The ancient polytheism believed that gods, citizens (free people), slaves or animals belong to absolute separate ontological layers. The concept of destiny was the center of ancient religions and philosophies social functions. The society was generally accepted as a discriminatory one. Running from destiny would be impossible even for gods. It was Sisif who tried something like this but he finally ended with a vulture that was systematically eaten his liver. Such a metaphor has the power to show what could happen to the slave if refuses the destiny of being slave. But since 2000 years ago something changed and slaves begun to kill theirselves starting with cultural figures like Jesus or Spartakus. This kind of behavior was not good for others business*. If the selfmurderers would be just 2 than everything would be fine, everything would stay in the limits of favorable statistics. But these two spread out unprofitable ideas among the slaves and soldiers also.
From this point on the ancient religions theory of destiny was replaced with the one of free will of Christianity. The Christian philosophers strongly argued against the destine theory but that does not mean that humanity escaped from the destiny. The main difference was that starting with the Christianity it was a sin to have slaves as the ancient mentality accepted it with no doubts. But the problem remained because the slaves work was still needed to build up the civilization. Anyway, though Christianity couldn’t totally give up the theory of destiny still it was a better offer for the ancient slave because of the chance given to the hazard, to the free will. It wasn’t much gain but it was more than nothing. If the ancient slave has got used (or not) with the idea that he will be no more than a slave till the end of time, on the contrary, the Christian slave has got used with the hope of liberation and salvation. At least the Christian slave was not killed anymore if refused to work and just let alone to pray in the church or monastery and in this way simply used to spread out “the teachings” like “give the Cesar what belongs to Cesar”.
Obviously, the liberation promise was not so clearly spoken; it was more a deception because deep into their mind the master knew that it was a lie. Here is the origin of the demagogical promises that politicians make today, first used by ancient Jews and then continued by the roman soldiers. When it comes to profit than the laws and the morality can be easily modified so they get closer to immorality and illegality. The slavery might be considered a sin by the new religion but with money the sins could be diminished in the eyes of the others. That is why in the civilized world the classical slavery should wait until the 19 century to be eradicated and punish by law. Almost 2 millenniums had passed since the Christianity made its promise of equality between people. This revolution didn’t happen because after 2 millenniums the Christianity remembered that made a promise to the humanity but because the industrial age came out and the machines could work more and more precise. The new technological frame could finally afford the expression and the practicing of human moral feelings. The “free” hungry for work and for more workers replaced the old chained slaves. Nevertheless the juridical liberation of slave was far from its psychological liberation. The “slave morale” continued to exist in the way they survived during the centuries: by obedience. It is sat to notice, but the most important change that civilization made as concerns the slave is that the masters understood that more profit is possible with more liberty to the slave, giving up death threatening and giving the illusion of equality of chances and nondiscrimination.
With Christianity the western culture regarding slave started an absurd, exhausting and deceiving way that can be easily reduce to : „Credo quia absurdum est”. (“I believe because it is absurd”) . Fortunately the humanism had enough power and the dignity to confront those lies used by authorities during centuries. The official ideology begun to fracture and fall down starting from the Hume’s doubts, crossing through the Kant crisis and reaching radical conclusions of Nietzsche finally demonstrated by Freud. The official ideology of state continued to fix over and over such lies and kept going on its isolated, deceiving and inhuman way. The deceiving theories of right, the bureaucracy prescriptions and political statements are still the fundament of contemporary state. I already analyzed some of these on this blog, there are other still to be analyzed.
The liberty of slaves increases during the history evolution the nondestine theories increased and became more powerful. The nowadays theoreticians, including the nowadays theoreticians of religions gives a small part in world for destine. The atheism rejected the theory of destine for good. But the theory of destine is saved paradoxically by the Christianity original ambivalence. The privileged social statute philosophy teachers from universities exchanged destine for chaos and free will theories. Those who still believe in the destine are the contemporary slaves that religion teaches as used to do for centuries.
* I know that religious people would reply that Jesus did not actually kill himself and they might be right from a religious point of view. But I also know that from a practical and political point of view the refusal of military master authority is equal with suicidal action. The choice of being killed by beasts inside of arenas instead of refusal the denying one’s belief still is also a suicidal act. Because if someone gets in the lion cage knowing that there is a lion and after that is killed by it than this is not an accident anymore, but a premeditate act of suicide. The system adapted to such theories and the suicide started to be perceived as one of the greatest sins, but this is another story that I would analyze in the next entries.
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