Ten Commandments Revisited

@philokalia said
This could create a ridiculous circumstnace where the enumeration is basically never done, until we are writing "Thou shalt not litter!" must be among the Ten Commandments.

@philokalia said
The error of not understanding historical circumstances and thinking that you can 1:1 slavery as you understand it in the current context with the reality of that time period.

@philokalia said
FMF, your complaints basically come down to two errors:

(1) This desire to enumerate far beyond what is there.

This could create a ridiculous circumstnace where the enumeration is basically never done, until we are writing "Thou shalt not litter!" must be among the Ten Commandments.

(2) The error of not understanding historical circumstances and thinking that you can 1:1 slavery as you understand it in the current context with the reality of that time period.

I think that violations are considered to be in the same category as 'adultery,' and here they are taking the lowest category of "adultery" (which merits death in Hebrew law) and putting it in the Ten Commandments.

In an obvious sense, if we are already putting such a high penalty and commandment on something low, does it not imply that [i]crimes of the same nature which are more grievous are even more meritorious of the ultimate punishment?


I am not sure why we would assume that these sorts of violations are not included implicitly in the Ten Commandments.

As far as slavery goes...

it was a valid institution.

In the old days, around 1-2% of people were rulers, another 15% or so were artisans, career soldiers, priests, or other persons of means who had some amount of social mobility.

Perhaps another 20% may be yeoman farmers who owned some of their land and potentially could advance into the artisanal or soldiering or priestly vocations... But this would vary wildly...

And nearly everywhere you would have a vast swathe of perhaps even half the people who were unpropertied and had no real control of their future, right?

Do you dispute that?

Because then the point should be rather obvious: the difference between a serf and a slave isn't massive. And when it is massive, it is because the slaves lived better much of the time. In Rome, for instance, nearly every doctor was a slave in certain periods, and among the Arabs there were slaves that were skilled laborers and lived very well. The court eunuchs of the Ottomans are other fabulous examples of well off slaves -- some of these eunuchs would be released in their fifties or sixties and would retire in Cairo in a specific neighborhood known for its riches and wealth.

The context of slavery in the ancient world isn't the 1:1 with the cartoonish images we have of the 19th century.

@philokalia said
As far as slavery goes...

it was a valid institution.

In the old days, around 1-2% of people were rulers, another 15% or so were artisans, career soldiers, priests, or other persons of means who had some amount of social mobility.

Perhaps another 20% may be yeoman farmers who owned some of their land and potentially could advance into the artisanal or soldiering ...[text shortened]... f slavery in the ancient world isn't the 1:1 with the cartoonish images we have of the 19th century.

@fmf said
I stand by my previous post responding to your economic rationale in which I proposed a morally sound Commandment regarding slavery, which you ignored completely, for obvious reasons. You may refer to that.

@philokalia said
I don't recollect the post and thus I am not sure if I ignored it or not.

@philokalia said
Does it really confront what I am saying here? I'd like to read it, then, so I could provide a statement in defense of my own statement.

@fmf said
Jesus never said:"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Clearly He did not know what doctrine was going to be formulated by people like Paul after He died.

@suzianne said
He appeared to Paul, then Saul, on the road to Damascus.

@fmf said
It's still there waiting for you ~ I took the time, I thought it up, I typed it out, I posted it, especially for you, right in the middle of a conversation that continued thereon. Go have a look. I am not going to jump through your passive aggressive hoop.

@philokalia said
Alright, what's the TL;DR version? Maybe that'll jog my memory.

@fmf said
It was a TL;DR version. It's still there. Go look.

@philokalia said
I couldn't find it, sorry. You can tell me where it is or type it here if you'd like a response. ^^