GA: The song is almost half a century old from a time when the grasp of slave masters Christianity still had a strong monopolized grip on the psyche of InI domicile on a former plantation island.
@Jahcub
I think you have a good mindset and that you're trying to defend the book that you feel so positively about and I have nothing against that because that is what I used to read and that's exactly what I defended against any and every critic. So let me just encourage you to keep doing you and keep being that genuine person with love in his heart.
with that said, I have to also say, please consider the wise words of GA quoted above. And yeah, you caught me off guard with your earlier post and I didn't have a great response at the time lol. But please let me add to what GA said.
The bible served a particular purpose. There is a reason why capitalism is based on the concept and reality of supply and demand. It is the truth.
When we were given the bible we needed it because we had been disconnected from our roots and culture. We were slaves and Jesus was talking about salvation which is just another word for freedom. Not only that, but the bible told us that the wicked would be punished. And we needed to hear that too.
But massa was reading the same book. How could he not understand this same message? How could he not fear for his own eternal salvation? What bible was he reading?
How is it that two vastly different people; the master and the slave, could read and be edified by the same book without a massive moral conflict?
It's all about perspective. The master simply reads the parts of the bible that support his claim to wealth, prosperity, and dominion. He'll use the curse of Ham to justify his treatment of blacks. He'll use what the bible says about women to justify his treatment of his own wife. And this is all enabled by the fact that much of the bible was written by people in the same position; masters.
When Moses burst onto the scene he was regarded as a savior... a deliverer. The people were in need. And he came talking about salvation. He told them what they wanted to hear and that the Egyptians would be punished.
But this story of freedom was unlike the songs of freedom Bob Marley sang about. It made Moses the master, not of the Egyptians, but of his own people as long as he could maintain a sort of political control over them. Because he wasn't a king but they also didn't have a democracy. It was a theocracy. So as long as people believed that Moses spoke for God he would keep that control over them and through them his family would have all the wealth and power they wanted. This is why as soon as they "got free" they were used to rob, rape, and pillage other nations.
But this is the part that good men like you don't focus your reading on or ask too many questions about because this introduces moral challenges to who exactly these people were and why such behavior was tolerated by a just God.
Does the idea that everyone was a sinner justify one nation to around killing others and taking their land? What was it that justified slavery? If the fact that everyone is a sinner means that you can do whatever you want to them, then why shouldn't whites have done whatever they wanted to us? And if it was okay, what they did to us, then why would we be in need of salvation?
It is a cycle; a very deadly one. If you read the bible cover to cover I have no doubt you would eventually see this yourself. But to skip ahead... humans make claims about God all the time that have to do with their wants and needs. Think about the last dozen prayers you've heard. People have a certain "demand" for salvation. So the "masters" take advantage of this and they say "God said we should go take Canaan" or "God said manifest destiny. Let's take the land from the indians" or "God said these Africans are cursed so we can use them to help us build a new nation."
There has never been a shortage of what people are willing to say that God told them to tell people. And there have always been those who got caught faking it and those who didn't. Look at LDS and who founded the Mormon church. How is it that this church exists when it was founded by a con artist and a swindler? In other words, there is no shortage of human beings willing to lie to each other for gain. Who were the forefathers of the Israelites, from whose perspective the story is told from? Are they broke niggas? Or were they extremely wealthy? Of course they might explain their wealth by telling us they were blessed. But read the book. Abraham lied. Jacob lied to his own father to steal the birthright (and therefore wealth) from his own twin brother. Someone who would lie to their dying father wouldn't lie to you?
I'm not trying to convince you that the bible is full of lies. I'm rather trying to get you to see that these were human beings who weren't totally honest, even with what little is revealed about them in the bible. Abraham lied about his wife being his sister and was willing to let someone else have her just because he was afraid of being killed in a plot to take her by force. The Pharaoh was rightfully pissed off, not just that he lied, but that he thought he had to. But he was more righteous than Abraham thought and in that moment the righteousness of Abraham failed. The bible says "lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh". How could Abraham represent God to this pharaoh when he couldn't even have faith for God to protect him if he told the truth? So therefore, how could any God judge Egypt when the messenger made it impossible for that whole nation to believe? Perfect opportunity lost.
Critical Thinking question: Had Abraham dealt righteously with Pharaoh and proven that Yahweh was the true God right then, is it possible that Egypt would have worshiped the same God and the Israelites would have not only been able to seek aid during the famine but been treated as brothers after it was over and would have never (according to the bible) been enslaved for 400 years? Is it possible? And would God have known and understood this if it was? And so whose fault is it that the Israelites were slaves for 400 years according to this missed opportunity?
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