So...this is a bit of a random rant I wanna get out. A friend of mine recently linked me to some discussion he had with others about slavery and Christianity. Now, he's Christian, and I feel like I gotta tiptoe around him with these discussions since he gets offended when I actually give christianity the intellectual ###whooping it sometimes deserves, but hey, it's my blog, and I post what I want, and whatever. Anyway, I avoided the discussion out of respect for him, but I wanna give my actual honest thoughts on this here.
So...he pointed out that slavery was a contentious topic at one point within christianity and his denomination. And, christians, in debating each other, like to be civil, they like to see each others' as brothers in christ, and not rip each other to shreds for bad opinions, but for me, that doesn't sit well for me. Because as an ex christian with a real angstheist streak in me (despite rediscovering spirituality myself), I believe that the regressive half of christianity sometimes needs the intellectual ###whooping that it really deserves, and today, I'm here to give it.
For me, the fact that slavery is a serious debate within christianity at all really speaks to how F-ed up it is as a moral system. Slavery is one of the worst things you can do to someone, aside from murdering, genociding, torturing, or maiming someone. It's up there with rape for me. And that's another thing the bible is soft on, at least within the confines of marriage, but that's another topic. Point is, bodily autonomy and freedom, very important to my secular worldview. One of the chief moral goods out there for me, and should not be violated ever, quite frankly. There's only a handful of things that I'll say shouldn't be debatable morally, and this is one of them. If God had a list of 10 things to never ever do, and he does, slavery should be on that list. Instead, the christian god filled up the first several slots with stuff that glorifies him, and puts murder at 5-6 depending on your version of the 10 commandments, and reiterates coveting twice depending on the version you use.
Hell, the old testament has like 600something commandments, and instead of banning it, it has rules for how to treat your slaves, it doesn't condemn the practice, it just softens the blow a little bit. Or take the new testament, jesus or paul could've condemned it, but they were instead unbothered by it it seems, since they were more focused on spreading the word of eternal salvation than on freeing people from domination.
Now, you might say, those were the standards of the times. And I grant you that. Morality is trial and error, I can't judge 2000+ year old morality by 21st century standards properly. Except, these christians see this as the objective morality that god laid down for all time, and in the 21st century, you SHOULD follow it. And I know not all christian denominations believe that, but no matter how much some christians, like my friend, who quite frankly means well but sometimes seems a bit misguided by anchoring his morals to this ancient religion, try to dress it up and bring a progressive ethos to the church, the church is still the church, christianity is still christianity. Moderate christians love to compromise with reality, and dont get me wrong, I respect a strong, healthy compromise with reality over the fundamentalism of the right, but you still got this flawed religion as the basis of your beliefs, and it's better for people to just leave altogether.
Quite frankly, if I still believed that stuff, I wouldn't be sympathetic to the progressive wing of the religion at all. It seems almost blasphemous. So...the bible says XYZ, and you just wanna throw all that out because of the standards of the times? Dont get me wrong, i respect that my friend does this. Because it's better than the alternatives. But I really just can't get a grasp on this dude's worldview at times. It seems so...self contradictory. it makes sense in his head, but honestly, it just seems like pick a flavor christianity #902912. Like...christianity shouldnt be a la carte. You shouldnt just pick what you believe in. And while the guy will defend his faith as the true christianity because of some long line of succession going back to saint peter, he ain't catholic, so I don't buy that story either. Not that it matters. Even if you did have a line of succession like the catholics do, I literally dont care what church leaders have to say. The fact is, there is no form of christianity, that actually is valid IMO. It's why im no longer a christian. I'm done. The moral basis for the religion is shattered for me, I embrace my own worldview outside of the faith, and I won't go back.
As the bible says, you're either hot or cold, if you're lukewarm, I'll spit you out of my mouth. I don't get the appeal of "lukewarm" christianity as I see it. Either the events in the bible happened or they didn't. Sure, you can say X event happened and Y event didnt and provide evidence, but again, we're dealing with this a la carte christian nonsense of just picking and choosing what you want and i just don't get it. With me, you're either in, or out. You either believe, or you don't. I dont see the point of trying to do it half way.
And again, on slavery, I don't even think that christianity has anything useful to say. The fact that people appeal to christianity and it being okay in the bible is a condemnation of that entire religion's moral system IMO. And honestly? Think about recent events. Think about the moral relativism the right seems to be bringing back to the discussion with that prager U garbage. Why are they so relativistic? because their morals come from the bible. So they'll have absolutist stances on many political issues but because slavery itself was treated with kid gloves in the bible, these guys, who derive their morality from it, are like "well....let's not be too hard on it, blah blah blah."
No, slavery is bad. Homosexuality is morally neutral (and thus, permissible), and that's how I see it as a secularist. And yes, you can be a secularist and think slavery is good, but you probably have a messed up moral system to think that. Most secular types, especially in the west, have a progressive mindset. Morality changes, but it always bends toward becoming better, and sure, while the events of the past are the past, and the debates of the past are what they are, we dont feel any need to be tethered to that past. Christianity is inextricably linked to the morals of 2000 years ago, and will always, on the whole, be a force of conservatism in the modern age, where it has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era to accept stuff. And then you'll always have these arch conservative types who long for the distant past and who wanna go back to it, because they see that as the pure form of the religion, when what we need isn't a purist form of this flawed religion, what we need is to throw the religion away and adopt a modern mindset with modern morality.
This isn't intended as offense against my friend and his super special progressive form of christianity, although I really can't make heads or tails of his worldview sometimes. It just seems to be a hot mess of cognitive dissonance, like some sort of machine held together by duct tape and bubble gum. Again, if you are a moderate/progressive christian, and you actually adopt progressive concepts, you're still an ally of mine politically, worldview differences and all. I just can't wrap my head around what is so attractive about this. Isn't it better to leave the religion altogether, to throw it into the dustbin of history, and to live your own truth? That's my mindset. Christianity is regressive, secularism is progressive. The fundamentalists embrace the regressive, I embrace the progressive, and the people in the middle have this duct tape and bubble gum worldview full of cognitive dissonance that I just don't understand.
And yeah, that's my honest thoughts on that topic.
Oh, and before I hear "atheism killed millions of people" again, those were marxist leninists, who adopted a political philosophy that they stuck to in such an extreme way they justified killing people. They themselves acted as their own brand of fundamentalism around the works of marx, lenin, and similar authors. And that is their downfall. I do not subscribe to that belief system, so save lazy attempts to discredit secularism because some nutcases went and killed millions of people while forcing state atheism on people.
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