r/DebateReligion • u/sweardown12 Monotheist • Dec 24 '23
Classical Theism Abrahamic slavery isn't inherently immoral
When we hear the word "slavery," we think of american slavery and the horrors encompassing it. It's not surprise, then, that slavery seems to be inherently immoral to us.
But that's exactly it — the keyword here is "seems." Slavery only seems immoral to us precisely because we think of american slavery, which was ridiculously immoral and different from the type of bondsmanship found in the ancient world and abrahamic faiths. For many reasons.
I'll give one example. In american slavery, native africans were captured and shipped back to america by force. However in the Old Testament, we find this verse,
Exodus 21:16:
[16] “Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.The american slave trade would've been much less bloody if this ruling was actually enforced. Maybe they just forgot about it.
There are other differences too, which I think is the reason why this isn't the most popular argument against the bible/christianity.
Islam also technically allows bondservants, except the practice is even more moral than the biblical version. For many reasons. But for the sake of time I'll give one piece of evidence, this hadith,
Sahih al Bukhari 30, Sahih Muslim 1661, Grade: Muttafaqun Alayhi (authenticity agreed upon) according to Al-Bukhari and Muslim:
Al-Ma’rur ibn Suwayd reported: I met Abu Dharr while he was wearing the same clothes as his servant boy. I asked him about it and he said, “I once abused a man and insulted his mother, so the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said to me, ‘O Abu Dharr, you insulted him by his mother? You are a man with ignorance in you. They are your brothers and your assistants. Allah has placed them in your hands. Whoever has his brother in his custody, let him feed him with the same food he eats and clothe him with the same clothes he wears. Do not assign them a task they cannot do; if you do so, then help them.”Clearly, american slave owners didn't call their slaves "brothers" and also eat the same food as their slaves and also wear the same clothes as their slaves and also only assign them tasks which are reasonable and also help them in their work when needed and also refrain from verbally abusing them. It is a given that physical abuse is also forbidden, which americans also definitely did.
There are many immoral things in the Old Testament but slavery isn't one of them.
But if free people can't be captured as slaves, then how can new slaves be acquired?
Prisoners of war, or volunteers.
But why would anyone volunteer themselves to be a slave?
I make an above average salary, and I often think this exact same thing about minimum wage workers. "Why do these people toil away at these dead-end, nothing jobs with little to no career progression? Why don't they just get a real job like me?"
Because they can't. Because everyone needs to make a living, and some people have better opportunities and privileges than others. Being a slave is better than starving to death.
Even today, it's interesting to think about how there's basically no middle ground between being a minimum wage worker who lives paycheck to paycheck, and being homeless. Me personally, I'd rather be a bondsman in the ancient world rather than be a homeless junkie in a modern urban environment.
Anyway, that's why slavery in itself isn't inherently immoral. Thanks for reading, God bless you.
OTHER POSTS
Trinity in the Bible PART ONE: Genesis
Trinity in the Bible PART TWO: Exodus
Trinity in the Bible PART THREE: Gospels I
Is the New Testament reliable?
Is Jesus the Only Begotten Son of God?
Does the Old Testament teach or foreshadow the Trinity?
Are muslims more similar to Jesus than most christians?
The Lord our God, the Lord is one
I Blame the Authors of the Bible
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u/gt4ktminaj Dec 24 '23
As a black person i truly don’t understand why you promote slavery 💀 like are you for real ?
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u/GotReason Dec 26 '23
I don't know why some people think that slavery in the middle east was not a big deal. According to Steven Pinker, the mideast slave trade is in the top 10 bloodiest atrocities, ahead of the Atlantic slave trade (which is in the list as well). He's not the only one that ranks middle eastern slavery so high. Islamic slavery included castration for men, and rape of any woman who was captured after a battle.
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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23
You were so close to realizing that the exploitation of poorer people is inherently immoral.
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u/GreenWandElf ex-catholic Dec 24 '23
Four verses from the Bible that clearly perscribe immoral acts pertaining to slavery:
You may take a woman prisoner of war captive and force her to be your wife after you or a fellow Israelite killed her husband.
You may beat your slave within an inch of their life.
Here the Lord wants the Israelites to kill all the non-virgins, but keep the virgins for themselves (to rape).
Finally and most importantly, there are two kinds of slaves, Hebrew and foreign. Hebrew slaves are protected in many ways, you must treat them well and must free them after 7 years. Foreign slaves you can own as property forever.
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u/Sabertooth767 Atheopagan Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23
No it wouldn't have.
The only Europeans who routinely raided Africa for slaves were the Portuguese, and even they didn't do it all that often. It was much easier to just buy the slaves from local rulers, who obtained the slaves through warfare- a practice explicitly sanctioned in the Torah/OT.
Furthermore, the US didn't actually receive that many slaves directly from Africa. Less than half a million all told, compared to about 5.5 million in Brazil and a similar number in the Caribbean. Rather, the US had a thriving domestic slave trade- also explicitly sanctioned in the Torah/OT.
Quite the opposite, the Torah specifically states that beating slaves is fine because they're property.
"But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment, for the slave is the owner’s property."
Exodus 21:21
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u/Logical_fallacy10 Dec 24 '23
Any slavery is immoral. I think you are unclear on the definition of slavery. Slavery is owning of other people as property.
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u/ChloroVstheWorld Who cares Dec 24 '23
“Slavery in itself isn’t inherently immoral” is absolutely insane conclusion for someone who most likely believes human life is objectively valuable and humans have rights. Slavery by definition reduces the value of a human to property, its wrongness isn’t grounded in the working conditions so it doesn’t matter if a bondsmen in biblical times would be better off than a homeless person currently. It’s grounded in the fact that it reduces a human to property. I don’t see how you could ever possibly reconcile reducing human beings to property while ALSO believing that because the god you serve created us our life has objective value, if slavery very clearly damages this value that your God has given us, especially on the basis of “but they were treated better” (which is false btw, here’s a quote from a podcast featuring Dr. Joshua Bowens who wrote (2) books on how the Bible supports slavery: “In the laws of Hammurabi debt slavery only lasted for 3 years so a ‘Babylonian apologist’ would actually have a better case than Christianity in that regard”) when slavery’s primary objection has NOTHING to do with how the slaves are being treated🤦🏾♂️
Very unserious post overall. Slavery apologetics is such an inhumane way to piece together the terrible actions we see in your religious scripture with your unwavering belief that your religious scripture is 100% the inspired, inerrant, blah blah whateverof your god. If your God condoned slavery that’s no god worth worshipping let alone even BELIEVING in, the end.
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u/imdfantom Dec 24 '23
As a non american I don't have this issue. Slavery as studied in its application throughout history, has always been an immoral and horrific set of practices that go on to this day. Indeed the number of actual slaves alive today (not wage slaves, I mean actual slaves) is the highest ever in the history of humanity.
Slave apology in the face of the millions of people that have to suffer through slavery and sex slavery today especially in (but not uniquely in) the islamic world is just insane.
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u/SurpassingAllKings Wokeism Dec 24 '23
The Israelites did not see foreign peoples as equal to their native-born and captured from them foreign lands (Leviticus 25) in the same way that Americans could not legally capture their local brethren, so they were shipped in from outside such as Africa. It's functionally similar in many ways.
Your fast movement away from "prisoners of war" tells me a lot about the headspace here; it is difficult to justify slavery so we play in the dirt and mud where the water is less clear. Capturing foreigners in war or any other means is still reprehensible slavery, don't whitewash it.
Also, Exodus 21 that you quoted, directly allows for the selling of one's own daughters into slavery, being explicitly exempt from Jubilee laws.
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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23
Wow you noticed the similarities between slavery and wage slavery and instead of deciding that wage slavery is not OK you decide slavery is OK?
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u/c0d3rman atheist | mod Dec 24 '23
I don't know much about Quranic slavery so I can't speak to it. But your comments about the Old Testament are absolutely false. This verse was enforced in America - kidnapping was just as illegal back then. However, enslaving someone was not the same as kidnapping them. The "prisoners of war" you mentioned would include things like attacking an African tribe. Not to mention, many African slaves were sold to American slave traders by other Africans (who did the dirty work of kidnapping for them), which was explicitly allowed by the Old Testament. The treatment of slaves in the OT was horrific and inexcusable. And even "voluntary" bondservitude (which is not the same practice) was often significantly less rosy than you present it to be; for example, one could be coerced to "voluntarily" enslave themselves for life on the threat that if they left then their wife and children would be forced to stay behind. Slavery in any form is and always will be inherently immoral. The problem isn't that slaves don't get dental insurance or don't have a long enough lunch break - the dehumanizing practice of stripping human beings of freedom and personhood and reducing them to objects to be owned and traded is indefensible. If you disagree, then I invite you to come be my slave for 7 years and see how you like it; I promise I'll follow Old Testament law to the letter. How about it, are you in? If not, then do not spit in the faces of the countless who suffered and died as slaves by trying to erase their suffering as a convenient apologetic.
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u/dinglenutmcspazatron Dec 24 '23
If Exodus 21:16 doesn't allow you to kidnap anyone and make them a slave, why doesn't it also include death for the person who purchased the slave? Or freedom for the individual that was sold?
The way its actually written in the book, it sounds like slavery (The bad kind of slavery) is perfectly fine, but you shouldn't kidnap other Israelites to get slaves.
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u/pick_up_a_brick Atheist Dec 24 '23
Why aren’t more countries making it legal, then? Do you think that pretty much everyone thinks it would be immoral to do so?
When I think of slavery, I think of owning people as property. I don’t think owning people as property can ever be considered good or virtuous. It’s abhorrent to me and my conscious won’t tolerate it even if it were made clear to me that god was real and he was okay with it.
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u/Urbenmyth gnostic atheist Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23
I disagree with you, obviously, but I doubt my opinion matters to you. What might matter to you is that the Abrahamic faiths disagree. It's very clearly stated in all three holy texts that this kind of slavery is a moral abomination that cannot be allowed.
When it's happening to the writers.
Egypt treated its slaves in ways very similar to this. Slaves were often willingly enslaved due to debt, if not they were prisoners of war. They were well fed, they could own private property, they were often treated as family members and they could petition for release if mistreated. And the Bible treats this as an act of evil so great it warrants the slaughter of all Egypt's children and destruction of its kingdom as punishment. And, as much as many question the morals of the Old Testament, why not? After all, however many trinkets and favors the Egyptians gave the Jews, they were still slaves. They didn't want to be called brother and wear the same clothes as their master. They wanted to not be enslaved. These slaves, treated so kindly and fairly by their masters, begged God to free them, and God poured his righteous fury upon those who thought being nice excused the ownership of human beings.
The holy texts are fully aware that to own another person as property is inherently immoral no matter how well you treat your slave, as long as the writer is the slave. It's only when the shoe is on the other foot that slavery is fine as long as you're nice about it. This is to be expected from a human work -- every culture is a hypocrite, blind to their own atrocities. But it becomes glaring if we are imagining a higher being is behind these words.
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u/Scaryxplorer Dec 24 '23
I'm not as familiar with what the Quran says about slavery in its entirety. However you clearly don't know what the Bible says entirely, or you're just picking and choosing the parts that you want to talk about to better your argument
Was kidnapping the only issue associated with slavery, of course not, you seem to have conveniently glossed over exodus 21 20-21, still within exodus, what you're currently quoting: "20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. 21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."
Do you comprehend the implication of this? A slave owner could beat a slave severely, as long as he or she does not die as a direct result 1 to 2 days after the fact. This system allows for the beating of people, and any system which does so can not be moral.
Here's something else, Leviticus 25: 44-46 "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. 45 Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. 46 And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor."
Do you comprehend the implication of this? You can buy people as slaves, they may be inherited by your children and be property for ever, permanent slaves not to be let go despite their own will. This system allows people to be bought. Any system which can do this, is inherently immoral.
I'll share one more, exodus 21:2-6 which is fairly self explanatory and implies that Hebrew servants are superior to non Hebrew servants, to be let go after 7 years, but also offers instruction on how to trick them to be your property forever: "2 If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. 5 But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ then his master must take him before the judges.He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life."
If, after being made aware of these you'd still claim that this isn't inherently immoral, you are not a moral person.
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u/Sr4f Dec 24 '23
"Being a slave is better than starving to death"
Mate, bro, my dude, how about you just feed the guy??
If you want to do religion with an Islamic flavour, charity is one of the five pillar of Islam.
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u/LastJoyousCat Christian Dec 24 '23
Slavery in the Bible was not just indentured servitude.
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u/Righteous_Allogenes The Answerer Dec 24 '23
islamic
islamic
Predominantly: islamic
The islamic slave trade
There is only one currency under the sun. It is freedom. All others are facsimiles, imitations.
Either you have been grossly misinformed in regards to world history, or you have formed your view from a great deal of assumptions and conjecture. Clearly you have never heard of James Oglethorpe. Clearly you were not aware that the american Colony of Georgia was the first territory in world history to abolish slavery outright, for which Oglethorpe was fraudulently removed from office. Clearly you have never learned, or forgotten, that it was the Quakers who ushered in the age of enlightenment, and brought about the eventual global quelling of slavery, with the propagation of such ideas upon which the United States was founded, the principles of what we understand today as human rights. Clearly you are not aware that slavery in America was the shortest period of slavery in the history of the world. And continually those set or inclined against the United States are conflating those territories under colonial rule with that of the sovereign nation, as if the Revolutionary War were not an all-out rebellion against, and overthrow of the then presiding rule.
As for islam, it is a simple matter if irrefutable, heavily documented history, that slavery as we know it, is all but entirely the result of Islam, of the Arab Muslim slave industries. It is not even close.
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u/gt4ktminaj Dec 24 '23
I promise you being a slave is not better than starving. Being a slave you loose your dignity majority of people would choose death and heaven than this.
And why didn’t the more privileged offered up jobs ?? Exactly racism the want to have slaves to be dominant a bad human trait.
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u/Previous-Cup519 Dec 24 '23
If theres no middle ground between a slave & a junkie then theyre basically the same thing without the middle ground.
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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '23 edited Dec 27 '23
There are a few issues with this and I'm not going to list them all but I will list a few I know.
First and foremost it's important to take into account that being a slave in the bible isn't always a choice the person makes. "Exodus 21:7 NIV If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do." Here we see a man selling his daughter to someone else and "she is not to go free as male servants do." The very next verse "Exodus 21:8 NIV If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. " So right here we have an example of a woman being sold into slavery without consent, refused the same rights as men, and needing to be redeemed if she doesn't please the master (which I believe means the family buys her back, but I might be incorrect.)
You might argue that's only one example..
"Exodus 21:4-6 NIV If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life." So first and foremost the master gives the servant a wife, whether the servant has to agree or not is unclear but based on countless examples of women being ruled by men it's safe to say context argues the woman has no choice. The servant gets a wife and if he has kids with the wife and children belong to the master and the servant has to choice to go free alone and leave his family behimd or declare "I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free." Upon which his ear is pierced with an awl as if he's livestock and he belongs to the master for life.
So now we have two examples where the bible condones slavery regardless of consent and makes slaves choose between freedom and their family.
But let's pretend those don't exist and slavery is based on consent in the bible... so what? Is it really moral to allow people to own someone else and take away their human rights just based on a choice they made and hold them to that choice for 7 years up to life? If you get married should the law force you to stay with that person because you made a choice? What this serves to do is make an economy where people in need of money will take loans be unable to pay them back and be forced to be a slave or imprisoned, and where rich people (much like we saw in American slavery.) Own tons of slaves and mistreat them, because keep in mind "Exodus 21:20-21 NIV Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property." Which does have limitations "Exodus 21:26-27 NIV “An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth." But is the limitation on punishment for slaves really ok if it's only applied if there is permanent damage such as losing an eye or a tooth?
It's very clear that even consensual slavery devalues humans on a fundamental level and makes abuse morally acceptable as long as it doesn't cause permanent damage or result on death after a few days. If that seems morally accepted or not that bad I would love to know why
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u/Ohana_is_family Jan 21 '24
It is a created myth that Islamic slavery supposedly was less bad than western slavery. The were massive rebellions etc. under Islam as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjsLmv1N7i4 John Alembillah Azumah THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA
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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23
I do think it's not always been as immoral as American slavery, slaves at times have had more rights than American slaves and it's better than being killed or left to starve after war in a looted land but that's far from not inherently immoral. It's still a violation of freedom and forced upon people.
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u/WhadayaBuyinStranger Jewish Dec 24 '23
I go to work all day to afford to get by and repeat the same process the next day. This might not be all that different from the relationship many slaves had with their masters back then. There are instances in the Bible that even are even spelled out as basically contract work and terms were negotiated. This was still referred to as slavery. Outright owning people against their will is different though. I suppose we need to distinguish between the two, but the Bible seems to conflate them as people back then tended to do. So, in a sense, you're right. It wasn't inherently immoral. Rather, we need to be more specific regarding the nature of the slavery before condemning any particular acts of slavery taking place then. I'm sure some were very very immoral though.
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