You may Remember conservative Ralph Reed when he was director of the Christian Coalition. He’s now director of the Faith and Freedom Foundation, and he was on Bill Maher’s show last week. This short clip shows Reed and Maher discuss (of course) religion.
Reed espouses belief in the literal truth of the Bible, and Maher asks Reed’s reaction to stuff like God’s Old-Testament approbation of slavery. (Reed says that it was “a different kind of slavery” back then) Reed also argues that the antislavery movement in America came out of the churches. I’m not sure about that, but there sure were a lot of churches, both North and South, condoning slavery and giving it a Biblical imprimatur. At any rate, that doesn’t deal with Maher’s issue, and Reed wriggles around, as he does when Maher then brings up stoning (something the Bible approves of for women who have sex before marriage).
I won’t steal from you the pleasure of watching Reed comport the Old and New Testaments, but it’s funny to see him say that Maher is “being selective”:
I always wonder why someone like Reed even agrees to go on Maher’s show. As I heard from a debater in another sticky situation, “You show up, you lose.” Or maybe Reed believes that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
h/t: Barry
“But you can do those things without believing in magic…” Thank you, Mr. Maher.
sub
I think it is so funny that Ralph Reed tried to say Ancient Roman slavery was different than the slavery of the South mostly because I had a TA in an ethics course that argued the exact opposite thing. He tried to tell us that Ancient slavery was okay because after all, Plato had slaves. He actually said that! A guy running classes for an ethics course, said it must’ve been okay because Plato did it!
Of course, they are both wrong and Bill Maher is right – there is no good slavery. Romans had house slaves, masters bought pretty girl house slaves to rape, city slaves did horrible jobs and died quickly – same with farm slaves. Oh, and they weren’t all “indentured” (as if that makes it better) but often the spoils of war or just born into slavery.
Oy these people! Crack more than one book!
Somehow this seems relevant:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133_full.html?print
Astounding. Clearly a model for the ID ‘Wedge’ program.
The below is also relevant:
http://vridar.org/2013/12/05/with-all-fear-christianity-and-slavery-part-4/
Besides, as someone said, if ancient slavery was so okay, than why did the Israelites want to escape it?
Thank you for this link.
Maher should’ve asked if he wanted to implement that type of slavery. If it’s so good, and even condoned by god, then he shouldn’t have any objections?
Reed and other religionists don’t realize that atheists have every reason (as it were) to “be selective”; that is, to cite whatever the hell they want to illustrate a point. But the believer? By definition, or so I thought, the believer is a person who is supposed to accept it all as the “word of God”. But as Dawkins says somewhere, the impulse for believers to select the good bits and ignore the bad is evidence of secularism working on the mind of the believer.
Reed also came back at the end of the show for the Internet-only “Overtime” segment. Yeah, it’s very strange to see Reed sitting next to John Waters! Here’s the URL (Maher attempts continue the conversation with Reed late in the clip when he asks Reed why there are multiple religions):
http://www.hbo.com/#/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/12/320-episode/video/320-june-6-overtime.html/eNrjcmbO0CzLTEnNd8xLzKksyUx2zs8rSa0oUc-PSYEJBSSmp-ol5qYy5zMXsjGyMXIyMrJJJ5aW5BfkJFbalhSVpgIAXbkXOA==
“Reed espouses belief in the literal truth of the Bible”
Whenever you encounter a literalist with money, talk to them about Acts chapter 5. (Go read it, it’s not very long and its point is pretty clear.) Watch that literalist start talking about allegory in seconds.
Even better is in Chapter 4, just before that. Basically, it’s a perfect description of socialism, if not downright communism. That’s what a true Christian community is.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+4%3A32-37&version=NIV
“Watch that literalist start talking about allegory in seconds.”
Not at all. Most religious folks will tell you that the crime of Ananias and Sapphira wasn’t withholding money, but lying about it.
Interesting, the same passages have been used to justify capitalism and communism. One sees what one wishes to see….
Capitalism, communism, one thing is clear: whatever their transgression, the god of love chose to kill them instead of “turn the other cheek” and forgive them. Meet the new god, same as the old god.
I find this an interesting passage for the literalist, since it provides a guide to its own interpretation.
The passage describes the act of withholding as itself a spiritual lie. Then as if to prevent the exact hair-splitting you mentioned, it adds “thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” The entire point of that addendum is that the lie is in the act itself, as opposed to an uttered lie in the ordinary sense.
Does literalism mean a refusal to accept even an explicit metaphor that is explained within the text?
Actually, there were churches in the 1800’s that opposed slavery. Many people working against slavery did so because they felt that Jesus / God loved all people and so should we. And they felt that treating people as slaves was definitely not an expression of love.
Of course, there were also churches that condoned slavery, because the bible tells something about how to treat slaves, not that it’s necessary to free the. “Because the bible says . . .” can justify most things, if you want it to.
Yeah, the problem is not that 1800s Christian Churches condoned/condemned slavery, but that groups want to count the one and not the other when it shows that pretty much one can use the Bible and ‘culture’ around Christianity to justify anything, regardless of actual morality.
You don’t get to count the abolitionists as proof your religion is moral when their co-religionists were their moral opposition.
The people who form Reed’s “base” do not think critically, if they think at all. It’s like the old Larson cartoon about what dogs hear: blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah.
Reed can say anything, however inconsistent,and it just doesn’t matter.
The courageous early 19th Century American abolitionists included both Christians and Deists Unitarian or unaffiliated, who had some valid reason to worry about harm attempted by pro-slavery advocates but nothing to fear by publicly asserting their religious beliefs, and as well non-theists — an unknowable number of whom chose to be circumspect about their absence of belief for the same reasons many like-minded choose to do so today.
Far less scriptural text was scientifically refuted at that time than post-Civil War, obviously. Given increasing numbers of atheist’s world-wide in the past half-century, it is not unreasonable to speculate that at least some abolitionist deist’s and theist’s may have abandoned belief had they been aware of present genetic/biological, geological, cosmological, etc. knowledge.
The people who brought about the end of legalized slavery included both Christians and others not Christian, and some but far from all Christian churches and congregations outspokenly acted to end it. Others openly supported the institution until (and even following) Constitutional amendments outlawing the practice.
Some of the abolition proponent’s have nothing to brag about regarding a century of Jim Crow, of course, and wisely remain silent about that fact even when claiming Christian dibs for abolition success.
For some abolitionists (e.g., Louis Agassiz, founding member of the National Academy of Sciences appointed by A. Lincoln)freeing slaves was just a preliminary to deporting them to tropics.
I would say that Christian abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Henry Ward Beecher supplied some valuable energy to the abolitionist movement, but much of the impetus against it also came from secular atheistic thinkers such as Harriet Martineau.
Abolitionism was indeed a cause in which some Christians and many secularists were united, but the massive extent of Christian !*support*! for slavery has been very well-documented in a wonderful book entitled “The Arrogance of Faith” by Forrest Wood (sic).
He goes on because to his followers he wins these debates. He brings down Goliath even if Goliath doesn’t notice.
I was struck by these two quotes from Reed:
…and:
Only if being more committed to other people = not caring what they think, I guess.
Didn’t Jesus tell the slaves to obey their earthly masters? jesus was pro slavery… This guy is completely deluded.
Actually I think it was Paul who said this so there is some weasel room for apologists to keep the pro-slavery comment stink off Jesus but I’m not aware of any comments that Jesus made against slavery either.
Regardless who said it, it’s in there and if Reed believes every word is true then he is, by his own admission, okay with slavery.
In Luke 12:47, Jesus says, “And that servant which knew his lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” Some translations say “slave” instead of “servant.”
This is part of a parable; the servant is mankind and the lord is God, so I suppose Christians will say that He isn’t REALLY talking about slavery. But He doesn’t condemn it either.
Considering paul said “I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preach is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1: 11-12).
he is merely the spokesman for jesus.. Which means Jesus is the one who told the slaves to obey their early masters.
From the Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, page 212:
In my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it. No one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us that God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter need only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind – and then the texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure; if the slaves themselves had an aversion to slavery they were wise and said nothing.
The Southern Baptists split from the rest of the Baptists over the issue of slavery. Namely, they couldn’t denounce it (as did the Quakers) because so many of their wealthy members owned slaves.
At one time a fair number of Quakers owned slaves though the denominational argument had ended by the late 1700s (people like John Woolman going from meeting to meeting and almost house to house [where he apparently insisted on paying slaves for any service] convincing people); the arguing started in 1688 in Pennsylvania. Later Quakers still had some problems with equality in this life.
Admittedly the earliest of my ancestors and relatives who were anti-slavery (starting in the 1780s) were Unitarian to deist in outlook. Some of my later ones were Quaker (one worked to eradicate slavery in Pemba and Zanzibar circa 1900) or unknown (worked with Quakers, a grandson in law of the previous, but was not a Quaker, treasurer for many years to the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1920s-1950s or so). My slave-owning or possibly even slave-trading ancestors were Anglican mid 1700s to about 1830 (Bristol/Jamaica).
Jerry’s right that some churches defended slavery, but in total fairness we should also note that some were *vehemently* opposed to it. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is famous in gun circles for smuggling guns to Kansas abolitionists so they would be able to defend themselves from the pro-slavery elements around them. That’s why the Sharp’s Rifle was nicknamed Beecher’s Bible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beecher's_Bibles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beecher_Bible_and_Rifle_Church
I’m not trying to be an apologist, just thorough. (And I understand that this comment may not be approved because the gun content makes it unpopular in these parts.)
It is true that the Bible was used on both sides of the debate . . .which shows how useless it is in solving moral questions. Some people say “The Bible isn’t a science book; it deals with moral issues.” But how can the Bible be a guide to morals when it can be used to support and attack the same thing? As Lincoln said during the Civil War, “Both sides read the same Gospel; both sides pray to the same God.”
indeed.
Interesting that Reed brought op the NT story of Jesus and that ‘throw the first stone’ business. He closes his remark about it with:
“THAT is in the Bible” (as if that refuted Bill’s point, but I digress).
So, yes, now it is, but the funny thing is, it isn’t in the oldest copies we have of the New Testament. It was inserted somewhere between the 2nd and the 5th century AD. WHich simply means: someone made it up.
See: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/aprilweb-only/117-31.0.html
That was painful. The supercilious smirky face that these jerks inevitably have just gives me the willies. I had to watch it one minute at a time.
Bill was amazingly soft on Ralph. There’s all sorts of nasty shit Jesus said and did that he could have easily thrown in Ralph’s face had he wanted, and I’m rather surprised he didn’t.
Perhaps Jesus is a cow too sacred for even Bill to turn into hamburger?
b&
As Bill himself said, “It’s all about access”.
I agree. Ralph as much as said that for 400 years, stoning adulerous women in the street was A-OK with God – in fact, it was the God’s law. Tell me again why I should have personal relationship with the asshole?
Yeah, god doesn’t even tell good jokes. Usually I can put aside other things to hang out with someone if they are at least funny.
“Yeah, god doesn’t even tell good jokes.”
This one does 😉
http://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-conversation-with-god/
I agree too. If Bill Maher presented more quotes from the God book, about how we should kill gay people, how we should kill apostates, how we should treat women as our property, etc. etc. all at once, his argument would be all the more powerful, and the counterargument about being “selective” all the more ridiculous.
It’s just amazing that in defending Jesus and the “new covenant” Ralph Reed tells the biblical story of people CITING GOD’S PREVIOUS INSTRUCTS TO STONE ADULTERESSES, and he doesn’t notice the problem with this.
These bible-thumpers wring their hands over their worry that secularism can not offer anything but moral relativism. And yet it’s actually they who are the moral relativists!
The atheists are saying “slavery and stoning adulteresses are just wrong, wherever and whenever it’s done.” Whereas the Christians are saying God gives differing moral rules depending on who you are, where and when you lived. “It’s not ok for us NOW, but it was ok for those people then…”
Excellent point.
Quote from video clip — “But Bill, you’re ignoring the New Testament. Not one of those verses comes from the New Testament.” (starting at 4:58)
The “slaves submit to your masters” words come from the New Testament (1 Peter 2:18, Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22).
One would think that Ralph Reed would know the Bible as well as some atheists.
Great article if you encounter folks who claim to be NT people and pay little heed to OT. http://nobeliefs.com/jesus.htm
One small point: some of the earliest abolition voices came out of the Society of Friends AKA the Quakers. This doesn’t exonerate Christianity for its role in slavery, but it hsould be noted that the Quakers were loud and early in the fight against slavery.
Not all Quakers, at least for a while. There were also slave-holding Quakers, something I’ve encountered doing genealogy research rich for my own family. When slavery became “verbotten” among the Friends, something had to give. Some switched over to other faiths. Some apparently “adopted” or otherwise de-slaved their now-servants.
Quakerism involves a huge emphasis of thinking for yourself and challenging established doctrine, and there’s no priesthood so sermons from authority on high are effectively banned. This was justified in spiritual terms (listening to “that of god” inside of you and speaking for your “inner light”), but beyond the theology it all boils down to thinking for yourself and making up your own mind.
I credit that for why the religion came so strongly against slavery. No person who thinks for him/herself and makes ethical decisions without moral brainwashing could tolerate slavery.
It was good that Reed admitted that you don’t need to have faith to be a good person. But it was all down hill after that with his cherry picking of things that supported his position. That typically flawed thinking that then ignores anything, without question, that does not fit with their beliefs.
That was good, but it’s also the lightest sort of compliment you can make. “I accept that you’re not all sociopathic monsters”. Well, thanks.
If he really believes this, then what of the Bible’s claim that those without faith are doomed by original sin to an eternity of fiery torture in Hell?
He believes his god plans to torture good people?
Yeah. Biblical slavery was the *good* kind of slavery.
Wish It, Want It, Do It.
🙂
And Jesus said to his Father, “Dad, your shit is whack.” LOL
Bill Maher: “If I die in my sleep tonight, it’s only gonna get better!”
Ralph Reed: “Well, also…”
Well, also implying he agrees with that statement! This is an illustration of what has to be the biggest inducer of cognitive dissonance in religion. If it only gets better when you die, why in the world are people ever sad or afraid about death? Hell, taken to it’s logical end, everyone should be happy when children die before the “age of reason” and get whisked away to Heaven without risking eternal suffering.