Legacies of British Slave-ownership

[Shaker]

So God is going to punish me for things I haven't done

That's Christianity for you. All humans are guilty and are born guilty, defective straight off the factory production line, because of a daft fairy story (which would embarrass any reasonably aware and intelligent five year-old) about a pair of non-existent human beings called Adam and Eve supposed to have done something naughty involving fruit at some unspecified point in history, after which all human beings are inherently and innately bad and wrong in the eyes of the paranormal entity which according to this ridiculous myth caused or at the very least passively allowed all this to happen in the first place.

Has it ever occurred to you that your god is a numpty?

It won't have done.

[OH MY WORLD!]

No you won't jeremy, unless you are continuing the sin and rebellion of your father. And only a fool would say a child can't suffer and be damaged from the misdeeds of bad parents. We see it every day. Again you opt to ignore God's promise of forgiveness. You don't like that part do ya.

http://www.gospelway.com/topics/salvation/parent-sins-child.php

[jeremyp]

No you won't jeremy, unless you are continuing the sin and rebellion of your father. And only a fool would say a child can't suffer and be damaged from the misdeeds of bad parents. We see it every day. Again you opt to ignore God's promise of forgiveness. You don't like that part do ya.

http://www.gospelway.com/topics/salvation/parent-sins-child.php

The quote was quite specific saying God would visit the iniquities on the descendants not that they would be a side effect of the misdeeds of the parents.

[Hope]

Its amazing how the non-believers here manage to reroute threads onto spiritual/religious rails so often. Implies that they've all got some hidden urge to get involved in said issues   

[Shaker]

Not that amazing, and no rerouting if the subject arises, as it did.

It would have done anyway given that in Britain alone there were prominent Christian abolitionists but equally, prominent Christians who were ardent supporters of the slave trade.

[jeremyp]

Its amazing how the non-believers here manage to reroute threads onto spiritual/religious rails so often. Implies that they've all got some hidden urge to get involved in said issues   

My original comment on Original Sin was meant to be a throwaway comment and not actually go any further.  You decided to run with it, not me.

Your OP did seem to adopt a tone of "we've all got slave ownership in our past therefore we need to feel guilty" (I'm guessing most of us are white and British).

[BashfulAnthony]

So God is going to punish me for things I haven't done

That's Christianity for you. All humans are guilty and are born guilty, defective straight off the factory production line, because of a daft fairy story (which would embarrass any reasonably aware and intelligent five year-old) about a pair of non-existent human beings called Adam and Eve supposed to have done something naughty involving fruit at some unspecified point in history, after which all human beings are inherently and innately bad and wrong in the eyes of the paranormal entity which according to this ridiculous myth caused or at the very least passively allowed all this to happen in the first place.

Has it ever occurred to you that your god is a numpty?

It won't have done.

So you believe the Adam and Eve story:  thought you were fairly bright.  Apparently, you're not.

[Hope]

Your OP did seem to adopt a tone of "we've all got slave ownership in our past therefore we need to feel guilty" (I'm guessing most of us are white and British).

In fact, my OP was a straight-forward factual post.  My second post, in response to Matt's, pointed out that slave-ownership was far more prevalent than generally presumed and therefoire nothing to be ashamed of.  So where did your idea that I was saying that "we need to feel guilty" come from. 

[Hope]

Not that amazing, and no rerouting if the subject arises, as it did.

No, not that amazing, I suppose.  Jeremy is good at reading far more into posts than the authors ever intended!!

[Nearly Sane]

You would have to be fairly knowledgeable about your  family tree for this. Just typing in a relatively common will give hits. My mother's maiden name will give lots, I am sure, but on basis of the knowledge I have of the line going back are unlikely to amongst those on the database.

[jeremyp]

In fact, my OP was a straight-forward factual post. 

Clearly I read more into the tone than you intended.  For that I apologise.

My second post, in response to Matt's, pointed out that slave-ownership was far more prevalent than generally presumed and therefoire nothing to be ashamed of.  So where did your idea that I was saying that "we need to feel guilty" come from.

Your second post implies that many of us do feel ashamed or would feel ashamed about what our ancestors did.  There never was anything for us (i.e. the people to whom you address the post) to be ashamed of whether it was prevalent or not.  We are not accountable for the things people did 200 years ago. 

[Hope]

Your second post implies that many of us do feel ashamed or would feel ashamed about what our ancestors did.  There never was anything for us (i.e. the people to whom you address the post) to be ashamed of whether it was prevalent or not.  We are not accountable for the things people did 200 years ago.

I was responding to a specific post - from Matt - who seemed to feel that he does feel shame over a number of issues in his past.

[Hope]

You would have to be fairly knowledgeable about your  family tree for this. Just typing in a relatively common will give hits. My mother's maiden name will give lots, I am sure, but on basis of the knowledge I have of the line going back are unlikely to amongst those on the database.

I'd agree, NS.  I am 'fortunate' in that several of my ancestors had pretty unusual surnames, but even that doesn't ensure that any hits are related to me.  I have a printed family tree running back to the 1400s so I can be more precise.  Folk in my larger family have actually traced our family back to Bruges in the 800s

[OH MY WORLD!]

But Jeremy, why would you pluck a verse out of context ignoring the verses surrounding it? It's a dishonest thing to do that. If you were an honest person you would not ignore the context of God's forgiveness and other verses throughout the Bible assuring us that the sins of the father will NOT be held against their children. Please read the context and be honest. If the generations that follow continue in their rebellion against God, of course they will reap the same as their fathers.

[OH MY WORLD!]

Now as far as slave ownership. Dear UK people, don't keep beating yourselves up over it. For example my ancestors viewed women as property. When we were fighting our traditional enemies the Blackfoot, we would kidnap as many of the women as possible and make them ours. And talking about those Blackfoot, if a man caught his wife in adultery, one punishment was for the husband to bite the nose off his wife. We all were known to sell and trade women, and when the whites came along we would sell our wives and daughters to get booze. Even today those first nations were fighting the government, because the government was making it law, that on reserve wives were to have matrimonial rights. Up until a year ago, an on reserve man could force his wife out of the house, leaving her destitute. She could not claim any money nor property nor goods.

So don't beat yourselves up. You have come along way and much further than some of my kin folk.

[Owlswing]

Your second post implies that many of us do feel ashamed or would feel ashamed about what our ancestors did.  There never was anything for us (i.e. the people to whom you address the post) to be ashamed of whether it was prevalent or not.  We are not accountable for the things people did 200 years ago.

I was responding to a specific post - from Matt - who seemed to feel that he does feel shame over a number of issues in his past.

YTou are a bigger idiot than even I gave you credit for!

I do not "feel shame over a number of issues in [my] past!"

I was stating that my family, going back quite a way' were all in the very lowest echelons of the working population at a time when ordinary working people in this glorious country were little better than slaves (hence the creation and rise of trade unions to protect such workers) and would, therefore be the very last people to be able to afford to dabble in the slave trade.

Now do me a favour - either read my posts properly or shut the **** up!

MODERATORS

Yes, I bloody lost it again!

[OH MY WORLD!]

Dearest Matty,
I recall a post of yours, belly aching about name callers around here. Why then do you do just that with so many of your posts? Do you not remember posts you have written? Or are you comfortable with your hypocrisy?

[Hope]

YTou are a bigger idiot than even I gave you credit for!

I do not "feel shame over a number of issues in [my] past!"

I was stating that my family, going back quite a way' were all in the very lowest echelons of the working population at a time when ordinary working people in this glorious country were little better than slaves (hence the creation and rise of trade unions to protect such workers) and would, therefore be the very last people to be able to afford to dabble in the salve trade.

Now do me a favour - either read my posts properly or shut the **** up!

MODERATORS

Yes, I bloody lost it again!

And you phrased your post in such a way as to suggest, at least to me, that you were ashamed of that history.  If you're not, my apologies. 

Just a general point re.slave ownership, apparently very ordinary people (I assume similar to your ancestors) owned slaves.  It wasn't something restricted to the upper or middle eschelons of society.  I suspect that this had something to do with what happens now where one has a pension or a corporate fund which invests in a aariety of things and may or may not invest in arms suppliers, tobacco and alcohol companies - in other words groups that individual subscribers might not want to invest in.

[jeremyp]

But Jeremy, why would you pluck a verse out of context ignoring the verses surrounding it? It's a dishonest thing to do that.

Which is why I didn't pluck a verse out of context.

If you were an honest person you would not ignore the context of God's forgiveness

If you were an honest person, you would admit that Christian doctrine has nothing to with the context of the verses I quoted since it would be several hundred years after the verses were written down that Christianity was invented.

[OH MY WORLD!]

But jeremy, you are being dishonest, you are using one verse and ignoring the rest. That's very, dishonest, shame on you. You claim you are not doing that so how about talk about the whole chapter? Is that because it talks about forgiveness? Why ignore the promises that the children won't be held responsible. And guess what, that is NOT new testament but found in the old. You don't know scripture at all and a danger it would be for anybody to go by your childish way of reading it.

[cyberman]

Contrary to Christian doctrine, you are not responsible for the behaviour of your ancestors.

Where is there anything referring to responsibility for one's ancestor's behaviour within Christian doctrine?

The Lord passed before him [Moses], and proclaimed,
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’

Two simple questions for you Jeremy -

(A) Do you think that finding a verse in the old testament means you have found a piece of Christian doctrine?
(B) Do you think that Christian doctrine teaches that we should not eat pork.

Each of those questions is subject to a simple yes or no answer, I think.

[jeremyp]

But jeremy, you are being dishonest

How can you say quoting a passage from the Bible in correct context can be regarded as dishonest.

you are using one verse and ignoring the rest.

I'm not ignoring the rest.  I only quoted the relevant verse, rather than the whole chapter, but read the chapter and you'll see I didn't misrepresent anything.

You claim you are not doing that so how about talk about the whole chapter? Is that because it talks about forgiveness?

Have you read the chapter?  It talks about forgiveness but then  says God does the iniquity visiting anyway.