Originally Posted by
AerialPerspective
Actually I didn't 'cut and paste'... I have been studying U.S. history and government for 40 years or more and have read many books on the subject as well as being very conversant with the Civil War and Lincoln and that entire period and the revolution and attitudes to slavery.
You seem to have missed my point.
Abolishing slavery was about equality. Lincoln did not hold a plebiscite, because it was OBVIOUS it was about equality. The Civil War was not fought on the basis of slavery, that fact is obvious from just about any history book but rather on the subject of a State's right to determination without undue interference from a federal entity which the Southern States felt they had joined and could leave just as easily. Slavery was invoked by Lincoln (whom I admire by the way, so this isn't a comment on him) to turn the war into something worth fighting for, freedom and equality. These are different times and a different society. With the exception of what happened at Eureka which had a positive overall implications, we haven't tended to be a polity that picks up a gun every time we disagree with something.
The comparison was about equality. We are not a democracy and neither is the United States, we are 'representative democracies', we elect representatives to make the decisions for us, we expect them to conduct vigorous debate and concentrate the study and knowledge of the topic at hand to come up with the best solution. We do not elect them to ask us every time something is too difficult and we expect them to not have to debate at all when the subject is a matter of equality under the law. That is all SSM is, it's about equal rights to marriage by same sex couples.
I was not showing contempt for human suffering at all, I was drawing an analogy, I can post the dictionary definition if you like (since you think I cut and paste everything) or you can look it up.
Slavery was disgusting, vile and inhuman and so was the resulting inequality that it enforced. We are supposed to have learned from those historical mistakes and recognise inequality in all its forms, not just the ones we find comfortable.
Let's not forget, the bible was often held up as evidence for the righteousness of slavery as well. These are all facts, not contempt. I show contempt for a book that was written in such a way that it promotes inequality and discrimination and in such a way that it was able to be used to justify slavery, the KKK's actions and the fight against civil rights and now gay marriage.
I'll ask what I asked at the beginning of this unbelievably long thread again, what the hell has this got to do with aviation and why is this thread still going...
I hate to interrupt this lively discussion, but...
It's great you know some American history but you seem to have an enormous blind spot in your Civil War and pre-Civil War history during your 40 years of study re societal norms at that time and how religion/the Bible played a role in the question of slavery, it's acceptance/rejection, and the notion of Equality.
The Abolitionist (anti-slavery) movement, both during Colonial times (the pacifist Quakers and Mennonites had already outlawed slavery for example) but especially during the Second Great Awakening during the 1830's when the radical anti-slavery elements were born was largely founded, organized, and grew due to Bible-based religious beliefs and fervor, and evangelical Methodists, Presbyterians, etc were at the forefront of the movement. The idea that the Civil War, which really began in the Kansas Territory (Bleeding Kansas) years before the election of Lincoln and attack on Ft. Sumpter, was about slavery wasn't something Lincoln pulled out of his hat, he tapped-into an existing societal movement and changes. A large portion of society in the North and some in the South already viewed slavery as a "sin", hypocritical of the philosophy the country was founded on, and that belief was largely spread to the populace through churches and religious-based writings.
The frontier war begun in the Kansas Territory during the late 1950's pitting already-organized Abolitionist Northerners who went there to settle and oppose pro-slavery elements from the South doing the same to decide via popular vote within the Territory whether Kansas was to be a free or slave state set the stage for the larger war to trigger with the election of Lincoln.
Intellectual honesty or a real knowledge of U.S. history would force one to acknowledge the major and core role the Bible and religious beliefs historically played in the Abolitionist, anti-slavery movement in the U.S. and the eventual rejection of slavery by society at large.
In U.S. history at least, the Bible had far less to do with "promoting" slavery (as you keep insisting with your repeated references to Kluckers etc) as it did with giving birth, growing, and giving traction to the forces that eventually eliminated it due to the view of it's "sinfulness" based on Bible scriptures. Yes, this flies in the face of the Hollywood cliche' of a bible-toting slaveholder, but those are historical facts and most Hollywood-types never made it past high school. The supposed religious "justifications" for slavery (citing Old Testament verses containing references to slaves, for example) were in response to the ever-growing wave (and half-century plus years worth) of Bible-based, anti-slavery notions of Equality. During the Civil War there was no national anthem, but the most popular patriotic song and closest thing there was for the North was The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The 2nd best-selling book of the 19th century (after the Bible) in the U.S. was the very religious abolitionist Harriett Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852. Lincoln reportedly commented that she (Stowe) was the one who "started the (Civil) war".
It's self-contradictory to cite U.S. history and link slavery to your discussion yet cite contempt for a book that was largely responsible for changing societal beliefs that brought about the end of slavery in the U.S. Referring to slavery as "vile, disgusting, and inhuman" as you have here in 2017 was already being done so in early 1800's by the Abolitionists, and they were using the Bible to fuel that fervent belief of this "sinfulness". For that element, the push for equality to buck the system for change, the call to action, and work to have it eradicated (even through violence by some) was based on Biblical tenets.
That being said, I have no opinion on LBGT-etcs, Ozzie SSM, or Qantas paint jobs. I don't even go to church, but I do know my U.S. history and the role religious movements have played. You can't separate the U.S. Civil war from the Abolitionist movement, and you can't separate the Abolitionist movement from Bible-based religion and movements and their increasing conflict with slavery in the decades leading up to the civil war.
You may have contempt for the Bible (not that I care either way) but if you're basing that contempt on it supposedly being "pro-slavery" as if it was the justification that held that institution together for as long as it did in the U.S. (ignoring it's economic basis for it's continued existence by the landed, influential few in the Democrat South) while ignoring the Bible as a main source for the changing attitudes in society that did away with slavery to the point of a Civil War based on notions of Equality that make it intolerable, then you're doing so out of convenience to serve your own purpose or a belief in modern cliche's, not from a knowledge of historical facts.