secular laws (No spam)

[Georgi]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: secular laws (No spam)

Originally posted by CM
They werent fine, but the religion did spin a couple of things. Take the example of the rich merchant. I am not sure but christianity outlaws slavery right? If that is true then the person was committing a morally illegal act. Killing the slave would be like killing a normal man. Thus it would considered murder. However if a person got off scot free, that i believe wouldnt be a moral issue, rather a political legal or bueacractic one.

The British Empire abolished slavery in 1833.
The USA abolished slavery in 1865.
Still think the laws were always governed by Christianity?

In the Roman Empire, I think it may have been the case that although Christianity said one thing, the emperors didn't want to push it too much by imposing Christian values. Various ritual/magic practices were, strictly speaking, not allowed under Christianity. But they weren't actually outlawed for a long time after the conversion to Christianity - rather, exceptions were made so that popular practices could continue, and not seem so contradictory.

[Astafas]

Re: Re: Re: secular laws (No spam)

Originally posted by CM


Here is the point Tom also raised. Was there a concept of morality before religion? I believe that religion established the first concept or morality and what is right and wrong. Most laws or common morals at the times of the other pre-the one god religions, were very individualistic IIRC. Also wouldnt you agree that after the Roman empire accepted christainity the rules were changed to abide by the religious decrees? Thus the modern laws were influenced in a way by religion. I agree some laws as in the business ones were based on praticality. However what about the moral laws on murder, stealing, etc.

As religion is as old as mankind, it's very hard to argue that morality should have existed before religion. But that doesn't necessarily make them the same. Morality could very well state that you should do one thing while religion state another. And sometimes the law could even state a third.

No, I have to disagree with you regarding christianity changing most of the Roman law. Christianity had no proper law system of its own but adopted Roman law and then, as the centuries passed by, gradually influenced parts of it. You also had large influences from especially the Islamic world.

Again you refer to regulations from criminal law. Are you aware of that these probably don't count for even 10 % of all legal rules in society? Given the medial interest it's an understandable misconception that the law focuses mainly upon this area but it truly isn't so.

[Georgi]

Originally posted by CM
Agreed, however if that were the case, wouldnt there be anarchy? I left out what the majority view is as well - or common morals. The common morals depending on which side they take, of the shop keeper or the kid affects the individual morals as well. I agree with your point that everybody has individual morals, however the common morals of the majority heavily influence our morals and these common morals i believe are greatly influenced if not derived from religion. I have some work to do right now. Explain later in greater detail by 4:30 i should be done. 1 hour from now.

No, because subjective morality is not necessarily entirely selfish. See (and yes, I took this entirely from A Beautiful Mind ) sometimes the better result comes from doing what is best for oneself and one's social group. Why try to survive independently, when you can live more comfortably as a member of a group?

[fable]

No, I have to disagree with you regarding christianity changing most of the Roman law. Christianity had no proper law system of its own but adopted Roman law and then, as the centuries passed by, gradually influenced parts of it.

This is true. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and later when Orthodox Christianity became the official version, the religion simply accepted all the Roman laws of the period. This did not mean they applied to the Church or its hierrarchy, but they did enforce in sermons (as many churches of various denominations do, today) the importance of obeying the laws of the land.

Christianity never took a united stand against slavery. Prior to the Renaissance, the RCC owned many villages; all the people in them were slaves to the Church. The Church also claimed ownership of some major cities, which it ruled much as privatte kingdom, levying taxes, demanding military service of the residents, etc. Neither of these practices was in anyway different from secular rulership of the same time and place.

[CM]

Georgi i never said all laws were governed by christianity. As Astafas said, many laws like Taxation are based on practical reasons. However some laws, the more morally inclined ones do have a history in religion, and some are derived from there. I never stated that i believe every single law in a modern democracy is established by Christainity. Murder and stealing are two examples, where i believe religion influenced the modern moral values.

English though i speak it very well, is not entirely my mother tongue, so i do leave out parts when typing. When i refer to modern secular laws i am mainly refering to ones with moral issues. Abortion is one, so is homosexuality. Abortion is illegal in some US states, in some it isnt. Homosexuality is not a law, but a widely held common moral, that is as good as any law. Though that is changing today.

There are cases where, religion and law making dont not mix together at all. Or where they are not relevant. Or where religion is cancelled or stopped by existing laws.

Asf.

Morality could very well state that you should do one thing while religion state another. And sometimes the law could even state a third.

Could you give an example of this? I am not sure how that would occur in reality. Also i was not aware that Christianity did not established a prescribed set of rules. So rather, the Roman rules were incorporated into christianity? My bad. Then you are right.

Georgis last post. When you join a group of people who would similar views as your own, you arent really indivdualistic anymore. You share a common moral approach to things. If the view is popular, the group increases in number until it becomes the norm of society. Or it doesnt and the small group either shrinks or remains the same. But in the case of the group that increases, it does influence things. That is the case with religion.

Also i was unaware that roman law was incorporated into christianity and not the other way around. Thus i am going to have to rethink everything...

[Astafas]

Originally posted by CM
Could you give an example of this? I am not sure how that would occur in reality. Also i was not aware that Christianity did not established a prescribed set of rules. So rather, the Roman rules were incorporated into christianity? My bad. Then you are right.

It was a rather theoretical statement. But let's stay in the "Murder Death Kill"-area: Religiously (at least according to the Bible, which, should truth be told, christianity haven't been overly concerned with during history), you shouldn't under any circumstances kill another human being. Morally, a murder can be justified with for example the greater good of society. Legally, murder is normally allowed only under certain conditions and is then refered to as "warfare", "self defence" etc.

Now, presume someone wants to murder Saddam Hussein. Religion probably would say "no, please don't". The moral of the person, or of the person's society, would say either "yes, hurry" or "no, can't do that", depending on individual and collective believes respectively (and maybe some practical impediments as well). Western law would probably applaud the action ("how does it feel to be a hero?"), while the law of Iraq might take a quite different stance ("... and off your head go").

[Trym]

Originally posted by Fable:

Christianity never took a united stand against slavery. Prior to the Renaissance, the RCC owned many villages; all the people in them were slaves to the Church.

Ancient philosophers generally accepted the institution of slavery as somethiingt natural. The rise of christianity surely had a very negative impact on the traditional view of slavery. The change of the attitude towards slavery is obvious.
It is true that the church had many worldly possessions, especially in the time you mention. But why are those villagers in your example "slaves to the church?" (Are you confusing slavery with serfdom?)

Originally posted by CM:

Homosexuality is not a law, but a widely held common moral, that is as good as any law. Though that is changing today.

????????????????? Please Explain.

[fable]

Ancient philosophers generally accepted the institution of slavery as somethiingt natural. The rise of christianity surely had a very negative impact on the traditional view of slavery.[/quote]

Er, no--it really didn't. Oh, some Christians did oppose slavery and believed in the congregation of all people; but that was in the first couple of centuries. The Church rooted out all those who believed in non-centralized leadership, lack of ownership of worldly goods, the continuation of miracles, etc, and banned them outside the Empire. Slaves became a major source of church income. There are a number of good books whose titles I can supply, if you'd like to read up on this.

The change of the attitude towards slavery is obvious.

Where and when is it obvious?

It is true that the church had many worldly possessions, especially in the time you mention. But why are those villagers in your example "slaves to the church?" (Are you confusing slavery with serfdom?)

Slaves owned by the local chapter, as it were, of the RCC. This is documented fact. There were dozens of communities like this at the end of the European Middle Ages, and it's been estimated that the number might have been considerably higher, earlier on. The deeds of ownership still exist.

The RCC owned many medieval and early Renaissance villages, including all property and people within these communities. Georges Duby, among others, has chronicled some of the interesting legal documents of the period, when a few villages attempted to take their religious owners to court, claiming that the ownership was lost the Church was evicted by Landknecht, robberbarons--who were in turn evicted by royal sharrofs, later. The RCC protested, and produced documents of ownership in each case. It won.

The words "serf" and "slave" initially covered identical spectrums of ownership, and were used interchangeably; before "slave" became a popular term, for example, the huge cargoes of imported slaves from Russia in the latter part of the European Middle Ages were called "serfs." In fact, the word "slave" originally meant "the Slavs who are serfs." I'm not referring to the latterday, 19th-20th century definition.

I can provide you with a few specific villages in evidence, if you'd like, but I'm pressed for time at the moment. I'm leaving to catch a plane to Boston in about 10 minutes.

[frogus]

A religious person, in theory has their morality decided for them. Morality is the choice between right and wrong, but in the case of believers in Moses as a prophet of a superhuman entity, the decision is made on a selfish basis rather than selfless one. The non-believer thinks: 'I will not hit this person, because I believe that doing so would cause unhappiness', whereas the believer thinks 'I will not hit this person, because God told me not to. I do not just obey God blindly however, I obey him because he has the keys to an eternal paradise and I won't be able to get in unless I do'.
That is why in theory Secular rule is best as far as I am concerned (BTW does secular just mean 'non religious'?).

As for Tom's situation - I don't think that 'moral value' is of any value at all to a non-believer. The believer can assign 'moral weight' to an action on the basis of how likely it is to get him into heaven, i.e. how in lign with God's will it is.
The non-believer has no heaven or hell however, and so his actions have no moral weight at all. We can't just say 'That action was more moral because it was good', because 'good' has no meaning to a non-believer...I should say it has no fixed, definite meaning (sorry I can't conjure the long words). The whole 'is morality relative?' debate hinges on the fact that a religious person can define 'good' as 'in keeping with God's will as described by the bible (or whatever)'.
Where the moral weight comes into play for the non-believer is., when he decides to rescue the girl simply because it will produce happiness, rather than to impress a woman, he is indicating that he values happiness of the majority rather than happiness for himself. I admit that 'indicates' is a wishy-washy word, but when we are talking about real life that is all we can hope for.

Now that we've got that down, why is an action which makes the majority happy better than one which makes one man happy?
Because if an action makes the majority happy, it makes you happy. That's right! we are all animals, however much we protest it, and we are only interested in ourselves. That's why the person who has been pick-pocketed in CM's post changes their morality. We are all selfish creatures. But...but our selfish needs can only be satisfied if everyone tries to make us happy...not just us.
I'm sure you know the image where hell is people around a table, trying to eat rice, but their chopsticks are too long, and heaven is people around a table feeding each other with their long chopsticks across the table.
So kids...always feed everyone else, but do not fool yourself that you are doing it because of something called 'good' or 'bad'. Those things don't really exist...they're just tricks that moral philosophers will occassionally try and pull on you - The only reason you're feeding everyone else is because that's the only way you're a-gonna get fed.

And that again is why secular government is best - Morality teaches us to channel our selfish needs into fulfilling them, Religion teaches us to channel our selfish needs into not fulfilling them. And you want your needs fulfilled, right?

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by frogus
As for Tom's situation - I don't think that 'moral value' is of any value at all to a non-believer. The believer can assign 'moral weight' to an action on the basis of how likely it is to get him into heaven, i.e. how in lign with God's will it is.

That of course presumes that the person in question believes that they can "work" their way into heaven, i think a lot of Tom's theory relies on the (apparently misguided) theory that one works their way to salvation.

[frogus]

Sorry sleep, I don't see your point .
Could you just clarify for the benefit of the less able among us (me )

and what do you mean by salvation?

[Pregethwr]

Originally posted by fable
Ancient philosophers generally accepted the institution of slavery as somethiingt natural. The rise of christianity surely had a very negative impact on the traditional view of slavery.

Er, no--it really didn't. Oh, some Christians did oppose slavery and believed in the congregation of all people; but that was in the first couple of centuries. The Church rooted out all those who believed in non-centralized leadership, lack of ownership of worldly goods, the continuation of miracles, etc, and banned them outside the Empire. Slaves became a major source of church income. There are a number of good books whose titles I can supply, if you'd like to read up on this.

The change of the attitude towards slavery is obvious.

Where and when is it obvious?

It is true that the church had many worldly possessions, especially in the time you mention. But why are those villagers in your example "slaves to the church?" (Are you confusing slavery with serfdom?)

Slaves owned by the local chapter, as it were, of the RCC. This is documented fact. There were dozens of communities like this at the end of the European Middle Ages, and it's been estimated that the number might have been considerably higher, earlier on. The deeds of ownership still exist.

The RCC owned many medieval and early Renaissance villages, including all property and people within these communities. Georges Duby, among others, has chronicled some of the interesting legal documents of the period, when a few villages attempted to take their religious owners to court, claiming that the ownership was lost the Church was evicted by Landknecht, robberbarons--who were in turn evicted by royal sharrofs, later. The RCC protested, and produced documents of ownership in each case. It won.

The words "serf" and "slave" initially covered identical spectrums of ownership, and were used interchangeably; before "slave" became a popular term, for example, the huge cargoes of imported slaves from Russia in the latter part of the European Middle Ages were called "serfs." In fact, the word "slave" originally meant "the Slavs who are serfs." I'm not referring to the latterday, 19th-20th century definition.

I can provide you with a few specific villages in evidence, if you'd like, but I'm pressed for time at the moment. I'm leaving to catch a plane to Boston in about 10 minutes. [/QUOTE]

Slavery certainly decreased in Europe after the advent of Christianity, whether this was because of christianity is a moot point because there were also great economic upheavals at the time (what comes first the idea or the reality it supports?).

There is a difference between serf and slave, a slave is property a serf is an indentured servant/labourer, neither can be desribed as good things but there are differences.

You would be seriously re-writing history if you said the economy of medieval Europe was based on mass slavery (or the economies of china or Japan for that matter who also had similar bound labourer status).

I wouldn't want to sound like I am pro-Catholic but claim it was the ideological underpinning of a system of mass slavery just ain't right.

BTW the Russian serfs you use to bolster your claim the RCC had slaves were probably 1,000miles from the nearest RCC church since they were deep in Orthodox territory...

The Catholic church was definitely a large secular power however, as they are to a lesser extent today (they have a state called the vatican)

[Trym]

@ Fable

The Church rooted out all those who believed in non-centralized leadership, lack of ownership of worldly goods, the continuation of miracles, etc, and banned them outside the Empire.

Poooh, that's extremly simplified!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For a serious response I'd need to know what time you're talking about (Empire could hint at the Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation).

The change of the attitude towards slavery is obvious. When and where is it obvios?

As I already stated slavery was generally considered something natural in ancient societies. Those few philosophers who dealt with this topic, like Aristotle, justified it. This attitude changed in the 1st century A.D. I’m not going to write an essay, but believe it or not, most scientists argue that the rise of christianity and it’s ethic concept brought about this change, later on further encouraged by theologistis like Augustinus. (I dealt with these questions thouroughly in a Political Theory course). Of course slavery didn’t disappear overnight, but christianity became quickly a moral challenge to the the foundations of slavery. BTW: most of the first Christians in the western part of the Roman Empire were slaves, you can imagine why.

I still doubt that those villagers you are refering to were outright slaves. Slavery had virtually disappeared on the European continent (I’m excluding the Ottoman possessions in SE Europe) until the 16Th century. That somebody owns certain lands basically with everything on it is a characteristica of feudalism, but it doesn’t mean those people were slaves. And of course there important differences between the definitions of slaves and serfs, at least in Western and Central Europe: Simplified a slave is legally considered a thing and posseses no rights, wheras a serf is a human being with restricted rights.

No offense, but I’m not sure if You’re that competent in this field. The linear development of gain and loss of territorial rihts of the RCC (damn many!) sounds, well, at least strange to me. A more precise example: you mention “Landknecht”, probably you mean Landsknechte (lit. "State's servants"). This term doesn’t refer to robberbarons, but to mercenaries in the regular service of territorial lords (Landesherrn) in Germany fighting along new infantry tactics, first appearing in the second half of the 15th century in the service of Emperor Maximilian I.
Moreover you’re right when you state that the word “slave” derived from the ethnical group of the Slavs. But this doesn’t date back to the “export” of Russian serfs in the 19th century. Actionally it’s a term of Germanic origin (simply because most of the Germanic slaves were taken during campaigns against Slav tribes).

I’m sorry that you won’t have the opportunity to respond – I leave for vaccation tommorow.

[Georgi]

Originally posted by Pregethwr
I wouldn't want to sound like I am pro-Catholic but claim it was the ideological underpinning of a system of mass slavery just ain't right.

BTW the Russian serfs you use to bolster your claim the RCC had slaves were probably 1,000miles from the nearest RCC church since they were deep in Orthodox territory...

The Catholic church was definitely a large secular power however, as they are to a lesser extent today (they have a state called the vatican)

I don't think Fable was claiming that at all. The references to Russian serfs were explaining the origins of the word "slave". Fable was talking about European churches having jurisdiction over imported Russian slaves, if I understand correctly. (Particularly if Duby is referenced - his work that I have read was focused on western Europe.)

And I also didn't notice anything in Fable's post to suggest that the Church provided the "ideological underpinning" of the system - simply that the Church was perfectly happy to coexist with a system of slavery.

Originally posted by Fas
Georgi i never said all laws were governed by christianity. As Astafas said, many laws like Taxation are based on practical reasons. However some laws, the more morally inclined ones do have a history in religion, and some are derived from there. I never stated that i believe every single law in a modern democracy is established by Christainity. Murder and stealing are two examples, where i believe religion influenced the modern moral values.

No, but you did suggest the abolition of slavery might be religiously motivated, which is what I was referring to.

Georgis last post. When you join a group of people who would similar views as your own, you arent really indivdualistic anymore. You share a common moral approach to things. If the view is popular, the group increases in number until it becomes the norm of society. Or it doesnt and the small group either shrinks or remains the same. But in the case of the group that increases, it does influence things. That is the case with religion.

What I'm really trying to get at here is more to do with how a common morality might have developed entirely independently of religion. Let's say you have two primitive men living in the same area. One option is for them to fight each other - the victor kills his opponent, and gets all the resources of that area for himself, but he also has to do everything himself. Alternatively, the two men decide that if they coexist peacefully, they can help each other and survive more successfully. Therefore the two men have a reason for not murdering each other, and it is less related to any sense of morality than doing what is best for their survival. I would suggest that this kind of social behaviour, ingrained over generations, eventually seems like an innate quality - morality.

[Georgi]

Originally posted by Trym
Moreover you’re right when you state that the word “slave” derived from the ethnical group of the Slavs. But this doesn’t date back to the “export” of Russian serfs in the 19th century. Actionally it’s a term of Germanic origin (simply because most of the Germanic slaves were taken during campaigns against Slav tribes).

Originally posted by Fable
the huge cargoes of imported slaves from Russia in the latter part of the European Middle Ages were called "serfs."

You're in agreement here, you know.

I don't think anybody's suggesting that slavery would have disappeared overnight with the coming of Christianity. However, it does seem rather tenuous to me to say that the decline in slavery was due to Christianity, when the Church did not adopt a stand against slavery, and it happily existed alongside for centuries. Perhaps the eventual decline of slavery was helped by the Church's opposition, when it changed its position. The question is, did the Church's position change because economical and social developments meant that slavery was no longer the optimum social system?

[Tom]

Originally posted by frogus

A religious person, in theory has their morality decided for them. Morality is the choice between right and wrong, but in the case of believers in Moses as a prophet of a superhuman entity, the decision is made on a selfish basis rather than selfless one. The non-believer thinks: 'I will not hit this person, because I believe that doing so would cause unhappiness', whereas the believer thinks 'I will not hit this person, because God told me not to. I do not just obey God blindly however, I obey him because he has the keys to an eternal paradise and I won't be able to get in unless I do'.

What I was trying to argue was that the Reason why a person makes action is important when you want to judge the moral value of what a person did. This is an important part of the concept of morality. It goes both ways -
situation 3. Lets say the girl is not drowning but just out for a swim. The man sees her and jumps in to save her but because he is not a good swimmer can only cling to her, the girl panics and drowns. This is a terrible accident and the man I am sure you will agree is not a murderer - he tried to save her and had the best intentions. Had he swum out there to kill her the action would have been much more terrible.

What atheists will often complain is that if you base the concept of morality in god you get this intention wrong - people do things because god tells them to. Now of course as Mr Sleep points out we don't think like this when we act in situations and I am sure all religious people will save the girl for the right reason - the girl. But when it comes to describing the concept of morality it is important that we get the intention part right.

Originally posted by frogus

(BTW does secular just mean 'non religious'?).

yes - something like "worldly".

Originally posted by frogus

As for Tom's situation - I don't think that 'moral value' is of any value at all to a non-believer. The believer can assign 'moral weight' to an action on the basis of how likely it is to get him into heaven, i.e. how in lign with God's will it is.
The non-believer has no heaven or hell however, and so his actions have no moral weight at all. We can't just say 'That action was more moral because it was good', because 'good' has no meaning to a non-believer...I should say it has no fixed, definite meaning (sorry I can't conjure the long words). The whole 'is morality relative?' debate hinges on the fact that a religious person can define 'good' as 'in keeping with God's will as described by the bible (or whatever)'.

This is all very confusing. First you say that good (morality?) has no meaning to a non-believer. This is strange because that would mean a non-believer would go "what? what do you mean by ‘good?’" Ok that is not what you mean because surely everybody who speaks English knows what is meant by ‘good’.
I don't mean to be pedantic (I just am ) but I don't understand what you mean.

You could mean that:
If it is true that god does not exist then whenever somebody says "that is good or that is morally wrong" they are simply wrong. So if I say "it is wrong to kill" I am automatically wrong because only statements like "the car is blue" can be right or wrong. Or you could mean a lot of other things.

Then you go on to say good (morality?) have no fixed meaning. This again could mean a number of things but I assume you mean that different people mean different things when they use words like ‘good’ ‘bad’. This might be true but not very true. If people are to understand each other the words they use must share their meaning to a very high degree or people wouldn't understand each other.

Then you mention that morality is relative. I'm afraid here again you could mean a number of things. Relativism is the idea that morality is relative to a community. Or you could mean that morality is relative to the individual. I take it that you mean here that morality is relative to the individual. But what are we to make of this theory - what is the theory? Is it that if I believe it is ok to kill the innocent then it is ok? That would mean that what I believe is always the case - I cant be wrong when it comes to morality. This is I'm sure you will agree is a strange idea. What do we say to an axe murderer? "Stop you are doing something wrong!"? we would be right if we believe it but so would he when he says "no!". There are other forms of relativism but if you ask me they are all misguided.

Originally posted by frogus

Where the moral weight comes into play for the non-believer is., when he decides to rescue the girl simply because it will produce happiness, rather than to impress a woman, he is indicating that he values happiness of the majority rather than happiness for himself. I admit that 'indicates' is a wishy-washy word, but when we are talking about real life that is all we can hope for.

I don't know if you are flirting a bit with Utilitarianism here (the greatest good is the greatest happiness overall). There is nothing relative about utilitarianism - utilitarianism attempts to defines what morality is for all.

Originally posted by frogus

Now that we've got that down, why is an action which makes the majority happy better than one which makes one man happy?
Because if an action makes the majority happy, it makes you happy.

But this is surely not the case. By stealing I might be making myself happy but to the detriment of everybody else. If I don't steal I might be very unhappy because I have no money and I will have to work but the majority will be happy that I don't steal.

Originally posted by frogus

That's right! we are all animals, however much we protest it, and we are only interested in ourselves. That's why the person who has been pick-pocketed in CM's post changes their morality. We are all selfish creatures. But...but our selfish needs can only be satisfied if everyone tries to make us happy...not just us.
I'm sure you know the image where hell is people around a table, trying to eat rice, but their chopsticks are too long, and heaven is people around a table feeding each other with their long chopsticks across the table.
So kids...always feed everyone else, but do not fool yourself that you are doing it because of something called 'good' or 'bad'. Those things don't really exist...they're just tricks that moral philosophers will occassionally try and pull on you - The only reason you're feeding everyone else is because that's the only way you're a-gonna get fed.

Here again it seems you are claiming that the concept of morality doesn't exist. But then it seems that you say that morality is just another way of talking about selfishness - and so the concept does exist but most people don't really understand it.

Originally posted by frogus

And that again is why secular government is best - Morality teaches us to channel our selfish needs into fulfilling them, Religion teaches us to channel our selfish needs into not fulfilling them. And you want your needs fulfilled, right?

This is again strange. Morality surely tells us it is wrong to kill and steal etc. But what if my selfish needs are best served by killing and stealing? Further more it seems that to a large degree morality and religion tells us to do the same things but here you are saying they tell us different things.

Thinking and talking about these concepts is very difficult and I think exhausting. Please do not take my criticisms of what you say the wrong way. I think you are confused on a number of issues or at least you need to be more precise but that is to be expected - everybody starts out confused and with ideas not completely formed.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by frogus
Sorry sleep, I don't see your point .
Could you just clarify for the benefit of the less able among us (me )

and what do you mean by salvation?

There are schools of thought within the Christian church, one states you can get to heaven if you work through your life trying to attain godliness (Jehova's Witnesses for instance), yet another school of thought states that you accept JC as your saviour and that is all you have to do, you don't necessarily then have to preach to everyone you know and you don't have to do all the things we normally expect of Christians... you might want to do some reasearch Frogus, it is actually quite interesting to see the divergence of ideals, as i have stated before there are over 2000 denominations in the christian church, each with their own little ideas on everything.

Salvation is the state one attains when they are in heaven and with Jesus - this statement is true up until the link

[frogus]

Oh, sorry Tom...I just wrote out a big long reply, but I realised I had a lot more to write, so I've saved it in a word document and I'll finish it tommorow... Ugh. It's late, I'm tired. I've been punting all day.

[fable]

Originally posted by Pregethwr
Slavery certainly decreased in Europe after the advent of Christianity, whether this was because of christianity is a moot point because there were also great economic upheavals at the time (what comes first the idea or the reality it supports?).

Where is the evidence that slavery decreased after Christianity appeared? I've never read it.

There is a difference between serf and slave, a slave is property a serf is an indentured servant/labourer, neither can be desribed as good things but there are differences.

Again, it depends upon time and place. Serf and slave share in some definitions the notion of permanant bondage. (I have never read of indentured servants referred to as serfs. Where did you find this?) One definition of a slave is a person in permanant bondage. I fail to see the difference between the two. Consider, for example, Georges Duby in his France in the Middle Ages, 987-1460, a book based upon source texts:

"The descendents of the oriignal slaves were serfs. These peasants were bound to obedience and to unlimited work for their master."

Which makes the serf sound very much like a slave, to all intents and purposes, save that he was (at least in some cases) bound to the land, and could not be sold away--a distinction which I'm sure meant little in terms of workload, since he owned nothing. Or again, in Jerome Blum's Lord and Peasant in Russia:

"The word 'serf' or its equivalents were applied--on occasion, in the same time and place--to a wide range of European peasants, from people whose condition could scarcely be distinguished from that of chattel slaves to men who were nearly free."

Again, this points to a general usage of both words within a given period and place to refer to a range of conditions.

You would be seriously re-writing history if you said the economy of medieval Europe was based on mass slavery (or the economies of china or Japan for that matter who also had similar bound labourer status).

I certainly would, be rewriting history if I did as you suggest, but as I haven't, I'm at a loss to understand what you mean. I only said that the RCC didn't frown on slavery, not after the Church became institutionalized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, and that various "divisions" of the RCC--abbeys, bishoprics, etc--kept slaves. I also mentioned that the RCC owned entire villages, claiming the inhabitants for their property. I can post an example or two if you'd like 'em. This is all documented fact.

BTW the Russian serfs you use to bolster your claim the RCC had slaves were probably 1,000miles from the nearest RCC church since they were deep in Orthodox territory...

...which has nothing to do with the fact that the word "slave" remains a European word whose origins were "the Slav who is a serf." Kievan Rus and its national descendants formed the largest European source of slaves/serfs during the late Middle Ages (Lorenzo Camusso in "Itineraries in the Old World"). Eastern Orthodoxy, the Petrine Theory and Leo I's ambitions as Bishop of Rome have nothing to do with this, since my point was simply that "slave" and "serf" was used interchangeably in this instance.

[fable]

Originally posted by Georgi
I don't think Fable was claiming that at all. The references to Russian serfs were explaining the origins of the word "slave". Fable was talking about European churches having jurisdiction over imported Russian slaves, if I understand correctly. (Particularly if Duby is referenced - his work that I have read was focused on western Europe.)

And I also didn't notice anything in Fable's post to suggest that the Church provided the "ideological underpinning" of the system - simply that the Church was perfectly happy to coexist with a system of slavery.

Thanks, Georgi! Just noted your remarks, after making it back from Boston. You're on the mark.

I don't think anybody's suggesting that slavery would have disappeared overnight with the coming of Christianity. However, it does seem rather tenuous to me to say that the decline in slavery was due to Christianity, when the Church did not adopt a stand against slavery, and it happily existed alongside for centuries.

I've seen no evidence that the RCC opposed slavery at least until the 19th century: does anyone know of a single Papal encyclical on this? Certainly, the RCC said nothing about all the Turkish marriners and soldiers who were regularly turned into galley slaves or land slaves by France or the various Italian principalities. (The Turks were grabbed during the many Rennaissance battles--see Nancy Mitford's The Sun King, for instance.) Some popes individually condemned slavery (Innocent XI and Pius VII, for example), but they never spoke ex cathedra, that's to say, "as from God," in a way that would commit their entire religion and their successors.

Note, I'm not suggesting that the RCC officially endorsed slavery. Judging from historical records, they accepted it in the spirit of the general cultural understanding of their time and place concerning slaves, much as they did the subordination of women to men.