04 November 2009

LFACC - On Slavery & moral

This post will deal with the issue of slavery raised in Douglas Wilson's Letter from a Christian Citizen [page 21 - 30]

Wilson asks "Given your worldview, what is wrong with this [ He (Jesus) did teach Christian slaves to make a special point of working diligently for believing masters.]? There is nothing wrong with it on your principles, where the universe is just time and chance acting on matter. Why does it matter if the master matter acts on the slave matter? Who cares? ... But how could atheism lead to a condemnation of slavery?"

The fact that such questions are being asked is strikingly worrisome. It seems to me that Wilson will, if not being a Christian and hence afraid of the punishment, do *everything*. The fact is people have evolved innate compassion towards other people and things. No wonder there is no child's behind left under religious care!

Atheism is not moral guide. Atheist are people who do not believe there is a god. Period. Simple. Get it?

The fact that atheist is 10% in the USA population, but 0.1% in the prison population should say something which Wilson either is ignorant of or conveniently disregarded. People in prison not necessary, as Wilson pointed out, are immoral. But at least, it means rational atheists understand the rule of law and are able, statistically, to be better citizens.

I have pointed out before, moral is a moving social standard. Many atheists, me included, condemn industrialised slavery (sweatshop production). We condemn slave, including child sex slave. Unlike the old testament, we at least will not condone such practice (Wilson seems to praise the OT to set limits on the practice as a moral guide). Yes, I understand OT was 2000+ years ago. That is exactly why religion, based on a single set of books, cannot be used as modern moral guide. They are out-dated!

Wilson puts up the fear mongering again on page 20:
The judgments that fall in the Old Testament are largely temporal judgments. The judgments that Jesus speaks of are eternal.


Punishment should be appropriate for the crime. What have I done to deserve eternal hell fire? Because Adam & Eve ate the forbidden fruit? Where is the justice?

If current laws represent the current moral standard, it seems to be people with faith have the same proportion in society and in prison whereas atheists are statistically significantly under represented in the prison population. Obviously, either the moral guide in the bible is out of date or people with faith have lower moral standard.

ps Question to Wilson, people in prison are slave (There are over two million people currently incarcerated in the United States. page 25) or people in prison are students (graduate schools of crime and vice from courtrooms page 26)

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