I provided evidence that slavery was quite profitable right up to the end so pretending it would have died without the anti-slavery movement doesn't wash.
As I said, there are many economists who take your view and we can agree to disagree. But whether one or both views are somewhat correct is not in any way decided by expensive goods.
Sure we can disagree. Rising prices of a commodity, in this case slaves, isn't consistent with a position the commodity's real economic value is declining though.
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"there must have been some non-religious slave owners ... did they set their slaves free?":
I don't know. It is irrelevant. Slave owners were immoral and inhuman regardless of religion or lack of religion.
Thank you. Its that fallenness thing.
I guess the difference is that a freethinking slave owner would know he was a bastard.
Why would he? Loads of people, like the ancient Greek philosophers, justified slavery on the belief some people(s) were "natural slaves". A freethinker might decide there was nothing wrong with him doing anything he can get away with.
"If there is no God, then everything is allowed." Dostoevsky
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"The point is Jesus was not a revolutionary or social reformer"
There is plenty of evidence both within and without church teachings to indicate that Jesus did indeed advocate reform.
"My kingdom is not of this world."
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Does a person need to be a revolutionary to be a decent human being and to speak up for people being brutalized? How can you curse a fig tree, turn over the tables of money changers, etc. etc. etc.--have myriad words of guidance for your disciples--yet offer no guidance whatsoever as to relieving the plight of brutalized slaves?
Now you will damn him for what you say you fail to find in his teachings. Did he speak of every example of human sin? Then he must have been indifferent, perhaps even immoral.
Let me help you out: There's no passage where he tells people not to beat little children, therefore beating little children was okay with him. There's a new argument for you. |
