Oh, so you think a fertilized egg... is a human?
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Fascinating.
Yes. It is a human life in its most fragile form and long before the onset of consciousness but a human life nevertheless and deserving of the respect and sanctity that designation entails. Its not complicated really. A Scientific View of When Life Beginshttps://lozierinstitute.org/a-scientific-view-of-when-life-begins/That human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications). Moreover, it is entirely independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos. Indeed, this definition does not directly address the central ethical question surrounding the embryo: What value ought society place on human life at the earliest stages of development? A neutral examination of the evidence merely establishes the onset of a new human life at a scientifically well-defined “moment of conception,” a conclusion that unequivocally indicates that human embryos from the one-cell stage forward are indeed living individuals of the human species; i.e., human beings.
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Because both involve something monstrous that is justified by dehumanizing and reducing the victim to the level of mere object.
With stem cell research the experimentation and dissection is justified by claiming the embro is not a real human life. With Nazi experimentation the medical experimentation was justified because the victims were not true valuable humans just Untermensch sub-man or subhumans. Their loss benefited the Übermensch with scientific knowledge and thus their sacrifice was justified for the greater good.
Its the same logical error in both cases.
As I said earlier there is something particularly monstrous about creating human life. Deciding its no longer wanted or needed for some convenience or economic reason and then instead of nurturing that life into birth and adulthood choosing to kill and experiment on it for knowledge and profit.
Why do you think stem cells or pre-implantation embryos are the victims? Didn't I just make that clear? Scientifically human life begins at conception. The only way to justify ending it with the goal of promoting scientific advancement is to dehumanize the early stages of that life and then claim it has no value. Such dehumanization is a category error witnessed in its most extreme form in the Nazi experimentation but also prevalent in modern research on human embryos. |
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Why do you compare the medical experimentation done by Germans during WWII to stem cell research?
Talk about false equivalence.
Hint: stem cell research
Because both involve something monstrous that is justified by dehumanizing and reducing the victim to the level of mere object. With stem cell research the experimentation and dissection is justified by claiming the embryo is not a real human life. With Nazi experimentation the medical experimentation was justified because the victims were not true valuable humans just Untermensch sub-man or subhumans. Their loss benefited the Übermensch with scientific knowledge and thus their sacrifice was justified for the greater good. Its the same logical error in both cases. As I said earlier there is something particularly monstrous about creating human life. Deciding its no longer wanted or needed for some convenience or economic reason and then instead of nurturing that life into birth and adulthood choosing to kill and experiment on it for knowledge and profit. |
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I don't think finding a cure for deafness or blindness is monstrous.
That would entirely depend on that way one goes about finding the cure for deafness or blindness. If you don't understand that you should ponder this issue more. Eva Kor, survivor of Nazi medical experiments at Auschwitz, dies at 85https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/eva-kor-survivor-of-nazi-medical-experiments-at-auschwitz-dies-at-85/2019/07/12/96118c2e-a35a-11e9-b732-41a79c2551bf_story.htmlEva Kor was 10 years old when she arrived at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in Poland where 1.1 million people, nearly all of them Jews, perished in the Holocaust. On the selection platform, her mother held on tightly to Eva and her twin sister, Miriam...
“Twins?” an SS guard called out. “Twins?”
“Is that good,” Mrs. Kor remembered her mother inquiring, if her daughters are twins? The guard said yes, and the sisters were taken away. They would never see their mother or the rest of their family again.
Eva and Miriam were among 1,500 sets of twins subjected to medical experiments by the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Fewer than 200 of those victims are thought to have lived.
The medical experiments conducted there and at other Nazi camps had three purposes, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: to improve medical treatment for German troops, to test new medical procedures and drugs, and to confirm Nazi views of the supremacy of the Aryan race.
Victims were subjected to extreme altitudes and temperatures, injected with pathogens and sterilized. They endured bone-grafting procedures and injections in their eyes to change their eye color. Many victims were permanently disfigured, sickened or weakened. Many more died.
“Everything in the world was done to me that would have killed me,” Mrs. Kor said years later in an interview, “and here I am alive.”
She recalled being stripped of her clothes and tied down by her arms as she endured repeated examinations lasting as long as eight hours. From one arm, her tormentors took blood. “They wanted to know how much blood a person can lose and still live,” Mrs. Kor said. In the other arm, she received injections, sometimes five at a time.
Once, she said, the experiments brought on a dangerously high fever.
“I was trembling,” Mrs. Kor told ABC News in 1999. “My arms and my legs were swollen, huge size,” with red patches. Mengele examined her, she said, and pronounced that she had two weeks to live.
Her sister, Miriam, sustained kidney damage so severe that her kidneys stopped growing; in 1987, Mrs. Kor donated a kidney to her.
Ms. Kor was an amazing woman and the entire article linked above is worth reading. For brevity's sake I quoted only a small portion. |
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There are very good reasons to oppose stem cell research in its current form. https://stemcells.nih.gov/info/Regenerative_Medicine/2006Chapter1.htm" Currently, there are nearly 400,000 IVF-produced embryos in frozen storage in the United States alone,4 most of which will be used to treat infertility, but some of which (~2.8%) are destined to be discarded. IVF-produced embryos that would otherwise have been discarded were the sources of the human ES cell lines derived prior to President Bush's policy decision of August 2001. These human ES cell lines are now currently eligible for federal funding."There is something particularly monstrous about creating human life. Deciding its no longer wanted or needed for some convenience or economic reason and then instead of nurturing that life into birth and adulthood choosing to kill and experiment on it for knowledge and profit. We don't need to become monsters to discover scientific answers. The same discoveries can be made in other ways. Sure it would probably take longer to figure it out indirectly but we are clever and could eventually accomplish it if that was our goal. Were we were wise we would listen to religious on this issue and be very cautious seeking global common ground before inching forward slowly. Instead we race ahead with typical human stupidity. One Year Later, Mystery Surrounds China’s Gene-Edited Babieshttps://time.com/5741069/he-jiankui-china-scientist-gene-edited-babies/Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world by claiming he had helped make the first gene-edited babies. One year later, mystery surrounds his fate as well as theirs. He has not been seen publicly since January, his work has not been published and nothing is known about the health of the babies.
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Since then, many people have called for regulations or a moratorium on similar work
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“Nothing has changed,” said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania geneticist who just published a book about gene editing and the CRISPR babies case. “I think we’re farther from governing this” now than a year ago, said Hurlbut
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Chinese officials have seized the remaining edited embryos and He’s lab records. “He caused unintended consequences in these twins,” Musunuru said of the gene editing. “We don’t know if it’s harming the kids.”
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What has religion accomplished in the last 100 years? Diddly-squat.
And we have destroyed 90% of our ecosystem and lost social cohesion, with two world war and a cold war, plus Hiroshima and all,but at least we have xannax and know how many rings there is on saturn and how many forces there is in the universe. If you don't like progress, go live in Afganistan. You will get all the social cohesion you so desperately desire. You are correct af-newbie when you stated that the vast majority of humanity is ignorant. The most dangerous manifestation of that ignorance is our insane and ill conceived push for power and technological supremacy. As a species we constantly ask can it be done? A wiser species would ask should it be done? Our willingness to use violence on our fellows in the form of war coupled with the power technological supremacy provides makes the current human trajectory both unchangeable and tenuous at best. It does not take a genius to see that our society is in very deep trouble an out of control train running out of tracks. It is insanity to work so hard to make this possible: "Slaughterbots" | Presented by ALTEROr this: New Robot Makes Soldiers Obsolete (Bosstown Dynamics)And those things are just the beginnings of what we are on the verge of unleashing on ourselves in our blind quest for power without wisdom. The Amish essentially have it right on this issue. We should be far far more selective and thoughtful with regards to our technology and technological advancement. Sadly the majority of humanity not only fails to understand their wisdom they often mock them for it. This Is How And Why The Amish Live Off The Gridhttps://www.makeuseof.com/tag/this-is-how-and-why-the-amish-live-off-the-grid/ |
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I guess old af-newbie will never understand things like this, even if he is not a woman.  Interesting choice of scripture there. af-newbie has stated he was deeply influenced by the overt and gross corruption he witnessed peddled by a nominally religious leader in his youth. Witnessing corruption and abuse he rejects religion prima facie. This is understandable and an example of the tremendous harm that can results from violating the commandment of taking the name of God in vain aka committing evil in the name of God. Hypocrisy is incredibly destructive. I once wandered away from Christianity but I never had anything like that kind of hurdle to overcome while finding my way back. The religious people I interacted with in my youth were to the best of my knowledge genuine and acting with goodwill. My path back started with the realization of the practical necessity of Christianity. That sparked a later deeper introspection into the fundamentals. The decline of Christianity is seriously damaging society, atheists acknowledgehttps://thebl.com/us-news/the-decline-of-christianity-is-seriously-damaging-society-atheists-acknowledge.htmlHow the West was won – by Christianityhttps://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/how-the-west-was-won-by-christianity/23109 |
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Join your local mensa society. Mensa offers reliable tests to prospective members.
Ah Mensa. I was a member back in my undergraduate days. We were really organized and even managed to get enough people to start an official Mensa club at the university. That’s harder than it sounds when the admissions test excludes 98% of the population. I was the treasurer which in reality meant I managed the pizza money and picked up the pizza for the monthly meetings which were interesting. I still remember my feelings of smugness when I got in. I was a shallower person back then and felt IQ to be much more important than I do now. Not sure how it’s done today but back then the official test was a timed paper and pencil exam with a proctor and you got the results via mail a while later. Good memories overall but I let my membership expire after I graduated. I understand the appeal but am no longer a fan of it’s exclusionary nature centered as it is around an inherent biological variance. What we do with the gifts we are given is much more important than the exact abundance and quantity of what we are born with. With the benefit of age I am now much more interested in groups that focus on the former not the latter. |
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The number of Atheists is not correct.
There are more than 138 million Atheists in China alone.
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Probably just a difference in counting methodology or limiting the definition of atheism to only hard atheism. It can make a large difference in the numbers for this kind of question. For example recently (2017), Pew found that only 3 percent of Americans say they are atheists. However the same study found that a much larger group — around 9 percent — said they do not believe in God or a universal spirit. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2017/4/13/15258496/american-atheists-how-many |
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There are millions of Americans getting away from the religions of their parents and grandparents every year. There are probably a few people doing exactly that as I type this post.
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Ancient cults: 0
Science: 1
See you in the movies.
Not Quite Christianity Booming, Atheism Declining around the World, Report Sayshttps://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/christianity-booming-atheism-declining-around-the-world-report-says.htmlThe headlines might declare that Christianity is declining in the United States, but new research shows it’s growing faster than the population around the world – and atheism and agnosticism are on a gradual decline.
The 2019 Status of Global Christianity report shows there were 2.5 billion Christians in the world as of mid-2019 – a major increase from the 1.98 billion Christians in 2000 and more than double the number of Christians (1.2 billion) in 1970. Christianity is growing worldwide at a rate of 1.27 percent each year and outpacing population growth (1.20 percent) – and is booming in Africa (2.37 percent), Asia (2.79 percent) and Latin America (2.29 percent).
By comparison, there were 138 million atheists around the world in mid-2019 – slightly more than the 137 million in 2000 but less than the 165 million in 1970. Atheism’s annual growth (.04 percent) is less than that of the population, and the number of atheists worldwide is projected to decline to 132 million in 2025.
Agnosticism and those affiliated with the “nonreligionists” category also are on the descent, according to the report.
The Status of Global Christianity report is released by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
A Pew Research Center study this month showed the percentage of American adults who call themselves Christian has declined the past decade, from 77 percent to 65 percent, while the percentage of U.S. adults who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” has risen from 17 percent to 26 percent in that same span.
Globally, though, the data is opposite of the Pew data, according to the Status of Global Christianity report.
There were 716 million agnostics in the world as of mid-2019, but by 2025 that is projected to fall to 707 million. Nonreligionists numbered 854 million this year but are expected to fall to 839 million by 2025.
Much of Christianity’s growth is due to its surge in other continents. Africa (119 million) and Asia (160 million) each have more Christians than North America (100 million).
Among Christian traditions, evangelicalism (2.19 percent) and Pentecostalism/charismatic Christianity (2.26 percent) are growing faster than Protestantism (1.61 percent) and Roman Catholicism (1.02 percent).
Christianity: 1 Scientism: 0 |
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“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 |
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Your stated purposes are all good ones but they are a floating list without a foundation or at least without a foundation you have shared. A solid foundation requires a rational criteria for choosing between them when they conflict as well as a structure that will keep these desires healthy and limit excess when opportunities for excess arise.
My foundation is based on my education, both formal and informal. Reason and logic are my lighthouses. It is wrong to teach children that they will see their loved ones in heaven after they die. That is what these cults of the afterlife are all about, plus the fear of hell sprinkled here and there and you have your foundation and your "lighthouse". It is highly immoral to scare children about hell. Both hell and heaven do not exist. We went where they supposed to be to check. Nada, no hell and no heaven. Your Christian foundation is built on a fantasy. Hardly a solid foundation. LOL. Ok af_newbie you did not really address my critique but that is ok. Its not wrong to teach something that is true and the assertion of Christianity is one of truth. You don't believe in that truth so you are unsurprisingly not Christian. I have shared with you the path that lead me away from beliefs not entirely dissimilar to yours and towards Christianity. Perhaps someday you will find that reasoning helpful. More likely it will be like the passing of a song something noted and quickly forgotten. Many of us must walk for a time with our eyes closed before we learn to open them. I was such an individual. Perhaps you will be too. Best Wishes |
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As for the purpose of life, for me, the purpose of MY life is to be happy, love people close to me, have kids, and help them become independent thinkers who can survive in our very complicated and competitive world. I love to learn new stuff, I am always 'a fucking newbie', aka af_newbie in any new field, I start to explore. That is why I am here in this world. To learn and help others in my life.
Very sad story about the little girl. Any purpose can be twisted if isolated and misunderstood. I don't know the entirety of the circumstances that lead to the tragedy but I would agree that some religious groups focus on heaven with an intensity that places them at risk of neglecting the here and now. This is an area where many Christians can in my opinion learn something from Judaism. All moral precepts can if isolated and misunderstood be twisted into evil. Take the purposes you shared. They are all good things but each in isolation can also be twisted. To be happy: If twisted to extremes can lead one to selfish pleasure seeking and hedonism prioritizing ones happiness over all else. To desire kids who thrive amidst competition: Twisted this towards evil takes one to a tribalistic mindset and in extreme cases a desire for eugenic supremacy by whatever means necessary. To help others: Is noble but it is also a cornerstone of many flawed ideals such as communism and the argument that the need to help others requires we take via force from those who possess abundance to fund the redistribution. Even the desire to learn and invent new things: This desire most certainly advances human technology and power but it also requires a simultaneous increase in human wisdom to be healthy. Technological innovation alone bereft of wisdom simply simply opens the door to extreme and new forms of evil. "Slaughterbots" | Presented by ALTERNew Robot Makes Soldiers Obsolete (Bosstown Dynamics)Your stated purposes are all good ones but they are a floating list without a foundation or at least without a foundation you have shared. A solid foundation requires a rational criteria for choosing between them when they conflict as well as a structure that will keep these desires healthy and limit excess when opportunities for excess arise. In regards to your argument that you cannot have moral improvement with Christianity because the Bible is fixed and unchanging here is what C.S. Lewis wrote in response to this critique. "Q: Doesn’t tying ourselves to an immutable (unchanging) moral code cut off all progress and acquiesce in stagnation?""A: Let us strip the question of the illegitimate emotional power it derives from the word 'stagnation' with its suggestion of puddles and mantled pools. If water stands too long it stinks. To infer thence that whatever stands long must be unwholesome is to be the victim of metaphor. Space does not stink because it has preserved its three dimensions from the beginning. The square on the hypotenuse has not gone moldy by continuing to equal the sum of the squares on the other two sides. Love is not dishonored by constancy, and when we wash our hands we are seeking stagnation and "putting the clock back," artificially restoring our hands to the status quo in which they began the day and resisting the natural trend of events which would increase their dirtiness steadily from our birth to our death. For the emotive term 'stagnant' let us substitute the descriptive term 'permanent.' Does a permanent moral standard preclude progress? On the contrary, except on the supposition of a changeless standard, progress is impossible. If good is a fixed point, it is at least possible that we should get nearer and nearer to it; but if the terminus is as mobile as the train, how can the train progress towards it? Our ideas of the good may change, but they cannot change either for the better or the worse if there is no absolute and immutable good to which they can recede. We can go on getting a sum more and more nearly right only if the one perfectly right is "stagnant". And yet it will be said, I have just admitted that our ideas of good may improve. How is this to be reconciled with the view that "traditional morality" is a depositum fidei [deposit of revelations] which cannot be deserted? The answer can be understood if we compare a real moral advance with a mere innovation. From the Stoic and Confucian, "Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you"; to the Christian, "Do as you would be done by" is a real advance. The morality of Nietzsche is a mere innovation. The first is an advance because no one who did not admit the validity of the old maxim could see reason for accepting the new one, and anyone who accepted the old would at once recognize the new as an extension of the same principle. If he rejected it, he would have to reject it as a superfluity, something that went too far, not as something simply heterogeneous from his own ideas of value. But the Nietzschean ethic can be accepted only if we are ready to scrap traditional morals as a mere error and then to put ourselves in a position where we can find no ground for any value judgements at all. It is the difference between a man who says to us: "You like your vegetables moderately fresh; why not grow your own and have them perfectly fresh?" and a man who says, "Throw away that loaf and try eating bricks and centipedes instead." Real moral advances, in fine [=in conclusion], are made from within the existing moral tradition and in the spirit of that tradition and can be understood only in the light of that tradition. The outsider who has rejected the tradition cannot judge them. He has, as Aristotle said, no arche, no premises" The lighthouse of Christianity shines because it is based on the reality of an objective & universal Moral Code that we know & have broken. It is this truth which makes Christianity's offer of forgiveness, & its gift of supernatural help towards keeping that Moral Code, so incredible. On Ethics by C.S. Lewis |
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The void is filled with reason and logic. That is the only way to stay sane, make rational and moral decisions.
BTW, there is nothing to reject. The 'God' proposition does not even justify serious consideration. There is no definition of it.
There is absolutely no evidence to consider.
Every single religious myth (yours included) is based on the cultural beliefs of the people who created it.
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Reason and logic are process not purpose. They are tools used to acquire and retain power. Power over the world power and power over ourselves. The pursuit of power is not an ends it is a means. You imply we should reject God in favor of accumulating as much individual knowledge and thus power as possible but to what end? The Christian goal is moral improvement forgiveness of and eventual freedom from sin, and oneness and harmony with God in the world to come. You have chosen to reject that and have replaced it with... That’s just it you haven’t replaced it with anything you’ve just created a void. It’s that void that drives many to suicide and others to insane ideologies and depression. You can try to fill it with something artificial. You can create some purpose maybe sex, money or perhaps scientific know how. Whatever you choose, however, will forever be an artificial construct something you purposely constructed and something that can be torn down and discarded whenever the mood shifts. You feel the ‘God' proposition does not justify serious consideration. I respectfully but profoundly disagree. |
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That is a difference between us. You think you are a good person. I know I am a flawed sinner in need of grace.
By the divine power vested in me, I now give you an infinite grace. From now on, you are a good person, not a sinner. The deed is done. You are free to go, my child. That made me laugh I will give you that. No offense intended but my skepticism over your divine providence exceeds even your disregard of my beliefs. Though your post was clearly in jest you should consider the degree to which your belief structure leads you to a very similar pronunciation of self-righteousness and self-justification. When we reject God something else will inevitably fill that void. The most common modern path of the irreligious is to declare themselves their own god perhaps not explicitly as you did in jest above but in a functionally identical way via their choices and actions. |
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"No humans are good". LOL. You are cracking me up.
I guess they first have to tell you that you are sick (not well) before they will offer you their solution/treatment/salvation etc.
Otherwise, you will not swallow their bait.
Religion poisons one's mind. It is a virus passed on from parents/grandparents to their children/grandchildren.
The only way to cure yourself from it is to go cold turkey and face the people who infected you.
Life is worth living for, death is not. That is what you are doing. Engaging in a death cult.
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That is a difference between us. You think you are a good person. I know I am a flawed sinner in need of grace. In the end, it does not matter if what you believed was true or not, you'll rot and decompose the same, atoms in your body will be used to form something else.
You and I will rot the same
when you die, well, you'll be gone forever. And in two or three generations nobody, and I mean nobody, will know that you ever existed or mattered.
I must politely disagree on which of the two of us are engaging in a death cult. |
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All I hear from you is "la-la-la, Christians good, slavery may be no good, Christians made it good, God is good, I can't hear you...."
You are both delusional. Abolitionists went against the Christian churches in their fight to free slaves.
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If all you hear from me is la-la-la Christians good then you are not listening. Christians are not good. No humans are good. We are all fallen. Humanity is a worming and struggling mass of the ignorant and foolish wallowing like swine in a mud-pit each of us covered from head to toe. Most of us spend our time looking for comfortable pits or fighting with each other for the best mud. The Christian worldview opens ones eyes to the reality. It is the wiping away of at least a portion of the mud covering our eyes so we can see the reality of the world around us. However, Christianity is far more than just a realization of our fallen state. It is also the assertion that underneath the inches of hardened mud their exists a core of infinite value something worthy of forgiveness and life. It is a calling to clean the mud off of ourselves to the best of our ability and then help others do the same. The only solution to the inherent flaw in humanity is to forsake all for a selfless existence. But this is extremely difficult for a human to even approximate. We are bound in our evolutionary fragment of the universe which make it impossible for us to be truly superrational of our own accord. Our biological and human limitations ensure this at least in this world and in this form. The process is in my opinion what C.S. Lewis was referring to in his man vs rabbit essay when he said we cannot reach the top of the mountain on our own and even if we could we would perish because we currently lack what is necessary at those heights. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X9fR1vSxNEQThe symmetry of our common human situation is what is notable. Some of us may be slightly higher up the mountain then others and further along in our climb. But we are all still among among the bottom slopes of the mountain and incapable of completing the journey on our own. Our weakness and ignorance guarantee our eventual death no matter how high we climb. Thus our desperate need for a savior. Christians follow Jesus but our role can only be that of a sheep following a shepherd. Wayward, foolish and prone to stray regardless of our intent. Why does God call us sheep? https://inhonoroftheking.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-does-god-call-us-sheep.html?m=1 |
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No he is highlighting the fact that the Bible mitigates and restricts slavery in practice and simultaneously establishes the conditions where slavery can eventually be reduced or eliminated. It was no coincidence that the abolitionist movement was led by Christians. There is indeed nothing to argue about. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1566146.msg17342890#msg17342890 |
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LOL.
And who were the bigots that use the Bible to justify slavery? Fucking Christians, that is who.
Progressive Christians went AGAINST their religion because they were good people.
Was the emancipation of slaves a progressive change?
Did the emancipation cause moral degradation and decay, as YOU claimed?
The Christians who brought about the emancipation of slaves are the same type of Christians who today stand for the LGBT community and the dicks who opposed the emancipation then, oppose the progressive changes (sex and gender equality, women's reproductive rights) today.
Go back to your sandbox and think about it some more.
The Christians were the ones driving the abolitionist movement. Your attempt to argue that they were somehow acting against their faith are foolish hand waving. I am certain that those individuals were they alive today would be deeply insulted by your smear. It is true that there have always been and always will be men who do evil in the name of God but the message of the Bible is one of freedom. If you want proof of that just look at what those "religious slaveholders" felt they had to do to the Bible to make it safe for their slaves to learn about it. They chopped it up and removed huge portions of it. They did so because they were concerned about the message of freedom it carries. The Shocking 'Slave Bible'https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/february/freedom-in-christ-how-this-bible-was-used-to-manipulateIn Washington DC’s Museum of the Bible, a copy of the so-called “Slave Bible” sits on display.
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This Bible, used by slave masters in the early 1800s, is quite different than the one used in pews today.
“It starts off with the creation story…then it jumps to Joseph getting sold into slavery by his brothers and how that ends up being a good thing for him,” Schmidt told CBN News.
“We skip over the Israelites in slavery in Egypt being let out,” said Schmidt.
Other references to freedom were also omitted.
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Most slaves were illiterate or prohibited from reading, so what would be the point of such a Bible?
“The abolitionist movement was beginning to make waves on both sides of the Atlantic “said Schmidt.
One way slave owners could combat pressure from abolitionists was to tell them they were good Christians that taught their slaves about God.
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So I guess you are for slavery after all.
The emancipation of slaves from religious bigots did not lead to moral degradation and decay as YOU suggested.
Only progressive thought is worth a consideration. Religious thought is a history, never to be repeated.
Sigh... open your eyes af_newbie the abolitionist movement was a Christian movement. Christian Abolitionismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_AbolitionismAlthough many Enlightenment philosophers opposed slavery, it was Christian activists, attracted by strong religious elements, who initiated and organized an abolitionist movement. [1] Throughout Europe and the United States, Christians, usually from 'un-institutional' Christian faith movements, not directly connected with traditional state churches, or "non-conformist" believers within established churches, were to be found at the forefront of the abolitionist movements.[1][2]
In particular, the effects of the Second Great Awakening resulted in many evangelicals working to see the theoretical Christian view, that all people are essentially equal, made more of a practical reality. Freedom of expression within the Western world also helped in enabling opportunity to express their position. Prominent among these abolitionists was Parliamentarian William Wilberforce in England, who wrote in his diary when he was 28 that, "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and Reformation of Morals."
Maybe this will help you understand Freedom and Moral Self-Control |
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