How can Muslims be non-radical?

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Originally Posted by EpicurusGeorge

You fail to realize that the bible is advocating not only slavery, but justifying the abuse of slaves. The slave owner is allowed to act "out on the whim". The whole love thy neighbor thing is completely thrown out the window.

Yes, the Bible does condone slavery. For the individual who has no motivation to do anything with his life; not to work, not to dream, not to prosper, the most humane thing to do with that man is to literally force him to do something...anything at all other than rot away in his sloth. If it takes a rod to his back to make him move, so be it. That is not punishment, that is tutelage. How else is a man who makes a burden of work taught to carry himself but by the full infliction of his burden? Sloth's greatest wage is that of slavery: subservience to one who will utilize your body. You think it is done of malice, but its roots are that of love; to give the lost and feeble man a purpose again - to burn hot within his soul the desire and appreciation for freedom and the gift of will.

I don't care if you think I'm evil for seeing slavery as good: history has shown that every society without condoned slavery has a massive bottom rung class that eats away every resource worked for by the other members of society. This class rots in filth, violence, and self-deprecation because it has no will to work nor better itself nor find any purpose and intention to its existence; it suffers cruelly under its own sloth and dies in the same poverty it lives despite mass opportunity to improve its condition. At least a slave has a role to fill and is an integral part of society. Slavery is for the benefit of slave, owner, and society. This is not to say that it has not been practiced poorly in some societies; in the United States, the owners became greedy at the profits they made from slaves, and thus refused education and opportunity to those willing to better their lives - this is not the fault of slavery itself, but the fault of the owners refusing to show the love that is understanding and compassion. Further, in the United States, their slavery rested solely on racial status; condoned for some and not others. It was not based on putting the slothful to work, but upon building a slave economy.

You are blind if you do not see that some men are moved only by the rod. For that man, a beating IS a showing of love. If he ever burns warm enough to desire a better life, he should be given that opportunity. Until then his work is not of his own will, but of his master's. What you see as abuse is the only motivation this degree of sloth will respond to. You see only the action with your intentions placed upon it, because you do not know what love is. You hate God, and thus hate all mankind. You seek to let men die in sloth, to let men empty their souls in self-worship, to let men burn away in lust and its death - you seek to raise the heart of man as a law unto itself, not knowing that you, as every other man, is evil in his heart and knows only how to hate. You trap men with your teaching and they are swallowed by death, all who listen as if you are wise. You, like all our kind, are naught but evil and proud in your heart until the Father breaks it to humble us and bring us to Him; and He then brings new life by a new heart; one of flesh to replace that of stone. Without that breath of His life, you are dead, and all your words and all your thoughts are that of death; seeking to bring all to the grave with it so that all man may suffer in rebellion as you do. For you think that Law can break Law, not understanding it; with your ignorance you speak against it and confess against God those things you do not comprehend for in your heart you know only emptiness; for emptiness is that which thinks it is full, where fullness is that which knows it is empty.