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>Barbaric by today’s standards, but eminently humane by all other standards until the last 100 years or so. Why are we judging the laws of an omnipotent being

>Barbaric by today’s standards, but eminently humane by all other standards until the last 100 years or so. Why are we judging the laws of an omnipotent being by the standards of humans thousands of years ago? Why can't we judge his laws by the standards of today? Why can't he have made the societies he ruled better for the poor, women, slaves, etc... He could have told the Israelites that women should be equal to men, why didn't he?

hajile 6y ago
The core tenet of the law as seen by Christians today is justice tempered with mercy because of love and the the death of Jesus in payment for that mercy. If you break a windows, society is out the cost of that window. Justice demands payment by the breaker are the expense of something else they could do with the money. Mercy is when the window owner takes that debt theirselves. The debtor walks away free, but the owner must now still pay the price. “The borrower is slave to the lender.” While modern societies hold this to be untrue in name, it is very true in principle. Countries that owe large debts do what they’re told. Companies do the same. Even on an individual level something like student loans follow you forever. Even sin is referred to as an unrepayable debt to God. To take debt without repaying would be theft. Even today, direct theft or deprivation of property or life is grounds for enslaving people for decades in something called prisons. You’re only complaint here is about what debts to people and society are punishable by slavery. It’s also worth noting that debtors prison and indentured servitude existed over a half century after slavery was ended and slavery as punishment is still explicitly allowed under the US constitution. To reiterate, the slavery presented in the Bible as a means of repaying debt is actually what we’d call indentured servitude. In contrast, slavery as practiced in the US was absolutely indefensible according to the Bible. The Bible proclaimed the slave traders as worthy of death. All the massive abuses would have immediately led to slaves being released and more than a few slave owners being executed. Finally, with all slaves being freed every 40 years making multigenerational slavery impossible (don’t forget that freed slaves were also to be provided with a means to sustain themselves —- the oldest source of “40 acres and a mule“). Has society actually improved on this point? At most we’ve replaced it by stealing from every individual and giving that to pay the debt of others, but a group buying a slave’s freedom also existed with the difference that the money was to be volunteered rather than taken by threat of force. The Bible clearly says enslavement without cause is injustice worthy of death. Once debt is accrued, someone must pay. The old law gives justice at all costs (forgot to mention, but slavery was a court matter). Jesus differed in teaching that while justice was fair, mercy and the self sacrifice of forgiving debt was better. By the way, this argument is rather similar to the one given by the original abolitionists who were almost universally fundamentalist Christian sects. Now, the burden of proof is on you. Prove without religion that slavery is immoral and indentured servitude is unjust.

hajile 6y ago

The core tenet of the law as seen by Christians today is justice tempered with mercy because of love and the the death of Jesus in payment for that mercy. If you break a windows, society is out the cost of that window. Justice demands payment by the breaker are the expense of something else they could do with the money. Mercy is when the window owner takes that debt theirselves. The debtor walks away free, but the owner must now still pay the price. “The borrower is slave to the lender.” While modern societies hold this to be untrue in name, it is very true in principle. Countries that owe large debts do what they’re told. Companies do the same. Even on an individual level something like student loans follow you forever. Even sin is referred to as an unrepayable debt to God. To take debt without repaying would be theft. Even today, direct theft or deprivation of property or life is grounds for enslaving people for decades in something called prisons. You’re only complaint here is about what debts to people and society are punishable by slavery. It’s also worth noting that debtors prison and indentured servitude existed over a half century after slavery was ended and slavery as punishment is still explicitly allowed under the US constitution. To reiterate, the slavery presented in the Bible as a means of repaying debt is actually what we’d call indentured servitude. In contrast, slavery as practiced in the US was absolutely indefensible according to the Bible. The Bible proclaimed the slave traders as worthy of death. All the massive abuses would have immediately led to slaves being released and more than a few slave owners being executed. Finally, with all slaves being freed every 40 years making multigenerational slavery impossible (don’t forget that freed slaves were also to be provided with a means to sustain themselves —- the oldest source of “40 acres and a mule“). Has society actually improved on this point? At most we’ve replaced it by stealing from every individual and giving that to pay the debt of others, but a group buying a slave’s freedom also existed with the difference that the money was to be volunteered rather than taken by threat of force. The Bible clearly says enslavement without cause is injustice worthy of death. Once debt is accrued, someone must pay. The old law gives justice at all costs (forgot to mention, but slavery was a court matter). Jesus differed in teaching that while justice was fair, mercy and the self sacrifice of forgiving debt was better. By the way, this argument is rather similar to the one given by the original abolitionists who were almost universally fundamentalist Christian sects. Now, the burden of proof is on you. Prove without religion that slavery is immoral and indentured servitude is unjust.