Quote:
Originally Posted by Grapesoda
I said that about slavery not the pope or jesus...however it was Christians that started and propagated the abolitionist movement that was a direct cause of ending institutionalized slavery in the western world
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Was it? What were they doing for the 1500 years before that? I don't think it is a coincidence that slavery was eliminated along with enforced class systems, which are a form of slavery. Christianity taught slaves to accept their lot. Remember, god ordered the way things are. Reason said, "question it". Reason also said, don't stick red hot pokers up jewish people's bungholes, and don't imprison and burn people for saying the earth revolves around the sun, and the devil doesn't cause the plague, etc. All that good stuff. Slavery went away because people *stopped* being christian, and just accepting that god put this all in place for his unknowable purpose. They said, I personally believe slavery is wrong, and I'll fight against it. Also, I'll fight against priests raping little boys, etc etc. The church didn't really issue a bulla against slavery until 1839, and then it was unclear:
"In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued a bull, with the incipit In supremo apostolatus in which he condemned slavery, with particular reference to New World colonial slavery and the slave trade, calling it "inhumanum illud commercium."
The exact meaning and scope of the Bull was disputed at the time, and remains so among historians. That new enslavements and slave-trading are condemned and forbidden absolutely is clear, but the language in the passage quoted below and other passages was not sufficiently specific to make clear what, if anything, the bull had to say about the ongoing ownership of those already slaves, although their sale seemed to be prohibited.There was certainly no clear call for the emancipation of all existing slaves, as had already happened in the British and French Empires."
Yet in the USA
"During and after the American Revolutionary War, between 1777 and 1804, anti-slavery laws or constitutions were passed in every state north of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon Line"
So the USA preceded the catholic church by many decades. Not because of Christianity, but because free people get around to the right thing. Christianity didn't spread freedom, freedom did. The church is anti-freedom. The church supports feudalism and slavery by its nature.