A Slave to Religion

While researching the subject of gender equality, I decided to read a few online articles to see how fellow bloggers approached the subject. I happened upon a blogger named Larry who uses the nom de plume BiblicalGenderRoles. He looks at the subject from a biblical standpoint in a post called “How to help women learn their place”. There was very little in the way of “help” in his writing. It should have been titled “How to put women in their place”.Needless to say he’s against gender equality in any way, shape, or form. Women are to be silent unless spoken to, modest, meek, submissive, dependent, and for all intents and purposes confined to the home with children. At first I thought it was an attempt at black humor, or that he was a “poe”. But the more I read, the more it became clear he was dead serious. He meant every word about women barely even having second-class status because that’s what his God wanted. But the part I found most amazing in his article was his defense of slavery, even stating that it should be permissible today by claiming “in modern terms – God would not consider it immoral for us to bring back slaves from Muslim nations that we conquer.[i.e. Iraq and/or Afghanistan.]

Grammatical and spelling errors left intact, in his February 23, 2016 post at 4:55 PM he wrote: “Absolutely I think people owning other people (under the right circumstances – not because they kidnapped them) is OK if the country you are in had laws that allowed it. If I thought one person owning another person was immoral than [sic] I would have to throw out my Bible because it says it is moral under the right circumstances. Now I realize for that reason and also the reason that the Bible clearly rejects social and gender equality as we define it today that many people have in fact thrown their Bibles out and rejected Christianity completely.” Gee, I wonder why? 

After writing about a passage regarding slavery in Exodus, BiblicalGenderRoles writes this gem: “So it’s pretty clear in Moses’ Law that God not only allowed slavery, he regulated it. Slaves from pagan nations were automatically regarded as permanent property, and could actually be left as an inheritance to the children of their Hebrew slave owners. Male Hebrews (countryman) could not [be] kept as permanent slaves, but had to be treated rather as hired hands and they had to be freed after six years of service. Female Hebrew slaves could be kept indefinitely, but they could not be sold to foreign people. If a man bought a woman and gave her to his son he had [to] treat her with the full rights of a daughter, and his son had to give her the full rights of a wife.” Keep in mind, women had few if any rights at the time, so giving them the “full rights” of a daughter or wife meant little. BiblicalGenderRoles even acknowledges that Hebrew female slaves could be kept indefinitely. They just could not be sold to foreign people. Being sold to other Hebrews though was perfectly acceptable. Women were on the same level as a man’s livestock. I like how he whitewashes the idea of slaves from pagan nations who were “automatically regarded as permanent property.” And then he wonders why people have “thrown their bibles out.”

Astoundingly he follows it with this explanation of how slaves were to be treated, taken directly from Exodus 21:20-21: “If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property…If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye. And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.” Notice God’s imprecise time-keeping “a day or two” and only mentions destroying an eye or knocking a tooth out. Anything else apparently is fair game. But BiblicalGenderRoles clears the air for us by stating, on no evidence whatsoever, that the slaves of that time were not allowed to be physically abused or murdered. How is striking them with a rod or anything else in a manner that they might not be able to get up for a day or two, but manage to survive, not considered physical abuse? Would BiblicalGenderRoles like to be owned by someone and be beaten bad enough so that they would not be able to move around for a day or two? And to put a little icing on the pro-slavery cake, BiblicalGenderRoles then quotes from Colossians 4:1: “Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.” BiblicalGenderRoles gloats over scripture that claims we are the slaves of God. Nice to know, isn’t it? Poor slaves don’t get a break here or in the next life. They just trade one tyrant for another.

But BiblicalGenderRoles isn’t done gloating yet…he offers his best defense of slavery by making this pitch aimed at low-income parents needing a ray of financial hope: “In Biblical times it was not uncommon for a father to have to sell one or more his children as slaves to a wealthier family. This served two purposes – it would ensure that his children would be feed [sic] and cared for and often times it would help to pull his own family out of poverty because of the money he would receive in return.” So from this passage, he surmises that the family’s economic well-being outweighs their own offspring. The kids are simply commodities to be bartered away in order to obtain better groceries. ..to hell with any maternal or paternal bond the children may have. This lays bare just how stupid, cruel, and family-unfriendly Christianity is, and how it lacks any morality at all. This is the standard BiblicalGenderRoles wants to reintroduce in the United States because he claims it will make us a better nation to practice biblical slavery. What this proves is that his god is a moral thug, and BiblicalGenderRoles is an even bigger moral thug for defending it.

Any wonder why people view Christianity so negatively when its most ardent defenders justify the indefensible. 

Here is the link if you want to read BiblicalGenderRoles entire post on gender inequality and pro-slavery: http://biblicalgenderroles.com/2016/02/21/how-to-help-women-learn-their-place/

Keep a barf bag handy.