Home Archives Random Quotes Latest Comments Top 100 Submit Quote Search Log In Forums

Quote# 65720

Christians didn't own slaves. A slave was someone who couldn't pay off a debt with money, so they paid it off with work. When the debt was paid, the slave was free. And every 50 years, all slaves were given a clean slate wheither they still owed money or not. Even if they had sold their property to pay off a debt, the property was given back.

Pastor Tom Estes, Hard Truth 73 Comments [9/13/2009 7:36:12 AM]
Fundie Index: 105
WTF?! || meh
Username:
Comment:



1 2 3
#1020077
Shann

And the bible says this where, exactly?

Also, I'd like you to name a single place where this definition of slavery was used and the other elements you mentioned put into practice.

It's amazing the word play, dancing around the issues and revisionism you people have to stoop to just to make the horrible shit in the bible seem okay to you, especially in light of the fact that if it were humans involved in such evil behavior you'd be calling for them to be lynched. You honor a God whose tyrannical nature goes completely opposite to the beliefs you claim to have.

Fundamentalist christianity: redefining irony for the past 2009 years and counting.

9/13/2009 7:41:49 AM
#1020094
apenpaap

This guy wins the golden Dukat.

9/13/2009 7:48:16 AM
#1020110
Rat of Steel

Slave =/= indentured servant

The latter is still considered a person, despite his/her punishment of having to work for his creditor(s) for no pay. The former, on the other hand, works for no pay because s/he's considered to be someone else's PROPERTY. Huge difference there, Pastor Tom.

9/13/2009 7:55:33 AM
#1020112
Porter

You can't be an apologist for slavery, give up.

The more you try the more inhumane you look, makes me fucking sick.

9/13/2009 7:57:16 AM
#1020118
ChristPuncher

Yes but on what planet?

9/13/2009 7:58:48 AM
#1020125
John

The OT treated Jewish and non-Jewish slaves differently. Jews were to be indentured servants (i.e., working to pay off a debt). Non-Jews were fair game:

"Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, [shall be] of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that [are] with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit [them for] a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever." (Lev. 25:44-46)

I don't see anything about freeing them in that passage. And the Southern US plantation owners sure as hell had slaves, and fought a war to keep them. And they called themselves "Christians" and even tried to use the Bible to defend the practice.

9/13/2009 8:01:33 AM
#1020129
jsonitsac

You're confusing Christians with the ancient Israelites.

9/13/2009 8:04:24 AM
#1020133
C_V


hard truth? really?

9/13/2009 8:05:39 AM
#1020157
Doubting Thomas

But you can't deny that the bible was patently clear about owning actual slaves, for instance instructions about taking slaves from neighboring nations. I'm sure all those people from neighboring countries just owed money to those who took them as slaves. Yeah, that's it.

9/13/2009 8:20:26 AM
#1020171
EvoPagan

Oh, well, every fifty years! That makes it all ok! What a wise, compassionate god you have there, Tom.

9/13/2009 8:31:48 AM
#1020181
Higgs Boson

This is the fatal mistake that religions inevitably make: they assert the absolute moral perfection of their god, ignoring the rather inconvenient fact that, over the centuries, moral philosophy on the part of humans has allowed us to progress ethically to a point where impartial people in the 21st century can plainly see that the Bible contains abominable acts and events.

This is not because God is evil, it's because there is no god - at least not one that imparted moral teachings to us - and this is the best humans could come up with at the time. Rather than continue in this pathetic charade, making these tortured reinterpretations of passages that are morally reprehensible, I don't understand why apologists don't just save themselves the futile effort and accept this far more parsimonious explanation: that slavery exists in the Bible because human beings, who had not benefitted from the moral philosophy that came after them, were simply not equipped to make moral judgments that we today find palatable.

They would save themselves so much hand-wringing.

9/13/2009 8:36:54 AM
#1020197
aaa

You fucking wish.

9/13/2009 8:53:21 AM
#1020219
LDM


9/13/2009 9:13:06 AM
#1020223
Nathan the Wise

Bollocks, T. Estes.

9/13/2009 9:14:35 AM
#1020224


Even if that were the case that doesn't mean slavery of African Americans in America was like that, in fact it was nothing like that.

9/13/2009 9:15:40 AM
#1020241
Doctor Whom

Don't you people get it? The Bible passages on slavery need to be interpreted carefully, in light of historical context that I just made up. Meanwhile, with regard to homosexuality, the Word of God is the Word of God, and it says what it says.

9/13/2009 9:23:12 AM
#1020247
Marc

So, all those Southern plantation owners weren't Christians? Doesn't this mean then, since the U.S. had slavery at it's inception, that we were never a Christian nation?

Granted, none of what you said is even remotely true, so I won't really expect you to respond...

9/13/2009 9:25:34 AM
#1020266
Blackvoice

Where?

9/13/2009 9:42:08 AM
#1020304
BobsOldSocks

You're either inexcusably ignorant or a liar. Which is it?

9/13/2009 10:05:48 AM
#1020324
freako104

So basically you are an apologist for slavery. And someone who doesn't know what the word means or what happened historically. You fail.

9/13/2009 10:18:54 AM
#1020369
Horsefeathers

"Christians didn't own slaves."

Of course not. They just owned property that happened to be a human being, right?

"A slave was someone who couldn't pay off a debt with money, so they paid it off with work."

That's called indentured servitude and was, as I understand it, more or less a contractual obligation rather than slavery as slavery is generally thought of. One person didn't "own" the other, they just got free work to pay a debt.

In other words: you're wrong.

"When the debt was paid, the slave was free."

In various forms, yes. In the general use of the word "slave," no way in hell. There was no debt; the slave was bought and thus became property. Certain societies, such as the Greeks if I recall correctly, allowed slaves to buy their freedom if they could manage to scrape together the sums required. That's not paying a debt though.

"And every 50 years, all slaves were given a clean slate wheither they still owed money or not. Even if they had sold their property to pay off a debt, the property was given back."

And? I thought you said Christians didn't own slaves? If that's the case then this law has no relevance.

9/13/2009 11:27:22 AM
#1020391


Um, yes, actually this one's true, although of JEWISH people.

9/13/2009 11:56:39 AM
#1020396
the FBI is controlling your thoughts via your toaster.

Then the book of Philemon was wasted ink then?

9/13/2009 12:09:50 PM
#1020398
Papabear

So, none of those ante-bellum, slave-owning southerners was a Christian?

Are you saying that the children born into slavery had run up debts prior to being born? Exactly how did that work?


9/13/2009 12:11:05 PM
#1020418


Christians didn't own slaves.

Care to explain why? I remember the Southern US having slaves and most of them where owned by Christians.

A slave was someone who couldn't pay off a debt with money, so they paid it off with work.

So a slave was a indentured servant? I don't think so. If there was a debt, like sharecropping right after the Civil War then in most cases the debtor had such a large amount of interest and unreasonable loans that they where basically reduced to slavery.

When the debt was paid, the slave was free.

See above.

And every 50 years, all slaves were given a clean slate wheither they still owed money or not.

I doubt that. Plus even if there was a grain of truth there that means plenty of people where born into and died into slavery. The average life expectancy of a slave was horribly low, less than 50 due to having to work 7 days a week, and from sunrise to sunset. Not to mention medicine was not as good then as now.

Even if they had sold their property to pay off a debt, the property was given back.

Now your just blowing smoke out your ass. If they did sell the property they got much less than what it was worth.

9/13/2009 12:34:12 PM
1 2 3