earn Roman citizenship. There were some slaves that held higher esteem than some free citizens in the Roman Empire, most notably doctors.
Slavery was not just whipping people to make them plow the land. It was a very complicated socioeconomical construct and it was very much a "normal" thing. In the late Roman era, slavery grew rampant (because it was profitable) and often children of poor, free citizens were kidnapped into slavery. But in the Roman high tides, around the time of Jezus, it was, for lack if a better word, a rather sophisticated process.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome
Slavery has never been acceptable, and I would expect ~~a "holy book"~~ the Constitution of the United States meant to be a model for ~~morality~~ government, regardless of when it is written, to at the very least be ambivalent on the topic of owning other humans as property.
Cool trick.
I agree.
Also no. It allowed servitude to pay off debts, but all debts were supposed to be forgiven after 7 years, and so it was strictly limited.
Where do you think the ideas that all humans are equal and deserve equal rights that reduced slavery in modern times come from?
Definitely not the Bible, which tells women to be subservient to their husbands and enslaved people to obey their masters. I am utterly uninterested in the moral lessons of a book written by people who endorse debt slavery. Which, I guess still needs to be pointed out, is bad! Even if it’s “only” 7 years!
I understand your position, but I respectfully urge you to study more history, all modern western ideas of universal human rights are based on or heavily influenced by the Bible. Dominion by Tom Holland, despite the terrible name, is a good source on the subject.
Also, sure, we are partially past it, but considering that until 300 years ago almost everybody considered slavery a natural right, a 3000 years old law limiting servitude to 7 years is VERY progressive.
You are not convincing my queer trans ass there is anything worth studying in there to guide people morally. I had that inflicted on me for the first two decades of my life and literally have PTSD from it.
The history can be interesting, and it’s something people accomplished in spite of what is in that book, not because of it.
I'm really sorry you went through that, I hope you can find healing.
I imagine it's not much, and you don't have any reason to believe me, but because of it I wouldn't hesitate in protecting you in these dangerous times.
I believe you, I just think the average person doesn’t realize how damaging the Bible can be, especially taken literally. The use for it as a moral guide has long since been overtaken by philosophies like humanism, the same way that precise brain surgeries have eclipsed the trepanation practiced in the Neolithic.
The equality of women is indeed a point where the bible failed, but you can't do everything right at once. I'm not a fan of the bible, but in it's days, it was a good book that taught good values. Values that were better than society was at the time and it really improved society.
Where do we think those ideas come from? The way you say that makes it sound like you don’t believe anyone could come to that idea without that specific religion’s religious text. That projection is, by far, probably the most frightening thing in this thread.
People are fully capable of being good without being forced to. Yea, most are stupid and plenty are nasty but to act like the ideas of baseline human freedoms must have come from the bible is so weird.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but that's how it happened in the Western world.
Would it later on happen "naturally" without it? Maybe; hard to say, we can only speculate since it's not how it went.
But even from a "Christian" perspective, I would agree, yes it would; these values align with God's will and He would have put these ideas in peoples' heads even if the Bible didn't exist.
Geez, so much for getting free will, eh?
There were scores of Christians who thought slavery was great. If the bible was really the ticket into being against it then it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Instead we get The Americas(TM), a collection of stolen lands turned into a mire of plantations and now into prisons built on making said the prisoners work for pennies to prop up the rest of the country while many more “free” people are below the poverty line despite putting in their 40+ hours of hard, often physical, labour. Even people that are “paid decently” aren’t getting their fair share. Slavery coexists with the bible just fine, and in fact thrives more in more religious regions.
And let's be very clear, the bible was explicitly used by slaveowners to justify chattel slavery in the US. Slave bibles that had any mention of concepts like freedom removed, were distributed to slaves in order to keep them in line.
So not only does the bible explicitly condone slavery, it was itself used to great success, as a justification for chattel slavery in the US.
My only conclusion can be that an all-powerful, all-knowing god was aware of this and allowed it to happen. At the very least. And perhaps even wanted it to happen.
All it would have taken was to change one of the several "don't worship anyone but me, guys" commandments to "don't own other humans as property." Problem solved.
The bible is full of "revolutionary ideas" (in the addled minds of Christians who have never read an actual book in their lives), yet "don't own people" was just a step too far I guess.
That doesn't hurt free will? Someone receiving a "revelation" is still free to act in it as they will; Christian theology also recognizes Natural/General Revelation in which anyone can find God's will just by observing the natural world and/or society. Apostle Paul called the Greek philosophers "prophets", and I personally think the title also applies to modern scientists.
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I don't and can't disagree with what you said. The moment the powerful started using the Bible its message was twisted into supporting all sorts of evil, like those you mentioned.
But I believe the message of Jesus is that it is meant to be read from the perspective of protecting, helping, and freeing the weak, the "lesser", the vulnerable.
And it was others reading it this way that made the ideas that became human rights to spread in the Western World.
Not that I think anything in the Bible can be taken at face value, but especially numbers and doubly so, the number 7.
World created in 7 days. Forgive others 7 times or 70*7. Etc etc. There's no reason to believe the law of the land was literally a 7 year limit on slavery.
Still bad, but servitude =/= slavery.
7 in the Bible is usually a symbol for completeness. The 70*7 specifically is meant to be "unending".
It is very likely to really be a 7 years limit to debts.
And I would love if the Bible-thumping politicians proposed this debt limit for modern times, but they are all just hypocrites.
My friend, biblical scholars disagree with you. Your holy book is very clear on this subject, and I would implore you to do a little research before saying shit like this.
I did study theology, but I certainly need a refresher.
Yes, the servitude can be considered a form of slavery, but I think it can be useful to distinguish as it's quite different from the more modern chattel slavery.
And I don't think it's valid today, these laws in the Bible were written in and for a specific context of time and place, and the commandments of love supersede it.
Until 300 years ago when slavery was considered OK, the biblical law on it would still be VERY progressive.
Matthew 5:17-19
The words of Jesus himself.
Not true. The bible was explicitly used by plantation owners in the Southern US to justify chattel slavery, and keep their slaves in line. They printed versions of the bible with all suggestions of concepts like freedom removed.
You keep telling yourself that what's in the bible is different than slavery, but it is not. Your book gives explicit rules on how to treat your slaves, how to punish your slaves including beating them and how much you're allowed to beat them (make sure it's not so bad that they can't recover in a few days!) It gives explicit rules on how you are to treat your Jewish slaves compared to Gentile slaves. How much slaves should buy and sell for.
You're going to lose this argument. The only out is, "actually, slavery is OK" and I've literally seen Christians say this in order to justify their awful book.
He fulfilled the law, and did not have slaves.
The example of His own actions is to read the law with the perspective of protecting the weak, the "lesser", the vulnerable.
You should maybe ask yourself why you're so eager to defend this.
You know what would be a great way to protect slave? Perhaps the best way? To take the (very fucking easy) step of saying "hey don't own people."
But instead he talked about slaves all of the time, and seemed to have no problem with them. Taken from wiki because I'm lazy:
Does not sound like the words or behavior of someone who wants to stop people from being slaves. Which is, seriously, like the lowest fucking bar on the planet.
You know what it reads like to me? A book that was written by people, of its time. And at that time, as you said, slavery was common practice. So the people who wrote it didn't' even consider that it should be on the table.
I don't know if you edited or my app cut part of your text.
"You know what it reads like to me? A book that was written by people, of its time. And at that time, as you said, slavery was common practice. So the people who wrote it didn’t’ even consider that it should be on the table."
Exactly!
Also, Jesus said that in His kingdom the king is slave to all, and slaves are elevated to the importance of kings; even if a law allows it, it makes no sense for His followers to engage in it.
I'm not trying to defend slavery in the Bible, for the context those laws were written it was progress; but it also contains enough that made people 300 years ago start thinking "maybe slavery is not good".
Jesus' message is not for those who would have the power to own slaves; that last verse looks like a weird translation, it's supposed to mean that his followers are not to seek positions of power, but to act as slaves to each other.
Is it just me, or these don't seem to jive with each other.
Lol, bud... Just Google "slavery in the Bible"
You're in denial.
Abraham had sex with his (wife's) slave Hagar to produce Ishmael -- and both Hagar and Ishmael were then exiled after Abraham was able to conceive with his wife and produce Isaac.
Certainly not the kind of values I'd want for my family.
Also treated by the Bible as something bad.
Not true.
Why not? It does not say it explicitly, but the narration describes a series of negative consequences coming from it, and I've only ever seen it interpreted as bad.
Can you point to the verse that condemns that behavior?
There's no specific verse condemning it explicitly, but the overall arc of Abraham's story is that whenever he tries to be "clever" and fulfill God's promise on his own there are bad consequences, in this case the soured relationship between Hagar and Sarah, the need of God's intervention to save his son from death in the desert, and the origin of yet another people that would later antagonize the Israelites, the Arabs.
So, like, it's just your interpretation?
Not just mine, AFAIK it's the most common one.
I think you’re missing the point of this conversation a little bit buddy. Go back and read all of the comments you’ve replied to and see if you can figure out what you’re missing from the commentary.
I missed the context of banning books?
so, debt slavery?
Technically servitude is not the same as slavery, but still bad.
Considering that until 300 years ago most people considered slavery to be a natural right, a 3000 years old law limiting it to at most 7 years was VERY progressive.
The bible explicitly condones slavery. Stop saying it's "servitude". Buying and selling humans as property. Using them as free labor. Beating them into submission.
This is slavery. This is all explicitly condoned in the bible.
but its practically the same thing. how progressive of the bible.
In that temporal and geographic context, yes, very much.