About Christianity and Slavery

This comes from FB in a thread about ISIS taking sex slaves. The question came up as to why the Muslims, if they really object, haven't been stopping ISIS. Here's my answer.

Why didn't Christians stop slavery in the Americas for 370 years? Or the genocide of the American Indian? If you ask me, Christians were slow and/or complicit and non-responsive in both atrocities. Does it say anything about the Christian religion? Not really. Though it might say something about the effectiveness of morality based on monotheistic scriptures in general.

 ISIS is not Islam. It's a militant political movement marketed (yes marketed) to people raised in the Sunni Muslim culture. It's similar to the way White Supremacy is aimed at people raised in a Christian culture, where some even identifying themselves as churches, the Christian Identity movement.

ISIS calling themselves Islamic is really most meant as a recruiting tool. It has nothing to do with getting Muslim souls to heaven. Neither did slavery for Christian Southerners, BTW.

Why aren't Muslims stopping it? One question is who wants to step into that crumbling ruin of a clusterfuck we left in Iraq? The only nations with the power to do anything substantial are three that hate and/or distrust each other: Israel, Turkey and Iran. All of them would look at unilateral action by one another with suspicion. Syria would be happy just to push ISIS out of Syria. Muslims do denounce Islamic radicals quite regularly if you Google it you'll see that. Murder is the most egregious sin in Islam. https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10153557663793675?comment_id=10153558469288675"

Then somebody said slavery was eradicated in Europe after Christianity.

No it wasn't. The Europeans took slaves, such as in the crusades, all the time. If it's not mentioned in history books, it was because if was considered no big thing. I challenge you to find any historical evidence of any emancipation by Christians before the 19th century.

When the Spanish took South and Central American Indians into slavery there was no outcry the rest of Europe because it was considered standard operating procedure. And for one plain reason: there is no call in the Bible to free slaves. If anything, the Bible gives regulations for keeping slaves, such as it says a man should be punished if he kills his slave (but not if the slave dies of his injuries after a certain time). But the Old and New Testaments have no renounciation of slavery. None. Zilch.

The closest thing the Abolitionists in the Bible could find to a call to end slavery was the story of Exodus. But the issue there wasn't owning slaves, it was having the Chosen People as slaves. In the Bible thereafter, the Hebrews owned slaves, both of their own people (who were treated differently) and others. There's also plenty of passages where God himself tells His people to take residents of conquered cities as slaves, especially the women. In other words, God in the Bible approves of sex slavery.

Therefore, when the Southerners argued that there was nothing in the Bible against slavery they had a solid argument. The only way the Abolitionists could find anything was by reading the scriptures with rose colored glasses. They cited the humanitarian violations slavery presented as a matter of course.

In Europe slavery of Christians was also institutionalized. They were called serfs. The Lord of the land by the way, could take any of the women of his hold as a sex slave. This is a matter of historical fact. The institution was handled differently, than the Americanized one, but it was there all the time.

The fact is, historians are still trying to figure out why slavery was considered right and commonly practiced for all of human history and suddenly was considered morally wrong in the 19th century. It definitely wasn't Christianity that did it.

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10153557663793675?comment_id=10153558469288675"

I know I should cite sources, but this is what I've been able to glean in various reading, mostly Norman Davies' thick book: Europe. 

A Day that should Live in Infamy

Christopher Columbus: mug shot

 My thoughts on C-Day: Columbus was both immoral and lame. He was wrong, utterly wrong about his discovery. He mis-named the people he discovered, thus causing centuries of confusion. What he found out, he did by accident. His voyage was not difficult. He blundered into the fastest way to the Americas and the fastest way back from sheer luck. (For a heroic voyage that tested human fortitude, see Magellan, who discovered something more remarkable than the Americas, the Pacific Ocean.) 

He was agent of a couple of fanatical, theocratic tyrants, who were otherwise busy committing genocide and religious cleansing on Jews and Muslims. When he arrived, he immediately allowed his men to rape and plunder from the natives, thus setting European-American relations for the likes of Cortez and Pizarro. When couldn't find gold he made his discovery profitable by abducting the Native Americans into slavery. Yes, slavery in the New World started with Columbus. There is really nothing good about the guy.

If there's anyone who should be remembered from the early colonial period, it should be Tisquantum, known to the English as Squanto. After being abducted into slavery, then escaping and coming to find his whole village wiped out from an epidemics accidentally brought by European, he still saved the Puritan's lives.

That shows a superhuman capacity to forgive, that's worthy of being remembered for centuries. He should be the best known person from the whole Euro-America colonial disaster. That's who the European-Americans should commemorate, at least in North America. And it should be a holiday where we ask for forgiveness. 

Instead, he's almost forgotten and buried in an unmarked grave.

Moreover, there are various myths that most everyone believes about American Colonization. To have them corrected, you have to go to a comedy website.