Peaceful Islam?

[Ned]

Read the article I posted. In the Empire, it began by treating slaves as equal before God. This lead to better treatment of slaves, to marriages and eventually to emancipation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men."

Where do these ideas come from? Mohammed?

[Saint Marcus]

Not from the Bible, that's for sure.

please Ned, read the Bible before commenting on Christianity.

[Ned]

please, Saint Marcus, read some history before commenting on anything that happened before you were born.

[Saint Marcus]

how can you have a debate on any religion, without understanding it's basis? Your claims that slavery goes against christianity is easily refuted by reading the Bible, both the OT and the NT.

[Ned]

Saint Marcus, once upon a time I spent a few years in the seminary studying to be a priest. I know a little about the Catholic faith and the Bible.

I think we are not communicating because you assume that the initial acceptance of the civil order of the Empire means that for all time the Church remained neutral on slavery. However, it's role in ending slavery evovled.

In the beginning, slaves were baptized. They were treated as equals in the church. The church married them where before slaves could not be married. Sex with a slave girl was not adultery or any crime - but after a slave woman was married by the church, sex with a married slave became adultery just as much as sex with any other married woman.

The church gradually forced the improvement in the status of slaves until there was very little difference between a slave and a citizen. This is a main reason why slavery was dying during the closing days of the Empire in the West.

During the Middle Ages, during the era of Church dominance, there was no slavery in Europe. But as the above quote shows, as soon as slavery reared its ugly head in the New World, the pope condemned it as an abomination.

It is useless to quote the OT and NT to determine the Church's role in all this. This is almost like saying the Crusades never happened because in the Bible, the Holy Land was still occuppied by the Roman Empire.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ned you can't possibly say that Christianity was against slavery. Slavery ended because of the humanitarian movement in the 1800s, and NOT because of religion, because as said the Bible condons slavery.

*cough*Quakers*cough**cough*Mennonites*cough*

Quakers, Mennonites, MAJOR?!

[Ned]

Imran, Simply read the article I posted.

Besides, humanitarianism is all about equality of people which is what Jesus was teaching.

The bible does not "condone" slavery. Christianity was born into a world where slavery existed as a norm. But, as I said, Christianity set about alleviating the worst aspects of slavery in its "humanitarian" effort to help the downtrodden and poor. This led to improvements in the treatment of slaves. When the Church finally got the upper hand in Europe, it eliminated slavery until the discovery of the New World.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Facts are facts... European countries did not abolish slavery until the Enlightenment, a secular movement, took hold.

When the Church finally got the upper hand in Europe, it eliminated slavery until the discovery of the New World.

Bull****. The Church eliminated nothing. The reason slavery arose again with the New World is that the agriculture in the New World was very labor intensive. Europe did not have anything like the mass scale tobacco trade and cotton did not require slaves until the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney.

The Church stood by until the state abolished slavery, like in Britain.

[Ned]

Imran, Why are you saying these things? Simply read the article I posted. The except alone shows that the pope was condemning the rise of slavery in the new world from its outset.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Because it is true that Christianity had nothing to do with ending slavery while having a lot to do with saying it was ok.

Facts are facts.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Because it is true that Christianity had nothing to do with ending slavery while having a lot to do with saying it was ok.

Facts are facts.

That's garbage!!! In the British empire it was the evangelists who led the movement to end slavery. Once Britain ended slavery she sent her navy to the west coast of Africa to destroy the forts. Here's a little known fact- even before the Civil War, as portrayed in the movie "Amistad", the US navy also lent some ships to this effort. Evangelists were also key players in the abolition movement in the US. Throughout the nineteenth century Christian evangelists were the prime motivators of the movements opposing slavery throughout western civilization. That trend continued on into the twentieth century. It was western pressure that led to the abolition of slavery in Saudi Arabia in 1950. Today slavery is virtually extinct thanks to those christian missionaries of the 19th century. Where is slavery still practiced today? Only in those Islamic nations where western (Christian) influence is at its least.

[Ned]

Imran, What you are suggesting is that Christianity had nothing to do with the abolition of slavery. However, Christianity was the cornerstone of its abolition.

Here is a link to the Declaration of the Anti-slavery convention of 1833. A short quote illustrates that the source of their fevor was the portion of the Declaration of Independence I had previously quoted. This is portion is the heart and soul of the Christian nature of abolitionism:

"More than fifty-seven years have elapsed, since a band of patriots convened in this place, to devise measures for the deliverance of this country from a foreign yoke. The corner-stone upon which they founded the Temple of Freedom was broadly this--'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.' At the sound of their trumpet-call, three millions of people rose up as from the sleep of death, and rushed to the strife of blood; deeming it more glorious to die instantly as freemen, than desirable to live one hour as slaves. They were few in number--poor in resources; but the honest conviction that Truth, Justice and Right were on their side, made them invincible.
* * *
The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body--to the products of his own labor--to the protection of law--and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely, the sin is as great to enslave an American as an African."

http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/abolitn/abeswlgct.html

[Ned]

Dr. Strangelove, thanks for the support. I wonder at times why there is such anti-Christian fervor in the world today. I have encounted this frequently on the web when I give Christianity the credit for positively affective Western civilization. What I get is much of what we have seen today from Imran and Saint Marcus.

[Imran Siddiqui]

In the British empire it was the evangelists who led the movement to end slavery. Once Britain ended slavery she sent her navy to the west coast of Africa to destroy the forts. Here's a little known fact- even before the Civil War, as portrayed in the movie "Amistad", the US navy also lent some ships to this effort. Evangelists were also key players in the abolition movement in the US.

That's silly! Slavery was not even seriously contemplated until the Enlightenment, which was a movement away from the traditional Church and away from God.

I think it is also telling that the evangelicals that did call for an end to slavery were mainly Protestant. They were not part of the Catholic tradition which still liked its slaves.

The telling question is why was slavery abandoned in 1800? Why wasn't it abolished when the Chuch had ultimate power from ~800-1500 AD? Because they didn't give a damn. It was the humanitarian movement of the Enlightenment that said, 'wait, this is wrong!'

To say that without the Church slavery would have ended later is absurd. If the Church was really against slavery, they would have ended it in 1000 AD, and would have prevented the taking of slaves in the Crusades.

I'm not saying individual Christian priests (esp. Protestants) did not oppose slavery vigerously. They did. However, the Church did not really care that much at all about the issue of slavery.

[Kropotkin]

Have noticed something Interesting glancing through some of the last pages. When it came to Islam and violence Ned took the words in the Koran very seriously as the essence of the religion. When it comes to the bible, christianity and slavery not so. In this case we have to look at the history he says. Oh well...