Biblical Slavery (3 of 3)

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Old Testament Bible SlaveryLet’s conclude this critique of an apologetics.com podcast that responded to Dan Savage’s claim that the Bible is “radically pro-slavery.” Italicized arguments are my paraphrases of arguments from the podcast. (Part 1 here.)

6. The Bible against slavery. Dan Savage and other atheists distort the Bible by imagining it supporting slavery. If Southerners used the Bible to support slavery during the Civil War, that was only because they distorted it. Consider the anti-slavery books of that time: The Bible Against Slavery (1837) or God Against Slavery (1857), for example.

Let’s consider instead the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination. It split with northern Baptists in 1845 because it insisted on maintaining its support for slavery. In 1995, on the 150th anniversary of the split, it published a resolution that repudiated racism and slavery. (Good for them for admitting their error, though the delay puts this correction in the same bin as the Catholic Church’s tardy embrace of Galileo in 1992.)

Looks like support for slavery is a plausible message to take from the Bible even if not everyone accepts it.

Were there anti-slavery books at that time? Were there Christians against slavery? Sure, but how that gets the Old Testament off the hook, I can’t imagine. The verses quoted in the previous post show that the Bible is very plainly pro-slavery.

7. Anti-slavery in the New Testament. Consider Philemon, a short book in the New Testament. Here Paul sends a slave back to his master Philemon with the request that he be “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother” (Philemon 1:16). This was radical stuff—it was designed to bring about change within the Roman slave system.

That’s wishful thinking. If Paul shouted in public, “Citizens, don’t you get it? Owning another person is wrong! Free all slaves immediately!” that wouldn’t have changed the Roman system. Paul instead asking in a private letter that one slave be freed wouldn’t change the system, and it’s not clear he’s even asking for this. No, there’s nothing radical here.

Abraham Lincoln convulsed America in a civil war, in part to free the slaves. In sharp contrast, Jesus didn’t lift a finger to overturn slavery. In fact, the New Testament is full of pro-slavery statements.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything. (Col. 3:22)

Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (1 Peter 2:18)

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect. (1 Tim. 6:1–2)

Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything. (Titus 2:9–10)

Were you a slave when you were called [to be a Christian]? Don’t let it trouble you. … Each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to. (1 Cor. 7:20–24)

The Christian can respond with nice verses in the Old Testament—“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18), for example—but here again the Bible makes a clear distinction between Jewish neighbors and those other guys. So back to Dan Savage and his claim that the Bible is radically pro-slavery: looks to me like Savage wins. Whenever Christians make a careful distinction between Jewish slaves in the Old Testament and African slaves in America, they’re playing games.

Christianity makes you do weird things

Let’s take a step back to see where we’ve been. On this podcast, two well-educated Christians spent an hour trying to shoehorn actual biblical slavery (that is: slavery for life; slavery not too bad considering that slaughter was the alternative; beatings okay unless the slave is incapacitated; etc.) into a package labeled “indentured servitude.” They pretended that biblical slavery was far, far different from the slavery in America.

It makes you wonder if they’d be happy to see this godly biblical institution in effect here in America. (Maybe when the theocracy comes?)

I don’t know whether to be offended that they think I’m so uninformed that I don’t see the deception or to be amazed that they honestly don’t understand.

Welcome to Crazy Town

But that’s not the worst part. Halfway through the second hour, the host and guest acknowledged the irony that they are both African-Americans.

So we have two African-American men defending slavery. One of them likened biblical slavery to an “employment contract” (again, blind to the fact that the six-year Jewish slavery is not the topic). “We’re in a form of slavery when we’re working on a job for somebody else,” he said. Uh, no—being a waiter is not even close to being a slave. When people complain that it’s the same, they’re exaggerating. Yes, we’re constrained when we’re employees, but who seriously equates present-day employment in America to the slavery for life we’re talking about?

So a white guy has to remind modern-day African-Americans of the problems of slavery. Wow. This is what Christianity can do to people. It makes them check their brains at the door—not all Christians, of course, but some. They defend the morality of biblical slavery, if such a thing can be imagined. They defend biblical genocide. They reject science for creationism. They support torture in proportion to their religiosity. They reject stem cell research and the best methods for preventing unwanted pregnancy. They don’t see the irony in defending churches’ closed financial records. They dismiss the injustice of eternal torment in hell by saying, “Uh … I guess the gates of hell must be locked from the inside!” They dismiss evidence that televangelists are charlatans. They rationalize away biblical genocide.

Slavery is a bad thing, and the Bible condones slavery. Admit it—Dan Savage was right.

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what we are told. 
Religious dogma is doing what we are told regardless of what is right.
— Andy Thomson at American Atheists 2009 conference

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 6/11/12.)

Photo credit: American Civil War Photographs

War Just an Invention? Then Invent Something Better.

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war religion Christianity Why do humans engage in war? A typical answer has been that resource scarcity drives war. This is the Malthusian model—if you have more water or oil or farm land than I do, I might be tempted to take yours. But studies have shown no clear correlation between war and scarcity.

Maybe there’s some sort of masculine drive for conquest. But this doesn’t explain why war is relatively recent in human history. If war were just “boys being boys,” we should see more widespread evidence in the archeological record. Indeed, some societies today have violence but are unaware of the concept of war.

Margaret Mead

Let’s consider another explanation, Margaret Mead’s 1940 theory about war.

With so many examples of war throughout history, you might expect that we could find the traits that always accompany belligerent societies and never accompany peaceful ones. Societies can be highly- or poorly-developed, resource rich or resource poor, large or small, and so on, but any of these societies can engage in war or not. From Scientific American’s Cross-Check blog:

War is both underdetermined and overdetermined. That is, many conditions are sufficient for war to occur, but none are necessary. Some societies remain peaceful even when significant risk factors are present, such as high population density, resource scarcity, and economic and ethnic divisions between people. Conversely, other societies fight in the absence of these conditions. What theory can account for this complex pattern of social behavior?

What’s the answer? Mead argued that war is an invention, not an innate part of humanity. Once invented, war is contagious. Once your neighbors have been infected, your society must get infected for its own safety. Adopt it or get wiped out—the war meme wins either way. A society reluctant to go to war might conclude that a preemptive strike would be the safest move, making the idea of war self-fulfilling.

We’ve turned war on its head in an effort to come to a peaceful result. Can war be pushed to be so destructive as to be unthinkable? Alfred Nobel said, “Perhaps my [dynamite] factories will put an end to war sooner than [peace] congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops.” This hope has been expressed about poison gas, machine guns, and Nobel’s dynamite, though these have only served to make war more efficient.

Getting past war

Let’s return to Mead’s theory. If war is innate, we’re stuck with it, and war will be a perpetual threat. But Mead argues that it’s not innate. It’s an invention, and society can rid itself of it—maybe not easily, but theoretically.

There is room for optimism. We’ve gotten rid of poor social inventions before: slavery, genocide, mental illness as demon possession, witchcraft as a capital crime, and so on. We’ve adopted lots of good social ideas: democracy, universal education, universal suffrage, trial by jury, and bankruptcy instead of prison. We can change.

War certainly isn’t obsolete, though Steven Pinker argues that it has decreased by every measure.

Getting past religion

Now that we’ve asked the remarkable question, “Is war simply a poor invention for which we can invent a replacement?” let’s ask the same about religion. Is religion innate and an inherent part of human makeup? Many Christians think that we are given God radar, which points us unerringly to the Creator of the Universe, but that’s obviously false given the many incompatible religious directions to which this imagined “radar” sends us. Others say that we’re built with a vague and undirected desire for the divine, but we mustn’t confuse this spirituality with religion.

If religion is innate, we could suppress it, but then it would reassert itself. But if it’s an invention, perhaps it would stay gone once we replaced it with something better.

Christianity once ruled Europe. Today, it’s seen in much of Europe as a quaint custom from the past, like chewing tobacco or chamber pots. Perhaps it’s not too optimistic to see religion as nothing more than an invention that needs improving.

It doesn’t have to be the Grand Canyon,
it could be a city street,
it could be the face of another human being—
everything is full of wonder.
— A. C. Grayling

Photo credit: Bloody Saturday photo

Biblical Slavery (2 of 3)

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Old Testament Bible slaveryLet’s continue this critique of an apologetics.com podcast that responded to Dan Savage’s claim that the Bible is “radically pro-slavery.” Italicized arguments are my paraphrases of arguments from the podcast. (Part 1 here.)

4. The Bible rejects slavery. “Slavery” in the Bible is simply not the same thing as slavery in the United States. For example, consider Ex. 21:16:

Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.

See? A rejection of slavery, right there in the Bible.

Nope. This refers just to Jews kidnapping Jews to be sold in other countries—see the NET Bible comment on this verse. The Bible makes a clear distinction between Jews as slaves and members of other tribes as slaves.

Why is the atheist educating the Christians about their own holy book? Don’t they read it? Don’t they know about these two aspects of biblical slavery?

5. Biblical slavery was NOT American slavery. “We have a very different view here of what slavery was [comparing American slavery with biblical slavery] and you can see that it’s heavily regulated.”

Yes, slavery was regulated, just like commerce. And, like commerce, slavery was kosher from God’s standpoint.

And yes, Africans enslaved in America was different than Jews enslaved by Jews. We’ll get to that.

On the podcast, Brooks read the rules for treating Jewish slaves from Exodus 21:2–8. A Jewish slave must be freed after six years; any wife or children that came with him would be free to go, but if the master buys him a wife, she remains behind; if the slave can’t bear to leave his wife, he can remain if he promises to be a slave for life; there are special rules for how to sell your daughter into slavery; and so on.

This is rather like indentured servitude used in the American colonies, the contract by which someone would be transported to the New World in return for five or so years of work. These were European servants working for European masters.

The Bible defines two kinds of slave

But, incredibly, the discussion didn’t address the elephant in the room: the biblical rules for non-Jewish slavery. This conversation went on for an hour, so it’s not like they didn’t have time. Are they really unaware of this? Or was this a deliberate deception on their part, a wager on the ignorance of their audience?

Well, if they won’t discuss it, I’ll be happy to. Let’s wallow in the Bible’s radically pro-slavery message.

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites [harshly]. (Lev. 25:44–46)

This doesn’t look like indentured servitude, Toto. Indeed, this looks very much like the slavery for life (chattel slavery) in America that the speakers were so frantic to distance themselves from. The Jews treated the folks from their own tribe better than “those people” from other tribes. Sound familiar?

Much is made in the Old Testament of how God rescued the Jews from slavery in Egypt, but slavery was a terrible burden only when applied to us. When it’s applied to them, that’s a very different story. In fact, the Jews enslaved the tribe of the Gibeonites as soon as they returned to Canaan after the exodus from Egypt (Joshua 9:23).

More biblical demands for slavery:

When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. (Deut. 20:10–11)

You could argue that slavery is better than being killed, which the following verses make clear is the alternative. Indeed, the hosts make points like this—slavery is better than dying, slavery is the merciful alternative, Old Testament rules were kinder than those in some neighboring countries, and so on.

But I gotta wonder—is this is the best that can be said about the greatest moral document in history, that it wasn’t as bad as the morality in surrounding countries? This is the best an omniscient, omni-benevolent God can do?

Speaking of forced labor, this is how King Solomon worked his famous mines (1 Kings 9:20–22).

Then there’s the category of sex slaves (or sex workers or concubines or whatever):

Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. (Num. 31:17–18; see also Deut. 21:11)

And no slave manual would be complete without a rule for how to beat slaves correctly:

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Ex. 21:20–21)

Again, this sounds very much like slavery in America. These biblical laws sound similar to the laws governing the practice of slavery in America. Some of these also protected slaves. For example, the 1739 South Carolina code fined someone who killed a slave £700 and limited the number of hours that slaves could be made to work. The 1833 Alabama law code dictated, “Any person who shall maliciously dismember or deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like offence had been committed on a free white person.”

Despite the hosts’ protestations to the contrary, American slavery and biblical slavery were quite similar institutions.

Concluded in Part 3.

He that will not reason is a bigot; 
he that cannot reason is a fool; 
he that dares not reason is a slave.
— William Drummond

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 6/9/12.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Foolproof Method for Separating History From Legend?

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history legend jesusLet me share with you an article that I enjoyed. And when I say “enjoyed,” I mean, “was baffled by.”

The article is “The Bible and Miracles: Fact or Fantasy?” and it proposes rules for separating history from myth and legend. It concludes that the Bible’s miracles are history.

Four simple rules

1. Unlike myths, biblical miracles are presented in a historical context, that is, in conjunction with actual historical events, many of which can be verified by archeology.

Yes, myths are often unconnected with human history, but that’s a quibble for this conversation (more on the distinctions between myths and legends here). Let’s consider legends instead, which typically are presented in a historical context. For example, the legend of King Arthur and Merlin was set in England around 600. The legend of William Tell was set in Switzerland around 1300. The legend of Jesus the miracle worker could be set in Palestine around 30.

Archeology supports biblical miracles no more than it does the supernatural stories in the Iliad. Yes, there was a Jericho and yes, there was a Troy, but archeology gives no support to the supernatural.

2. Miracles are presented in a simple, matter-of-fact style. No fanfare, sometimes not even a comment.

I don’t think that Jesus’s miracles are treated any more matter-of-factly than Merlin’s magic, the gods’ supernatural actions in the Iliad, or Paul Bunyan’s overlarge feats.

3. Miracles occur in a framework of reason and logic. There are no miracles just for the sake of miracles. They are not performed for show; they are not “magic tricks” designed to entertain the reader.

The Bible’s miracles are not entertainment, but they are done to make a point. Jesus performed his miracles “so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matt. 9:6).

4. Miracles are performed in the presence of hundreds, sometimes thousands of witnesses; and many of the witnesses are still alive at the time the events are written down.

No, the stories claim that miracles were performed in the presence of many eyewitnesses. There is no independent historical documentation of a single miracle. For example, I’ve pointed out the weakness of Paul’s claim of 500 eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus here.

Let’s test drive these rules

To illustrate a non-miracle, the author gives this example:

Even now, over 200 years after the fact, would anyone believe someone today who wrote that George Washington calmed the Delaware River and walked across it while his soldiers rowed?

We have the author’s own foolproof 4-part method to separate miracle from legend. Here’s an example; let’s try it out.

1. “Washington walked across the Delaware River” is in a historical context. No one doubts that the Continental Army crossed that river the night of December 25, 1776 to attack enemy forces in Trenton.

2. Matter of fact style? Check. It’s easy to imagine the story told in this style.

3. Not performed as a trick or entertainment? Check. Washington had to get across somehow, and he could’ve walked across the water as a morale booster for the troops.

4. Performed in the presence of hundreds of witnesses? Check. History records 2400 soldiers in the group that crossed with Washington.

According to the author’s own checklist, he would be obliged to accept this account of Washington walking on water as an actual miracle. Since this account would be written about our own country’s history in Modern English, it would be more reliable and accessible than gospel stories written in 2000-year-old Greek from an ancient culture.

Parallel the gospel story with a modern analogy

The author bristles at the concern that the gospel story is unreliable history because it was initially passed on as oral history and written long after the events. He proposes a parallel. Compare Jesus known only through gospels written decades after his death with Mahatma Gandhi known only through the film Gandhi, which was produced decades after his death.

To understand the early readers of the gospels, consider ourselves learning about Gandhi only through the film. But the author wants us to imagine a very different Gandhi. This Gandhi does the things that Jesus did: he proclaims himself divine, heals the sick, and multiplies loaves and fishes. Would you believe it?

Now go further. Would you believe that this Gandhi died and resurrected? That He died for your sins? Would you drop everything to accept this Gandhi’s call to follow Him?

Of course not. That’s a helpful parallel, and this Christian author has nicely demonstrated that the gospel claim is ridiculous.

[SFX: record scratch]

Nope, that’s not the conclusion of this author. He tries to pull the bacon out of the fire:

No one could have fabricated a story as that told in the gospels with the expectation that people would believe it. Yet believe it they did. Why? Because it happened, that’s why! And the apostles that preached the gospel must have demonstrated its truth by performing the same miracles. It’s the only answer that makes sense. No one in their right mind would have concocted those stories,* because no one in their right mind would believe them without reason.

* I argue that the gospel story is legend, not that it was deliberately invented.

Wow—you can’t make this stuff up. This author admits that the gospel story is crazy but tries to salvage his position by spinning this as a good thing. It’s like early church father Tertullian who is quoted as writing, “I believe because it is absurd.”

Yeah, seek out the absurdity. That’s a good way to find truth. Or not.

This reminds me of Sathya Sai Baba, another Indian leader who died a few years ago with millions of followers. He is claimed to have performed almost all of Jesus’ miracles, including raising from the dead. That the absurd stories are true is the only answer that makes sense, right?

The Son of God died:
it is wholly believable because it is absurd;
he was buried and rose again,
which is certain because it is impossible.
— Tertullian, early church father

Photo credit: kymillman

The Most Popular Logical Fallacy in Christian Discourse?

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I wade through many Christians’ comments and blog posts in which the point boils down to something like, “I sense God’s presence; therefore, God exists.” Or, “I got that job after I prayed for it; therefore, God exists.” Or, “I just know that Grandpa is in heaven; therefore, God exists.”

These Christians imagine a situation like this:

where the arrow indicates causation. That is, God exists, and this causes my sense of God’s presence.

The argument can be expressed more formally:

1. If God existed, I would sense his presence

2. I sense God’s presence

3. Therefore, God exists.

But any argument of this form (If P then Q; Q; therefore, P) is a logical fallacy. Specifically, this is the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

That this is a fallacy is easy to see. For example:

1. If it’s raining, then I have my umbrella

2. I have my umbrella

3. Therefore, it’s raining.

The conclusion in step 3 doesn’t follow because I could have lots of other reasons for having my umbrella. Maybe it completes my outfit. Maybe I want to fly like Mary Poppins. Maybe I need it to act out a Monty Python silly walk or Gene Kelly’s “Singing in the Rain.” Maybe it’s a weapon. Maybe I always carry it, just in case.

The same is true in the “I sense God’s presence” case. The beginning of a more complete map of causes might look something like this:

where HAAD = Hyperactive Agency Detector, a brain trait that natural selection could have favored in early humans. Those who imagined agency (intelligence) behind a rustling in the bushes would run away and live, while those who thought, “Not to worry—probably just the wind” might pay for an error with their lives. A sound might be only the wind or a squirrel … or it might be a leopard. Those who survived (our ancestors) would be the ones with a hyperactive agency detector, which occasionally saw agency where there wasn’t any. For example, this HAAD might assign agency to thunder, drought, and illness.

In this diagram, two possibilities are shown that could create the Christian’s sense of God’s presence, and there might be many more.

Learning correct logical inferences and the long list logical fallacies won’t hurt anyone eager to think more rationally, but if you only learn one, this might be a good one to understand and avoid.

This crime called blasphemy
was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines
not able to take care of themselves.
― Robert G. Ingersoll

Photo credit: Enno Lenze

Atheists Do Good Works, Too

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Seattle Atheists Philanthropy CharityChristians sometimes boast that they gather to do good works and contribute to good causes. But this isn’t a Christian invention—people give time and money to good causes, atheists included.

Seattle Atheists has been an educational nonprofit organization for a decade. In addition to hosting social events and lectures and being a popular presence at local street fairs, Seattle Atheists members have participated as a group in disaster relief fundraising, assisting the local NPR pledge drive, holiday gift wrapping for charity, blood drives, and more.

Another regular event is the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life. The summary page for the Seattle Atheist team is here.

Cancer is on my mind at the moment. Just a few weeks ago, a close relative of mine was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer, nine years after the initial diagnosis. Cancer affects all of us, if only indirectly.

The Relay for Life is a fundraiser, a celebration of cancer survivors, and a memorial to loved ones lost to cancer. It’s a 24-hour event at a local track, and team members take turns doing laps. A particularly moving tradition is the luminaria ceremony held after dark. Paper bags holding candles line the track, each one remembering a particular friend or family member dealing with or who has died from cancer.

Over three decades, the Relay for Life movement has raised nearly $5 billion to fight cancer. “Help the American Cancer Society create a world with less cancer and more birthdays.”

You can donate to the Seattle Atheists team here.

The hands that help
are better far than lips that pray.
— Robert Ingersoll