Comment by jbuzbee

I often wondered how slave holders justified their actions. And along those lines, I recall a lecture on Roman slavery. It made the point that it was standard-practice in Roman and other ancient cultures to raid other groups, kill everyone and take their possessions: livestock, food, valuables, etc. That was the way of the world that everyone knew. In the Roman mind, when the raiding party decided to let some people live and sell them into slavery, they were doing the captives a favor. They were saved from death. And from then on the slaves were more-or-less the walking dead with no rights and owing their "masters" everything. They were only alive because of the grace of the invaders. The lecture also noted that there was no writing from Roman times that questioned the morality of slavery. No one thought it was wrong. There are extensive writings from literate slaves themselves, and even these writings fail to question the morality of slavery. And speaking of writing, the Bible was written in a time when slavery was common practice. I don't recall Jesus preaching against slavery or the 10 Commandments coming out against it either.