Without targeting any specific religion, denomination, etc., there are several popular "movements", for lack of a better word, in the US whose ideologies are based primarily in religious doctrines, and which I view as detrimental to our culture, and I will explain why.
(a) The "teach the controversy" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and its actual and possible benefits to society.
(b) The "protect marriage" movement. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
(c) The "pro-life" movement. This actively seeks to place medical decisions under state control.
(d) The "climate change denial" movement. This introduces popular confusion into the issue of climate change, which has potentially catastrophic consequence for the habitability of the entire planet.
On the other hand...charity. And in many cases, indispensable charity.
So, my question is, is religion in general a net benefit or a net detriment to western society?
I'm honestly just curious what gamers think about this stuff. It's a touchy subject with a couple good friends, so I don't really get a chance to talk about it.
If it's too touchy a topic for here, don't mind if its deleted or shut down.
So, do you expect people from both side of the argument to argue peacefully while not getting angry at repeating all the arguments that have already been said in the similar threads that were closed here?
I would take bet on it being closed at about 5 pages. Let us see.
jasper76 wrote: On the other hand...charity. And in many cases, indispensable charity.
Charity can be done without religion. In fact it would probably be better without religion, since charity money wouldn't be wasted on things like giving bibles to poor countries instead of food or building a nicer church building. The reputation for religion being amazing at charity is vastly inflated by the fact that money a church spends on itself still somehow counts as "charity".
So, my question is, is religion in general a net benefit or a net detriment to western society?
Net detriment, obviously. Aside from the issues you've mentioned (which are absolutely correct) there's the problem that it's simply not true. It's like asking whether a belief in flat earth theory or 1+1=3 is a net benefit or a net detriment, even if it doesn't have any other consequences it's still bad to believe something that isn't true.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: So, do you expect people from both side of the argument to argue peacefully while not getting angry at repeating all the arguments that have already been said in the similar threads that were closed here?
I would take bet on it being closed at about 5 pages. Let us see.
If your mission was to make me feel silly and embarrassed by posting thistthread... Mission Accomplished
jasper76 wrote: If your mission was to make me feel silly and embarrassed by posting thistthread... Mission Accomplished
Sorry, I did not meant to be rude or aggressive. But yeah, religion is an obviously quite divisive and touchy subject, and when it is brought in such a way, I cannot imagine it going well.
Religion is neither good nor bad. It depends entirely on how each individual chooses to express their beliefs, much like many traditional institutions in the Western world.
Peregrine wrote: Charity can be done without religion. In fact it would probably be better without religion, since charity money wouldn't be wasted on things like giving bibles to poor countries instead of food or building a nicer church building. The reputation for religion being amazing at charity is vastly inflated by the fact that money a church spends on itself still somehow counts as "charity".
I don't disagree that indoctrination is not charity, but in the here and now, in alot of (most?) places, the bulk of actual charity work ( food, clothing, medical, and shelter programs) are run by religious charities...sometimes in partnership with business and government...but spearheaded by religious groups. And there are religious hospitals that are often the best or only game in town.
I'm wondering more about the actual, than the hypothetical.
jasper76 wrote: If your mission was to make me feel silly and embarrassed by posting thistthread... Mission Accomplished
Sorry, I did not meant to be rude or aggressive. But yeah, religion is an obviously quite divisive and touchy subject, and when it is brought in such a way, I cannot imagine it going well.
I was really just trying to state my main criticisms against religion, rather than come off as a jerk. So sorry if I came off as a jerk.
I honestly don't think that religion in and of itself is necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of fairly rational and religious people who see science as a way to gain a better understanding of how their creator works, etc.
I DO have a problem with that overly vocal segment of the religious sector that seems hellbent on forcing my kids to learn ideas that have been proven time and again to be false (or at least happen in a manner other than what religion teaches).
I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I had read an article recently that did a survey of charity, and here's kind of how things broke down:
Government workers (in the US) are fething Scrooge McDuck when it comes to giving money.
Religious people and religious groups give a good amount.
Atheists/atheist groups (or at least groups who are not founded around a religious ideal) give around double what the religious give per year.
Zond wrote: Religion is neither good nor bad. It depends entirely on how each individual chooses to express their beliefs, much like many traditional institutions in the Western world.
I don't disagree necessarily. But we can have an intelligent conversation about whether as an institution (vs individuals), religion is a net benefit for society, just like we could have a conversation about whether centralized banking is beneficial to society, without talking about individual bankers.
Is it good? Well it serves a purpose, it's really up to the individual to decide. For the standard individual, it gives some purpose to life. It gives an answer even if it might or might not be true.
(a) The "teach the controversy" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and its actual and possible benefits to society.
(b) The "protect marriage" movement. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
(c) The "pro-life" movement. This actively seeks to place medical decisions under state control.
(d) The "climate change denial" movement. This introduces popular confusion into the issue of climate change, which has potentially catastrophic consequence for the habitability of the entire planet.
These are negative effects. That said, there are good acts such as charity that does very much so occur. And yeah, there will be the wasteful ones like here's some bibles indoctrination fill your spirits but there is also worthwhile charity events.
So overall? It's good as long as it isn't taken to the extreme (a vocal minority that is absolutely bonkers) as well as flaws in keeping some outdated morals that don't fit in whilst being relentlessly held onto. The question becomes, how do we judge pros and cons? What does each of these cost and how much does the charitable events and giving an "answer" help? Does it make a significant change? Does it not?
Some religions will promote good things, some will promote bad things, some both.
Some people will use religion to motivate themselves to do good things, some people will use religion to motivate themselves to do bad things, some both.
Some people will do good things without religion, some people will do bad things without religion, some both.
Ultimately the value or religion as an institution is the same as a banking institution, or a government institution. It depends. Sure, there are some things that are inexcusable and others that are a great benefit to society, but ultimately, of the myriad of religions prevalent in civilization, each one espouses individual choice. It's the fundamental background of many of the institutions you wish to talk about. I think it misses the point slightly to discuss the overall "worth" of a religion without taking this factor into account.
StarTrotter wrote: Is it good? Well it serves a purpose, it's really up to the individual to decide. For the standard individual, it gives some purpose to life. It gives an answer even if it might or might not be true.
(a) The "teach the controversy" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and its actual and possible benefits to society.
(b) The "protect marriage" movement. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
(c) The "pro-life" movement. This actively seeks to place medical decisions under state control.
(d) The "climate change denial" movement. This introduces popular confusion into the issue of climate change, which has potentially catastrophic consequence for the habitability of the entire planet.
The question becomes, how do we judge pros and cons? What does each of these cost and how much does the charitable events and giving an "answer" help? Does it make a significant change? Does it not?
These things would be difficult to judge, two of them are issues about civic rights.
The teach the controversy issue could be measured in pure dollars. Like, how much money are we losing because our kids don't know biology. I think our medical/pharmaceutical industry suffers, because there's less of a talent pool, and that could be measured in dollars and lives.
Climate Change can be measured in dollars. The bill is already running.
Charitable work is probably best measured by lives saved, though how you would know you'd saved a life or not would be beyond me. It can be measured in dollars though.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Zond wrote: It's the fundamental background of many of the institutions you wish to talk about.
While that conversation does interest me, I said expressly in the OP that I did not want to talk about that here....to keep things civil
jasper76 wrote: I don't disagree that indoctrination is not charity, but in the here and now, in alot of (most?) places, the bulk of actual charity work ( food, clothing, medical, and shelter programs) are run by religious charities...sometimes in partnership with business and government...but spearheaded by religious groups. And there are religious hospitals that are often the best or only game in town.
Yes, but the point is those things would still happen without religion. If you want to know the net value of religion's contribution to the world you have to consider how much, if at all, religion has improved that charitable work over what would exist without religion. And the answer seems to be somewhere between "not much of an improvement" and "a net loss in charitable work". Religion is happy to fill those roles in areas where religion is powerful, but all it really does is put a Jesus label on things that any secular charity could do. And on the negative side there's the huge amount of wasted money thanks to religion treating "give money to the church" as charitable donations, meaning that a person's feeling of obligation to give $X to charity is partially fulfilled by things that aren't actually charity. In a world without religion that wouldn't happen, and the full $X would go to legitimate charity work.
I'm wondering more about the actual, than the hypothetical.
But you can't answer your question without considering the hypothetical. To answer whether something is a net positive or negative you have to know what the reference point is. And that means considering a hypothetical world without religion and looking at the ways in which our actual world is different from the hypothetical one.
How do we talk about the effects of religion on western civilization without referring to the 800lb. gorilla? Either we are going to talk about it or we aren't, I would think.
Charitable work is probably best measured by lives saved
Which secular charities would be by far the most successful at. There isn't really a religious charity that can compare to the scope of MSF or the Red Cross.
Q: do churches (and charity advertising in general) actually increase the amount of money people donate to charity, or do they just change who it's donated to? I'm sure I remember reading the answer somewhere but don't recall what it was. I think it was the latter.
One interesting aspect that isn't religion exactly is the community aspect of religious groups. People can get together and make friends and do things together in the local community. Of course, there are non-religious community groups that can do that too, but I don't know how common those are compared to ones based on a common religion. (Though I guess that brings up the same question as the donations - do religious groups actually increase the participation rate or are they actually taking away participants from non-religious groups?)
How do we talk about the effects of religion on western civilization without referring to the 800lb. gorilla? Either we are going to talk about it or we aren't, I would think.
Right. But the point is, we all know there is a wide rainbow swath of forms of Christianity out there. From literally not believing in any of it, but doing it for the rituals or communal environment, to lock-your-kids in the basement and staple their eyes shut.
Many Christians believe in evolution, climate change science, equal rights, and reproductive freedom. I'm not willing to paint Christians as a whole with the same brush.
Religion is about as good for Western Civilization as nationalism is, or any other ideology that encourages group think. The inevitable result is that someone is going to eventually figure out how to use it to control people and get them to do what they want them to do.
"Religion" like most dogmas is fine; Human beings just aren't mature enough to utilize it properly. We will take any excuse we can and use it to paint others as different and inferior to ourselves.
Not really, they can have it if they want though just keep it the hell away from important decision making stuff that should really be done without some religious beliefs being pelted at it.
Its simple really. Like everything, some good some bad.
The Great Wienie cares not, for at the end of days, Wienerdamerung will come, when Cthulu awakens, when the Great Pasta Being arises, and the dachshund legions will lead the epic war against the Squirrel King and Cat Queen, and free us all for a thousand years of peace.
As an Atheist, I view religion in one light only. It is most certainly good, when used in moderation.
Any religion taken to it's extremes is bad, no matter the local. When practiced in a moderate manner, with intent to provide respect to your fellow man, then there is nothing wrong with it, and in my opinion can be a great thing.
I think I will slightly revise my statement, as I've done a bit more thinking on the subject....
Throughout the Middle Ages, and on up through to the early-mid 20th century, Religion had the benefit of bringing and binding society together... If it weren't for many religious holidays, most farmers, ranchers or people in general would have no reason to gather and enjoy human company (which also has the added affect of allowing people to meet, fall in love... marry and create offspring to continue the cycle in a few years)
Now in the 20th century, I think that religion has largely lost that particular "power" as we've seen the rise of professional sports, secular holidays (independence days, veterans and memorial days, labor days, etc).
So, like many things throughout history, I think that this aspect of our society may be seeing signs that we're "outgrowing" the need for religion. The problem with that of course, is that religious bodies don't want to disappear completely, and have jumped more and more into areas where they shouldn't be (the classroom, politics, etc)
Ninjacommando wrote: Religion is a Tool, and just like any tool it depends on who wields it.
So, believing in, uh, a bunch of supernatural stuff is a tool? No. A hammer is a tool. A scientific theory is a tool. A religion will be a tool the day we will be able to make stuff work out of “the power of prayer” or some gak like that. [edit]Or, if you do not believe in it, you can use it as a tool to influence and control others, yes. I am pretty sure that is not a good thing.[/edit]
Ninjacommando wrote: Religion is a Tool, and just like any tool it depends on who wields it.
So, believing in, uh, a bunch of supernatural stuff is a tool? No. A hammer is a tool. A scientific theory is a tool. A religion will be a tool the day we will be able to make stuff work out of “the power of prayer” or some gak like that.
[edit]Or, if you do not believe in it, you can use it as a tool to influence and control others, yes. I am pretty sure that is not a good thing.[/edit]
Is it wrong if I can't help but find this statement very entertaining from an icon that is a SoB?
Ninjacommando wrote: Religion is a Tool, and just like any tool it depends on who wields it.
So, believing in, uh, a bunch of supernatural stuff is a tool? No. A hammer is a tool. A scientific theory is a tool. A religion will be a tool the day we will be able to make stuff work out of “the power of prayer” or some gak like that.
[edit]Or, if you do not believe in it, you can use it as a tool to influence and control others, yes. I am pretty sure that is not a good thing.[/edit]
....
Tool: Noun
Definition 2c: a means to an end
Merriam-Webster,
Now is this good or bad? It depends on the Ends the people who are in control desire.
Kilkrazy wrote: The small bit of western civilisation that resides outside the USA does not have the problems to which you alluded, yet we have plenty of religion.
Or at the very least, the movements are still there, but are quite definitely in the minority of the population as a whole. I certainly wasn't aware that denial of global warming was propagated by religion, anyone I've met who denies it has used any excuse possible to justify their claims.
Anyway, I think religion is neither good nor bad. The effects on society depend on those who use it.
Without targeting any specific race, ethnicity, etc., there are several popular "movements", for lack of a better word, in the US whose ideologies are based primarily in skin color, and which I view as detrimental to our culture, and I will explain why.
The "white power" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and history, and its actual and possible benefits to society. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
On the other hand... I'm white and I have black friends. And in many cases, indispensable black friends.
So, my question is, are white people in general a net benefit or a net detriment to western society?
Not insulting you so much as making a point. These 'fill in the blanks' questions are ultimately pointless. You can replace 'religion' with any number of things, and get a rather similar result out of it. Is it 'good' is a fruitless endeavor. You're really only affirming your own opinion or drawing opposition into a circular argument where all that's going to happen is lots of silly arguments and nonsense. EDIT: What I'm saying is that your premise is so broad, there's not really any discussion to be had, especially when the premise itself is loaded.
Ninjacommando wrote: Religion is a Tool, and just like any tool it depends on who wields it.
In the hands of the right people it can do a lot of good and help a lot of people.
In the hands of wrong people it can cause violence (Which it does while in "their" hands)
This is pretty accurate.
The church, despite a belief that it is violent, tends to cause the softening of a country. This can be seen in the Roman Empire where the country went very well and started to crumble only when christianity became widespread.
Something similar can be seen in america, and in many colonist states of europe. There's a call to support those who were under rule and are less fortunate or simply don't have the same tools as we do (hence the west's involvement in africa and southern asia).
It is worth noting that every atheist who draws on a western moral code is drawing on a christian moral code. Indians, Chinese, and even less-anglicised people like russians and turks thing very, very differently to us. As much as we may like to think we've evolved past the need for religion, religion will always be core to our morals.
Whether that means we need our morals in a book of anecdotes or not? That's another story. Western religion as a whole has been beneficial in developing a western identity, no matter what Richard Dawkins wants you to believe.
For those who wish to note, I cite myself as being irreligious; I don't believe in a god, but I refuse to associate with any group that is so outspoken in their hatred for another group - hence I do not identify as either 'christian' the larger group, or 'atheist' whatsoever.
It strikes me that one of the prerequisits to being an atheist is to be adamantly set on disturbing other people's beliefs, and that's just not right for anyone to do.
Church is bad. People corrupt something that used to be good. Ihaven't met a single "religious" person that wasn't a worthless person that would have been better off growing up without it.
yellowfever wrote: Church is bad. People corrupt something that used to be good. Ihaven't met a single "religious" person that wasn't a worthless person that would have been better off growing up without it.
Replace the word religious with the word black and you have racism, this is no different as a sweeping generalisation that is completely uncalled for.
yellowfever wrote: Church is bad. People corrupt something that used to be good. Ihaven't met a single "religious" person that wasn't a worthless person that would have been better off growing up without it.
*Slow hand claps*
I don't much like religion but our two best friends are regular church attendees and are the nicest, warmest, helpful and caring people you could wish to meet. Obviously - the rest are scum - but, you know........
Personally I think the whole 'centuries of scientific stagnation' thing skews the case heavily against religion, we could be zipping about on jetbikes by now if it wasn't for those meddling priests.
dæl wrote: Personally I think the whole 'centuries of scientific stagnation' thing skews the case heavily against religion
But what of all the scientific discoveries and promulgation by those who were religious?
It could be argued that someone else would have discovered them, much like the whole calculus being discovered in two places at once, once an ideas time has come then it will be discovered. Or, it could be argued that those people would have discovered such things without their religion, a religious nature isn't really needed for the hard sciences, I can understand it would influence someone's philosophical work, but their work in physics or chemistry should remain unaffected.
dæl wrote: It could be argued that someone else would have discovered them, much like the whole calculus being discovered in two places at once, once an ideas time has come then it will be discovered. Or, it could be argued that those people would have discovered such things without their religion, a religious nature isn't really needed for the hard sciences, I can understand it would influence someone's philosophical work, but their work in physics or chemistry should remain unaffected.
So we'll blame religious people for holding science back but not give religious people that advanced science any credit. Seems reasonable.
dæl wrote: It could be argued that someone else would have discovered them, much like the whole calculus being discovered in two places at once, once an ideas time has come then it will be discovered. Or, it could be argued that those people would have discovered such things without their religion, a religious nature isn't really needed for the hard sciences, I can understand it would influence someone's philosophical work, but their work in physics or chemistry should remain unaffected.
So we'll blame religious people for holding science back but not give religious people that advanced science any credit. Seems reasonable.
Not at all, Columbus found America, therefore he deservedly gets credit for doing so, but if he hadn't found it then somebody else would have. Anybody who made a scientific discovery deserves credit for doing so. But it is very telling that so many discoveries were made during the Enlightenment, once rationalism was embraced.
I am a peaceful Dudeist and a follower of the church of the flying spaghetti monster, and if you don't agree with me, i have to torture and kill you, but you soul will float to heaven to eat meatballs and go bowling.
I don't really get the question, to be honest. Religion is just a thing humans do, it's innate to much (most) of the population.
So what is 'good'? Good is people doing what they want with their own lives. If someone wants to get up early on Sunday and sit on a wooden bench thinking about life, morality and whether or not he can really justify buying one of the brownies in the cake sale afterwards, well there doesn't need to be any more good or purpose to the act other than that's what that purpose wants to do.
Now, we can debate whether individual parts of religion have had an impact on society. Obviously the anti-scientific bent running through a lot of religion right now is a negative, but when you consider it isn't across all religious people, that science and religion have gone hand in hand for much of history, and that there's plenty of anti-scientific thought in the rest of the community, I don't really see the point in trying to weight that up against the whole of religion.
Seems all that would do is isolate Christians who don't like the anti-scientific part of their faith, but who would be compelled to defend Christianity as a whole once you start making it an attack on the value of the organisation as a whole, make an enemy out of someone who really is on your side for everything that matters (unless what matters is bashing religion).
Not at all, Columbus found America, therefore he deservedly gets credit for doing so, but if he hadn't found it then somebody else would have. Anybody who made a scientific discovery deserves credit for doing so. But it is very telling that so many discoveries were made during the Enlightenment, once rationalism was embraced.
This in and of itself is not a valid answer to the question proposed.
Many of the founding beliefs within logic, many of the terms we use today and yes, that term you just used - rationalism (which I might add is at odds with the scientific method in some ways, since the former uses reason over empirical evidence, and vice versa) come from religious entities.
Religion in itself is an extremely worthwhile thing to have as it provides support, help and other services to those that need it - and this is valid for all religions, be it Christianity, Neo-Pagans or others.
Such as every single other institution, it can be abused and not fulfill its intended purpose. That is not religion's problem, however, the problem is the people behind it.
It's a good thing to have for a lot of people and it's responsible for a lot of positive modern values we have nowadays.
If it makes people happy and they're not hurting anyone with it they should be free to worship whatever they wish. I personally don't count myself as a believer as I don't see any convincing evidence for the supernatural or believe that any conception of it that humanity has produced would be at all accurate, but it's generally harmless enough.
What I am against however, is fanatacism. Be it militant atheism or fundamentalist religions. If people are killing and dying for it that's generally not a good thing.
No, it's not. Science has provided answers for almost all the eternal questions that humans have pondered and assumed were divine design for thousands of years. I'll give organized religion another two centuries, maximum, before it falls out of practice and is replaced with technoworship or some other modern form of faith that revolves around ideas that don't originate in the fertile crescent three thousand years ago.
Captain Fantastic wrote: No, it's not. Science has provided answers for almost all the eternal questions that humans have pondered and assumed were divine design for thousands of years. I'll give organized religion another two centuries, maximum, before it falls out of practice and is replaced with technoworship or some other modern form of faith that revolves around ideas that don't originate in the fertile crescent three thousand years ago.
Wrong. Science can only describe but can't answer the "why" question. The answers to the latter cannot be given by science and therefore remain unanswered still.
I think religion, on the whole and at its core, is a good thing. Not because of any great change it can bring to the world, or anything like that, but simply because the core values of most religions teach people to be Decent People.
I'm not a follower of any religion myself, but I still hold by the belief that the moral codes found in religion that generally teach you how to be a good person will result in life being better, both for the religious themselves and those they come into contact with. The kindest, most generous and supportive people I've known have been religious, and I don't think that's coincidence. Regardless of the merits of the belief system itself, when the end result is more good people in the world, that can't be a bad thing.
There's also the other benefits- organised religion often leads to organised charity on a local or larger level, it brings people together, and contributes to society. So yes, it is a good thing.
Not at all, Columbus found America, therefore he deservedly gets credit for doing so, but if he hadn't found it then somebody else would have. Anybody who made a scientific discovery deserves credit for doing so. But it is very telling that so many discoveries were made during the Enlightenment, once rationalism was embraced.
This in and of itself is not a valid answer to the question proposed.
Many of the founding beliefs within logic, many of the terms we use today and yes, that term you just used - rationalism (which I might add is at odds with the scientific method in some ways, since the former uses reason over empirical evidence, and vice versa) come from religious entities.
There wasn't a question posed.
So we'll blame religious people for holding science back but not give religious people that advanced science any credit. Seems reasonable.
My response is perfectly apt, those who discover things deserve credit, but had they not, someone else would have. Also, religion had little influence on the hard sciences, which flourished as the Church's hold on society weakened.
The founding beliefs of logic stem from Athens which, like many Greek things, Christianity took for itself. Logic has as little to do with the Abrahamic religions as it does to the Greek pantheon. Could you please explain how rationalism comes from religious entities? I fail to see how burning astronomers is particularly rational.
jasper76 wrote: Without targeting any specific religion, denomination, etc., there are several popular "movements", for lack of a better word, in the US whose ideologies are based primarily in religious doctrines, and which I view as detrimental to our culture, and I will explain why.
(a) The "teach the controversy" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and its actual and possible benefits to society.
(b) The "protect marriage" movement. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
(c) The "pro-life" movement. This actively seeks to place medical decisions under state control.
(d) The "climate change denial" movement. This introduces popular confusion into the issue of climate change, which has potentially catastrophic consequence for the habitability of the entire planet.
On the other hand...charity. And in many cases, indispensable charity.
So, my question is, is religion in general a net benefit or a net detriment to western society?
I think it is within reason. It guides moral, philosophical and ethical debates as well as challenging secularism/humanism.
Group a) are nutters, however though they might have some legitimate and genuine questions these tend to get diluted out by the sheer nuttiness
b) it depends how you define marraige etc and considering that marriage has been a largely societal concept it is more of a social issue than a religous one. Especially considering that there's bigger things to worry about than if god likes gays or not.
c) I disagree, protecting the unborn is something all states should do.
d) that global warming brigade has lost a lot of credibility so again I don't blame them.
You seem to be describing the popularist view of 'liberal, left wing anti-conservative-christians/muslim' which is a bit of a boring cliche to be honest. The thing that bugs me is the supposed fixation on gays and pro-life etc while ignoring the murder rape and pillage going on elsewhere ,the appealing human rights issues in North Korea or China for example.
If religion is the stick to keep people from going off the rails, that's a good thing.
Aesop's Fables offer a lot of the lessons found in parables and other religious teachings, but they're not religious themselves.
But, if religion used as a means to a personal end, it's lost its usefulness.
Not that fanatics and conmen need religion, they just get to use it as an excuse for their actions.
@Soteks Prophet: If these issues are a boring cliche, that's fine. They are the most negative impacts of religion on US society, IMO. The reason they may be boring is because they are brought up frequently because they affect people's lives negatively, and they just won't go away.
Noone's ignoring human rights issues in NK or China. However, these aren't caused by religion (perhaps North Korea), and there is wide agreement by the religious and non-religious that humans rights abuses are bad (except in the case of unequal right for gays and the desire to eliminate reproductive freedom for women)
StarTrotter wrote: Is it wrong if I can't help but find this statement very entertaining from an icon that is a SoB?
Well, if I liked religion, would I be so happy to play a faction that define being religious by hating and killing with extreme prejudice and tons of xenophobia?
See, it all makes sense actually .
Kilkrazy wrote: The small bit of western civilisation that resides outside the USA does not have the problems to which you alluded, yet we have plenty of religion.
Disagree. The creationists and climate change deniers may be typical of the U.S., but damn, even in France, which is one of the most secular countries in the world AFAIK, we got religious people very upset against gay marriage. And some are against abortion too, even though this phenomenon is to a way lesser degree than the anti-gay marriage stuff.
Scipio Africanus wrote: The church, despite a belief that it is violent, tends to cause the softening of a country. This can be seen in the Roman Empire where the country went very well and started to crumble only when christianity became widespread.
Something similar can be seen in america, and in many colonist states of europe.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
I mean, I certainly know from the history of my country that increase in trust in the Church did not lead to “softening” and increase of secularization did not lead to “hardening”. It is actually very much the other way around.
Personally I'm atheist, mainly because I find it incredibly hard to reconcile religion with reality, but I always sum up 'is religion good?' into a single comparison.
Religion is like the internet, it's not inherently good or bad, and generally most of the people involved are nice.
However, it's the small number of total frellin' morons who shout really really loudly all the time that ruin it for the rest of us...
Captain Fantastic wrote: No, it's not. Science has provided answers for almost all the eternal questions that humans have pondered and assumed were divine design for thousands of years. I'll give organized religion another two centuries, maximum, before it falls out of practice and is replaced with technoworship or some other modern form of faith that revolves around ideas that don't originate in the fertile crescent three thousand years ago.
Wrong. Science can only describe but can't answer the "why" question. The answers to the latter cannot be given by science and therefore remain unanswered still.
That doesn't mean that certain current religions can't be supplanted by a different worship or religion in the future.
Leigen_Zero wrote: Personally I'm atheist, mainly because I find it incredibly hard to reconcile religion with reality, but I always sum up 'is religion good?' into a single comparison.
Religion is like the internet, it's not inherently good or bad, and generally most of the people involved are nice.
However, it's the small number of total frellin' morons who shout really really loudly all the time that ruin it for the rest of us...
You know, that is a remarkably apt assessment. Exalt from a Catholic turned Baptist turned witch!
yellowfever wrote: Church is bad. People corrupt something that used to be good. Ihaven't met a single "religious" person that wasn't a worthless person that would have been better off growing up without it.
Replace the word religious with the word black and you have racism, this is no different as a sweeping generalisation that is completely uncalled for.
However, replace religion with "vegetables" and you have a great truth...
Scipio Africanus wrote: Many of the founding beliefs within logic, many of the terms we use today and yes, that term you just used - rationalism (which I might add is at odds with the scientific method in some ways, since the former uses reason over empirical evidence, and vice versa) come from religious entities.
In order to dedicate the time and resources to dealing with abstract (or even practical) issues one must have that time and resources to dedicate towards it. For many hundreds of years that could only really come from religious bodies, as they were the only ones sitting around all day not doing anything useful and taking everyone elses money and goods in order to do it.
It is no wonder that many of the early discoveries were made by priests - the, for the time, best educated, time and resource rich people in the world, many of who were curious about what they saw as (the) gods works and how (t)he(y) went about them.
You have to also remember that a lot of "scientific" thought of the time was not only wrong but horrifically so, even dangerously so. Medieval views on childbirth for example...
Captain Fantastic wrote: No, it's not. Science has provided answers for almost all the eternal questions that humans have pondered and assumed were divine design for thousands of years. I'll give organized religion another two centuries, maximum, before it falls out of practice and is replaced with technoworship or some other modern form of faith that revolves around ideas that don't originate in the fertile crescent three thousand years ago.
Wrong. Science can only describe but can't answer the "why" question. The answers to the latter cannot be given by science and therefore remain unanswered still.
Nitpick: "Why" is the realm of philosophy as a whole, not just religion.
To have something that requires you to accept things and not think in a critical way opens the door for all manner of abuses. Faith is endearing but it gives people the thought of "higher purpose" allowing their wishes to be better than someone else's.
Pretty much anything is toxic if taken too far.
I like this thought:
I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Not at all, Columbus found America, therefore he deservedly gets credit for doing so, but if he hadn't found it then somebody else would have. Anybody who made a scientific discovery deserves credit for doing so. But it is very telling that so many discoveries were made during the Enlightenment, once rationalism was embraced.
That's because the only thing Columbus did find, was a "Commercially viable" route to the western continents of America. Vikings were actually, with archaeological evidence, the first Europeans to live on an American continent.... But we'll go on with a pointless, ridiculous holiday of "Columbus Day"
The church, despite a belief that it is violent, tends to cause the softening of a country. This can be seen in the Roman Empire where the country went very well and started to crumble only when christianity became widespread.
To blame the fall of the Roman Empire solely on christianity is quite a bit naive, to say the least. And anyhow, we see later, in the 900s-1300s or so, that Christianity can be and is, just as "hard" as any other military force previously seen.
B and C are not exclusively religious positions. I know many 'Pro-Life' atheists and people who oppose gay marriage on both financial sides and people who think the government should have nothing to do with marriage and should abolish joint filing (and other crazy positions like flat tax and stuff)
D, I can't even see a religious angle... Climate change debate is straight up an economic force by industry who makes money and cleaning up pollution loses them money. This is the Leaded Gas debate all over.
Blaming Religion for all that is wrong in the world is the new 'cool thing to do'. And while private charities may be all the rage... that is based on the assumption that people are naturally charitable without skygrandpa looking down on them while stroking his white beard. The sad truth is while you supposedly *COULD* have private charities which rely on non-religious donations... they simply don't materialize.
As someone who works at soup kitchens and food programs, none of them are private. All are religious, Civic, or a combination of both. And guess what? People *HATE* the concept of Civic social programs because they see it as taxes being spent on pork. The response is "ok... then let charities fill in the blanks!" and the response is "Cool... but let someone else donate."
I will gladly accept religion simply for the power to make humans which are naturally bitter and selfish to spend money on others in the form of charity. If it takes fear of afterlife, or thunder bolts or galactic overlords to make people donate time or money, so be it.
dæl wrote: Personally I think the whole 'centuries of scientific stagnation' thing skews the case heavily against religion, we could be zipping about on jetbikes by now if it wasn't for those meddling priests.
Daniel Jackson was awesome, but he sucked at history. The idea that the dark ages were a terrible era of cultural and social backwardsness is a myth produced by the idea that the dark ages were actually a thing. Scientific progress at most slowed in Western Europe, but it didn't never stagnated. Add on to that any slow in progress is more attributable to the economic struggles of post Rome Europe than any religious motivations.
I'm going to tell a little long winded tale, so skip the rest of this post if you're not interested.
Spoiler:
In 1616, an Inquisitorial Commission was called to investigate charges of heresy against a man named Galileo Galilei. Galileo was the then leading man arguing for the Copernican model of the Heliocentric universe. Galileo's work was declared a heresy and he was ordered never to speak of it again. This is the story people often cite when advancing the idea that the Church was always anti-science, and that scientists had to fight tooth and nail to get anything done.
Expect that's complete crap (and bad history).
Galileo was a minority in his time. Most astronomers did not believe in the Heliocentric universe and considered Copernicus a crazy old cod, and Galileo an idiot for listening to him. Galileo argued for years with fellow scientists over the issue to no avail. They called him a quack, attacked his math, his personal interests, and being a bunch of Christians, cited Biblical passages that they argued proved the sun rotated around the Earth (These passages are Pslams chapters 93, 96, and 104).
Galileo attempted to counter the claims that the Copernican model was heresy (cause he wasn't an idiot and knew that being called a heretic was not something you really wanted to have happen to you in 17th century Italy). He argued from Augustinian theology, cause surprise, intellectuals in this time and era were usually very well versed in Christian theological concepts. He argued that the Bible was not speaking literally, and shouldn't be taken as such. Galileo won many members of the clergy and nobility with his argument.
At a diner party in 1613, one of his students Abbot Benedetto Castelli wrote his mentor to inform him of an event. To make it shorter, at the party Benedetto debated the Copernican model with a philosopher named Cosimo Boscaglia. After the diner, he was recalled by a woman named Christina, the Duchess of Lorraine to answer questions about the Copernican model. Benedetto managed to convince everyone in the room (including clergy) that the Copernican model was not against scripture save Christina.
In response Galileo wrote to her in 1615. In the letter he put forth a theological argument, because Galileo was a Christian. He didn't disagree with the Bible, he was annoyed at how everyone was taking it so literally (personally I can relate). Unfortunately, this was a very bad idea. Galileo and Benedetto were under the mistaken impression that Christina was curious. She was not. She in fact thought they were both heretics. Mistaking her for having been won over to his side, Galileo pushed the later.
When the letter began to be circulated in an expanded format as a pamphlet later that year it crossed the path of Tommaso Caccini, a friar and a Dominican. He brought it to the attention of his order who believed that the letter contained passages that violated the Council of Trent. Here's the thing about the Dominicans. They were among the most conservative of the Christian orders. Always had been. The Church as a whole body did not call the Inquisition on Galileo. The Dominicans did.
The Dominicans forwarded Galileos letter along with a cover letter of their own accusing him and his followers of all kinds of things (most of the charges they leveled against him were false). Galileo heard about this pretty fast and was rightly worried but he was in poor health and could not travel. This meant that in Rome he was being accused of a lot of things, and had few supporters in the Vatican itself to defend him (really, many of them only knew of Galileo in passing, and the Dominican charges were the first time Galileo was really coming to their attention). By the time Galileo could finally go to Rome, against the advice of everyone because it was a really bad idea, the Domincans had a new ally in casting their aspersions; The astronomy community. Yeah. Galileo was being condemned by other scientists in front of the Inquisition.
Galileo did not fully realize however he had a powerful ally. Robert Bellarmine. A Jesuit and a Cardinal who was one of the most respected Theologians of his time. Bellarmine had previously spoken with Galileo, advising him to tread carefully with his arguments as they put him in a dangerous position (obviously Galileo didn't listen). Bellarmine did not discount the Copernican model. Rather he was open to it and curious, unlike Christina. He warned Galileo to be careful and build a powerful body of scientific proof before really pushing his theory and that he'd need to tread carefully when addressing scripture so as not to offend the Holy See. Bellarmine accurately described the issue of the Copernican model not as one strictly about the faith, but one that would become involved if Galileo was not careful. Obviously, Galileo didn't listen to Bellarmine. Nevertheless when the Inquisition began looking into Galileo, the Jesuits were the ones who moved to defend him, saying that the charges brought against him lacked evidence and overreached, accusing Galileo of things he had not expressly done (note here, that one Christian order brings Galileo to the attention of the Church, while another hoped to defend him).
When the Galileo arrived in Rome, Bellarmine was chosen to arbitrate the dispute. The events from here get a little muddled as some unusual things happened. The Inquisition was quick to forward the case to a group of theologians called 'Qualifiers.' There were men who were presented with Galileo's work and asked to examine it. The problem? Half the Qualifiers were Dominicans (no one had really caught onto conflict of interest as a concept just yet). The Qualifiers response resulted in the Inquisition declaring Heliocentrism heresy. Galileo was ordered Bellarmine to deliver the verdict, and shocked everyone when his verdict was even harsher than the one the Inquisition called for. On its face.
See, Bellarmine was a crafty guy. At this point, there was no way to save the Copernican model. It was quickly declared false and Copernicus' work was banned when a body of Astronomers (yes scientists, again) sent a formal request that the Church do so. However, Bellarmine was able to save Galileo from punishment. Galileo was ordered to cease public teaching and discussion of Copernicus' theories, but note that he was ordered to cease public discussion. Further, Bellarmine's wording of the ruling was such that the only thing Galileo couldn't do was advocate the theory. He and others were still allowed to discuss it as a hypothetical (Galileo seemingly did not get this part). Bellarmine had craftily given Galileo a way out and a way to continue his work while throwing all attention away from him. After all, the theory was banned. In time everyone would just forget about him and he could find an opportunity to begin again. The Pope, Gregory XV, under Bellarmine's recommendation promised Galileo would not be harmed for supporting Copernicus' model prior to its ban.
Galileo pretty much disappeared for several years. He was never actually forced to recant or do penance, though his supporters made such claims (this was part of the ongoing propaganda war of the Reformation, which Galileo was being kind of sucked into but it never directly came to bite him). It all went to hell in 1623. Gregory died and was succeeded by Urban VIII. Galileo saw this as his chance. He knew Urban VIII. Born Mafio Barberini, both men came from the Florence area (Galileo was born in Pisa) and had studied together when they were younger. Galileo went to Rome personally to Congratulate his friend, and to get some help.
In 1632, with permission from the Inquisition and help from Urban VIII, Galileo was allowed to write about the Copernican model. He wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1633 in Florence. The book became a best seller. Though Astronomers at large still heavily opposed Galileo, he had since his first trial won over many others in private (thanks Bellarmine). Barbeni had supported Galileo during his trial, and though it was never openly discussed, Galileo took his friends election as an opportunity to publicly argue for the Copernican model with the hope that his friends in the church would support him against rival elements in the Churchs.
The book portrays a conversation between three men about the Copernical and Ptolemic models of the Universe. Now note, officially, the Copernican model was still banned. Galileo even had to change the original title (Dialogue on the Tides) and do some rewriting because of the today lesser known but equally big deal then Theory of Tides, which used the Copernican model as part of its proof and the Inquisition had again been used by Dominicans and scientists to silence the minority arguing in favor of the theory. Galileo was able to do this by presenting the book as an argument about science using the Copernican controversy as a model (this idea was proposed by a pupil who was also one of Urban's aids. Yes one of Galileo's pupils worked directly for the Pope).
Thus we come to the point where Galileo shoots himself in the foot. Urban was excited when Galileo presented his first draft. Like Bellarmine, he warned Galileo to be careful (the Pope naturally has to consider his own political position) and not to be too aggressive in his arguments. He also requested his own thoughts on the matter be included in the book, which Galileo agreed to do. Galileo seemingly, didn't think thought everything he was doing. In the book, a man named Simplicio argues for the Ptolemic model. In the book, Simplicio comes off as a complete idiot. Simplicio in Italian was a word for Simpleton. Galileo did not heed Urban's warning, and the book was very aggressively in favor of the Copernican model to the point that the Inquisition went to the Pope and said Galileo broke the rules, going from a mere hypothetical discussion to advocacy.
Unfortunately for Galileo, Urban's argument is presented by Simplicio (the guy who comes off as a simpleton in the book). Thusly insulted, Urban stopped supporting Galileo and set the dogs on him. As the knowledge of this insult spread through the Church body, Galileo lost his other long standing supporters, the Jesuits. Apparently, everyone in the Catholic church draws a line at insulting the Pope. This is the point where the Inquisition went torture and penance on him. He was called to Rome and charged with Heresy and this time no one stood up to help him. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest, though I note that much of that time was spent under the protection of an Archbishop who personally approached Galileo about his safety after the tiral and offered him protection in his own residence. Galileo continued to be a scientist and made notable contributions to physics.
Now the issue of Urban turning on Galileo is more complicated than the slight insult, but I think I've gone on long enough. The reason I've bored everyone with this long ass story is thus; This idea that the Church was anti-science is too simple a view of history. It's not accurate. Galileo wasn't even hit with a hammer for his science he was hit when everyone said he insulted the Pope. Further persecution directed at him didn't just come from the Church, it came from scientists who jumped at the chance to shut Galileo up (as a side matter, apparently he was kind of a dick) and these scientists and philosophers stood in the majority. Most of his support came from the nobility and from inside the Church itself.
Galileo's pupils had a lot more luck than him. Their greatest supporter? Pope Urban VIII, who crushed Galileo but continued to quietly back many of those who argued for the Heliocentric universe. Several other Popes would do the same until it was unbanned in the 19th century, though by that time scientists no longer cared as much about what the Church did or did not ban.
That would be the same Robert Bellarmine who sat as a judge against Giordano Bruno and burned him at the stake for advocating the Copernican model and the existence of other worlds? Sounds like a true champion of free thought.
I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
jasper76 wrote: I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
Yep... Lead sucks... and we almost re-created it in the 20th century with leaded gas pumping lead into the air and water. Who knows? Maybe the issues we are having today are due to a whole generation of brain-damaged lead-poisoned people?
dæl wrote: That would be the same Robert Bellarmine who sat as a judge against Giordano Bruno and burned him at the stake for advocating the Copernican model and the existence of other worlds? Sounds like a true champion of free thought.
It's not so much that he was a champion of free thought as he was a very shrewd politician. In the larger context of Europe at this time was the Reformation. Bellarmine was a leading figure in the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Science ended up getting sucked into this conflict as naturally a major sticking point for the Reformation movement was that the Catholic Church had a stick up its butt so they took any opportunity to try and poke the bear (and the Holy Roman Empire wanted to conquer Italy so its kind of complicated). Bellarmine didn't like that. Rather than alienate scientists, he preferred to keep and open mind and try to court them, least they leave the church and join ranks with the Reformation. EDIT: it also helps that like Galileo, he favor Augustinian theology.
Giodano Bruno had the unfortunate case that while Galileo was a devout Christian, Bruno... Not so much. The idea that he's a martyr for science is brought to us by the 19th century when this whole "the church hates science" thing got started. Bruno was very public in his attacks on the Catholic Church (and he went farther than not realizing putting the Pope's words in the mouth of a character named Simpleton). At first, the Church just considered him another Martin Luther kind of fellow until he openly started calling the basic tenets of Christianity into question. He was also (and this is the cool part) one of the earliest men to make an argument that today could be called a precursor to String theory
My argument isn't that the Catholic Church were all swells guys after all, just that science in itself rarely catched their ire and that for every member of the church who attacked a scientist, another tried defending him. Bruno didn't have that luxury though. His religious views got him killed, not his science. Further, while I doubt Bellarmine had any reservations about the ordeal being a Counter Reformationist, he didn't decide in himself to kill Bruno. That decision was made by the larger Inquisition body. He merely handed down the sentence.
jasper76 wrote: I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
Yep... Lead sucks... and we almost re-created it in the 20th century with leaded gas pumping lead into the air and water. Who knows? Maybe the issues we are having today are due to a whole generation of brain-damaged lead-poisoned people?
You may be correct, but the detriments of specific technological advancements would be the same for any culture at any point in history.
jasper76 wrote: I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
That itself is based on the false notion that Greco-Roman civilization was a golden age of scientific progress when it really wasn't. Really the Roman understanding of natural philosophy (what they called science) changed very little from the turn of the era to the fall of the Empire. They just repeated most of the works of the Greek and Hellenistic academics from centuries prior. If there was a scientific stagnation, it actually took place between 100 BC and 120 AD. It wouldn't be until the Islamic Golden Age that a huge leap forward of scientific progress would really take place (Ptolemy was arguably the last great scientist of the Greek world, and the Romans just held him up as the end all be all).
A world where the government seizes your money for charitable/personal use to spend to build schools to indoctrinate your kids and that assumes you trust the government to do what is best with your money?
LordofHats wrote: My argument isn't that the Catholic Church were all swells guys after all, just that science in itself rarely catched their ire and that for every member of the church who attacked a scientist, another tried defending him.
I'd like to know exactly why the Library of Alexandria was destroyed...and what type of knowledge exactly was lost.
Unfortunately, until I get my time machine working, I guess I'll never know.
jasper76 wrote: I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
That itself is based on the false notion that Greco-Roman civilization was a golden age of scientific progress when it really wasn't. Really the Roman understanding of natural philosophy (what they called science) changed very little from the turn of the era to the fall of the Empire. They just repeated most of the works of the Greek and Hellenistic academics from centuries prior. If there was a scientific stagnation, it actually took place between 100 BC and 120 AD. It wouldn't be until the Islamic Golden Age that a huge leap forward of scientific progress would really take place (Ptolemy was arguably the last great scientist of the Greek world, and the Romans just held him up as the end all be all).
Do you really believe that the Romans were stagnant in their technological development?
concrete, irrigation, architecture, fortification, plumbing, engineering, mining, etc.
I'd like to know exactly why the Library of Alexandria was destroyed...
Because Julius Ceasar burned it to the ground
I assume you're referring to the destruction of the second Library, which some have accused the Coptic Pope (not to be confused with the Catholic Popes) with ordering, but there's no real historical evidence to back the claim that the second Library even existed in that time period, let alone that Theophilus ordered its destruction. Aside from that, Theophilus was a mad man
LordofHats wrote: My argument isn't that the Catholic Church were all swells guys after all, just that science in itself rarely catched their ire and that for every member of the church who attacked a scientist, another tried defending him.
I'd like to know exactly why the Library of Alexandria was destroyed...and what type of knowledge exactly was lost.
Unfortunately, until I get my time machine working, I guess I'll never know.
China went through similar 'destruction of knowledge' and that wasn't because of religion, it was simply because the emperor thought it would secure his power. Destruction of knowledge is done to keep people down and is not a religious prerogative. It is a choice by men who want to rule and are in power, be it religious positions, or governmental positions.
jasper76 wrote: concrete, irrigation, architecture, fortification, plumbing, engineering, mining, etc.
All feats of engineering, their great talent. In terms of the larger field of science, their contributions to astronomy, mathematics, and biology, were minimal. Further, they weren't the first to do any of the above save concrete and plumbing (they weren't the first to do plumbing but it's unlikely they picked it up from anyone else).
LordofHats wrote: My argument isn't that the Catholic Church were all swells guys after all, just that science in itself rarely catched their ire and that for every member of the church who attacked a scientist, another tried defending him.
I'd like to know exactly why the Library of Alexandria was destroyed...and what type of knowledge exactly was lost.
Unfortunately, until I get my time machine working, I guess I'll never know.
China went through similar 'destruction of knowledge' and that wasn't because of religion, it was simply because the emperor thought it would secure his power. Destruction of knowledge is done to keep people down and is not a religious prerogative. It is a choice by men who want to rule and are in power, be it religious positions, or governmental positions.
Question about the exitence of the 2nd library aside, for which I didn't really know there was controversy, I don't disagree with you. However, if such a library existed, its a damn shame that it was lost.
jasper76 wrote: concrete, irrigation, architecture, fortification, plumbing, engineering, mining, etc.
All feats of engineering, their great talent. In terms of the larger field of science, their contributions to astronomy, mathematics, and biology, were minimal. Further, they weren't the first to do any of the above save concrete and plumbing (they weren't the first to do plumbing but it's unlikely they picked it up from anyone else).
Well, concrete and plumbing, and engineering in general, are pretty big deals, with more immediate impact on civilization I'd say than at least astronomy and biology.
Question about the exitence of the 2nd library aside, for which I didn't really know there was controversy, I don't disagree with you. However, if such a library existed, its a damn shame that it was lost.
Oh it certainly is and Christians can be blamed for destroying a lot of things. If you ever go to Greece, and see damage on ancient Greek monuments... yeah our bad guys I'll never argue old Christians were all great people of enlightenment. But they were certainly no less enlightened than anyone else, and characterization of the Catholic Church as a stopper on scientific progress ignores not only the great strides made in science under the Chruch's sphere of influence but the Church's own role in fostering scientific advancement.
Genetics as a theory was created by a monk. An Islamic cleric created the scientific method. Religion and Science are no mores enemies throughout history than anything else. We should be careful not to juxtapose the current conflict of religion and science into the past.
jasper76 wrote: I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
Nah. We would have had slavery. Rome was a predatory state not known in actuality for scientific advancement, especially once it went "empire" in a big way. Greece was, but guess who controlled Greece?
Labor saving devices, which is what the Industrial Revolution was, would not have taken off there as they had slaves to do the work. Its why it didn't take off there in the first place as they had the technology.
Think China before the great awakening. They did not advance in many industries because they had massive surplus labor.
jasper76 wrote: I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
Nah. We would have had slavery. Rome was a predatory state not known in actuality for scientific advancement, especially once it went "empire" in a big way. Greece was, but guess who controlled Greece?
Labor saving devices, which is what the Industrial Revolution was, would not have taken off there as they had slaves to do the work. Its why it didn't take off there in the first place as they had the technology.
Think China before the great awakening. They did not advance in many industries because they had massive surplus labor.
Hmmm, I see what you are saying....but do you know for certain that Roman civilization would not eventually have abolished slavery? Roman civilization was fundamentally incapable of going through its own "enlightenment"? The US was built on slavery and territorial predation, but we were able to finally abolish slavery.
The Byzantines never abolished slavery. However acting as though these kinds of culture shifts are integral to some inevitable development of the human condition is again a simple view of history. The Romans lived in a time and place when Slavery was perfectly acceptable and there was an economic incentive that made it worthwhile (lots of money to live the high life, and the nature of Roman agriculture).
LordofHats wrote: The Romans lived in a time and place when Slavery was perfectly acceptable and there was an economic incentive that made it worthwhile (lots of money to live the high life, and the nature of Roman agriculture).
Again, there is no difference here between Ancient Rome and the United States, and we were able to abolish slavery.
I don't think there's a predetermined path to equal rights...but you seem to be implying that Roman civilization was inherently incapable of abolishing slavery, which I don't agree with.
Surely though, any execution of an academic, especially one who was so far ahead of his time as Bruno, shows that religion has had a serious detrimental effect upon western civilisation? Whilst the dark ages may not have been as scientifically suffocating as popular culture would suggest, there was a serious penalty for advocating theories outside of what the Church saw as acceptable.
Also, I can see why the Church would take issue with Bruno, after all he proposed a "theory of the peaceful coexistence of all religions based upon mutual understanding and the freedom of reciprocal discussion."
Surely though, any execution of an academic, especially one who was so far ahead of his time as Bruno, shows that religion has had a serious detrimental effect upon western civilisation?
Was it detrimental that Catholic Monks in Italy salvaged countless artistic treasures whenever a Roman city was on the verge of being sacked? Was it detrimental that the Church is solely responsible for the survival of Music throughout most of the Middle Ages as well as being for many centuries the most important patron for artists and musicians in Europe? Was it detrimental that the only men capable of reading and writing for a long time received their education from friars, abbots, and priests?
Like everything else. Bad stuff happened. Good stuff happened. The Church is like any government. They commit terrible deeds and accomplished amazing achievements.
there was a serious penalty for advocating theories outside of what the Church saw as acceptable.
Generally unless you came into conflict with Church doctrine (as Galileo did) they generally didn't care. Note that in my narration of Galileo's life, he and others, spent years arguing in favor of the Copernican model and the Church never acted even among many claims of Heresy. It wasn't until Galileo wrote a letter using theological arguments to advance the model that the Church acted against it. Copernicus published his book in 1543. It circulated for decades and was well known up to the point of the Galileo Affair.
What many people miss in this era, is that the scientists themselves were Christians. Galileo didn't mean to fall on the Church's bad side. Not just to protect himself but because he was himself devout. Copernicus held a doctorate in Canon Law. The scientific and religious spheres overlapped greatly in terms of who was involved. Many religious officials were scientists and many scientists quite religious.
The money spent to build churches, indeed the money NOT collected by tax-exempt religions and churches ($17 Billion/year) is a drop in the bucket. Paltry. Nothing.
LordofHats wrote: What many people miss in this era, is that the scientists themselves were Christians. Galileo didn't mean to fall on the Church's bad side. Not just to protect himself but because he was himself devout. Copernicus held a doctorate in Canon Law. The scientific and religious spheres overlapped greatly in terms of who was involved. Many religious officials were scientists and many scientists quite religious.
There's really no way to know whether individual scientists during this time period were sincerely religious, or just pragmatic and pretended to be so to avoid punishment.
jasper76 wrote: I think the general idea is that if the influence of Greco-Roman civilization had not taken such a brutal blow, we would have likely had cars, electricity, modern plumbing, etc. well before the year 1000, and in general, most of the technoligical and scientific advances we have made would have come much earlier.
Nah. We would have had slavery. Rome was a predatory state not known in actuality for scientific advancement, especially once it went "empire" in a big way. Greece was, but guess who controlled Greece?
Labor saving devices, which is what the Industrial Revolution was, would not have taken off there as they had slaves to do the work. Its why it didn't take off there in the first place as they had the technology.
Think China before the great awakening. They did not advance in many industries because they had massive surplus labor.
Hmmm, I see what you are saying....but do you know for certain that Roman civilization would not eventually have abolished slavery? Roman civilization was fundamentally incapable of going through its own "enlightenment"? The US was built on slavery and territorial predation, but we were able to finally abolish slavery.
And we went through our bloddiest war to do it. Rome's entire economy was based on slavery. Think the entire Empire as the Old South.
Sure, maybe but odds are low. More likely is self implosion (as occurred) sometime.
Self-implosion I think is an over-simplification. There also were significant external forces that led to the collapse of Western Roman civilization.
In any case, I don't mean to sound like I think the abolishment of slavery would have been probable in our hyopthetical Rome, just that it wasn't imposible.
Hmmm, I see what you are saying....but do you know for certain that Roman civilization would not eventually have abolished slavery? Roman civilization was fundamentally incapable of going through its own "enlightenment"? The US was built on slavery and territorial predation, but we were able to finally abolish slavery.
Honestly, I don't think so, and that's due to the general manner in which the Romans collected slaves.
See, the Romans didn't repeatedly go to a particular part of the world and "mine" the people as a resource. They went beyond their borders, and conquered people. The prisoners from that conquest were brought in to market and sold, and within a generation or two, those children could/would usually end up free. Similar happens when an area already part of the empire revolts, those people lose their citizenship and are put into slavery. Their version of slavery wasn't something built on racism or some strange belief that a certain skin color means that those "things" are only good for certain tasks.
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jasper76 wrote: Self-implosion I think is an over-simplification. There also were significant external forces that led to the collapse of Western Roman civilization.
Certainly, the fall of Rome has many important factors involved with it. But it's sheer size definitely did nothing to help.
jasper76 wrote: Again, there is no difference here between Ancient Rome and the United States, and we were able to abolish slavery.
There is a great deal of difference. Even without the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War, slavery likely would have ended. Industrialization renders it an ineffective model of labor. Even before the Civil War there were already signs it was on the way out. And ironically for this conversation, Britain abolished slavery in 1834 thanks in no small part to a man named William Wilberforce, an extremely devout evangelical Christian who saw slavery as an affront to his faith in a time where many Americans used their faith to promote it.
Slavery began in the American colonies because the need for labor. Britain wanted their colonies to be profitable but didn't have the people to work the fields. They started with indentured servants. They'd pay someone's way over the Atlantic and they'd work off the debt then be free. This created a major hobo problem. Why employ someone when you can have the British government and business' pay someone to come over from jolly old England and have them work for free? The colonies were ending up with a major unemployment problem.
Chattel slavery, the ownership of a person, began as a means to fix this. If someone is never free, well you don't have to worry about an angry mob of unemployed men attacking your estate or finding new indentured servants to replace the old ones. Economic and social need drove the rise of American slavery, and politics and culture eventually brought it to an end.
Roman civilization was inherently incapable of abolishing slavery, which I don't agree with.
Why would they? Everyone had slaves back then. It was central to their economy and agricultural models and to their ability to control the empire. They had no reason to at any point in their history. Rome didn't exist in a time when slavery was going to be abolished, making the question "would Rome have abolished slavery' a question without an answer and a question without a purpose.
Surely though, any execution of an academic, especially one who was so far ahead of his time as Bruno, shows that religion has had a serious detrimental effect upon western civilisation?
Was it detrimental that Catholic Monks in Italy salvaged countless artistic treasures whenever a Roman city was on the verge of being sacked? Was it detrimental that the Church is solely responsible for the survival of Music throughout most of the Middle Ages as well as being for many centuries the most important patron for artists and musicians in Europe? Was it detrimental that the only men capable of reading and writing for a long time received their education from friars, abbots, and priests?
All of which were of great benefit to civilisation, the question really is whether there was a net benefit from religion.
The scientific and religious spheres overlapped greatly in terms of who was involved. Many religious officials were scientists and many scientists quite religious.
Was that necessarily a good thing?
One thing I am curious about is why religious institutions seemed to have a monopoly on education for so long?
Ensis Ferrae wrote: See, the Romans didn't repeatedly go to a particular part of the world and "mine" the people as a resource. They went beyond their borders, and conquered people
Discarding the issue of race and length of servitude, so did the United States slave industry, and its agents. I mean, I doubt that many people volunteered to enter the US slave market.
There's really no way to know whether individual scientists during this time period were sincerely religious, or just pragmatic and pretended to be so to avoid punishment.
Why? We have no reason to believe people were secretly not-religious and only pretended to be to avoid death and ample amounts of memoirs, private correspondence, and books in which men and women espouse their faith and its virtues. If that were true, surely a man as brilliant as Bruno would have known better than to publicly denounce Christianity.
This is argument from ignorance (the fallacy, not saying you're ignorant). If for any given scientist (which is most) we have no evidence of the later but plenty to support the former we have no reason to believe the individual was anything but religious.
LordofHats wrote: Why would they? Everyone had slaves back then. It was central to their economy and agricultural models and to their ability to control the empire. They had no reason to at any point in their history. Rome didn't exist in a time when slavery was going to be abolished, making the question "would Rome have abolished slavery' a question without an answer and a question without a purpose.
It's a purposeful question, because it was suggested that the Romans would never have made significant scientific advances on the basis of slavery...but it is possible that they could have abandoned slavery/ Not probable, mind you, but possible.
Good thread, and good respinces in general. There has been a small amount of trolling from the usual suspects, but nothing serious.
This is a good example of where Dakka works well, a very controversial topic discussed freely and open mindedly by most, you couldnt have this in most places.
i would like to think that the ground work of many threads over the years by more patient and empathy members of the religious and athieist community on Dakka has led to this. Well done all round.
Those who continually predict trollbait, in before lock or thread destruction on these topics, please stop or contribute rationally. Dakka can overcome the low intellectual level benchmarked on most of the internet.
So where is my take.
I dont really need to post for most to understand where I stand on whether religion is a good or bad thing. Much of what I would want to say has been said already.
i would like to highlight this
It says so much under its fair cloak, and shows how far some will go:
Why single out the religious buildings, why not the barracks, or the munitions factories, or the banking infrastructure. Or maybe the gambling halls.
And why do those who wish to attack institutions always compare to how much health care or education could be bought witb the money, as if that was what redirected money naturally goes to.
Its a one sided ideal, linked to a policy of cultural annihilation.
as a rule of thumb when someone wants to utterly eradicate part of society, and promise nice benefits from it, they tend to be up to no good.
The message is also a direct an undisguised attack on mental freedom.
Those who want to proactively abolish religion are walking openly into a Stalinist future, and brazenly calling it an enlightenment.
There's really no way to know whether individual scientists during this time period were sincerely religious, or just pragmatic and pretended to be so to avoid punishment.
Why? We have no reason to believe people were secretly not-religious and only pretended to be to avoid death and ample amounts of memoirs, private correspondence, and books in which men and women espouse their faith and its virtues. If that were true, surely a man as brilliant as Bruno would have known better than to publicly denounce Christianity.
This is argument from ignorance (the fallacy, not saying you're ignorant). If for any given scientist (which is most) we have no evidence of the later but plenty to support the former we have no reason to believe the individual was anything but religious.
Actually, itys not a logical phallacy, because I am not making a truth claim. I'm just saying we are ignorant of what anyone in history truly, tryuly believed. And since people present themselves falsely today to get out of trouble, it stands to reason that our ancestors might have, as well.
LordofHats wrote: The Romans lived in a time and place when Slavery was perfectly acceptable and there was an economic incentive that made it worthwhile (lots of money to live the high life, and the nature of Roman agriculture).
Again, there is no difference here between Ancient Rome and the United States, and we were able to abolish slavery.
I don't think there's a predetermined path to equal rights...but you seem to be implying that Roman civilization was inherently incapable of abolishing slavery, which I don't agree with.
That argument is laughably wrong on its face.
*Roman economy was based entirely on slavery and stealing the wealth of other nations. If a giant wall was put around the empire (which defacto occurred between the Germans and the Parthians/Sassanids) without
*Rome was a squabbling dictatorship.
*Rome had no federal system.
*After Caligula and Nero, citizens had no effective rights.
One thing I am curious about is why religious institutions seemed to have a monopoly on education for so long?
Because it takes money. Even kings and queens in the early middle ages were quite poor (hence Feudalism, where they drew their wealth from the wealth of lower nobles). The Church, a body that because of the faith of the masses was able to acrew vast sums of money with little effort, had the ability to fund education. Nobles in Europe largely saw little value in being able to read. Why did they need it anyway?
The church on the other hand, basing itself on a document, had a vested interest in ensuring people were able to read. Go forward in time and this set up simply continues because it's what it was. People learned to read and right in religious institutions and because they had little issue with those institutions at the time, it simply continued. The scientific revolution began to change this but after Bruno and Galileo's lifetimes.
I'm assuming you don't mean this literally.
I mean everyone as in the civilizations of the time. The Greeks had slaves. Carthage. Persia. Slavery was a common institution in their world. It was normal.
I might be wrong on this, but I seem to remember reading that Roman slaves would often have slaves of their own.
The Romans practiced both indentured servitude and chattle slavery. In the US we tend to view slavery in binary terms. You're either free, or you're not. In ancient Rome there were varying degrees of freedom and of course varying degrees of enslavement.
It's a purposeful question, because it was suggested that the Romans would never have made significant scientific advances on the basis of slavery...but it is possible that they could have abandoned slavery/ Not probable, mind you, but possible.
Frazzled's argument was that the Roman's never made significant advancements because their able supply of labor made things simple for them. He's right. Advancement is driven by the need to solve a problem. The Roman's ample supply of slave labor, means that when confronted with many kinds of problems they could solve it by simply throwing people at it. As such they never had the need to be inventive in many fields. The fields they did innovate, warfare, law, political organization, can all be traced as Roman problem solved its way through the centuries.
Actually, itys not a logical phallacy, because I am not making a truth claim. I'm just saying we are ignorant of what anyone in history truly, tryuly believed. And since people present themselves falsely today to get out of trouble, it stands to reason that our ancestors might have, as well.
It is a fallacy. You cannot make a claim absent evidence. I can provide evidence that someone was a religious person. Baring evidence they were faking, the claim that "we can't really really know" is a fallacy based on ignorance. I can't really really know you're not a figment of my imagination or a hyper intelligent koala who has learned to read. All we can know is what we can derive from what evidence is present. Absent evidence that I'm crazy (that kind of crazy anyway) and that koalas have learned to read, I have no reason to believe you to be anything other than a guy in a chair in front of a monitor.
LordofHats wrote: The Romans lived in a time and place when Slavery was perfectly acceptable and there was an economic incentive that made it worthwhile (lots of money to live the high life, and the nature of Roman agriculture).
Again, there is no difference here between Ancient Rome and the United States, and we were able to abolish slavery.
I don't think there's a predetermined path to equal rights...but you seem to be implying that Roman civilization was inherently incapable of abolishing slavery, which I don't agree with.
That argument is laughably wrong on its face.
*Roman economy was based entirely on slavery and stealing the wealth of other nations. If a giant wall was put around the empire (which defacto occurred between the Germans and the Parthians/Sassanids) without
*Rome was a squabbling dictatorship.
*Rome had no federal system.
*After Caligula and Nero, citizens had no effective rights.
Laughably wrong? Are you implying that the US did not go through a period of time where slavery was perfectly acceptable, and there was an economic incentive to make it worthwhile?
The stuff you're saying about dictatorship is after the fact. And the first part of the first new thing you added "Roman economy was based entirely on slavery and stealing the wealth of other nations" is still true of the US if you change one word: ""US economy was based significantly on slavery and stealing the wealth of other nations"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: Also why is a futile question in that we cannot get any valid answers. And even the existence of a valid answer is quite dubious anyway.
You don't understand religious people as your perspective is too narrow. With those questions, there is no definite answer, and that's not what people are looking for. People are looking for accomodation and for an answer to those questions they can understand and that they acknowledge.
In science, there (mostly) is a definite answer. Sometimes, there isn't a need for "the" answer.
Actually, itys not a logical phallacy, because I am not making a truth claim. I'm just saying we are ignorant of what anyone in history truly, tryuly believed. And since people present themselves falsely today to get out of trouble, it stands to reason that our ancestors might have, as well.
It is a fallacy. You cannot make a claim absent evidence. I can provide evidence that someone was a religious person. Baring evidence they were faking, the claim that "we can't really really know" is a fallacy based on ignorance. I can't really really know you're not a figment of my imagination or a hyper intelligent koala who has learned to read. All we can know is what we can derive from what evidence is present. Absent evidence that I'm crazy (that kind of crazy anyway) and that koalas have learned to read, I have no reason to believe you to be anything other than a guy in a chair in front of a monitor.
I still respectfully maintain that its not a fallacy. There is ample evidence that in modern times, people regularly lie to avoid punishment. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine that people did the same in eras gone by, since it's well-observed human behavoir.
By you saying that you can provide evidence that someone was a religious person, and your evidence is based on lets say writings, pointing out that writings are not completely reliable because they could have been false to avoid punishment is not an "argument from ignorance", which is an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false, or that a proposition is flase because it has not been proven true. I am not proposing that no scientists were indeed religious. The only proposition I am making is that people's writings are not 100% reliable indicators of truth.
For example, I have never jaywalked in my entire life.
nkelsch wrote: And while private charities may be all the rage... that is based on the assumption that people are naturally charitable without skygrandpa looking down on them while stroking his white beard. The sad truth is while you supposedly *COULD* have private charities which rely on non-religious donations... they simply don't materialize.
One of the two biggest French charities is Secours populaire français, which is totally secular. The other one is Secours catholique, which, you guess it, is catholic .
Now, of course it does not work in the U.S.A., that is because atheist is almost an insult there apparently.
nkelsch wrote: A world where the government seizes your money for charitable/personal use to spend to build schools to indoctrinate your kids and that assumes you trust the government to do what is best with your money?
No thank you.
Yeah. Never trust the government. I mean, if it does bad thing, your only recourse is to vote for another one, and we all know they are all just as bad. You'd rather trust private company/organization. I mean, here you have full control, because if they do bad stuff, you can just go to their competitors…
Oh, wait!
Iron_Captain wrote: It is. Without religion Western civilisation would not have existed in the first place.
If by “not existed” you mean “would have been different”, then yeah, that is kind of obvious. If you mean something else, I have no idea what that could possibly be.
Sigvatr wrote: With those questions, there is no definite answer, and that's not what people are looking for.
Uh? I have read the Quran, I am pretty sure it was presenting very definite facts. About burning for eternity and stuff. I am pretty sure it is the same in the Bible, with even more non-sensical stories and rule added. As far as I know, most religious people do not say “I think there may be a God, I am not sure though”. It seems to the vast majority of them, God is a pretty definite answer.
Sigvatr wrote: People are looking for accomodation and for an answer to those questions they can understand and that they acknowledge.
Rather than for any kind of actual truth. Yep.
Sigvatr wrote: In science, there (mostly) is a definite answer.
In science, the goal is to get the best possible model. It is pretty easy to see how a good model can be pretty useful (technology!), and how a model can be rated as good or not (accurately predict the result of experiments, and is as tractable as possible).
Specific goals, specific ways to attain those goals, and the end result is that those goals are attained. Religion, on the other hand…
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: One of the two biggest French charities is Secours populaire français, which is totally secular. The other one is Secours catholique, which, you guess it, is catholic .
Now, of course it does not work in the U.S.A., that is because atheist is almost an insult there apparently.
Also, worldwide, you get the Red Cross (not religious unlike what some silly (for lack of a stronger expletive) Muslims who just love to complain and draw attention to themselves pretend). They are kind of a big deal. Actually I could not name any religious charity that would be nearly as big.
But it could be argued that the charity might not accurately the religion of the people donating to it. So even secular charities might receive money from religious people, and atheists might donate to religion-associated charities as well.
Then there are donations given directly to the individual's house of worship, I don't know how those fit in the picture.
nkelsch wrote: And while private charities may be all the rage... that is based on the assumption that people are naturally charitable without skygrandpa looking down on them while stroking his white beard. The sad truth is while you supposedly *COULD* have private charities which rely on non-religious donations... they simply don't materialize.
One of the two biggest French charities is Secours populaire français, which is totally secular. The other one is Secours catholique, which, you guess it, is catholic .
Now, of course it does not work in the U.S.A., that is because atheist is almost an insult there apparently.
This explains a lot about you. I can assure you that you are quite definitely wrong, unless by "the U.S.A." you mean select areas of certain southern states.
Sigvatr wrote: With those questions, there is no definite answer, and that's not what people are looking for.
Uh? I have read the Quran, I am pretty sure it was presenting very definite facts. About burning for eternity and stuff. I am pretty sure it is the same in the Bible, with even more non-sensical stories and rule added. As far as I know, most religious people do not say “I think there may be a God, I am not sure though”. It seems to the vast majority of them, God is a pretty definite answer.
Ever heard of a metaphor? Don't take the Bible (or Quran, I think, but as I have never read it, I'll defer to you for that) too seriously; early Christian scholars certainly didn't.
Sigvatr wrote: People are looking for accomodation and for an answer to those questions they can understand and that they acknowledge.
Rather than for any kind of actual truth. Yep.
By "actual truth", I assume you mean empirical truth?
Sigvatr wrote: In science, there (mostly) is a definite answer.
In science, the goal is to get the best possible model. It is pretty easy to see how a good model can be pretty useful (technology!), and how a model can be rated as good or not (accurately predict the result of experiments, and is as tractable as possible).
Specific goals, specific ways to attain those goals, and the end result is that those goals are attained. Religion, on the other hand…
Except... science can't answer every question to which there is an empirical answer.
The church, despite a belief that it is violent, tends to cause the softening of a country. This can be seen in the Roman Empire where the country went very well and started to crumble only when christianity became widespread.
To blame the fall of the Roman Empire solely on christianity is quite a bit naive, to say the least. And anyhow, we see later, in the 900s-1300s or so, that Christianity can be and is, just as "hard" as any other military force previously seen.
Not according to Edward Gibbon, who wrote the like 3500 page work on the decline of the Empire to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.
Rome had always gone through foreign invasions and internal crises. Invasions such as the sack of Rome by Brennus, the wars with Pyrhhus, the Punic Wars, the Teutones and Cimbri invasions, the Third Servile War - the Romans survived all of these. They also managed to survive the Civil War that resulted from Sulla's siege of Rome and the subsequent wars when the Triumvirates fell apart. The crisis following Nero's death was also pretty significant. The only difference was the intensity of the invasions of the 2nd to 6th century. However, by the end of Trajan's reign, the empire was in a stronger position that it had been before. One cannot assign the blame of the fall on the lack of external conquests either - as Gibbon states, there were only a few exceptions to the general peace of the Empire when the state would expand. These were events such as the conquest of Britain and Trajan's conquest of Dacia and Parthia. It's perhaps important to note that these events did not drain Rome's coffers to the same extent as Justinian's did, and therefore the collapse is perhaps not due to an overextended empire, at least not immediately.
So the fall probably had a cultural reason. What difference was there between the Roman who had experienced the crises of the 1st Century BC and the Roman who had lived in the 5th Century, when the Western Roman Empire finally fell? The later Roman was a lot more decadent, for a start. In the 1st Century BC there were still almost Greek civic virtues. One apparently could see General Marius lifting stones in the Campus Martius. By the end of the first century AD, however, decadence had already set in, and perhaps it was the introduction of Christianity as the state religion that finally settled this. You see that from the introduction of Christianity to the end of the Western Empire the esprit de corps of the Roman military declines and barbarians, many pagan or following a different sect of Christianity, become more prominent in the military of the Roman empire. The Roman people no longer care - in the pursuit of living a peaceful life, they abandon their militaristic culture and follow a softer path. By having many barbarians, the coffers of the empire would be drained as well. Having barbarians could prove to be a bad thing, too - just look at the fate of the Visigoths.
The Romans were famed for their religious liberties. This is evident in the profusion of Celtic-Roman temples in Britain and the worship of Mithras amongst other gods in mystery cults. This indicates that the emperors ruled over a disparate population who had a variety of beliefs and cultures. To manage the provinces, the emperors would have Proconsuls or Quaestors (I think it was these guys) who governed the provinces. With the introduction of Christianity, power would have been decentralised and it would no longer have been in the power of the Emperor and the governors but also in the hands of Catholic bishops. The bishops did have a lot of power to agitate the crowds - look at the burning of the Library of Alexandria, for example. This would cause fractures in the Imperial system because it's no longer as strong as it used to be.
So one could argue that Christianity was a major factor in the collapse of the empire - fewer Romans were interested in serving upon the introduction of the religion and the power of priests meant that there was less centralisation in what had been a fairly centralised system. True, there were other causes, such as the barbarian invasions, the division of the empire etc, but Christianity must play a major role in the fall of the empire.
To anyone who says that the Romans could have abolished slavery: one must remember that the state was heavily dependent on slaves to function. Hence the outbreak of the Third Servile War.
And regarding scientific and technological advancement, the Romans were impressive. They preserved the Greek achievements, for example, and doctors such as Galen, though Greek in origin, prospered in the Imperial court. One must not forget the incredible engineering feats that were lost after the barbarian conquest of Western Europe.
Regarding religion as "truth", it's probably a bit idiotic to simply assume that upon forming societies, humans will automatically understand the scientific method and get to finding out scientific facts. People probably have more pressing concerns such as feeding themselves and building families to ensure their society survives. Religion is a way to try and reach the truth. Pagan religions would assign divine reasons for lightning and storms (which may not necessarily be false - who says that there's only one truth?) and with these reasons would create truths about what happens after death and how to live a perfect life - something science probably would never answer.
I don't know where I was going with this post. Sorry. To answer the question, it's probably difficult to divorce religion from the western culture. Our values come from religion. For example, we look at polygamy with disgust - we think it's exploitative. In many other societies, polygamy is perfectly fine. Part of that attitude must come from Christianity. Therefore, regardless of what you think about religion, you can't separate our culture from our Christian heritage, no matter how many churches you burn.
jasper76 wrote: an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false
A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science). If someone in their own words professes their faith and we have no contrary reason to believe that to be untrue, we have no basis on which to doubt their faith.
Using your methodology, no one can ever know anything, which sounds more up the alley of certain kinds of Buddhism than science
Frazzled's argument was that the Roman's never made significant advancements because their able supply of labor made things simple for them. He's right. Advancement is driven by the need to solve a problem. The Roman's ample supply of slave labor, means that when confronted with many kinds of problems they could solve it by simply throwing people at it. .
Frazzled's argument was that the Roman's never made significant advancements because their able supply of labor made things simple for them. He's right. Advancement is driven by the need to solve a problem. The Roman's ample supply of slave labor, means that when confronted with many kinds of problems they could solve it by simply throwing people at it. .
Rome the Original Imperium of Man!
And there probably were some guys saying "For the Emperor" and executed a few dissidents to improve morale
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ExNoctemNacimur wrote: Not according to Edward Gibbon, who wrote the like 3500 page work on the decline of the Empire to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.
I'd make a comparison to a monkey, but that's probably insulting to Gibbons Really we shouldn't be taking our history from a book published in the 18th century before the central theories of historical practice had even been invented. There are numerous flaws with Gibbon's work. Though don't get me wrong, the man was important in the historiography of Rome, being the man who basically started it, as well as the Scientific Revolution. Unlike Bruno he could openly insult Christinaity and not get burned for it!
It has often been alleged that Christianity in its political effects was a disintegrating force and tended to weaken the power of Rome to resist her enemies. It is difficult to see that it had any such tendency, so long as the Church itself was united. Theological heresies were indeed to prove a disintegrating force in the East in the seventh century, when differences in doctrine which had alienated the Christians in Egypt and Syria from the government of Constantinople facilitated the conquests of the Saracens. But after the defeat of Arianism, there was no such vital or deep-reaching division in the West, and the effect of Christianity was to unite, not to sever, to check, rather than to emphasise, national or sectional feeling. In the political calculations of Constantine it was probably this ideal of unity, as a counterpoise to the centrifugal tendencies which had been clearly revealed in the third century, that was the great recommendation of the religion which he raised to power. Nor is there the least reason to suppose that Christian teaching had the practical effect of making men less loyal to the Empire or less ready to defend it. The Christians were as pugnacious as the pagans. Some might read Augustine's City of God with edification, but probably very few interpreted its theory with such strict practical logic as to be indifferent to the safety of the Empire. Hardly the author himself, though this has been disputed.
J.B. Bury
The special meaning Gibbon assigns to Christianity in the fall is mostly a farce. A rant from a man who was very angry at religion, and who allowed it to cloud out an otherwise outstanding talent for history. The Byzantines thrived for quite some time despite the regular conflict between the Patriarch and the Emperor (really, it was bad for both of these men to appear to be in conflict with one another because neither could expect sufficient popular support, so they tended to work things out between themselves). Gibbon's entire view of the Byzantine's might as well be fiction for that matter. To his credit, the Byzantine Empire tended to get the short stick well into the Twentieth Century. People ignored it, and dismissed it as a shadow of the past even though objectively, the Byzantines probably achieved just as much as the Romans if not more!
Even today, when many historians have started to wonder if persecution of Christians was really as bad as has been traditionally held, no one really argues that the Romans were religiously tolerant. They persecuted a lot of people. The Edict of Milan, despite often being cited as making Christianity the official religion of the Empire (properly this was the Edict of Thessalonica), it really wasn't about that. Milan was about ending religious persecution in the Empire because the Romans did a lot of religious persecuting. Gnostics, Jews, Christians, pretty much anyone not towing the line of the Imperial Cult (a concept alien to Gibbon's time). Sure a lot of religions and cults flourished in the Empire. You try being that big and actually controlling everything everyone thinks. It's not that easy. Christians and the Catholic Church themselves would find this out first hand very fast. They could hold all the canon councils they wanted and it wasn't going to keep everyone towing the line that it wanted.
Really the rise of Christianity was coming into its own on the tail end of the Empire's fall. The coffin was already built, the corpse inside and the nails coming down when Constantine converted and many began to monkey do. The unification of the Empire under Christianity is arguably a major reason why Byzantium survived (though as we move towards the Crusades, Byzantium fractured in no small part due to religious squabbling).
jasper76 wrote: an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false
A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science).
OK. I have never jaywalked.
I can lie about my past as good as the next guy. Do you think there where people in Germany during WWII who wrote down lies in order to avoid the wrath of the regime? Of course there were. Do you think there were people in history who lied to avoid the wrath of religious institutions. Of course there were.
Or do you think it is beyond the scope of reason to assume that there were scientists who espoused religious beliefs solely in order to avoid the wrath of the Church of Rome and its allies?
To look from another perspective at the question first posed, although it is focused on western civilisation, how much of an effect does the product of religion elsewhere effect western civilisation? For example how much of a threat is an ever growing AIDS epidemic in Africa? We have already seen the religious conflict of the Middle East spread to other continents and Islamic extremism is something that western governments must look for in their own population these days.
jasper76 wrote: an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false
A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science).
OK. I have never jaywalked.
I can lie about my past as good as the next guy. Do you think there where people in Germany during WWII who wrote down lies in order to avoid the wrath of the regime? Of course there were. Do you think there were people in history who lied to avoid the wrath of religious institutions. Of course there were.
Or do you think it is beyond the scope of reason to assume that there were scientists who espoused religious beliefs solely in order to avoid the wrath of the Church of Rome and its allies?
The argument isn't that people can't or don't lie, but that in the absence of evidence making assumptions beyond what they have said and done is a weak argument. You are saying that we should assume these historical figures could actually be atheists with no evidence beyond the possibility that people can lie. That isn't a very rational or scientific argument.
jasper76 wrote: an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false
A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science).
OK. I have never jaywalked.
I can lie about my past as good as the next guy. Do you think there where people in Germany during WWII who wrote down lies in order to avoid the wrath of the regime? Of course there were. Do you think there were people in history who lied to avoid the wrath of religious institutions. Of course there were.
Or do you think it is beyond the scope of reason to assume that there were scientists who espoused religious beliefs solely in order to avoid the wrath of the Church of Rome and its allies?
The argument isn't that people can't or don't lie, but that in the absence of evidence making assumptions beyond what they have said and done is a weak argument. You are saying that we should assume these historical figures could actually be atheists with no evidence beyond the possibility that people can lie. That isn't a very rational or scientific argument.
Yep. In light of the well-documented persecution by the Roman Church against its detractors, I think that claims to be religious from this era are by default suspect. Not that you should assume that they aren't true, only that they are suspect. If I saw a guy on the news telling me how awesome and great the current North Korean regime is, I would suspect that they might not be true as well.
In any case, this is well off-topic, so I won't spend anymore time trying to change anyone's mind on this particular subject.
every single one of your examples of negative influences from the church (anti gay, anti sciens, anti everything good)
are examples of the fringe... IE the vast minority of religious people (at least in christianity)
the closest two churches to me (I dont go I just walk around a lot) both have signs on the front, displaying proudly the gay rainbow flag, and welcomeing people of all races, creeds, and sexualitys... these are some of the largest and oldest churches in my city too...
considering that the overwhelming net effect of churches and religious people is positive and helpful to those most in need, yes it is very much a positive influence on western civilization.
you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...
easysauce wrote: you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...
easysauce wrote: you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...
Science itself is morally neutral, those are examples of political decisions. I would say that religion as a whole is morally good (although certain religions have certain tenets that aren't), but some of the political decisions that have been made in the name of religion have been very bad, and religion closes peoples minds to questioning authority which can lead to even greater atrocities (not that atrocities need religion to happen, they demonstrably don't).
easysauce wrote: you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...
Science itself is morally neutral
Science doesn't happen in a vacuum and isn't some extra-natural process beyond us mere humans. It is something we came up with and something we use to both better understand the world as well as effect and change it. One cannot remove it from politics, religion, or humans any more than the other parts that are fundamental parts of the human experience. A unthinking belief in science, or unerring trust in it, is no better than an unerring trust in religion.
jasper76 wrote: Yep. In light of the well-documented persecution by the Roman Church against its detractors
Again, taking the modern and applying it to the past. There were many people who got away with not doing things the Catholic Church's way just not people who lived in Italy. That of course begs the question why the Renaissance flourished first and strongest in Italy, if the Catholic Church was so suffocating. The answer is that it typically wasn't. Only certain things really put someone in the Churches cross hairs and science wasn't typically it in itself.
Not that you should assume that they aren't true, only that they are suspect.
That's an oxymoron.
If I saw a guy on the news telling me how awesome and great the current North Korean regime is, I would suspect that they might not be true as well.
Yes. Because there is ample evidence that states otherwise.
If you are trying to whitewash the historical crimes of the Roman Church, I'm just not willing to go along. Nor is the Catholic Church, incidentally, as they have apologized for many of their historical crimes.
Assuming something isn't true, and suspecting that it might not be true, are two different things, so there is no oxymoron.
There is ample evidence that the Roman Church historically persecuted its detractors, just as there is ample evidence that the North Korean regime currently persecutes its detractors.
jasper76 wrote: If you are trying to whitewash the historical crimes of the Roman Church, I'm just not willing to go along.
What laws did they break? Our modern moral inclinations? Damn them for not realizing we would think differently 1000 years later!
My issue in this thread, as it is in many threads I comment in, is that people indulge to much fantasy. If you'd actually raised any valid criticisms of the Church I'd be behind them, but mostly you've just clung to various historical myths and fallacies.
There is ample evidence that the Roman Church historically persecuted its detractors.
Who didn't? Up until recent centuries, speaking out against those in power was a sure fire way to screw yourself, so really what are you upset about? That the Catholic Church was like so many other organizations and powers throughout history in the time periods where they did exactly like everyone else? Singling out the church as a special evil is an act devoid of historical perspective.
The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false. That conflict is recent and shouldn't be retroactively applied to a past where it didn't exist. I even wrote out a very lengthy narrative about Galileo, whose downfall didn't come from his science but from a personal blunder concerning religion.
So no. I'm not jumping up and saying the Church didn't do bad stuff (I've previously stated this). I'm simply jumping up and saying the stuff some people are bringing up in this thread didn't happen.
Those in power over other humans persecuted their detractors? Or only people with religious power did, and people in all other ideologies not religious performed just fine?
The issue isn't religion, it is man holding power over his fellow man... Power corrupts in any form, be it religious, secular, civil, whatever.
nkelsch wrote: Those in power over other humans persecuted their detractors? Or only people with religious power did, and people in all other ideologies not religious performed just fine?
The issue isn't religion, it is man holding power over his fellow man... Power corrupts in any form, be it religious, secular, civil, whatever.
If there was no conflict between church and science, why did the Catholic Church feel compelled to apologize to Darwin, Copernicus, and Galileo?
Because people spouting historical nonsense badgered them endlessly, and besides. Putting a man under permanent house arrest because he unintentionally insulted the Pope? Not cool. To us today, that's not something that flies and the Church naturally wanted to stand up and say "Yes. This was wrong. We no longer believe in this kind of thing." Since they have to live with us, it helps that they show they're not still living in the 17th century.
And nothing happened to Copernicus in his lifetime. Actually the church of his time was more receptive to the theory of heliocentrism. Pope Celment VII personally requested a lecture on the subject and was very curious about Copernicus' ideas. I mentioned earlier that he had a degree in Canon Law, yet he never expressed any specific fears that the Church would come after him for his ideas. Even if it did he was in the best place in Europe to be on the Church's bad side, Prussia. Nothing says come at me bro like having the Holy Roman Emperor ready and willing to pick another fight with his best freinemy, the Pope, between you and Rome.
At this point, I'll just refer anyone who might be following to the Papal Condemnation of Galileo, and let them draw their own conclusions as to whether the Roman Church in this case was "pro-science", so we can just move on.
jasper76 wrote: At this point, I'll just refe4 anyone who might be following to the Papal Condemnation of Galileo, and let them draw there own conclusions as to whether the Roman Church in this case was "pro-science", so we can just move on.
Didn't read my mondo post did you? Who claimed they were pro-science? Calling them pro-science is as inaccurate as calling them anti-science. The Church wasn't a body overtly concerned with the advancement of science or with stopping it, which I've also already mentioned.
LordofHats wrote: The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.
Exhibit A in favor:
The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
LordofHats wrote: The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.
Yeah. That's what I said. Where in that statement is the Church called pro-science?
I would refer you to my long post pages ago where I explained what got Galileo canned, but I can see you don't really care.
OK, maybe I should have spelled it out better. What I was referring to was the quote above regarding "the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.:
Exhibit A against your assertion:
The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
And again, if the Church was so anti-science, why was Galileo defended throughout his first trial by Church officials, supported by a Pope, and then only punished after inadvertently insulting said Pope? How was any scientific progress made at all in a Europe suffering under the weight of a terrible anti-science Church, and why was Italy one of the most progressive regions of Europe when the Pope was the de facto ruler?
You can cite that line all you want, but it's never going to say what you want it to and it's never going to explain why things happened the way they did. I've attempted to explain it.
LordofHats wrote: The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.
Yeah. That's what I said. Where in that statement is the Church called pro-science?
I would refer you to my long post pages ago where I explained what got Galileo canned, but I can see you don't really care.
I read it. No offense, but I don't recognize you as a subject matter expert on this issue as a default (nor should you me). I have no clue where you got your ideas from. If you could refer me to peer-reviewed material, preferably from an independent source, or source material, I'd be open-minded about it.
I don't play the citation game. One can lead the horse to water, but sometimes it looks you in the eye and says the water doesn't exist. At that point I can try and explain the water does exist but once the demands for 'pics or it didn't happen' go up, I tend to sit back and chuckle.
LordofHats wrote: And again, if the Church was so anti-science, why was Galileo defended throughout his first trial by Church officials, supported by a Pope, and then only punished after inadvertently insulting said Pope?
Why was there ever justification for a trial to begin with? Why on earth would something as trivial as an idea about the location of planetary bodies merit a trial?
LordofHats wrote: How was any scientific progress made at all in a Europe suffering under the weight of a terrible anti-science Church, and why was Italy one of the most progressive regions of Europe when the Pope was the de facto ruler?
I don't understand the first part of your question. As for the second part, my guess would be the huge influx of cash.
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LordofHats wrote: I don't play the citation game. One can lead the horse to water, but sometimes it looks you in the eye and says the water doesn't exist. At that point I can try and explain the water does exist but once the demands for 'pics or it didn't happen' go up, I tend to sit back and chuckle.
Pretty much everything you've posted is the opposite of open minded.
OK, so you won't provide citations. I have provided the source material of the Papal Condemnation itself. It stands on its own. Lets move on. I'm sorry if I am being closed-minded. I'm not trying to be, I just don't agree with you.
easysauce wrote: you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...
Science itself is morally neutral
Science doesn't happen in a vacuum and isn't some extra-natural process beyond us mere humans. It is something we came up with and something we use to both better understand the world as well as effect and change it. One cannot remove it from politics, religion, or humans any more than the other parts that are fundamental parts of the human experience.
Nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil, how they are used is what defines that, be it to murder millions or to prevent a country from engaging in an invasion thus saving millions.
A unthinking belief in science, or unerring trust in it, is no better than an unerring trust in religion.
While you are correct that an unthinking trust in anything is unhelpful, there is one very large difference between the two fields, that science will change its view when faced with evidence to the contrary, while religion will attempt to stick doggedly to a document that was written in another time by people of another society.
jasper76 wrote: Why was there ever justification for a trial to begin with? Why on earth would something as trivial as an idea about the location of planetary bodies merit a trial?
Because the Dominicans sucked at math, and like bad elementary school students, decided it was stupid. And if you'd really read my post, you'd know the answer to this. I even named the specific chapters of Pslams. Also because the Domincans pretty much ran the Inquisition, so when they came across Galileo's letter which mixed mathematical proofs and theology, they didn't have a hard time getting him put on trial for publishing subversive philosophy. It helps that they always stacked the Jury in their favor.
Now, you could easily argue the Dominicans were anti-science Right after they finished with Galileo they went on to go after Kepler who'd committed a similar blunder (and as a Lutheran, Kepler didn't get any help).
I don't understand the first part of your question.
It's pretty simple. There was steady scientific progress in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. It seems odd that starting with the Italian Renaissance, Europe began jumping ahead scientifically of the rest of the world if the Catholic church were so against science.
As for the second part, my guess would be the huge influx of cash.
Cash was one. Another was proximity to Crusader Kingdoms who had direct contact to the Islamic world which had been steadily advancing mathematics, astronomy, and medicine for some time (Copernicus' model had previously been proposed in the Islamic astronomy community centuries prior). The Italians were the primary financial backers behind the Crusades and controlled the ports and trade routes along the Mediterranean and after the weakening of Byzantium, the Black Sea. A third was the concentration of clergy in Italy, which produced a higher concentration of people capable of reading. The Jesuits were also located in Italy for a time, though I forget where they went after they were thrown out of Venice and the Jesuits were the opposite of the Dominicans. They actually really liked math.
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jasper76 wrote: I have provided the source material of the Papal Condemnation itself.
Which doesn't even remotely begin to explain the Galileo Affair, consisting of two trials, a letter, a book, some monks who didn't like math, some monks who did like math, and some bad decision making.
Yeah. I guess we must be speaking about some goddamn sustained metaphor here :
Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females, and if there be women more than two, then theirs is two-thirds of the inheritance, and if there be one (only) then the half. And to of his parents a sixth of the inheritance, if he have a son; and if he have no son and his parents are his heirs, then to his mother appertaineth the third; and if he have brethren, then to his mother appertaineth the sixth, after any legacy he may have bequeathed, or debt (hath been paid). Your parents or your children: Ye know not which of them is nearer unto you in usefulness. It is an injunction from Allah. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise. And unto you belongeth a half of that which your wives leave, if they have no child; but if they have a child then unto you the fourth of that which they leave, after any legacy they may have bequeathed, or debt (they may have contracted, hath been paid). And unto them belongeth the fourth of that which ye leave if ye have no child, but if ye have a child then the eighth of that which ye leave, after any legacy ye may have bequeathed, or debt (ye may have contracted, hath been paid). And if a man or a woman have a distant heir (having left neither parent nor child), and he (or she) have a brother or a sister (only on the mother's side) then to each of them twain (the brother and the sister) the sixth, and if they be more than two, then they shall be sharers in the third, after any legacy that may have been bequeathed or debt (contracted) not injuring (the heirs by willing away more than a third of the heritage) hath been paid. A commandment from Allah. Allah is Knower, Indulgent. These are the limits (imposed by) Allah. Maybe this is a metaphor of how caterpillars turn into butterfly rather than some very specific set of rules about inheritance.
-Shrike- wrote: Don't take the Bible (or Quran, I think, but as I have never read it, I'll defer to you for that) too seriously; early Christian scholars certainly didn't.
Not taking it too seriously? Sure, I will not. I think you meant literally, though. So, God is not supposed to actually exist, He is just a metaphor. Is that what I was supposed to understand?
A whole freaking lot of religious people need to be made aware that when the Bible or the Quran says God exists, it is just a metaphor rather than some definite answer.
-Shrike- wrote: By "actual truth", I assume you mean empirical truth?
I am talking about genuinely and honestly trying to find the truth, as opposed to looking for a convenient substitute.
-Shrike- wrote: Except... science can't answer every question to which there is an empirical answer.
LordofHats wrote: [Because the Dominicans sucked at math, and like bad elementary school students, decided it was stupid. And if you'd really read my post, you'd know the answer to this. I even named the specific chapters of Pslams. Also because the Domincans pretty much ran the Inquisition, so when they came across Galileo's letter which mixed mathematical proofs and theology, they didn't have a hard time getting him put on trial for publishing subversive philosophy. It helps that they always stacked the Jury in their favor.
I feel like you're missing my point. If there was no special conflict between religion and science, how were the Dominicans able to trump up charges against him? Of what nature were those charges? What institution gave entertained those charge? What institution are the Dominicans a part of?
LordofHats wrote: [Now, you could easily argue the Dominicans were anti-science Right after they finished with Galileo they went on to go after Kepler who'd committed a similar blunder (and as a Lutheran, Kepler didn't get any help).
The Dominicans and the Inquisition are and were at the time a sanctioned, recognized part of the Catholic Church. Sounds like this qualifies as a special conflict between religion and science to me.
LordofHats wrote: as one. Another was proximity to Crusader Kingdoms who had direct contact to the Islamic world which had been steadily advancing mathematics, astronomy, and medicine for some time (the Italians were the primary financial backers behind the Crusades and controlled the ports and trade routes along the Mediterranean and after the weakening of Byzantium, the Black Sea). A third was the concentration of clergy in Italy, which produced a higher concentration of people capable of reading. The Jesuits were also located in Italy for a time, though I forget where they went after they were thrown out of Venice and the Jesuits were the opposite of the Dominicans. They actually really liked math.
Sounds good to me.
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LordofHats wrote: Which doesn't even remotely begin to explain the Galileo Affair, consisting of two trials, a letter, a book, some monks who didn't like math, some monks who did like math, and some bad decision making.
This is an official record. Whatever the motives people had, etc. if there was no special conflict between science and religion, this document would never have been produced, because the following is nonsensical without a special conflict between science and religion.
The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
d-usa wrote: So we can all agree that the US government, and it's people as a whole, is as anti-science as the Catholic Church was during the Middle Ages?
No not at all. At this point, I (at least) have gone off on numerous tangents from my original point.
If it makes people happy and they're not hurting anyone with it they should be free to worship whatever they wish. I personally don't count myself as a believer as I don't see any convincing evidence for the supernatural or believe that any conception of it that humanity has produced would be at all accurate, but it's generally harmless enough.
What I am against however, is fanatacism. Be it militant atheism or fundamentalist religions. If people are killing and dying for it that's generally not a good thing.
dæl wrote: Nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil, how they are used is what defines that, be it to murder millions or to prevent a country from engaging in an invasion thus saving millions.
That isn't the same as being morally neutral though, same as science. It will either morally good or bad depending on use, though often it will be both, the same as science. You can't divorce them from their use, the same as you can't divorce yourself from your shadow on a sunny day; it isn't that it is neutral, it is nothing until it is acted upon. Creating a context where a human device is separate from humans is a bit of a cop out, which is why I said that it science doesn't exist in a vacuum.
I also disagree that religion never changes. Religion changes all the time as people interpret, discuss, and have dialogues about it. Religion today is different from religion 40 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, ad infinitum.
d-usa wrote: So we can all agree that the US government, and it's people as a whole, is as anti-science as the Catholic Church was during the Middle Ages?
No not at all. This is the product of probably multiple tangents by now.
There are, right now, certain things that are not allowed to be studied by government agencies or independent agencies using government funds.
So that makes Americans and the US anti-science by the same standards as applied to the church.
d-usa wrote: So we can all agree that the US government, and it's people as a whole, is as anti-science as the Catholic Church was during the Middle Ages?
No not at all. This is the product of probably multiple tangents by now.
There are, right now, certain things that are not allowed to be studied by government agencies or independent agencies using government funds.
So that makes Americans and the US anti-science by the same standards as applied to the church.
I don't think so. Not allowing use of funds for certain things is a whole different ballpark than criminalizing scientific publications.
jasper76 wrote: If there was no special conflict between religion and science, how were the Dominicans able to trump up charges against him?
A number of ways. One was that science didn't exist in the 17th century. As in the word science. What we call science, they called philosophy, and philosophy at that time was very broad, pretty much encompassing all academic pursuits (including theology, astronomy, and math). Because there was so much overlap between scientists and clergy at the time, this meant that the two were typically viewed as complimentary. To understand the Galileo Affair, we have to recognize that a distinction between science and religion was very vague and ambiguous.
To give more explanation to this, in the Catholic Church was a body called the College of Mathematics. It was home to some of the leading mathematicians of the era and was run by our friendly math lovers, the Jesuits.
Galileo himself, seems to have foreseen the eventually split of the two as he treats the world of natural philosophy as distinct from the matters of the faith in his work (a discussion of this matter is how he initially met Robert Bellarmine), though in his letter to Christina, he speaks at length that his science couldn't contradict the faith. The problem he ran into was many clergy took issue with his arguments over how scripture should be read. Galileo's fellow astronomers who didn't support the Copernican model got involved after the Dominicans began moving against his philosophical outlook, and end up conflating the scientific and religious issues together so that when the Inquisition's decision was made it wasn't about Galileo so much anymore as it was about the Heliocentric model.
What institution are the Dominicans a part of?
As an order they were primarily evangelist preachers. I'm not sure how it happened as the events probably go much further back than the Galileo Affair. By the time of Galileo's trial the Dominicans had a controlling share of the Inquisition.
A pet theory I entertain is that the Dominicans recognized Galileo's argument as stemming from Augustinian theology. They might have taken this as an insult, as their order was bound by the Rule of St. Augustine. When they found Galileo's work contradictory to their faith, they possibly viewed his arguments as an affront to the memory of St. Augustine and taken it very personally.
Sounds like this qualifies as a special conflict between religion and science to me.
And as I've explained, that's too simplistic a view. No one even paid attention to the Heliocentric debate until Galileo produced an theological argument in its favor. Numerous members of the church had supported him and advised caution on his part before he began advocating his theory. Given the nature of academics in his time, a sufficiently convincing mathematical model would lilkely have sufficed to prove the heliocentric model correct and the Church would have been unlikely to oppose it at that time. Galileo did not heed the warnings given to him however and pushed before he had strong enough evidencel. At his trial, it was easy for his detractors to tear open his science as insufficient and then accuse him of preaching matters counter to Church doctrine.
His first trial was the precise outcome numerous clergymen and associates had warned Galileo about. His greatest flaw seems to have either a significant lack of caution or being so far ahead of everyone else he lost track of what time he was living in.
OK, so you won't provide citations. I have provided the source material of the Papal Condemnation itself. It stands on its own. Lets move on. I'm sorry if I am being closed-minded. I'm not trying to be, I just don't agree with you.
P.S. sorry for so many edits, I'm noit trying to be a moving target, I just I have dyslexia
The catholic Church has been a huge supporter of science and held the view for almost 1000 years that science is the HOW and faith is the WHY.
In his 1893 encyclical, Pope Leo XIII wrote "no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language or as the common manner of speech those times required, and indeed still requires nowadays in everyday life, even amongst most learned people"
More recently, Thomas E. Woods, Jr. asserts that, despite the widely held conception of the Catholic Church as being anti-science, this conventional wisdom has been the subject of "drastic revision" by historians of science over the last 50 years. Woods asserts that the mainstream view now is that the "Church [has] played a positive role in the development of science ... even if this new consensus has not yet managed to trickle down to the general public". Science historian Ronald L. Numbers corroborates this view, writing that “Historians of science have known for years that White’s and Draper’s accounts are more propaganda than history…Yet the message has rarely escaped the ivory tower.
The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) has "maintained that evolutionary theory, properly understood, is not incompatible with belief in a Divine Creator, nor with the first 2 chapters of Genesis." The current belief in the Jewish faith is is that science doesn't disprove that 'natural law' wasn't god's intended framework.
There is a lot of science historians which disprove your idea that "church hates science" and for the most part, almost all the versions of western religion bow to science in the sense that religious texts are figurative and our interpretation bends to fit what we find from science. The only people who don't are the evangelical Christians who have adopted a 'literal' old testament which is not even supported by the catholic church and is a US only phenomenon and is not supported by pretty much anything in the bible. Literal old testament or 'young earth' is a fairly new phenomonom as while they have done the theological calculations, the church has long held that the 'days' in genesis were allegorical and not solar days, and the debated 'estimations' were never taken seriously until the 20th century.
If anyone has been traditionally supportive of science, it has been the catholic church and the Jewish faith and there is tons of historical evidence to prove it and debunk the revisionists accounts. Evangelical protestants who are old-testament literalists are the faction within the US who has been traditionally anti-science and are currently the ones stonewalling against modern science today.
nkelsch wrote: There is a lot of science historians which disprove your idea that "church hates science" and for the most part, almost all the versions of western religion bow to science in the sense that religious texts are figurative and our interpretation bends to fit what we find from science.
Please don't put words in my mouth, if you please. I never said that the "church hates science".
nkelsch wrote: There is a lot of science historians which disprove your idea that "church hates science" and for the most part, almost all the versions of western religion bow to science in the sense that religious texts are figurative and our interpretation bends to fit what we find from science.
Please don't put words in my mouth, if you please. I never said that the "church hates science".
Oh? so "anti-science" is a different position? please explain it to me because both "anti-science" and "church hates science" are both demonstrably false and have been proven not to be as history records the catholic church being a huge force in promoting science into what it is today.
You have to remember, just because people had theories about how the universe worked... even real scientists resisted adopting those views until the evidence backed it up. This meant observable phenomenons were often dismissed until a mathematical formula could be proven. This happened in science and people who were 'right but couldn't prove it' often had their discoveries ignored for hundreds of years. This was not a 'religious' position, a lot of it was scientific method. One needed to prove your theories to both scientists and the church. In the face of scientific evidence, the church has adapted and changed.
You can say most scientists were 'anti-science' by dismissing early unprovable theories which we now know are true but were yet to be proven at the time.
Galileo's claim was determined to be heretical based on contradiction to scripture.
he proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
This sentence would make absolutely no sense if there was no conflict bewteen a scientific proposition (science) and scripture (religion)...this is the actual resolution of that conflict. Propagated and disseminated. As a result, astronomy was slowed in its advancement.
nkelsch wrote: There is a lot of science historians which disprove your idea that "church hates science" and for the most part, almost all the versions of western religion bow to science in the sense that religious texts are figurative and our interpretation bends to fit what we find from science.
Please don't put words in my mouth, if you please. I never said that the "church hates science".
Oh? so "anti-science" is a different position? please explain it to me because both "anti-science" and "church hates science" are both demonstrably false and have been proven not to be as history records the catholic church being a huge force in promoting science into what it is today.
I'm sorry, I also never used the phrase "anti-science". I believe now you are confusing me with our comrade, LordsofHats.
Galileo's claim was determined to be heretical based on contradiction to scripture.
he proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
This sentence would make absolutely no sense if there was no conflict bewteen a scientific proposition and scripture...this is the actual resolution of that conflict. Propagated and disseminated. As a result, astronomy was slowed in its advancement.
you mean:
"If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the center of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion false which has been proved to be true. But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me."
You do know that Galileo was accused of heresy not because of this incident, but due to forged documents and insulting officials, not due to his scientific positions. Galileo simply was on the front edge of an observable, unprovable event at the time and the churches position said "you show proof, we will adapt." which is the exact same response by scientists and the scientific method.
It wasn't until gravity was quantified and Newton close to 70 years later that the evidence for Heliocentric was scientifically sound and not just an observable but not quantifiable phenomenon. And guess what? that is how scientists operate...
Galileo's claim was determined to be heretical based on contradiction to scripture.
he proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
This sentence would make absolutely no sense if there was no conflict bewteen a scientific proposition and scripture...this is the actual resolution of that conflict. Propagated and disseminated. As a result, astronomy was slowed in its advancement.
you mean:
"If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the center of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion false which has been proved to be true. But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me."
You do know that Galileo was accused of heresy not because of this incident, but due to forged documents and insulting officials, not due to his scientific positions. Galielo simply was ont he front edge of an observable, unprovable event at the time and the churches position said "you show proof, we will adapt." which is the exact same response by scientists and the scientific method.
I'm not focused on Galileo's punishment or crime.
I am pointing out that the scientific proposition itself was deemed heretical due to contradiction to Scripture. The proposition was made earlier to me by LordsofHats that there is no evidence of any special conflict between science and religion, and I am just providing source evidence to the contrary.
I am pointing out that the scientific proposition itself was deemed heretical due to contradiction to Scripture. The proposition was made earlier to me by LordsofHats that there is no evidence of any special conflict between science and religion, and I am just providing source evidence to the contrary.
The Scientific view of a Heliocentric Universe was not heretical.
The Theological view of a Heliocentric Universe was.
The church had no beef until he got scripture into the mix and started to piss of officials.
I am pointing out that the scientific proposition itself was deemed heretical due to contradiction to Scripture. The proposition was made earlier to me by LordsofHats that there is no evidence of any special conflict between science and religion, and I am just providing source evidence to the contrary.
The Scientific view of a Heliocentric Universe was not heretical.
The Theological view of a Heliocentric Universe was.
The church had no beef until he got scripture into the mix and started to piss of officials.
Nope. The very proposition itself was deemed heretical. You can't skate by the source.
The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
And further...
And in order that a doctrine so pernicious might be wholly rooted out and not insinuate itself further to the grave prejudice of Catholic truth, a decree was issued by the Holy Congregation of the Index prohibiting the books which treat of this doctrine and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture.
If you want to ignore years of facts leading up to a case and just use the final paper issued as your argument, then that is your issue and you are free to go "nananananana nothing matters because this one ruling kinda says what I want it to say".
But in support of "theological heresy" vs "scientific heresy":
And in order that a doctrine so pernicious might be wholly rooted out and not insinuate itself further to the grave prejudice of Catholic truth, a decree was issued by the Holy Congregation of the Index prohibiting the books which treat of this doctrine and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture.
I am pointing out that the scientific proposition itself was deemed heretical due to contradiction to Scripture. The proposition was made earlier to me by LordsofHats that there is no evidence of any special conflict between science and religion, and I am just providing source evidence to the contrary.
The Scientific view of a Heliocentric Universe was not heretical.
The Theological view of a Heliocentric Universe was.
The church had no beef until he got scripture into the mix and started to piss of officials.
The church had no problem with the discussion of a Heliocentric universe... and if there was evidence, they were happy to accept it.
Galileo had no evidence, but his 1624 book did two things... basically "Heliocentric universe is proven fact" and "everyone who doesn't agree with me is an idiot".
The issue wasn't his research or bowing to science, but stating unproven things as scientific fact and insulting everyone was enough to justify the church to move. And guess what? Saying science is fact without evidence would have had him rejected by other scientists at the time. The issue was vanity and not the pursuit of science because he lacked the mathematical skills to quantify his theories.
If anything, the issue wasn't with science, it was with 'man's ego' and people challenging authority which is a phenomenon totally unconnected to religion. There are dozens of examples where scientists had guessed right via observation but didn't have the skills to do the math to prove their physics. They were rejected often until someone later did the math and proved the science. This model happens independent of religion and is an attitude of mankind.
Robert Hooke is a perfect example... and the reason Newton gets all the credit is because Newton did the math. Hooke was not able to prove his ideas but knew his ideas to be on the right track. If he were to present his findings as indisputable fact without the evidence he would have been (and was) discounted and ridiculed by his peers.
Funny how having actual evidence helps your case out when being a scientist and declaring how the natural laws of the universe work.
d-usa wrote: If you want to ignore years of facts leading up to a case and just use the final paper issued as your argument, then that is your issue and you are free to go "nananananana nothing matters because this one ruling kinda says what I want it to say".
But in support of "theological heresy" vs "scientific heresy":
And in order that a doctrine so pernicious might be wholly rooted out and not insinuate itself further to the grave prejudice of Catholic truth, a decree was issued by the Holy Congregation of the Index prohibiting the books which treat of this doctrine and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture.
The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
You're missing my point. The facts leading up to the case seem very very interesting. Just like Roe v. Wade, Brown vs. Board of E or something. But the case itself is of less importance than the actual verdict, and how that changes society.
The result of the Galileo case was that Galileo's proposition (science) came into conflict with Holy Scripture (religion), and Holy Scripture won. As a direct result, Heliocentrism was officialy banned, not just as being false, but even criminalized.
It is one piece of evidence of a special conflict between science and religion, to counter LordsofHats claim that there was no evidence of such a conflict.
But the result of the case was that Galileo's proposition (science) came into conflict with Holy Scripture (religion), and Holy Scripture won. As a direct result, Heliocentrism was officialy banned, not just as being false, but even criminalized.
It is one piece of evidence of a special conflict between science and religion, to counter LordsofHats claim that there was no evidence of such a conflict.
Teaching it as scientific fact without evidence was banned... the research into it was not... hence why it was officially proven relatively soon after such a decree. For something that was 'criminalized' there seems to be a suspiciously large number of scientists researching it throughout Europe openly and unobstructed during the 1600s.
The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture....and in order that a doctrine so pernicious might be wholly rooted out and not insinuate itself further to the grave prejudice of Catholic truth, a decree was issued by the Holy Congregation of the Index prohibiting the books which treat of this doctrine and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture.
All this nitpicking over precise forms of heresy is ignoring the major issue here: the entire concept of heresy being a crime is fundamentally opposed to science. One of the core principles of science is that ideas are judged on their own merits, and without arbitrary rules about what is allowed. Criminal heresy, on the other hand, declares that certain ideas are not allowed and threatens punishment for expressing them, regardless of their merits. That kind of restriction on the free and open exchange of ideas is the exact opposite of what science requires. And if you oppose the fundamental principles of science then you're anti-science, regardless of whether or not you accept a specific scientific fact or persecute a specific scientist for "good" reasons.
Orlanth wrote: Why single out the religious buildings, why not the barracks, or the munitions factories, or the banking infrastructure. Or maybe the gambling halls. And why do those who wish to attack institutions always compare to how much health care or education could be bought witb the money, as if that was what redirected money naturally goes to.
Exactly. And why not look at personal spending. Why not suggest that we imagine a world in which instead of buying big screen TVs, we should put that money into education? And then suggest that if they really hold to that opinion, they should sell their own TVs and donate the money to a school.
And then maybe they'll realise how douchey it is to lecture other people about the money they spend on things they choose to spend their own money on, like churches.
Its a one sided ideal, linked to a policy of cultural annihilation. as a rule of thumb when someone wants to utterly eradicate part of society, and promise nice benefits from it, they tend to be up to no good.
Well that's going a bit far. You're now giving atheism some kind of real political power which simply doesn't exist. Address this problem as it actually is, a small minority of atheists being jerks who just can't let other people hold a different opinion than their own, and you're half way to solving the problem.
But by instead assuming that they harbour some kind of conspiracy to dismantle church and faith and odds are you're just taking up the opposite side of the fight, and contributing equally to the problem.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jasper76 wrote: Yep. In light of the well-documented persecution by the Roman Church against its detractors, I think that claims to be religious from this era are by default suspect. Not that you should assume that they aren't true, only that they are suspect.
If the only evidence we had was that when directly challenged they stated they were religious, then it would be reasonable to assume they were lying. But instead we have whole essays on treatises on religion and science, as the two went hand in hand and informed each other (the seperation of religion and science is old by our standards, but in terms of history it slowly grew out of the rise of the empirical method). It was thought for much of history that study of the natural world was an inherently religious pursuit, as you were looking to learn about God's creation.
No one said you were, but as I stated a page ago, you can quote that document over and over and it still won't say what you're saying it says. Why is it that for nearly a century, the heliocentric universe was openly discusse, and then when Galileo wrote a theological argument in its favor was it shut down? Further, the Church was ready to allow a hypothetical discussion of the concept in 1632, but didn't want anyone advocating the issue. That's a rather nuanced position to be taking for a body that is against science.
All this nitpicking over precise forms of heresy is ignoring the major issue here: the entire concept of heresy being a crime is fundamentally opposed to science. One of the core principles of science is that ideas are judged on their own merits, and without arbitrary rules about what is allowed. Criminal heresy, on the other hand, declares that certain ideas are not allowed and threatens punishment for expressing them, regardless of their merits. That kind of restriction on the free and open exchange of ideas is the exact opposite of what science requires. And if you oppose the fundamental principles of science then you're anti-science, regardless of whether or not you accept a specific scientific fact or persecute a specific scientist for "good" reasons.
To the development of the Heliocentric universe, yeah. I ended up stifling progress on that, but that's not the argument anyone's making. Again, it's impossible to claim the Church was anti-science while at the same time knowing that great progress was made within its sphere. If we examine the claim that the church stifled science as a whole, we find it to be false because the Church did not make a habit of going after science for science. Galileo is the most famous example of a scientist being silenced by the church, but he wasn't silenced for science he was silenced for religion in a time and place where the difference wasn't a clear one.
Further it can be shown that many scientists were religious officials and that in Galileo's trial (the first one anyway) he was defended by clergy and had students who were clergy.
Calling the church detrimental to science in this light is thus inaccurate. It doesn't account for the history as we know it. That's not an argument that Galileo deserved it or that the Church was a reasonable body by our standards, merely that the perception as presented isn't true.
Yeah. I guess we must be speaking about some goddamn sustained metaphor here :
(stuff)
Maybe this is a metaphor of how caterpillars turn into butterfly rather than some very specific set of rules about inheritance.
-Shrike- wrote: Don't take the Bible (or Quran, I think, but as I have never read it, I'll defer to you for that) too seriously; early Christian scholars certainly didn't.
Not taking it too seriously? Sure, I will not. I think you meant literally, though. So, God is not supposed to actually exist, He is just a metaphor. Is that what I was supposed to understand?
A whole freaking lot of religious people need to be made aware that when the Bible or the Quran says God exists, it is just a metaphor rather than some definite answer.
Maybe I should have been more clear what I was talking about. My response was about you talking about the "nonsensical stories", not about the existence of God or the various rules laid out in the holy books. EDIT: Yes, I did mean literally.
-Shrike- wrote: By "actual truth", I assume you mean empirical truth?
I am talking about genuinely and honestly trying to find the truth, as opposed to looking for a convenient substitute.
Right, so what if there is no empirical answer to a question?
-Shrike- wrote: Except... science can't answer every question to which there is an empirical answer.
So? What is your point exactly?
In science, the goal is to get the best possible model. It is pretty easy to see how a good model can be pretty useful (technology!), and how a model can be rated as good or not (accurately predict the result of experiments, and is as tractable as possible).
Specific goals, specific ways to attain those goals, and the end result is that those goals are attained.
Just nitpicking. Science can't always achieve all of the goals it sets.
-Shrike- wrote: Maybe I should have been more clear what I was talking about. My response was about you talking about the "nonsensical stories", not about the existence of God or the various rules laid out in the holy books.
-Shrike- wrote: Right, so what if there is no empirical answer to a question?
If we have no way to answer a question, then just admit that we do not know the answer, rather than make up some silly answer and pretend for it to be true. Yeah, that mean facing the fact we do not know some things.
-Shrike- wrote: Just nitpicking. Science can't always achieve all of the goals it sets.
Well, it does constantly improve and refine itself, and already give us models good enough for pretty amazing feats like setting up a GPS, sending man to the moon and robots all over space, finding tons of cures, …
I would say that this is already pretty impressive
No religion is an outdated and failed experiment at describing nature and Cosmos around us aswell a failure as a method of Control of societies as most of them allows and activly protects corrupt and hypocritical behaviour of the upper echelon...
*Note, I've skimmed a lot of this thread, my lunchbreak is short and precious*
jasper76 wrote:
Do you really believe that the Romans were stagnant in their technological development?
concrete, irrigation, architecture, fortification, plumbing, engineering, mining, etc.
Didn't have the concept of 0, fractions or negative numbers though, which, as it turns out, is incredibly important when it comes to technological advancement, which supposedly held them back quite a bit in terms of technology.
It's a maths thing, if you can't do the maths properly, the only way to advance is through the painfully slow process of trial and error, civilisations that can crunch the numbers tend to move faster than those that can't.
Gitzbitah wrote:
Leigen_Zero wrote: Personally I'm atheist, mainly because I find it incredibly hard to reconcile religion with reality, but I always sum up 'is religion good?' into a single comparison.
Religion is like the internet, it's not inherently good or bad, and generally most of the people involved are nice.
However, it's the small number of total frellin' morons who shout really really loudly all the time that ruin it for the rest of us...
You know, that is a remarkably apt assessment. Exalt from a Catholic turned Baptist turned witch!
Why thank you kind sir
In remarks to technological advancement in any modern civilisation, I would say that the largest thing that slows the progress of the 'new' technology, is the people who are making a lot of money off the 'old' technology
Peregrine wrote: And if you oppose the fundamental principles of science then you're anti-science, regardless of whether or not you accept a specific scientific fact or persecute a specific scientist for "good" reasons.
Then a majority of scientists, even up to the recent times were anti-science as well. There was a lot of scientists who suppressed scientific process and discovery out of arrogance, bigotry or wanting to maintain control. They restricted the free and open exchange of ideas throughout history by dismissing evidence and discoveries of women, ignoring discoveries of those who were not formally educated and some even selling their soul to corporations and defending science with an agenda and crushing opposing views.
One could say that it is human nature to resist the open discussion of ideas even in the absence of religion simply because knowledge is power, and the more you control knowledge, the more power you have.
To discount all the achievements of the catholic church in regards to science because of the Galileo incident is like discounting all scientists everywhere because Michael Faraday was abused and discounted due to his lack of math skills, Or the discoveries of females at Harvard in the early 1900s were discounted because they were women, or that Lead was good and those who researched it was harmful should be ignored which was argued by Robert Kehoe in front of congress after decades of scientific suppression by 'all leading scientists'. All just as bad, if not worse examples of establishments which claimed to be for science squashing the free exchange of ideas and putting down scientific discoveries for personal power but yet all claim to be 'pro-science'.
Boils down to institutions of history, religious or not had people who were anti-science, but the institutions still as a whole made great contributions to science and did amazing works in promoting science even though specific people were using their positions within government and scientific institutions to stop it or slow it down. You would hardly call 'harvard' anti science...
Well its not like free and open exchange was something that existed prior to the church or alongside with it either. Not very many bastions of Free Speech in 17th century Earth, if any.
It's mockable to us today, but they didn't have our tools. Geocentrism wasn't chosen just because it happened to coincide with some Bible passages, there was mathematical evidence to support it in their time, and the convergence of scripture with that theory created a crossroad that Galileo became trapped in.
Roger Bacon was a Franciscan Friar and is one of the key founders of the Scientific Method. Thomas Aquinas was a significant figure in the development of rationalism and one of the Church's most crucial founding fathers. Gregor Mendel was a Augustinian Monk and is cited as the father of genetics. The Big Bang Theory was created by Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic Priest. The Church funded the first of Europe's universities (including Oxford and Cambridge) and hosted numerous key scientific bodies across its lifetime, many of which are still with us today (the Pontifical Academy of Sciences).
To dismiss everything the Church did because of a false notion of Galileo's trial* is bad science (for those of us who consider History a science anyway ).
*It's also kind of funny. Galileo is best remembered for the Galileo Affair and Heliocentricism, yet his greatest contribution to Astronomy was blundering and getting Heliocentricism banned. His work was completely derivative of Copernicus' and some guy from Denmark whose name I forget. His greatest contributions were to Physics, a field where he's completely overshadowed by Kepler and Newton (rather unjustly overshadowed as well. Kepler is overblown ).
LordofHats wrote: No one said you were, but as I stated a page ago, you can quote that document over and over and it still won't say what you're saying it says. Why is it that for nearly a century, the heliocentric universe was openly discusse, and then when Galileo wrote a theological argument in its favor was it shut down? Further, the Church was ready to allow a hypothetical discussion of the concept in 1632, but didn't want anyone advocating the issue. That's a rather nuanced position to be taking for a body that is against science.
That's where I thnk you are getting me wrong. I don't want it to say anything. I am completely indifferent. Its just an historical artifact. But it does say, and there is absolutely 0 interpretation here, that heliocentrism was heresy because it opposed scripture, and that books containing the proposition were banned.
That Holy Scripture was successfully used to discredit and ban an idea, which has real consequences (to say nothing of the punishment to an individual), is a case in point of a special conflict between relgion and science. Hence, John Paul II's pseudo-aplogy:
Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture.... —Pope John Paul II, L'Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264) - November 4, 1992
emphasis mine
As a discussion of Galileo, this is very interesting. However, the same type of thing is going on today, in the here and now, by certain religious quarters against biology. Because the facts of biology are in "special conflict" with Holy Scripture, some people out there are actively trying to cast doubt among our youth about an established area of science, and wilfully ignoring mountains and mountains of fossil and DNA records, all because of a literal interpretation of their Holy Scripture. You don't have to dig too far to discover the true intent: to legitimize the ever-waning influence of religion by de-legitamizing the ever-growing influence of science. As proof, read the Wedge document produced by the Discovery Institute, which, like Galileo's condemnation, also speaks for itself: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf
jasper76 wrote: Because the facts of biology are in "special conflict" with Holy Scripture, some people out there are actively trying to cast doubt among our youth about an established area of science, and wilfully ignoring mountains and mountains of fossil and DNA records, all because of a literal interpretation of their Holy Scripture.
Stormfront advocates that anyone who isn't white is inferior to whites. Am I to assume from them that white people are a detriment to Western civilization?
I don't understand the question, or its significance to efforts to try and undermine biology.
But no, one racist doesn't make everyone of the same skin color as the racist, also racist
Automatically Appended Next Post: If you are implying that I feel the same way about religious people (one bad apple spoils the whole bunch), I do not think that, either\, and have said so numerous times on this thread. The OP question was whether religion was a net benefit or detriment to Western civilization.
We could ask the same thing about, lets say, public transportation, or private education, or centralized banking.
Yes it is needed in my opinion big time. For the most part for people like me, I do not care if people tell me it is wrong and I have no real apathy for "punishment". The only reason I don't do what ever I want is because the lord told me not to with the commandments. If not for them I see no reason not to take what you want or do what you like. If your bigger and have the means take what you want and screw them they should be better prepared. After all like my grampy always said cops are there for punishing you for things you got caught doing. Not to stop you from doing them.
I know I am not the only one with this train of thought either, but people never seem to understand that. Some people may do violence for religion. Religion also helps calm the violent. The prospect of someone "a almighty father" telling you whats wrong and right who understands far more then I ever could gives you a actual reason to behave and follow the rules. I see our laws kinda moot they are made by people just like us with a way to tell us what to do. Why who cares if they think it is right and wrong. The only reason people follow them is because more people agree to them then disagree.
But I will follow all the laws and behave because the Lord said to. Also his commandments are the same as our laws so all good.
Yes I think I was born 1000 years to late I think I would be far better off living way back then.
jasper76 wrote: Because the facts of biology are in "special conflict" with Holy Scripture, some people out there are actively trying to cast doubt among our youth about an established area of science, and wilfully ignoring mountains and mountains of fossil and DNA records, all because of a literal interpretation of their Holy Scripture.
Stormfront advocates that anyone who isn't white is inferior to whites. Am I to assume from them that white people are a detriment to Western civilization?
No. But feel free to assume that racist ideologies and racist books are a detriment to western civilization. In the same manner, feel free to assume that religions and religious book that literally contradict what experiment and thorough research have taught us are also a detriment.
As a discussion of Galileo, this is very interesting. However, the same type of thing is going on today, in the here and now, by certain religious quarters against biology. Because the facts of biology are in "special conflict" with Holy Scripture, some people out there are actively trying to cast doubt among our youth about an established area of science, and wilfully ignoring mountains and mountains of fossil and DNA records, all because of a literal interpretation of their Holy Scripture. You don't have to dig too far to discover the true intent: to legitimize the ever-waning influence of religion by de-legitamizing the ever-growing influence of science. As proof, read the Wedge document produced by the Discovery Institute, which, like Galileo's condemnation, also speaks for itself: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf
You do realize that the Catholic church has never believed in 'young earth' and has never disputed the scientific creation of the earth or accepted the literal position of '7 days' being solar days. So to claim that the extreme fringe of 20th century 'young earth creationists' is the position of the catholic church is wrong.
The Moses's accounts which alter became the bible are surprising accurate for being the verbal re-telling of divine inspiration. The 'days' actually correspond to known dates and times of the creation of the universe and life on earth. The processes of genesis actually is a very good metaphorical description of the big bang and how the solar system formed. A lot of the passages referring to giants on earth directly correspond to the end of the ice age and when neanderthal and man would have co-existed and interbred. It is TOO accurate to be coincidence compared to a lot of other myths out there where things are on the back of a turtle. It is almost as if someone who had full scientific knowledge of the universe tried to dictate it to a 2-year old and the result was genesis.
A majority of Christians and the catholic church (and the Jewish faith) do not believe in 'young earth' or 'fake dinosaur fossils put here by satan'. They also follow and teach evolution as evolution does not conflict with those faiths and does not attempt to disprove a soul. The position of the catholic church is to actually teach evolution in catholic schools and they do not at all teach creationism or young earth in catholic schools as that is not what they believe.
Anti evolutionists and 'young earth' creationism is no more 'Christianity's position' than murdering people with carbombs is 'islam's position'. Extreme ideology in any form is a problem... and there are non-religious extreme ideology which are just as bad...
OgreChubbs wrote: Yes it is needed in my opinion big time. For the most part for people like me, I do not care if people tell me it is wrong and I have no real apathy for "punishment". The only reason I don't do what ever I want is because the lord told me not to with the commandments. If not for them I see no reason not to take what you want or do what you like. If your bigger and have the means take what you want and screw them they should be better prepared. After all like my grampy always said cops are there for punishing you for things you got caught doing. Not to stop you from doing them.
Is your stance that without religion, people would be amoral and/or chaotic and/or unlawful?
OgreChubbs wrote: Yes it is needed in my opinion big time. For the most part for people like me, I do not care if people tell me it is wrong and I have no real apathy for "punishment". The only reason I don't do what ever I want is because the lord told me not to with the commandments. If not for them I see no reason not to take what you want or do what you like. If your bigger and have the means take what you want and screw them they should be better prepared. After all like my grampy always said cops are there for punishing you for things you got caught doing. Not to stop you from doing them.
I know I am not the only one with this train of thought either, but people never seem to understand that. Some people may do violence for religion. Religion also helps calm the violent. The prospect of someone "a almighty father" telling you whats wrong and right who understands far more then I ever could gives you a actual reason to behave and follow the rules. I see our laws kinda moot they are made by people just like us with a way to tell us what to do. Why who cares if they think it is right and wrong. The only reason people follow them is because more people agree to them then disagree.
But I will follow all the laws and behave because the Lord said to. Also his commandments are the same as our laws so all good.
Yes I think I was born 1000 years to late I think I would be far better off living way back then.
But the laws of nature are cruel and harsh. Why can't I murder you, rape your wife and eat your children? It is all around good for me personally. Nature is survival of the fittest, and if it propagates my genetic material... why not? What makes it wrong? Chimpanzees seem to have no problem forming groups based upon defending DNA and murdering each other's children for fun and dominance... Why is it 'wrong' for humans to do the same thing?
This was the problem confronted by early man... And if good old Sky grandpa kept people from murdering their neighbor and taking their stuff out of fear, respect or whatever, so be it. It was way to early in our development for 'you don't do it because it is wrong' to mean anything, and in times of scarcity, it would have actually have been a 'good thing' to murder the weak in the civilization for the good of the human race.
Hell... Why not do that today? What makes it inherently wrong? Would the human race be better off if we purged bad genetics from the genepool? we could improve the human race if only the strong and fit reproduced. What makes that thinking wrong? Lots of dark truths about science and nature are really offensive if you think about it and extend them to their logical conclusions.
Sky grandpa did a lot of good in the dawn of human civilization, And while a lot of our laws handle what we consider 'morals and ethics' today, almost all of them in this world boil down to a concept that we are all equal and have a right to life even though nature tells us the exact opposite that we are not all equal and we do not have a right to life. A lot of that came from sky grandpa and while we may not need him watching over us today, I think it is hard to believe that we could have developed as a civilization without him in many cases.
nkelsch wrote: Anti evolutionists and 'young earth' creationism is no more 'Christianity's position' than murdering people with carbombs is 'islam's position'.
I never tried to imply a majority of Christian sects are young earth creationists. Only that young earth creationism as an ideology is religious, and it is detrimental to society in that it misleads the youth.
nkelsch wrote: Extreme ideology in any form is a problem...and there are non-religious extreme ideology which are just as bad...
OgreChubbs wrote: Yes it is needed in my opinion big time. For the most part for people like me, I do not care if people tell me it is wrong and I have no real apathy for "punishment". The only reason I don't do what ever I want is because the lord told me not to with the commandments. If not for them I see no reason not to take what you want or do what you like. If your bigger and have the means take what you want and screw them they should be better prepared. After all like my grampy always said cops are there for punishing you for things you got caught doing. Not to stop you from doing them.
Is your stance that without religion, people would be amoral and/or chaotic and/or unlawful?
It is a possibility which cannot be tested... but when you look at our closest living relatives, Chimpanzees, they understand concepts like compassion, equity and emotion... but they also live amoral and unlawful existences in the way they fight territorial battles and murder and cannibalize young offspring simply to cause pain and scare rival groups. Survival of the fittest, and protect your DNA.
The shortage of resources would have naturally forced early man to fight as tribes, mostly based upon DNA, and rape and murder other humans for necessity. Spirituality was one of the things that curbed that in many early civilizations.
If you think that we wouldn't turn exactly into waring bands of chimpanzees if governments were to fall and civilization were to end, well I hope you are right. Let's hope it never comes to that.
jasper76 wrote: But no, one racist doesn't make everyone of the same skin color as the racist, also racist
Then why assume everyone who is religious is against science? You're not arguing against Christians or even the Catholic Church, you're arguing against Young Earth Creationists. Welcome to the club. No one likes them, not even other Christians. If your argument is that religion leads to people subverting science, well so do politics, economics, and random internet wackos who are convinced the lizard people really rule the Earth.
But feel free to assume that racist ideologies and racist books are a detriment to western civilization.
In what manner? Because it hurts your moral sensibilities? Just because you find something distasteful doesn't automatically mean there wasn't a gain. You can thank all that slave labor for saving the American economy in the 18th century. Doesn't make slavery right, but morality and reality don't always end up seeing eye to eye.
Likewise, why single out the Church for its persecutions? The Romans had mountains of religious persecution. The Greeks were even worse. I fail to see how the Church was any worse than its predecessors and contemporaries as an institution. If you were a scientist in the Roman world and tried to argue that the Earth orbited around the sun, they'd just throw Ptolemy in your face and tell you you were wrong. They didn't even entertain the notion that the great Greek philosophers weren't 100% correct.
As wonky as it was, the Catholic church created an education system, supported numerous scientific institutions, and had a system in place for the discussion of ideas. Compared to pretty much everyone but the Abassids and the Fatamids, they were way more open to new information and research than others and further, clergy were active participants in that exchange of ideas. Taking individual incidents like Bruno and Galileo and throwing all the rest of that history out is just putting pants on your head.
It is said that mankind need some assurance in their life, and a reason to live to make their lives meaningful and in many cultures Religion is the key. To bow down before a being/s that is taller and mightier than oneself is needed so people can find something to live up to and try and resemble to create a greater human being.
Religious spiritual value is necessary to create order based upon that If You Kill its Bad thing and DONT STEAL. For many cultures Religion is a way to pass on traditions and methods of their civilisation such as the Aboriginals Dreamtime that teaches them to not roam out of camp or the Rainbow serpent will eat you.
Religion as it is defined now, such as the Catholic Church is the reason Religion is given a bad name. This is the work of a thousand years of corrupt influence and the result of ultimate power that everyone gives because the chair is holy.
I believe in God and will gladly go to church, to meet new people and to converse in sacred ground. Church is needed as a social event as well as to use the anecdotes of Ancient Times and the stories of Christ and other prophets to apply to today and use their meanings to better shape our future by raising awareness and helping the poor, the cripples, the broken and those who are exiled.
The Christian Religion is based upon the principles that if you love your neighbour and you love yourself you will succeed in life and it is the same in nearly every other main religion such as Buddhism which is the belief that you must find the path of enlightenment and in Islam to follow the example set by Muhammad.
It is just greed, envy and the power of corrupt humans rip apart this cultural understanding and mould it into their own fantasies to further their gain in the name of God/s.
So yes, Religious and Spiritual guidance should be accepted and celebrated, but the Church of Catholicism and the strict teachings that try to further a particular persons gain such as the Islam radicals or the Catholic bishops or the Hindu teachings about Kashmir has to stop before we can evolve as human beings.
Rant over.
nkelsch wrote: Anti evolutionists and 'young earth' creationism is no more 'Christianity's position' than murdering people with carbombs is 'islam's position'.
I never tried to imply a majority of Christian sects are young earth creationists. Only that young earth creationism as an ideology is religious, and it is detrimental to society in that it misleads the youth.
nkelsch wrote: Extreme ideology in any form is a problem...and there are non-religious extreme ideology which are just as bad...
Indeed.
That assumes you actually think the people who are promoting that, 'believe' it. It seems like it is a tool for controlling people and not at all something those people actually believe. It means the issue is not religion, it is the ambition and power of man to corrupt pretty much anything to control people via ignorance. It happens in government, economics, and other ideologies, not just religion... removing religion doesn't 'solve' anything and it is not a direct result of religion.
Extreme ideology used to manipulate and oppress people by power hungry humans is the core issue... Blaming religion is just the action of another power hungry human looking to use an ideology to oppress other people.
OgreChubbs wrote: Yes it is needed in my opinion big time. For the most part for people like me, I do not care if people tell me it is wrong and I have no real apathy for "punishment". The only reason I don't do what ever I want is because the lord told me not to with the commandments. If not for them I see no reason not to take what you want or do what you like. If your bigger and have the means take what you want and screw them they should be better prepared. After all like my grampy always said cops are there for punishing you for things you got caught doing. Not to stop you from doing them.
I know I am not the only one with this train of thought either, but people never seem to understand that. Some people may do violence for religion. Religion also helps calm the violent. The prospect of someone "a almighty father" telling you whats wrong and right who understands far more then I ever could gives you a actual reason to behave and follow the rules. I see our laws kinda moot they are made by people just like us with a way to tell us what to do. Why who cares if they think it is right and wrong. The only reason people follow them is because more people agree to them then disagree.
But I will follow all the laws and behave because the Lord said to. Also his commandments are the same as our laws so all good.
Yes I think I was born 1000 years to late I think I would be far better off living way back then.
But the laws of nature are cruel and harsh. Why can't I murder you, rape your wife and eat your children? It is all around good for me personally. Nature is survival of the fittest, and if it propagates my genetic material... why not? What makes it wrong? Chimpanzees seem to have no problem forming groups based upon defending DNA and murdering each other's children for fun and dominance... Why is it 'wrong' for humans to do the same thing?
This was the problem confronted by early man... And if good old Sky grandpa kept people from murdering their neighbor and taking their stuff out of fear, respect or whatever, so be it. It was way to early in our development for 'you don't do it because it is wrong' to mean anything, and in times of scarcity, it would have actually have been a 'good thing' to murder the weak in the civilization for the good of the human race.
Hell... Why not do that today? What makes it inherently wrong? Would the human race be better off if we purged bad genetics from the genepool? we could improve the human race if only the strong and fit reproduced. What makes that thinking wrong? Lots of dark truths about science and nature are really offensive if you think about it and extend them to their logical conclusions.
Sky grandpa did a lot of good in the dawn of human civilization, And while a lot of our laws handle what we consider 'morals and ethics' today, almost all of them in this world boil down to a concept that we are all equal and have a right to life even though nature tells us the exact opposite that we are not all equal and we do not have a right to life. A lot of that came from sky grandpa and while we may not need him watching over us today, I think it is hard to believe that we could have developed as a civilization without him in many cases.
You aren't going to like my answer so I won't answer because it may offend people.
I hold firmly that the reasons we don't do that is because the lord told us not to. I see no reason not to because we are animals and those in need will fight for what they need and those who have, will fight to keep what they have. We still do it look at our wars for the last... ever. Even the newest one the U.S.A. is in they are trying to kill those who are against them and their beliefs to keep what they have.
So yea I say the world would be a lot more chaotic and unruly if not for religion. We are creatures who try and self preserve we have enough to feed 3 we keep it for ourselves or share some to the most healthy. Why because they have the best chance of helping us if we are attacked or need help in a hunt. My religion tells me to keep only what I need and give the rest. It is almost as god is saying all tho these are your base desires you are in a era where they aren't needed anymore so here are new rules to follow. We seem to be the only animal that has the choice to obey our desires or ignore them and give.
nkelsch wrote: That assumes you actually think the people who are promoting that, 'believe' it. It seems like it is a tool for controlling people and not at all something those people actually believe. It means the issue is not religion, it is the ambition and power of man to corrupt pretty much anything to control people via ignorance. It happens in government, economics, and other ideologies, not just religion... removing religion doesn't 'solve' anything and it is not a direct result of religion.
I think this assertion is correct on the issue of climate change. To the extent that religion is used to promote climate science denial, the primary underlying motivation is probably money.
As for biology denial, I'm convinced certain people really do believe it. Ken Hamm certainly believes it. The impressionable children he preaches to as fact certainly believe it.
As for curbing reproductive rights, that is based I think largely on sincerely held belief in religious doctrine.
As for denying people equal civil rights, again that is based I think largely on sincerely held belief in religious doctrine.
If you think that we wouldn't turn exactly into waring bands of chimpanzees if governments were to fall and civilization were to end, well I hope you are right. Let's hope it never comes to that.
Governments falling and the end of civilization is an interesting topic, but I'm more interested in Ogre's opinions/assumptions on people's behavior without religion.
So yea I say the world would be a lot more chaotic and unruly if not for religion. We are creatures who try and self preserve we have enough to feed 3 we keep it for ourselves or share some to the most healthy. Why because they have the best chance of helping us if we are attacked or need help in a hunt. My religion tells me to keep only what I need and give the rest. It is almost as god is saying all tho these are your base desires you are in a era where they aren't needed anymore so here are new rules to follow. We seem to be the only animal that has the choice to obey our desires or ignore them and give.
Orlanth wrote: Why single out the religious buildings, why not the barracks, or the munitions factories, or the banking infrastructure. Or maybe the gambling halls.
And why do those who wish to attack institutions always compare to how much health care or education could be bought witb the money, as if that was what redirected money naturally goes to.
And then maybe they'll realise how douchey it is to lecture other people about the money they spend on things they choose to spend their own money on, like churches.
They know its 'douchey', its a propaganda technique, compare the removal of something the proponents don't like and propose it is replaced by something everyone likes, dollar for dollar, with no corruption or retribution.
A successful removal of religion, or other independent instutions, might free up a lot of money, but you would need to spend more than you save on the secret police to do so, and you would have to trust said secret police to be uncorrupted and honest about their work. Yeah right.
Its a one sided ideal, linked to a policy of cultural annihilation.
as a rule of thumb when someone wants to utterly eradicate part of society, and promise nice benefits from it, they tend to be up to no good.
Well that's going a bit far. You're now giving atheism some kind of real political power which simply doesn't exist. Address this problem as it actually is, a small minority of atheists being jerks who just can't let other people hold a different opinion than their own, and you're half way to solving the problem.
Sorry, I agree with you only so far.
Even 'mild' bigoted statements from fringe groups with no power are stomped on heavily, this should be taken no different as it is no different from a group saying 'wouldnt it be nice if we removed all the immigrants and spent the welfare money on education instead.'
But by instead assuming that they harbour some kind of conspiracy to dismantle church and faith and odds are you're just taking up the opposite side of the fight, and contributing equally to the problem.
The process is viral not conspirational, and relies on successive empowerment of partisan parties at the expense of others, and need not have any guiding hand, the propaganda techniques used are from the public domain.
Still when someone proposes the removal of a structure of society they don't like we must assume the will of those who do want it will be compromised, and there is good reason not to be complacent..
Even if this group has no power to be a threat, it has power enough to sow a seed. The first step is often the hardest: Make it basically acceptable to consider completely abolishing religion, most forms of evil in society cannot occur while the populace has a democracy and the will to stand up over transparent rights violations. One or other has to go, with democracy being the harder part of the equation to dismantle.
The successful erosion of freedom is a long process, and those who wish to do so are patient.
OgreChubbs wrote: Yes it is needed in my opinion big time. For the most part for people like me, I do not care if people tell me it is wrong and I have no real apathy for "punishment". The only reason I don't do what ever I want is because the lord told me not to with the commandments. If not for them I see no reason not to take what you want or do what you like. If your bigger and have the means take what you want and screw them they should be better prepared. After all like my grampy always said cops are there for punishing you for things you got caught doing. Not to stop you from doing them.
Don't take this as anything personal (I'm going to attack this line of thinking, not you if I can help it), but this line of thinking terrifies me. Divine commandments from super-beings usually aren't the biggest constraint to most people being jerkwads, social pressures and people's own sense of morality usually does most of it. To my mind, if the only thing keeping someone from being a psychopath is the threat of divine retribution or eternal reward, something is wrong. If the urge to harm is only kept in check by a threat like this, that person isn't a good person.
If others can keep themselves from being destructive and harmful to others without the concept of divine retribution or the need of an eternal reward, while others of different faiths or no faith can manage, that speaks to the person and not the need for faith.
I don't believe in a heaven or hell, and despite having all the means at my disposal, I don't go around setting puppies on fire, killing my neighbors, hijacking cars, punching babies, plundering from stores, or anything else. Am I a naturally superior person such that I can do so even without divine commandment? I highly doubt it . I tend to think the vast majority of people just naturally aren't jerkwads, and what their natural instincts don't hold them back from, social pressures usually will.
nkelsch wrote: It was way to early in our development for 'you don't do it because it is wrong' to mean anything
Nope. It was the other way around. People had already talked a whole lot about morals way before Christianity was invented, back when most religions had no such duality about one god dividing everything between right and wrong. Jews and Zoroastrians had that before Christianity, but I would bet you much that moral came first, and way later people tried to enforce it using religion.
nkelsch wrote: Why not do that today? What makes it inherently wrong? Would the human race be better off if we purged bad genetics from the genepool? we could improve the human race if only the strong and fit reproduced. What makes that thinking wrong?
That is what Nazis believed. No, religion did not really made turn them into carebears. And before that we got the whole racism+slavery stuff.
nkelsch wrote: Lots of dark truths about science and nature are really offensive if you think about it and extend them to their logical conclusions.
Here, the problem is neither with science nor with nature. The problem is with your preexisting opinion about what would be good. For instance, you speak about “improving the human race” as if it was automatically a good thing, and without even defining improving it in regards to which criterion ?
nkelsch wrote: Sky grandpa did a lot of good in the dawn of human civilization
The dawn of civilization scarcely had a sky grandpa. The most influential antique philosophers, who thought a whole great deal about morals and ethics, had a religion full of immoral Gods with very human flaws, that were not to be taken as role models. Neither did ancient Egyptians.
Seriously, you need to back up your thoughts with facts.
LordofHats wrote: In what manner? Because it hurts your moral sensibilities?
I have no freaking idea. You tell me. Why did you write : “Stormfront advocates that anyone who isn't white is inferior to whites. Am I to assume from them that white people are a detriment to Western civilization?” ? Back then you totally implied that considering non-white people as inferior to white people was detrimental to western civilization. I merely told you you were free to do so, and now you start asking me why you would believe such a thing. Seriously, do you change your mind that often?
If you need someone to constantly remind you why you think racism is detrimental to western civilization, write it on a notebook or something. If you think racism is not detrimental to western civilization, do not imply you think otherwise.
LordofHats wrote: Likewise, why single out the Church for its persecutions?
Because if you read again what I said, I did not single it out. I forgot an s to books, but I did put it at religions at least.
baxter123 wrote: Religion as it is defined now, such as the Catholic Church is the reason Religion is given a bad name.
Come over to Iran, pal .
baxter123 wrote: The Christian Religion is based upon the principles that if you love your neighbour and you love yourself you will succeed in life and it is the same in nearly every other main religion
No. It is not much the case for Christianity, and it is utterly and completely wrong for some other religions. That is some big bs. Seriously, go read about other religions rather than use your preconceptions.
OgreChubbs wrote: I hold firmly that the reasons we don't do that is because the lord told us not to.
So what? Were you not supposed not to fear punishment? And if you do not see any moral reasons not to do that, how can you say that your lord telling you not to do that is a good thing?
Your whole position make no sense. Either you have some sense of morality outside of what your lord tell you, in which case you should not need him to behave morally, or you do not, and then you cannot say that her laws are a good thing.
“Stormfront advocates that anyone who isn't white is inferior to whites. Am I to assume from them that white people are a detriment to Western civilization?” ? Back then you totally implied that considering non-white people as inferior to white people was detrimental to western civilization. I merely told you you were free to do so, and now you start asking me why you would believe such a thing. Seriously, do you change your mind that often?
I, didn't change my mind... The statement is ludicrous. That's why I said it. It's as ludicrous to make claims about all white people across all of time based on Stormfront as it is to make claims about all religion across all of time based on Young Earth Creationists. You can't boil down thousands of years and millions of lives that easily. You certainly can't make a moral declaration like "good" or "bad" based on it.
Come over to Iran, pal .
Khomeni after a brief visit to a Turkish beach decided that Bikini's were okay, so there's that XD
Ahtman wrote: A unthinking belief in science, or unerring trust in it, is no better than an unerring trust in religion.
We do run a risk of shifting "belief" to science as a religion.
The great thing about it is we start with a premise or a theory and try to prove/disprove it.
Finding a repeatable process that others can duplicate to review the credibility also helps.
Science is required to prove itself time and again while religion demands no proof, only faith.
For something to demand being reviewed critically gives me more "faith" in it than those who view criticism as "heresy".
Ahtman wrote: A unthinking belief in science, or unerring trust in it, is no better than an unerring trust in religion.
We do run a risk of shifting "belief" to science as a religion.
The great thing about it is we start with a premise or a theory and try to prove/disprove it.
Finding a repeatable process that others can duplicate to review the credibility also helps.
Science is required to prove itself time and again while religion demands no proof, only faith.
The statement doesn't address how the scientific method works, which is not a mystery, but in how we approach it; conflating science as the arbiter of absolute truth is problematic in much the same way as seeing religion as an arbiter of absolute truth.
I don't believe in a heaven or hell, and despite having all the means at my disposal, I don't go around setting puppies on fire, killing my neighbors, hijacking cars, punching babies, plundering from stores, or anything else. Am I a naturally superior person such that I can do so even without divine commandment? I highly doubt it . I tend to think the vast majority of people just naturally aren't jerkwads, and what their natural instincts don't hold them back from, social pressures usually will.
Because if you do, there are consequences... If you lived before the dawn of civilization... and you wanted another human's stuff, and his wife, why would you not simply take it if you physically had the power to do so? Especially if food was scarce and you needed to provide for your offspring?
Our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom have an answer... If you have what I want, I smash your head with a rock, rape your wife and eat your children.
So how come it should be different for humans? You don't punch babies because another human will come along and harm you if you do, not because 'it is a mean thing to do'. In the survival of the fittest, anything which increases your survival and your offspring's survival is a 'good thing' for you. Without a civilization with a punitive civil system to lay down unacceptable actions... there is nothing preventing you from killing your neighbors, punching babies, plundering resources except someone bigger and stronger preventing you from doing so. Might makes right.
Why do we believe every human has the right to live and exist, and we are all equal when nature shows us the rest of the world operates in an exact opposite manner? We are not all equal (at least scientifically not morally) and there is no guarantee that we can live as people die all the time for various reasons. What 'changed' with Humans that I am supposed to respect your right to exist and not cease your life in a competition for food/territory/offspring, but the rest of the animal kingdom does it as needed?
And when civilization breaks down, we see true human nature, humans are jerkwads, looking out for themselves, and will murder you, rape your wife and eat your kids if they felt it would benefit them and there is no retribution.
Darwin didn't apply that to humans, as he saw animals living in a state of nature where it was survival of the fittest, but humans live in a state of civilization where our ability to cooperate is more important to survival, or as he called it, empathy.
nkelsch wrote: Because if you do, there are consequences... If you lived before the dawn of civilization... and you wanted another human's stuff, and his wife, why would you not simply take it if you physically had the power to do so? Especially if food was scarce and you needed to provide for your offspring?
In a matter of survival, everything goes out the window. Within the context of modern western civilization, such situations are extremely rare indeed.
So how come it should be different for humans? You don't punch babies because another human will come along and harm you if you do, not because 'it is a mean thing to do'.
Mostly I don't punch babies because I have nothing to gain from it and it harms the survival of my species, not merely because another human will come along an harm me, though yes that is a motivator. I'm not saying that fear of consequences plays no role or shouldn't play a role. As I noted, social pressures are obviously a role, that includes consequences like another person getting mad at you. However, if it's only something so overwhelmingly powerful like the idea of *divine retribution* or *eternal reward* that can keep one in check, particularly in a modern context such as Western Civilization, there's probably something wrong with the individual.
In the survival of the fittest, anything which increases your survival and your offspring's survival is a 'good thing' for you. Without a civilization with a punitive civil system to lay down unacceptable actions... there is nothing preventing you from killing your neighbors, punching babies, plundering resources except someone bigger and stronger preventing you from doing so. Might makes right.
Why do we believe every human has the right to live and exist, and we are all equal when nature shows us the rest of the world operates in an exact opposite manner? We are not all equal (at least scientifically not morally) and there is no guarantee that we can live as people die all the time for various reasons. What 'changed' with Humans that I am supposed to respect your right to exist and not cease your life in a competition for food/territory/offspring, but the rest of the animal kingdom does it as needed?
And when civilization breaks down, we see true human nature, humans are jerkwads, looking out for themselves, and will murder you, rape your wife and eat your kids if they felt it would benefit them and there is no retribution.
Right, but that's when civilization breaks down and everything reverts to the lowest common denominator, and we're no longer talking about religion within the context of Western Civilization. Also, with a complete lack of civilization (as opposed to a more primitive civilization where religion forms central pillars of social and political power, stuff like dark ages europe), religion is unlikely to stop anyone.
Darwin didn't apply that to humans, as he saw animals living in a state of nature where it was survival of the fittest, but humans live in a state of civilization where our ability to cooperate is more important to survival, or as he called it, empathy.
Animals have empathy... They also temper it to animals which they care about. They will have empathy to their podmates but be brutal and even torture and murder animals of rival pods.
Having the ability to feel empathy for other living beings or your species doesn't make one treat everyone of his species 'equally'.
If the argument is 'without civilization, we would still naturally have shared morals and not be smashing each other's heads in with rocks' I don't know if that is necessarily true. While forming cities lent itself to working together for mutual survival... that doesn't make ethics or morality... Just happens to be those humans did better when not murdering others. Others possibly continued to murder and pillage for success for their offspring. Working together for security was best for their offspring the same way smashing your head in with a rock and murdering your children was best for someone else's offspring.
Darwin didn't apply that to humans, as he saw animals living in a state of nature where it was survival of the fittest, but humans live in a state of civilization where our ability to cooperate is more important to survival, or as he called it, empathy.
Civilization is based off of religion and has always been. Take away religion we are animals and they seem to have pretty bad moral standings.
Also think about what your "morals or what ever was said the reason you don't punch babies. From birth kids hit each other take from each other and well aren't nice to each other because it is against their best interest. Then adults tell them it is wrong and punish them for this mistake "take the item from them, time out ect" so they learn not to do it through punishment. Adults are the ones who punish them for these mistakes and "crimes". Lets have a child who has no boundaries can do as it wishes and poof we have that rich kid who killed those people and was givin 5 days in jail or what ever it was.
So why do you not do things? Because you fear the consequences if I asked you why don't you jay walk why don't you steal and so on. What would you say the reason behind you not doing it?
For some people are afraid they will be in trouble by their "piers" where others like myself that doesn't mean much. That's where the lord comes in with his teachings telling you what is right and wrong. Someone who is far smarter then I, and for the lack of a better word a leader whom which does no wrong "parent". By listening to him and following his rule I can live not only punishment free but become a good person. We follow the lord like you follow your parents which is why it tends to turn to a fight when you insult him quickly. I always see it like this the lord gives us rule so we do not hurt ourselves or others like a parent does with a child.
Civilization is based off of religion and has always been. Take away religion we are animals and they seem to have pretty bad moral standings.
Religion is largely an expression of civilization, rather than springing forth civilization from religion. The fact that multiple civilizations have transitioned through, been built upon, or incorporated multiple different diverse religions is a testament to that. The Romans began with their own versions of the classical Greek pantheon and conquered and incorporated peoples of many faiths and eventually transitioned to Christianity. The Mongols originally practiced various forms of local naturalism and shamanism but at the height of their power had Muslims, Christians, Manichaeanists, Buddhists, and their original naturalist beliefs amongst not only their conquered peoples but amongst the ruling Mongols themselves, and none of these religions did anything to stem their brutal slaughter that Central Asia and the Middle East has only largely recovered from within the last few decades in terms of population and agriculture (and may never in terms of worldwide social relevance) despite such religions largely having similar restrictions against mindless slaughter.
Darwin didn't apply that to humans, as he saw animals living in a state of nature where it was survival of the fittest, but humans live in a state of civilization where our ability to cooperate is more important to survival, or as he called it, empathy.
Animals have empathy... They also temper it to animals which they care about. They will have empathy to their podmates but be brutal and even torture and murder animals of rival pods.
Having the ability to feel empathy for other living beings or your species doesn't make one treat everyone of his species 'equally'.
What you are describing would have been called sympathy at the time. A more modern word would be altruism. He also believed that humans were moral creatures by nature, though not based necessarily on religion. Darwin believed that altruism was a vital and integral part of being human. He also didn't deny that other animals could have emotions.
What you are describing would have been called sympathy at the time. A more modern word would be altruism. He also believed that humans were moral creatures by nature, though not based necessarily on religion. Darwin believed that altruism was a vital and integral part of being human. He also didn't deny that other animals could have emotions.
Isn't that belief the foundation of a 'religious ideology'? What makes morality and makes 'not smashing heads in with rocks' good and what motivates us as a species not to do it while others do it? It is a spiritual belief to think we were endowed by nature to be naturally 'moral' and distinct from other animals. May not be a formalized religion, but it is not at all supported by science.
What makes man 'not' kill other men outside of some sort of awareness? and how does that awareness not grow into some sort of spiritual belief in almost every circumstance or be an inherited belief based upon others previous civilization's constructs. A civilization is easy to 'teach this is taboo' once it is in place... When did two weaker humans banding together against a stronger one for shared security become 'we shouldn't smash his face in with a rock because it is inherently wrong'?
What you are describing would have been called sympathy at the time. A more modern word would be altruism. He also believed that humans were moral creatures by nature, though not based necessarily on religion. Darwin believed that altruism was a vital and integral part of being human. He also didn't deny that other animals could have emotions.
Isn't that belief the foundation of a 'religious ideology'? What makes morality and makes 'not smashing heads in with rocks' good and what motivates us as a species not to do it while others do it? It is a spiritual belief to think we were endowed by nature to be naturally 'moral' and distinct from other animals. May not be a formalized religion, but it is not at all supported by science.
Well considering there are other civilizations that didn't have these deities and they didn't smash each others heads in I don't think one needs spirituality or religion to have morality. When Confucius spoke of humans being inherently good and learning to be callous and distrustful it wasn't based on spirituality or religion, but observation of human behavior. There are a lot of things from non-Western sources that don't apply to much of what has been said in this thread about some fundamental things, but since this was supposed to be limited to Western civ I have avoided bringing it up, but since we are now painting humans and civilization with broad brushes encompassing all places and times it seems prudent to start including it.
What you are describing would have been called sympathy at the time. A more modern word would be altruism. He also believed that humans were moral creatures by nature, though not based necessarily on religion. Darwin believed that altruism was a vital and integral part of being human. He also didn't deny that other animals could have emotions.
Isn't that belief the foundation of a 'religious ideology'? What makes morality and makes 'not smashing heads in with rocks' good and what motivates us as a species not to do it while others do it? It is a spiritual belief to think we were endowed by nature to be naturally 'moral' and distinct from other animals. May not be a formalized religion, but it is not at all supported by science.
Well considering there are other civilizations that didn't have these deities and they didn't smash each others heads in I don't think one needs spirituality or religion to have morality. When Confucius spoke of humans being inherently good and learning to be callous and distrustful it wasn't based on spirituality or religion, but observation of human behavior. There are a lot of things from non-Western sources that don't apply to much of what has been said in this thread about some fundamental things, but since this was supposed to be limited to Western civ I have avoided bringing it up, but since we are now painting humans and civilization with broad brushes encompassing all places and times it seems prudent to start including it.
All human civilization started out of the same place, and we are talking really early in human history... there is a difference between banding together for mutual survival and doing it because 'it is a morally correct thing to do'. And how long does behavior have to exist before we simply stop questioning it? How long was banding together so that other tribe of humans who want our stuff became 'maybe we shouldn't kill each other because it is probably immoral to do so?'
That belief has to believe it something, even if it is in the spirituality of man or that man is a unique or superior being to regular animals. That is all venturing into non-scientific beliefs and the foundation of spirituality and religion even if it is not in a deity... Superiority of man can itself be a deity.
nkelsch wrote: All human civilization started out of the same place, and we are talking really early in human history...
Which at that point we are no longer talking about the effect of religion on western civilization, which is what the thread is ostensibly about.
nkelsch wrote: there is a difference between banding together for mutual survival and doing it because 'it is a morally correct thing to do'.
That is because people don't think in that language, academics and philosophers trying to understand things do.
nklesh wrote:even if it is in the spirituality of man or that man is a unique or superior being to regular animals. That is all venturing into non-scientific beliefs and the foundation of spirituality and religion even if it is not in a deity... Superiority of man can itself be a deity.
You might want to read the book Moral Mind: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. It was a research study done that shows people, regardless of background and religion, almost all act and answer questions the same way. Spirituality need not determine helping each other or not letting babies drown.
nkelsch wrote: All human civilization started out of the same place, and we are talking really early in human history...
Which at that point we are no longer talking about the effect of religion on western civilization, which is what the thread is ostensibly about.
nkelsch wrote: there is a difference between banding together for mutual survival and doing it because 'it is a morally correct thing to do'.
That is because people don't think in that language, academics and philosophers trying to understand things do.
nklesh wrote:even if it is in the spirituality of man or that man is a unique or superior being to regular animals. That is all venturing into non-scientific beliefs and the foundation of spirituality and religion even if it is not in a deity... Superiority of man can itself be a deity.
You might want to read the book Moral Mind: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. It was a research study done that shows people, regardless of background and religion, almost all act and answer questions the same way. Spirituality need not determine helping each other or not letting babies drown.
The only reason it is relevant is almost the entirety of 'western religion' was born out of stories from the cradle of civilization. And basically these were regional stories which became co-oped into religious stories. So when discussing the current 'morality' of the abrahamic faiths, you are looking to the middle east and what happened at the onset of civilization. And it is hard to find groups on this planet who have not already been impacted, influenced or overwritten by the learned result of the early civilizations.
It is very hard to say there are independent morality when the entire human race can be traced back to that region and a shared civilization and adopted morality. We really don't have an isolated independently grown human civilization to test if our behaviors were all learned due to a situation and propagated or inherent to our beings.
LordofHats wrote: It's as ludicrous to make claims about all white people across all of time based on Stormfront as it is to make claims about all religion across all of time based on Young Earth Creationists.
If people want to be religious let them, they can send there kids to religious schools etc. And live there lives by there teachings.
If people want to be non religious leave them alone, let them go to there non religious schools and live by there own code of ethics.
This sounds like segregation because it is, history teaches us that when the first takes control of a society it heavily persecutes the second, however the second doesn't persecute the first (with a few notable exceptions), religion should never govern a society, it can advise but never should it be allowed control, nearly all mainstream religions have committed horrible crimes against humanity and simply cannot be trusted to be tolerant of other views, sexuality, woman's rights, science, children's rights, cultural advance, all have contributes to stopping or stemming these things and all societies not just western, should stop or prevent these abuses.
LordofHats wrote: It's as ludicrous to make claims about all white people across all of time based on Stormfront as it is to make claims about all religion across all of time based on Young Earth Creationists.
Yeah, good thing I did not.
That's why the comment wasn't originally directed at you XD
I'm going to go with net neutral. It's hard to quantify something that has always been with us and what few examples we have of a religion free society are communist russia and the nazi regime (I think). Not good examples to go by.
On the plus, I have this. A whole bunch of Sikhs handing out free food and having a good time, even with mormon missionaries. Everyones happy, not really caring about differences in belief.
Mr Nobody wrote: I'm going to go with net neutral. It's hard to quantify something that has always been with us and what few examples we have of a religion free society are communist russia and the nazi regime (I think). Not good examples to go by.
On the plus, I have this. A whole bunch of Sikhs handing out free food and having a good time, even with mormon missionaries. Everyones happy, not really caring about differences in belief.
Spoiler:
Huh? Neither we're non religious, anti religious yes but both populations had huge amounts on religious people, Adolf and Stalin were psychos because they were psychos, not because "God" told them so, a talking dog did.
Thing is when a person is insane and hearing voices in there head, claims it's the voice of God and persuades others to attack someone's else's home and commits acts of terrorism, rape, murder, theft... Well that's ok, cos God.
It was called the crusades, someone just forgot to tell the Muslims that were not playing anymore... Oh wait Bush declared a jihad on terror... Sorry crusade, now we're all annoyed that there fighting back in the name of jehovah, God, ala, Bob.
People will always kill each other, just want 1 less reason to do so.
It is very hard to say there are independent morality when the entire human race can be traced back to that region and a shared civilization and adopted morality. We really don't have an isolated independently grown human civilization to test if our behaviors were all learned due to a situation and propagated or inherent to our beings.
Apart from all those aborigional tribe groupings found all over the world, most of the north and south american civilisations, most of the african peoples, and most of indochina and indonesia? You know... everyone except europe and the middle east?
Formosa wrote: People will always kill each other, just want 1 less reason to do so.
That assumes that the people who kill for religion, often being of a particular kind of mind, won't just rally behind some other thing.
Not to mention that were really boiling complex issues into a singular track when we say "he killed for religion."
The Crusades (the old ones) weren't just about religion. They were also about roaming bands of landless nobility pillaging the country side that the Pope and everyone else really wanted to be rid of. It was also about Italian merchants who wanted to seize control of trade in the Med from the Byzantines (and a whole host of issues with the Byzantines themselves but I'm not going into that XD). Even today, though radical Islam is the most apparent reason, Islamic terrorist rhetoric is also laced with an undertone of Pan-Arabism (technically Pan-Middle Easternism but that's a mouthful) and a healthy hint of racism.
Ignoring that you can't just make ideologies go away because you don't like them, you're likely to be disappointed that even if you could it probably wouldn't have much of an impact in the number of people killing other people.
I personally think that all religion is basically the closest thing to pure evil.
Mr Nobody wrote: I'm going to go with net neutral. It's hard to quantify something that has always been with us and what few examples we have of a religion free society are communist russia and the nazi regime (I think). Not good examples to go by.
On the plus, I have this. A whole bunch of Sikhs handing out free food and having a good time, even with mormon missionaries. Everyones happy, not really caring about differences in belief.
Spoiler:
In communist russia stalin was not anti religion, he was trying to create relion around himself not God.
Nazi germany was pretty religious. Equal to modern day america.
Which is better?:
1. People giving free food to the poor because their religious agenda tells them to do so (also not trying kill members from the other religion while they are at it).
or
2. People giving free food to the poor because it is a good idea.
And if nobody were religious, how many people would give free food to the poor because they feel it's a good idea? Probably not as many as you'd like to think, humans are naturally selfish bastards.
EDIT: Also, the end result is the same, free food is given to the poor. Why the motive matters, I'm not sure is really obvious, going from your first sentence.
EDIT_2: Define pure evil, without bringing religion into your answer.
People giving free food to the poor because it is a good idea.
Why is it a good idea? Because it is moral? A religious person would agree. If you and a religious person reach the same conclusion, that giving food to the poor is a good idea, then any debate about why that conclusion was reached is academic. Practically it doesn't matter. Why jump to the conclusion that your moral process is superior to another's, when in the end the same conclusion is reached?
So, my question is, is religion in general a net benefit or a net detriment to western society?
I would say it is a good thing for western society.
I don't know why, but religion is very similar to science (gun clicks). Its the truth. We have a lot to learn from religion, just like we have a lot to learn from science.
Heres a simple breakdown.
Science answers the How, but it cannot answer the why.
Religion on the other hand answer the Why, but it cannot answer the how.
These two will always be at odds with each other because people often forget that when I ask Why is the sky blue? I am not asking How is the sky blue? I am asking why is it that color? Why is it that particular color and no other.
If I wanted to ask How is the sky blue? You would say because of the water droplets in the sky.
Religion is more based on philisophies and ideas. I mean one of the best philosophies I know of is Jesus's Philisophy which is simply to love thy neighbor, be kind to others and to believe in jesus christ. Well I would put it up there with Kant's philisophies, but in all honesty its a good philisophy and apart from nitpicks here and there of the bible there is nothing wrong. In fact in all honesty, most people from Christianity often misinterpret what god says to do. It never says punish the gays, attack people because of this race, that is their misinterpretation and they are just using religion as a guise to do what ever they wanted.
I say one of the interesting points is that religion isn't particularly bad, it has the potential for great things, just like science. Most often religion brings people together.
An one of the interesting points is that people who misinterpert the bible who don't want to be apart of the society because society is evil are actually the cause of alot of social ills. Such as the Christian people who decide to picket gay rallies or hurt gay people because they don't like a gender and have no need to date them. Yet in the bible it doesn't say to do that. No where in the bible does it say to hurt others for being different. It never says purge the unclean, kill the mutant and the Heretic. But sadly that is mind frame of a lot christians. That people who don't follow their religion are immoral and don't understand anything and that they are right. Which is completely false. I say it is mostly because of entitlement these people are so entitled and feel like they could get away with anything, that they feel the need to damper someone's lifestyle because they don't agree with it.
But fundamentally, I believe science and religion are good. I think in terms of this argument I wouldn't necessarily say that Religion is evil, just the ones who wield it are. But lets look back and see the people who did something in the name of science and did terrible, terrible things, are they really representing the good of science? Of course not. No matter what they provided to science that is immoral and their research should be decided by the victims what best to do with it.
Asherian Command wrote: Heres a simple breakdown.
Science answers the How, but itcannot answer the why.
Sometimes the how is the why.
Religion on the other hand answer the Why, but it cannot answer the how.
I would suggest that religion doesnt actually answer anything. Given the immense number of differeny religions and different conflicting "whys". Especially since it generally boils down to some non-answer variation of "god(s) did it".
I am not asking How is the sky blue? I am asking why is it that color? Why is it that particular color and no other.
Because of the spectral output of our sun, themakeup of our atmosphere and the sensitivity of the rods and cones in our eyes to different wavelengths of light.
If I wanted to ask How is the sky blue? You would say because of the water droplets in the sky.
I would hope not, given that it is actually due to rayleigh scattering. If it was due to water vapour, wouldn't clouds also be blue?
It is very hard to say there are independent morality when the entire human race can be traced back to that region and a shared civilization and adopted morality. We really don't have an isolated independently grown human civilization to test if our behaviors were all learned due to a situation and propagated or inherent to our beings.
Apart from all those aborigional tribe groupings found all over the world, most of the north and south american civilisations, most of the african peoples, and most of indochina and indonesia? You know... everyone except europe and the middle east?
All humanity came from the same region of the planet and spread out later. They did not independently evolve without a common source or early social orogins. If early civilization, even before the abrahamic religions formed had established a basic 'morals' due to necessity, that set of morals would have been adopted by any subsequent civilizations regardless how they migrated to where they were. There is no evidence of 'inherent morals' in the human race and no evidence of independent creation of such as every current group of humans who have 'morals' can directly produce the origin of them as being taught from the previous generation. All those other regions and civilizations came from africa and someone back then had to have said 'maybe I shouldn't smash his head in with a rock and teach my children not to... Oh since they don't understand, I will tell them the great mountain gobbles up bad children until they are old enough to blindly accept not smashing heads with rocks."
The assumption is that humans will instinctively not smash each others heads in with rocks and will not be chaotic or amoral behavior in a vacuum. I say we only have it due to adopted and forced morality due to civilization and that 'it is clearly wrong because someone before us said so'. Religion is one of the ways to keep the top on the can in regards to people questioning 'Why can't we all rise up and murder the rich? I mean, it would be easy right?' Humans do pretty horrible things and justify pretty selfish actions... If they didn't have skygrandpa or a stronger human authority who would punish them, they would smash your head with a rock like Piggy from lord of the flies.
However, human groupings spread all over the world long before even the pre-pre-pre-big three 'western' religions were a twinkle in the eye of some madman who had been out in the sun too long.
There have been humans living in australia for what, 45,000 years? Are you suggesting that they, developing in significant isolation for the majority of that time, retained the same kind of society and development as the other human groups who spread out from their origin point?
Hell, look at some of the differences in culture between even some of the modern human societies, which have significant interaction with one another. Look at how much culture and religion have changed in the last few decades, let alone centuries or 45,000 years. Or hell, 200,000 years since the first groups of our species came to be...
Your claim seems to be that because the populations of humans that exist once came from the same place, they can't be seperate populations. I can tell you for a fact that they can. Different human groupings are prone to different diseases, have different physiological ranges, and significantly different cultural values.
And this is ignoring the potential of certain early humans breeding and culturally mingling with other members of the homo family...
SilverMK2 wrote: However, human groupings spread all over the world long before even the pre-pre-pre-big three 'western' religions were a twinkle in the eye of some madman who had been out in the sun too long.
There have been humans living in australia for what, 45,000 years? Are you suggesting that they, developing in significant isolation for the majority of that time, retained the same kind of society and development as the other human groups who spread out from their origin point?
Hell, look at some of the differences in culture between even some of the modern human societies, which have significant interaction with one another. Look at how much culture and religion have changed in the last few decades, let alone centuries or 45,000 years. Or hell, 200,000 years since the first groups of our species came to be...
Your claim seems to be that because the populations of humans that exist once came from the same place, they can't be seperate populations. I can tell you for a fact that they can. Different human groupings are prone to different diseases, have different physiological ranges, and significantly different cultural values.
And this is ignoring the potential of certain early humans breeding and culturally mingling with other members of the homo family...
And all of that, there is no evidence of an intrinsic 'morality' of the human species. It is all 'learned' from previous generations. And for those who say 'everyone everywhere ended up moral so it must be intrinsic to our make up', I disagree as there is no evidence of that. Learned behaviors are learned behaviors even over 200,000 years. (we are only talking around 60,000 years as that is when humans migrated out of africa)
And the stories of the Torah/Bible reference neanderthals and the intermarrying of species when they describe the 'giants' who walked the earth. And scientists put that around 39000 years ago based upon a volcanic eruption driving neanderthals out of europe and into their extinction in the path of Homo sapiens. So these 'stories' from the dawn of human species were passed down tens of thousands of years... so if they can transfer stories that far, then learned morality would be too, even to these other places as humans migrated to them.
Isolation doesn't prove or even show evidence of instinctual morality, and it is pretty hard to discount in a species which is almost all 'learned behavior' that somehow morality would not be a learned trait.
Asherian Command wrote: Heres a simple breakdown.
Science answers the How, but itcannot answer the why.
Sometimes the how is the why.
Religion on the other hand answer the Why, but it cannot answer the how.
I would suggest that religion doesnt actually answer anything. Given the immense number of differeny religions and different conflicting "whys". Especially since it generally boils down to some non-answer variation of "god(s) did it".
I am not asking How is the sky blue? I am asking why is it that color? Why is it that particular color and no other.
Because of the spectral output of our sun, themakeup of our atmosphere and the sensitivity of the rods and cones in our eyes to different wavelengths of light.
If I wanted to ask How is the sky blue? You would say because of the water droplets in the sky.
I would hope not, given that it is actually due to rayleigh scattering. If it was due to water vapour, wouldn't clouds also be blue?
No not all the time. Science really doesn't have an answer for the why. Why is philisophical, not scientific. Religion often answers that.
Really your nitpicking that?
Wait what? Techincally water is clear, and clouds are made with a combination of dust and water molecules.
Asherian Command wrote: Heres a simple breakdown.
Science answers the How, but itcannot answer the why.
Sometimes the how is the why.
Religion on the other hand answer the Why, but it cannot answer the how.
I would suggest that religion doesnt actually answer anything. Given the immense number of differeny religions and different conflicting "whys". Especially since it generally boils down to some non-answer variation of "god(s) did it".
I am not asking How is the sky blue? I am asking why is it that color? Why is it that particular color and no other.
Because of the spectral output of our sun, themakeup of our atmosphere and the sensitivity of the rods and cones in our eyes to different wavelengths of light.
If I wanted to ask How is the sky blue? You would say because of the water droplets in the sky.
I would hope not, given that it is actually due to rayleigh scattering. If it was due to water vapour, wouldn't clouds also be blue?
No not all the time. Science really doesn't have an answer for the why. Why is philisophical, not scientific. Religion often answers that.
Really your nitpicking that?
Wait what? Techincally water is clear, and clouds are made with a combination of dust and water molecules.
Why does there need to be a 'why' why can't we be glad we just are? Why do we need to think we are special enough that something(s) had to create us and the way things are?
Asherian Command wrote: Heres a simple breakdown.
Science answers the How, but itcannot answer the why.
Sometimes the how is the why.
Religion on the other hand answer the Why, but it cannot answer the how.
I would suggest that religion doesnt actually answer anything. Given the immense number of differeny religions and different conflicting "whys". Especially since it generally boils down to some non-answer variation of "god(s) did it".
I am not asking How is the sky blue? I am asking why is it that color? Why is it that particular color and no other.
Because of the spectral output of our sun, themakeup of our atmosphere and the sensitivity of the rods and cones in our eyes to different wavelengths of light.
If I wanted to ask How is the sky blue? You would say because of the water droplets in the sky.
I would hope not, given that it is actually due to rayleigh scattering. If it was due to water vapour, wouldn't clouds also be blue?
No not all the time. Science really doesn't have an answer for the why. Why is philisophical, not scientific. Religion often answers that.
Really your nitpicking that?
Wait what? Techincally water is clear, and clouds are made with a combination of dust and water molecules.
Why does there need to be a 'why' why can't we be glad we just are? Why do we need to think we are special enough that something(s) had to create us and the way things are?
Because if we didn't we wouldn't know things, it is good to ask why. It is always the one thing we always wonder about, why was I created? Why do I live? Why am I here?
Philisophy is interesting and should be talked about. It always asks interesting questions like What Ought I to do? There is more to life than working to get your bills in.
Asherian Command wrote: No not all the time. Science really doesn't have an answer for the why. Why is philisophical, not scientific. Religion often answers that.
Science provides a lot of answers as to why. You may not be satisfied with those answers but that does not change the fact they are provided.
Nor does it help that you use this nebulous point of the "why" without explaining what it is, or how religion magically provides a satisfying answer to it.
Really your nitpicking that?
I am not sure to what part of my post you refer to so cannot comment on this. However, if it refers to "why is the sky blue"...
Wait what? Techincally water is clear, and clouds are made with a combination of dust and water molecules.
You stated that science can tell you how and then gave an incorrect scientific explanation as to why the sky is blue. Rayleighy scattering of re-radiated energy causes the sky to appear blue. The sensitivity of our eyes to blue wavelengths enhances this effect, as does the spectral output of our sun.
Watet and dirt particles do have an effect on the colour of the atmosphere, however it is secondary to rayleigh scattering, otherwise changes in weather would significantly alter the colour of the sky (beyond the blocking out of the sun by clouds obviously...).
In the case you chose to present as to how science can tell us the how and not the why you failed to provide thecorrect how and seemingly refuse to understand that the how explains every facet of the why.
-Shrike- wrote:And if nobody were religious, how many people would give free food to the poor because they feel it's a good idea? Probably not as many as you'd like to think, humans are naturally selfish bastards.
EDIT: Also, the end result is the same, free food is given to the poor. Why the motive matters, I'm not sure is really obvious, going from your first sentence.
EDIT_2: Define pure evil, without bringing religion into your answer.
It is irrelevant how many people would actually give food. Being good because some people tell you to be good is not what being good is about.
If end result is the same why bother with religion?
The most evil thing I've heard is "infinate punishment for a finite action".
illuknisaa wrote: It is irrelevant how many people would actually give food. Being good because some people tell you to be good is not what being good is about.
Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to define good.
If end result is the same why bother with religion?
Because believing in a deity is a personal choice some people make. I'm not sure why the fact that some people would give free food to the poor without religion necessitates removing religion from society.
The most evil thing I've heard is "infinate punishment for a finite action".
That doesn't answer my question. What are you using to define evil?
Asherian Command wrote: No not all the time. Science really doesn't have an answer for the why. Why is philisophical, not scientific. Religion often answers that.
Science provides a lot of answers as to why. You may not be satisfied with those answers but that does not change the fact they are provided.
Nor does it help that you use this nebulous point of the "why" without explaining what it is, or how religion magically provides a satisfying answer to it.
Okay let me state this again
Why = Philisophical.
Religion is a philosophical in origin. Religion has philosophy and ideals that science cannot handle. Science is not designed for philosophy, science is designed for logic and reasoning. Philosophy on the other hand is designed for every day life, it asks questions on reality, our existence, our vales, our reasoning, our mind, and our language. Science cannot deal with those facets, it can only deal with certain things within in its borders.
Without religion we do not have certain values. A lot of religions have some fascinating ideals, Hindus believe in many different ideals than a christian, and a christian believes in certain things that a Jewish person would not believe in.
Within the religious documents are philosophical ideas, they are human reasoning trying to explain the why. Very few religious texts are about the how.
Science cannot and will not answer the why. Because the why is seeking for a higher meaning from scientific meaning.
When I ask HOw is life created you will give me scientific reasoning as to how it was created. But when I ask why was it created. Science cannot answer it.
Science can answer some whys, but they cannot answer any philosophical idea.
Its often a confused statement that people have. The think that science is all knowing and can answer everything when in truth it can't, science isn't designed for ethical dilemmas, religion is. Religion has accounts and fables for us to follow. Religion has its ideas for how to deal with them in their holy books, they have short stories to give us a good idea of how to fix things.
When Jesus either prophet or the savior or the madman (Which ever religion you are decide which one fits!) said to a group of people the following about the good samartian...
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
What is it's meaning? Its a philosophical idea, the whole idea of trying to help strangers even if they are your 'enemy'. Science cannot talk about that because science assumes certain things that religion doesn't. Science may be logic based but science is also influenced by the bias of the scientist. Science does not make someone ethical, neither does religion, unless they live by principles that make them ethical and or moral. Its not like religion magically allows you to answer the why. (Like you have assumed)
Its like saying science uses assumptions, sometimes it tries to but it can't, science can't assume. Religion does. Religion assumes certain things that science would never do.
You are asking "why" to questions that cannot be answered because they have no answer, then you are making up an answer and then you are complaining that science doesnt make up an answer.
And in the cases where science can answer the why, you dismiss the answer.
Religion is not able to answer the whys any more than any made up answer, because it is made up. And usually comes down to "god did it" anyway, which is a deeply unsatisfying answer on every level.
Religion is not able to answer the whys any more than any made up answer, because it is made up. And usually comes down to "god did it" anyway, which is a deeply unsatisfying answer on every level.
Religion as a believe system fits within our subjective framework of accepting reality. We choose what we want to believe.
For example, I believe in the concept of evolution. I also believe charity and other derived "good" works is driven by human inclination rather than a divine overseer telling us to do it. I also believe in God.
You choose what you believe and accept it as part of the human condition of adjusting into your moral and mental framework of what you think makes the world work and what sounds right to you. Even if religion cannot answer the questions that I ask, it is still within my mental framework to believe that God still exists and religion has a purpose.
If end result is the same why bother with religion?
People will always do nice things. It's nice to give them 1 more reason.
And a crap-ton of people do truly terrible things... imagine how many more would be doing terrible things without the fear of skygrandpa.
I think most people go through life just trying to go through life, regardless of what they believe with regards to beards in the sky. You can get deeply religious saints and criminals, as you can get non-religious (and anti-religious) saints and criminals (saints obviously meaning "very good person" ).
The Influence of Christianity on Western Civilization
The positive influence of Christianity is far reaching especially in the rich history and culture of Western Civilization despite a long standing ignorance or adamant denial of its contributions. The Bible itself is responsible for much of the language, literature, and fine arts we enjoy today as its artists and composers were heavily influenced by its writings. Paul Maier, in writing the forward to the book How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J. Schmidt, says this about the profound impact Christianity has had on the development of Western Civilization:
“No other religion, philosophy, teaching, nation, movement—whatever—has so changed the world for the better as Christianity has done. Its shortcomings, clearly conceded by this author, are nevertheless heavily outweighed by its benefits to all mankind” (Schmidt 9).
Contrary to the history texts treatment of the subject, Christian influence on values, beliefs, and practices in Western culture are abundant and well ingrained into the flourishing society of today (Schmidt 12). In the Old Testament book of Hosea the writer states: “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” a statement that can well be applied to those today who are forgetful of the past (The Reformation Study Bible, Hosea 4.6a).
Schmidt writes regarding liberty and justice as seen by today’s culture:
“The liberty and justice that are enjoyed by humans in Western societies and in some non-Western countries are increasingly seen as the products of a benevolent, secular government that is the provider of all things. There seems to be no awareness that the liberties and rights that are currently operative in free societies of the West are to a great degree the result of Christianity’s influence (248). History is replete with examples of individuals who acted as a law unto themselves “often curtailing, even obliterating the natural rights and freedoms of the country’s citizens (249). Christianity’s influence, however, set into motion the belief that man is accountable to God and that the law is the same regardless of status. More than one thousand years before the birth of Christ the biblical requirement given by Moses comprised an essential component of the principle that “no man is above the law.”
One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Deuteronomy 19.15)
Thus the accuser, regardless of position in society, could not arbitrarily incarcerate or execute the accused and was himself subject to the law. The New Testament also mandated two or more witnesses in ecclesiastical matters regarding an erring Christian in Matthew 18:15-17 (Schmidt 249). The criminal and justice systems of many free countries today employ this Judeo-Christian requirement of having witnesses testify and in British and American jurisprudence, witnesses are part of “due process of law,’ a legal concept first appearing under King Edward III in the fourteenth century (Schmidt 249). One startling example of the concept that no man is above the law is seen in the conflict between the Christian emperor Theodosius the Great and St. Ambrose. It happened in 300 A.D. when some in Thessalonica rioted and aroused the anger of the emperor who overreacted by slaughtering approximately seven thousand people, most of whom were innocent. Bishop Ambrose asked the emperor to repent and when Theodosius refused, the bishop excommunicated him. After a month Theodosius prostrated himself and repented in Ambrose’s cathedral. Often mistaken as a struggle for power between church and state, the evidence in which Ambrose’s letter to the emperor cited sole concern for the emperor’s spiritual welfare conclude this as being the first instance of applying the principle that no one is above the law (Schmidt 250).
The Magna Carta served as a courageous precedent some five hundred years later to the American patriots in the creation of the unique government of the United States. The charter, signed in 1215 at Runnymede by King John granted a number of rights never held before this historic occasion including that “(1) justice could no longer be sold or denied to freeman who were under authority of barons; (2) no taxes could be levied without representation; (3) no one would be imprisoned without a trial; and (4) property could not be taken from the owner without just compensation (Schmidt 251). The Magna Carta had important Christian ties as demonstrated by its preamble that began, “John, by the grace of God…,” and stated that the charter was formulated out of “reverence for God and for the salvation of our soul and those of all our ancestors and heirs, for the honour of God and the exaltation of Holy Church and the reform of our realm, on the advice of our reverend [church] fathers” (Schmidt 251). This document also followed the precedent established in 325 at the Council of Nicaea in which Christian bishops wrote and adopted a formal code of fundamental beliefs to which all Christians were expected to adhere. The Magna Carta displayed what its formulators as Christians expected of the king and his subjects regarding civic liberties (Schmidt 251).
Natural law is a concept with a long history dating back to the Greco-Roman philosophers. Despite some variations among philosophers one point of agreement was understood as “that process in nature by which human beings, through the use of sound reason, were able to perceive what was morally right and wrong” (Schmidt253). With the emergence of Christianity common law was clarified to state that “natural law was not an entity by itself but part of God’s created order in nature through which he made all rational human beings aware of what is right and wrong” (Schmidt 253). The Apostle Paul expressed this in the New Testament book of Romans:
“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2.14-15).
Martin Luther stated: “Why does one then teach the Ten Commandments? Because the natural laws were never so orderly and well written as by Moses” (Schmidt 253). In his Two Treatises of Government, physician and political philosopher John Locke (1632-1703) claimed that government existed only to uphold the natural law and that governmental tyranny violated the natural rights of man (Schmidt 253). Natural rights were derived from nature and not from kings or government. The renowned English scholar Sir William Blackstone had immense influence on the American patriots in the eighteenth century who used his Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765) while formulating the fledgling government as evidenced by the Declaration of Independence. The words “the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God” document the reliability on the Christian understanding of the natural law (Schmidt 254). The Declaration of Independence goes on to state that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,” thus reiterating the concept of “inalienable rights” given by nature. The term “self-evident” has Christian roots going back to theological writings of the eighth century. Schmidt quotes Gary Amos, author of Defending the Declaration, as saying: “To the medievalists, ‘self-evident’ knowledge was truth known intuitively, as direct revelation from God, without the need for proofs. The term presumed that man was created in the image of God, and presumed certain beliefs about man’s rationality which can be traced as far back as Augustine in the early fifth century” (pp. 254-55). Schmidt believes it is quite plausible that St. Paul’s biblical concept of “self-evident” (Romans 1.20) knowingly or unknowingly influenced Jefferson when he wrote the term into the Declaration (Schmidt 255). The last portion of the Declaration includes the phrase “Supreme Judge,” a term used in Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government, where he refers to Jephthah calling God “the Judge” in Israel’s fight against the Ammonites (Judges 11.27). If this is taken from Locke’s work, Amos contends, “then we have a direct link between the Bible and the Declaration of Independence (Schmidt 255).
The Constitution, the hallmark of the foundling government in America, was greatly influenced by the French Christian and philosopher Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) as evidenced by the three branches of America’s government. Schmidt makes note that one historian has said that Montesquieu’s book, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), “[gave] American Constitution writers their holy writ” and called Montesquieu “the godfather of the American Constitution” (256). Montesquieu’s political theory was incorporated into the Constitution mostly as a result of the role taken by James Madison, known as the principal architect. His arguments for a separation of powers stemmed from the Christian teaching of the fallen nature of man. He is quoted as saying, ‘The truth [is] that all men, having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree.” In his Federalist Paper number 51 he notes, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary” (Schmidt 257). Many history texts have made note that the three powers are derived from Montesquieu’s theory but have failed to note the influence of Christianity on his beliefs: “It is not enough for a religion to establish a doctrine; it must also direct its influence. This the Christian religion performs in the most admirable manner, especially with respect to the doctrines of which we have been speaking. It makes us hope for a state which is the object of our belief; not for a state which we have already experienced or known” (Schmidt 257).
The founding of America’s republic government can best be described as the pinnacle of our American Christian heritage. Noah Webster defined government in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) as: “Direction; regulation. ‘These precepts will serve for the government of our conduct.’ Control; restraint. ‘Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions.’“ Thus Webster defines government in a way that reflects the biblical concept of governmental authority, that is, beginning with the individual and extending outward to include all institutions (DeMar, God and Government, pp. 4-5). The Founding Fathers recognized the importance of self-government. As DeMar states, “A self-governed individual is someone who can regulate his attitudes and actions without the need for external coercion” (14). Believing God’s law to be the sole standard for determining right and wrong John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is inadequate to the government of any other.” The words of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) reveal the mindset of many who fled to the shores of America in search of religious freedom:
“He knows not how to rule a Kingdom, that cannot manage a Province; nor can he wield a Province, that cannot order a City; nor he order a City, that knows not how to regulate a Village; nor he a Family that knows not how to Govern himself; neither can any Govern himself unless his reason be Lord, Will and Appetite her Vassals; nor can Reason rule unless herself ruled by God, and (wholly) be obedient to Him.”
Though the Constitution does not implicitly assume a Christian nation or acknowledgement of the providence of God in national affairs, an omission greatly regretted by the Christian public at the time of adoption (Morris 296), fundamentals of Christianity were incorporated into the State Constitutions of the Revolution which demonstrated the Christian life and character of our civil institutions (Morris 269).
Among other things, the influence of Christianity has spread into the concept of freedom and rights of the individual. Without this freedom there is no real freedom on the economic, political, or religious level (Schmidt 258). From its inception, Christianity has placed a high value on the individual in stark contrast to the Greco-Roman culture in which the individual was always subordinate to the state (Schmidt 259). Malcolm Muggeridge, once a non-Christian but later a strong defender of Christianity, said, “We must not forget that our human rights are derived from the Christian faith. In Christian terms every single human being, whoever he or she may be, sick or well, clever or foolish, beautiful or ugly, every human being is loved by his Creator, who as the Gospels tell us, counted the hairs of his head.” (Schmidt 260). Individual freedom has led to many positive effects in the history of Western society. One essential aspect of this began with individuals such as Tertullian, Lactantius, St. Augustine, and later Martin Luther who promoted religious freedom. Luther, standing before Emperor Charles V and the Diet of Worms in 1521 declared:
“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recent anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me, Amen.” The First Amendment echoes the desire of prominent Christian forbears in promoting religious liberty and freedom of the individual (Schmidt 263).
Christianity’s influence on education can be seen at its very inception with the teachings of Jesus who used words, parables, and human-life illustrations and taught others who then would become teachers themselves (Schmidt 170). Schmidt notes that the earliest Christians were mostly Jews who came from a long-standing tradition that valued formal education. St. Paul in his epistles makes references to Christians teaching in Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, Thessalonica, as well as other places (171). Teaching continued after the death of the apostles and in the very early church (A.D. 80-110) the Didache, basically an instruction manual for new converts to Christianity, appeared. Ignatius, a bishop of Antioch in the first decade of the second century, insisted that children be taught the Scriptures and a skilled trade, a concept carried over from the Jews (Schmidt 171). Jesus Christ’s command to the disciples and all Christians was to teach people “all things” that he commanded him. Newcomers, in preparation for baptism and church membership, were taught orally by the question and answer method. Both men and women over a period of two to three years were catechized and first were instructed in the teacher’s home (Schmidt 171). These types of instruction lead to formal catechetical schools with a strong emphasis on the literary. Justin Martyr, around A.D. 150, established schools in Ephesus and in Rome. Other schools quickly spread throughout the regions. The school is Alexandria, Egypt was well noted for its literary qualities (Schmidt 171). Christian doctrine was the primary focus of these schools though the one in Alexandria also taught mathematics and medicine and when Origen succeeded Clement he added grammar classes (Schmidt 172). Although Christians were not the first to engage in formal teaching it appears they were the first to teach both sexes in the same setting. Schmidt notes W.M. Ramsey as stating that Christianity’s aim was “universal education, not education confined to the rich, as among Greeks and Romans…and it [made] no distinction of sex” (172). St. Augustine once said that Christian women were better informed in divine matters than the pagan male philosophers (Schmidt 172). Details on the education of children are not known until the fourth to the tenth century when cathedrals and episcopal schools were maintained by bishops. The schools taught not only Christian doctrine but also the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). The espiscopal schools primarily trained priests but also enrolled others. Children of royalty and the higher social ranks attended the cathedral schools and others were instructed in monasteries or nunneries, where girls predominated. Although children were encouraged to enter church vocations most entered secular ones.
At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther, to his dismay, found widespread ignorance when he visited the churches in Saxony. He proceeded to write Small Catechism in 1529 noting that the common people had little to no knowledge of Christian teachings and that many pastors were incompetent to teach. He criticized the bishops for this indiscretion (Schmidt 176). Luther urged a state school system “to include vernacular primary schools for sexes, Latin secondary schools, and universities.” He also said that parents who failed to teach their children were “shameful and despicable” (Schmidt 177).
Education in early America was built on the heels of the Reformation of the sixteenth century which “stressed reclamation of all of life, with education as an essential transforming force (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 39). Modeling the Academy of Geneva (founded by John Calvin in 1559), universities sprang up that would apply the Bible to all of life (DeMar 39). On of the first colleges to be founded was Harvard in 1636 three years after John Eliot (1604-1690) first proposed a college for Massachusetts Bay. Harvard’s curriculum emphasized the study of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic), logic, divinity (theology), and communication (public speaking and rhetoric). Latin also linked students to classical studies and the writings of the church fathers (DeMar 43). The Puritans held to the belief that the collegiate education proper for a minister should also be the same for educated laymen. There was no great distinction between secular and theological learning (DeMar 44). The early motto of Harvard was Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (“Truth for Christ and the Church”). Harvard’s motto today has been reduced simply to Veritas (DeMar 45). Other early universities built exclusively on Christian principles were William and Mary (1693), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), King’s College (1754), Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1769) (p. 42). The education of colonial children was provided by a curriculum of three books in addition to the Bible: the Hornbook, the New England Primer, and the Bay Psalm book. The Hornbook, a single parchment attached to a wooden paddle, contained the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, and religious doctrines written or printed on it. The 1690 first edition of the Primer contained the names of the Old and New Testament books, the Lord’s Prayer, “An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth,” the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Westminster Assembly Shorter Catechism, and John Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk for American Babes” (DeMar 41). The Primer was the most commonly used textbook for almost 200 years. Another popular textbook was The McGuffey Reader (Schippe 9). Noah Webster, educator and compiler of the 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language wrote: “Education without the Bible is useless.” (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 40) Christian faith was integrated into every facet of education in early America.
Christianity’s influence on language, literature, and the arts is often overlooked and even taken for granted. Without the Bible much of what we enjoy today would be non-existent. The English language incorporates many words and phrases taken from the Bible when first translated. In 1380 John Wycliffe translated the Scriptures in its entirety and from it appears many of the words we still use today including the words adoption, ambitious, cucumber, liberty, and scapegoat among others (Schippe 12). William Tyndale translated the first English translation from the original texts. A gifted linguist skilled in eight languages with impeccable insights into Hebrew and Greek, Tyndale was eager to translate the Bible so even “the boy that drives the plow” could know the Bible (Schippe 13). Some familiar words and phrases of his include: “let there be light (Genesis 1.3),” “the powers that be (Romans 13.1),” “a law unto themselves (Romans 2.14),” and “fight the good fight (1 Timothy 6.12)” (Schippe 13). The influence of Tyndale on the English language was solidified in the publication of the 1611 King James Bible which retained about 94 percent of Tyndale’s work (Schippe 12). A renowned scholar on the literature of the Bible, Alistair McGrath notes, “Without the King James Bible, there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim’s Progress, no Handel’s Messiah, no Negro spirituals, and no Gettysburg Address” (Schippe 12). Despite the hostility and persecution towards the Christians in the early centuries under Nero and Domitian and later under the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation the Scriptures were meticulously copied by the priests and monks which in later years were translated into the languages of the common people even under threat of punishment (Schippe 14). Tyndale first worked in secret and when later betrayed and about to be burnt at the stake he called out, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” Within a year King Henry allowed English Bibles to be distributed. Two million English Bibles were distributed throughout a country of just over six million nearly seventy-five years after Tyndale’s death (Schippe 14).
Writers, artists, and musicians over the centuries have been greatly influenced by the Bible. From Dante to Milton to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the words and themes found in the Scriptures have made their way into much of the literature we study and enjoy today. Other great writers in the history of Western Civilization include Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, William Blake, T.S. Eliot, and William Faulkner, to name a few (Schippe 44). Art depicting biblical scenes was made popular especially during the Renaissance with artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the most famous composers, was greatly influenced by the Scriptures. His Magnificant was written for the Christmas service of 1723 at St. Thomas’s Church in Leipzig (Schippe 237). The cantata, a genre of vocal music in the Baroque period and a key part of the German Lutheran service, was primarily used in Bach’s music. A deeply religious man, Bach signed his cantatas “S.D.G., which stands for Soli Deo Gloria—“to God alone the glory” (Schippe 237). Many other forms of music known today have Christian roots such as the sonata, the symphony, and the oratorio. Most forms of music began as psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and the outgrowth from there progressed as the monks and churches spread throughout the ages. Ambrose (340-97) first had members of his congregation sing psalms antiphonally and allowed all people to participate in the morning and evening church services by setting the words of his hymns to “an easy metrical form, the iambic diameter (Schippe 316). Biblical stories were dramatized and performed in song as early as the ninth century. A well-known church drama in the tenth century was Visitatio sepulchri (The Visit to [Christ’s] Sepulcher). Schmidt notes there is good reason to believe the opera evolved out of church dramas that appeared five hundred years before the Renaissance (316-17). The works of Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn among others have greatly been influenced by the words of the Bible; oftentimes the music itself directly reflected that influence (Schippe 328-29).
With the publishing of Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom in 1896 the idea that Christianity was responsible for the arrival of science has largely been pushed out of the minds of the people, especially in academic circles (Schmidt 218-19). However, there is a pronounced difference between the pagan and Christian religions, that being the Christian presupposition of one God who is a rational being. Schmidt asks the question, ‘If God is a rational being, then may not human beings, who are made in his image, also employ rational processes to study and investigate the world in which they live?” (219). It was Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168-1253), a Franciscan bishop and first chancellor of Oxford University, who first proposed the inductive, experimental method and his student, Roger Bacon (1214-94) who asserted that “all things must be verified by experience.” Nearly three hundred years later Francis Bacon (1561-1626) gave momentum to the inductive method by recording his experimental results. Bacon has been called “the practical creator of scientific induction.” Besides his scientific interests he also devoted time to theology and wrote treatises on the Psalms and prayer (Schmidt 219). The inductive empirical method guided by rational procedures stood in stark contrast from the ancient Greek perspective of Aristotle which had a stranglehold on the world for fifteen hundred years. Even after these empirically minded individuals introduced their idea the scholastic world for the most part continued to hold to Aristotelianism which was the real “struggle” between the Catholic Church and science (Schmidt 219-220). One other prominent presupposition of Christianity is that God, who created the world, is separate and distinct from it unlike Aristotelian philosophy which saw the gods and universe intertwined. Pantheism regarded the scientific method as sacrilegious and an affront to divine nature and thus only in Christian thought where God and nature are separate would science be possible (Schmidt 221).
Schmidt quotes Lynn White, historian of medieval science, as saying “From the thirteenth century onward into the eighteenth every major scientist, in effect, explained his motivations in religious terms” (222). William Occam (1280-1349) had a great influence on the development of modern science. His concept known as “Occam’s Razor” was the scientific principle that states that what can be done or explained with the fewest assumptions should be used. It is the principle of parsimony. As was common with almost all medieval natural philosophers, Occam did not confine himself to scientific matters and wrote two theological treatises, one dealing with the Lord’s Supper and the other with the body of Christ, both of which had a tremendous impact on Martin Luther’s thinking (Schmidt 222). Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), while a great artist and painter was also a scientific genius who analyzed and theorized in the areas of botany, optics, physics, hydraulics, and aeronautics. However, his greatest benefit to science was in the study of physiology in which he produced meticulous drawings of the human body (Schmidt 223). Andreas Vesalius (1514-64) followed in Da Vinci’s footsteps. In his famous work, De humani corpis fabrica (Fabric of the Human Body), published in 1543, he corrects over two hundred errors in Galen’s physiological writings. (Galen was a Greek physician of the second century) The errors were largely found by dissecting cadavers (Schmidt 223). The branch of genetics flourished under the work of Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884), an Augustinian monk, who after studying Darwin’s theory of evolution rejected it (Schmidt 224). In the field of astronomy great advances were made under devout Christian men Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo. In physics we encounter Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Blaise Pascal (1623-62), Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), Georg Simon Ohm (1787-1854), Andre Ampere (1775-1836), Michael Faraday (1791-1867), and William Thompson Kelvin (1824-1907). These men held to a strong Christian faith as evidenced by their writings. Before he died, Kepler was asked by an attending Lutheran pastor where he placed his faith. Kepler replied, “Solely and alone in the work of our redeemer Jesus Christ.” Kepler, who only tried “thinking God’s thoughts after him,” died with the Christian faith planted firmly in his mind and heart. His epitaph, penned four months before his death stated:
I used to measure the heavens,
Now I must measure the earth.
Though sky-bound was my spirit,
My earthly body rests here (Schmidt 230).
Such was the mindset of the fathers of modern science who held to deeply religious beliefs and saw no contradiction between faith and science. Had it not been for those men who believed in a rational God who created rational men who sought only to understand the world that God had created and obeyed the command to have “dominion” (Genesis 1.28) over the earth, science would not be as it is today.
History books are filled with the rich details of men and women whose lives were changed by Jesus Christ and impacted the world through ideas found in Scripture in a wide array of disciplines. To deny the influence of Christianity on Western Civilization is to deny history altogether. Although at certain times there loomed dark areas in church history by those who deviated from the faith the overall positive contributions far outweigh the negative. There is no mistaking the fact that Christianity has changed the world for the better.
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Again, I repeat my point that without religion, and christianity most importantly, Western civilisation would not even exist. Western civilisation has been shaped primarily by religion.
The Influence of Christianity on Western Civilization
The positive influence of Christianity is far reaching especially in the rich history and culture of Western Civilization despite a long standing ignorance or adamant denial of its contributions. The Bible itself is responsible for much of the language, literature, and fine arts we enjoy today as its artists and composers were heavily influenced by its writings. Paul Maier, in writing the forward to the book How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J. Schmidt, says this about the profound impact Christianity has had on the development of Western Civilization:
“No other religion, philosophy, teaching, nation, movement—whatever—has so changed the world for the better as Christianity has done. Its shortcomings, clearly conceded by this author, are nevertheless heavily outweighed by its benefits to all mankind” (Schmidt 9).
Contrary to the history texts treatment of the subject, Christian influence on values, beliefs, and practices in Western culture are abundant and well ingrained into the flourishing society of today (Schmidt 12). In the Old Testament book of Hosea the writer states: “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” a statement that can well be applied to those today who are forgetful of the past (The Reformation Study Bible, Hosea 4.6a).
Schmidt writes regarding liberty and justice as seen by today’s culture:
“The liberty and justice that are enjoyed by humans in Western societies and in some non-Western countries are increasingly seen as the products of a benevolent, secular government that is the provider of all things. There seems to be no awareness that the liberties and rights that are currently operative in free societies of the West are to a great degree the result of Christianity’s influence (248). History is replete with examples of individuals who acted as a law unto themselves “often curtailing, even obliterating the natural rights and freedoms of the country’s citizens (249). Christianity’s influence, however, set into motion the belief that man is accountable to God and that the law is the same regardless of status. More than one thousand years before the birth of Christ the biblical requirement given by Moses comprised an essential component of the principle that “no man is above the law.”
One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Deuteronomy 19.15)
Thus the accuser, regardless of position in society, could not arbitrarily incarcerate or execute the accused and was himself subject to the law. The New Testament also mandated two or more witnesses in ecclesiastical matters regarding an erring Christian in Matthew 18:15-17 (Schmidt 249). The criminal and justice systems of many free countries today employ this Judeo-Christian requirement of having witnesses testify and in British and American jurisprudence, witnesses are part of “due process of law,’ a legal concept first appearing under King Edward III in the fourteenth century (Schmidt 249). One startling example of the concept that no man is above the law is seen in the conflict between the Christian emperor Theodosius the Great and St. Ambrose. It happened in 300 A.D. when some in Thessalonica rioted and aroused the anger of the emperor who overreacted by slaughtering approximately seven thousand people, most of whom were innocent. Bishop Ambrose asked the emperor to repent and when Theodosius refused, the bishop excommunicated him. After a month Theodosius prostrated himself and repented in Ambrose’s cathedral. Often mistaken as a struggle for power between church and state, the evidence in which Ambrose’s letter to the emperor cited sole concern for the emperor’s spiritual welfare conclude this as being the first instance of applying the principle that no one is above the law (Schmidt 250).
The Magna Carta served as a courageous precedent some five hundred years later to the American patriots in the creation of the unique government of the United States. The charter, signed in 1215 at Runnymede by King John granted a number of rights never held before this historic occasion including that “(1) justice could no longer be sold or denied to freeman who were under authority of barons; (2) no taxes could be levied without representation; (3) no one would be imprisoned without a trial; and (4) property could not be taken from the owner without just compensation (Schmidt 251). The Magna Carta had important Christian ties as demonstrated by its preamble that began, “John, by the grace of God…,” and stated that the charter was formulated out of “reverence for God and for the salvation of our soul and those of all our ancestors and heirs, for the honour of God and the exaltation of Holy Church and the reform of our realm, on the advice of our reverend [church] fathers” (Schmidt 251). This document also followed the precedent established in 325 at the Council of Nicaea in which Christian bishops wrote and adopted a formal code of fundamental beliefs to which all Christians were expected to adhere. The Magna Carta displayed what its formulators as Christians expected of the king and his subjects regarding civic liberties (Schmidt 251).
Natural law is a concept with a long history dating back to the Greco-Roman philosophers. Despite some variations among philosophers one point of agreement was understood as “that process in nature by which human beings, through the use of sound reason, were able to perceive what was morally right and wrong” (Schmidt253). With the emergence of Christianity common law was clarified to state that “natural law was not an entity by itself but part of God’s created order in nature through which he made all rational human beings aware of what is right and wrong” (Schmidt 253). The Apostle Paul expressed this in the New Testament book of Romans:
“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2.14-15).
Martin Luther stated: “Why does one then teach the Ten Commandments? Because the natural laws were never so orderly and well written as by Moses” (Schmidt 253). In his Two Treatises of Government, physician and political philosopher John Locke (1632-1703) claimed that government existed only to uphold the natural law and that governmental tyranny violated the natural rights of man (Schmidt 253). Natural rights were derived from nature and not from kings or government. The renowned English scholar Sir William Blackstone had immense influence on the American patriots in the eighteenth century who used his Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765) while formulating the fledgling government as evidenced by the Declaration of Independence. The words “the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God” document the reliability on the Christian understanding of the natural law (Schmidt 254). The Declaration of Independence goes on to state that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,” thus reiterating the concept of “inalienable rights” given by nature. The term “self-evident” has Christian roots going back to theological writings of the eighth century. Schmidt quotes Gary Amos, author of Defending the Declaration, as saying: “To the medievalists, ‘self-evident’ knowledge was truth known intuitively, as direct revelation from God, without the need for proofs. The term presumed that man was created in the image of God, and presumed certain beliefs about man’s rationality which can be traced as far back as Augustine in the early fifth century” (pp. 254-55). Schmidt believes it is quite plausible that St. Paul’s biblical concept of “self-evident” (Romans 1.20) knowingly or unknowingly influenced Jefferson when he wrote the term into the Declaration (Schmidt 255). The last portion of the Declaration includes the phrase “Supreme Judge,” a term used in Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government, where he refers to Jephthah calling God “the Judge” in Israel’s fight against the Ammonites (Judges 11.27). If this is taken from Locke’s work, Amos contends, “then we have a direct link between the Bible and the Declaration of Independence (Schmidt 255).
The Constitution, the hallmark of the foundling government in America, was greatly influenced by the French Christian and philosopher Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) as evidenced by the three branches of America’s government. Schmidt makes note that one historian has said that Montesquieu’s book, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), “[gave] American Constitution writers their holy writ” and called Montesquieu “the godfather of the American Constitution” (256). Montesquieu’s political theory was incorporated into the Constitution mostly as a result of the role taken by James Madison, known as the principal architect. His arguments for a separation of powers stemmed from the Christian teaching of the fallen nature of man. He is quoted as saying, ‘The truth [is] that all men, having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree.” In his Federalist Paper number 51 he notes, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary” (Schmidt 257). Many history texts have made note that the three powers are derived from Montesquieu’s theory but have failed to note the influence of Christianity on his beliefs: “It is not enough for a religion to establish a doctrine; it must also direct its influence. This the Christian religion performs in the most admirable manner, especially with respect to the doctrines of which we have been speaking. It makes us hope for a state which is the object of our belief; not for a state which we have already experienced or known” (Schmidt 257).
The founding of America’s republic government can best be described as the pinnacle of our American Christian heritage. Noah Webster defined government in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) as: “Direction; regulation. ‘These precepts will serve for the government of our conduct.’ Control; restraint. ‘Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions.’“ Thus Webster defines government in a way that reflects the biblical concept of governmental authority, that is, beginning with the individual and extending outward to include all institutions (DeMar, God and Government, pp. 4-5). The Founding Fathers recognized the importance of self-government. As DeMar states, “A self-governed individual is someone who can regulate his attitudes and actions without the need for external coercion” (14). Believing God’s law to be the sole standard for determining right and wrong John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is inadequate to the government of any other.” The words of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) reveal the mindset of many who fled to the shores of America in search of religious freedom:
“He knows not how to rule a Kingdom, that cannot manage a Province; nor can he wield a Province, that cannot order a City; nor he order a City, that knows not how to regulate a Village; nor he a Family that knows not how to Govern himself; neither can any Govern himself unless his reason be Lord, Will and Appetite her Vassals; nor can Reason rule unless herself ruled by God, and (wholly) be obedient to Him.”
Though the Constitution does not implicitly assume a Christian nation or acknowledgement of the providence of God in national affairs, an omission greatly regretted by the Christian public at the time of adoption (Morris 296), fundamentals of Christianity were incorporated into the State Constitutions of the Revolution which demonstrated the Christian life and character of our civil institutions (Morris 269).
Among other things, the influence of Christianity has spread into the concept of freedom and rights of the individual. Without this freedom there is no real freedom on the economic, political, or religious level (Schmidt 258). From its inception, Christianity has placed a high value on the individual in stark contrast to the Greco-Roman culture in which the individual was always subordinate to the state (Schmidt 259). Malcolm Muggeridge, once a non-Christian but later a strong defender of Christianity, said, “We must not forget that our human rights are derived from the Christian faith. In Christian terms every single human being, whoever he or she may be, sick or well, clever or foolish, beautiful or ugly, every human being is loved by his Creator, who as the Gospels tell us, counted the hairs of his head.” (Schmidt 260). Individual freedom has led to many positive effects in the history of Western society. One essential aspect of this began with individuals such as Tertullian, Lactantius, St. Augustine, and later Martin Luther who promoted religious freedom. Luther, standing before Emperor Charles V and the Diet of Worms in 1521 declared:
“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recent anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me, Amen.” The First Amendment echoes the desire of prominent Christian forbears in promoting religious liberty and freedom of the individual (Schmidt 263).
Christianity’s influence on education can be seen at its very inception with the teachings of Jesus who used words, parables, and human-life illustrations and taught others who then would become teachers themselves (Schmidt 170). Schmidt notes that the earliest Christians were mostly Jews who came from a long-standing tradition that valued formal education. St. Paul in his epistles makes references to Christians teaching in Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, Thessalonica, as well as other places (171). Teaching continued after the death of the apostles and in the very early church (A.D. 80-110) the Didache, basically an instruction manual for new converts to Christianity, appeared. Ignatius, a bishop of Antioch in the first decade of the second century, insisted that children be taught the Scriptures and a skilled trade, a concept carried over from the Jews (Schmidt 171). Jesus Christ’s command to the disciples and all Christians was to teach people “all things” that he commanded him. Newcomers, in preparation for baptism and church membership, were taught orally by the question and answer method. Both men and women over a period of two to three years were catechized and first were instructed in the teacher’s home (Schmidt 171). These types of instruction lead to formal catechetical schools with a strong emphasis on the literary. Justin Martyr, around A.D. 150, established schools in Ephesus and in Rome. Other schools quickly spread throughout the regions. The school is Alexandria, Egypt was well noted for its literary qualities (Schmidt 171). Christian doctrine was the primary focus of these schools though the one in Alexandria also taught mathematics and medicine and when Origen succeeded Clement he added grammar classes (Schmidt 172). Although Christians were not the first to engage in formal teaching it appears they were the first to teach both sexes in the same setting. Schmidt notes W.M. Ramsey as stating that Christianity’s aim was “universal education, not education confined to the rich, as among Greeks and Romans…and it [made] no distinction of sex” (172). St. Augustine once said that Christian women were better informed in divine matters than the pagan male philosophers (Schmidt 172). Details on the education of children are not known until the fourth to the tenth century when cathedrals and episcopal schools were maintained by bishops. The schools taught not only Christian doctrine but also the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). The espiscopal schools primarily trained priests but also enrolled others. Children of royalty and the higher social ranks attended the cathedral schools and others were instructed in monasteries or nunneries, where girls predominated. Although children were encouraged to enter church vocations most entered secular ones.
At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther, to his dismay, found widespread ignorance when he visited the churches in Saxony. He proceeded to write Small Catechism in 1529 noting that the common people had little to no knowledge of Christian teachings and that many pastors were incompetent to teach. He criticized the bishops for this indiscretion (Schmidt 176). Luther urged a state school system “to include vernacular primary schools for sexes, Latin secondary schools, and universities.” He also said that parents who failed to teach their children were “shameful and despicable” (Schmidt 177).
Education in early America was built on the heels of the Reformation of the sixteenth century which “stressed reclamation of all of life, with education as an essential transforming force (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 39). Modeling the Academy of Geneva (founded by John Calvin in 1559), universities sprang up that would apply the Bible to all of life (DeMar 39). On of the first colleges to be founded was Harvard in 1636 three years after John Eliot (1604-1690) first proposed a college for Massachusetts Bay. Harvard’s curriculum emphasized the study of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic), logic, divinity (theology), and communication (public speaking and rhetoric). Latin also linked students to classical studies and the writings of the church fathers (DeMar 43). The Puritans held to the belief that the collegiate education proper for a minister should also be the same for educated laymen. There was no great distinction between secular and theological learning (DeMar 44). The early motto of Harvard was Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (“Truth for Christ and the Church”). Harvard’s motto today has been reduced simply to Veritas (DeMar 45). Other early universities built exclusively on Christian principles were William and Mary (1693), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), King’s College (1754), Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1769) (p. 42). The education of colonial children was provided by a curriculum of three books in addition to the Bible: the Hornbook, the New England Primer, and the Bay Psalm book. The Hornbook, a single parchment attached to a wooden paddle, contained the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, and religious doctrines written or printed on it. The 1690 first edition of the Primer contained the names of the Old and New Testament books, the Lord’s Prayer, “An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth,” the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Westminster Assembly Shorter Catechism, and John Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk for American Babes” (DeMar 41). The Primer was the most commonly used textbook for almost 200 years. Another popular textbook was The McGuffey Reader (Schippe 9). Noah Webster, educator and compiler of the 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language wrote: “Education without the Bible is useless.” (DeMar, America’s Christian Heritage, 40) Christian faith was integrated into every facet of education in early America.
Christianity’s influence on language, literature, and the arts is often overlooked and even taken for granted. Without the Bible much of what we enjoy today would be non-existent. The English language incorporates many words and phrases taken from the Bible when first translated. In 1380 John Wycliffe translated the Scriptures in its entirety and from it appears many of the words we still use today including the words adoption, ambitious, cucumber, liberty, and scapegoat among others (Schippe 12). William Tyndale translated the first English translation from the original texts. A gifted linguist skilled in eight languages with impeccable insights into Hebrew and Greek, Tyndale was eager to translate the Bible so even “the boy that drives the plow” could know the Bible (Schippe 13). Some familiar words and phrases of his include: “let there be light (Genesis 1.3),” “the powers that be (Romans 13.1),” “a law unto themselves (Romans 2.14),” and “fight the good fight (1 Timothy 6.12)” (Schippe 13). The influence of Tyndale on the English language was solidified in the publication of the 1611 King James Bible which retained about 94 percent of Tyndale’s work (Schippe 12). A renowned scholar on the literature of the Bible, Alistair McGrath notes, “Without the King James Bible, there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim’s Progress, no Handel’s Messiah, no Negro spirituals, and no Gettysburg Address” (Schippe 12). Despite the hostility and persecution towards the Christians in the early centuries under Nero and Domitian and later under the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation the Scriptures were meticulously copied by the priests and monks which in later years were translated into the languages of the common people even under threat of punishment (Schippe 14). Tyndale first worked in secret and when later betrayed and about to be burnt at the stake he called out, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” Within a year King Henry allowed English Bibles to be distributed. Two million English Bibles were distributed throughout a country of just over six million nearly seventy-five years after Tyndale’s death (Schippe 14).
Writers, artists, and musicians over the centuries have been greatly influenced by the Bible. From Dante to Milton to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the words and themes found in the Scriptures have made their way into much of the literature we study and enjoy today. Other great writers in the history of Western Civilization include Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, William Blake, T.S. Eliot, and William Faulkner, to name a few (Schippe 44). Art depicting biblical scenes was made popular especially during the Renaissance with artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the most famous composers, was greatly influenced by the Scriptures. His Magnificant was written for the Christmas service of 1723 at St. Thomas’s Church in Leipzig (Schippe 237). The cantata, a genre of vocal music in the Baroque period and a key part of the German Lutheran service, was primarily used in Bach’s music. A deeply religious man, Bach signed his cantatas “S.D.G., which stands for Soli Deo Gloria—“to God alone the glory” (Schippe 237). Many other forms of music known today have Christian roots such as the sonata, the symphony, and the oratorio. Most forms of music began as psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and the outgrowth from there progressed as the monks and churches spread throughout the ages. Ambrose (340-97) first had members of his congregation sing psalms antiphonally and allowed all people to participate in the morning and evening church services by setting the words of his hymns to “an easy metrical form, the iambic diameter (Schippe 316). Biblical stories were dramatized and performed in song as early as the ninth century. A well-known church drama in the tenth century was Visitatio sepulchri (The Visit to [Christ’s] Sepulcher). Schmidt notes there is good reason to believe the opera evolved out of church dramas that appeared five hundred years before the Renaissance (316-17). The works of Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn among others have greatly been influenced by the words of the Bible; oftentimes the music itself directly reflected that influence (Schippe 328-29).
With the publishing of Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom in 1896 the idea that Christianity was responsible for the arrival of science has largely been pushed out of the minds of the people, especially in academic circles (Schmidt 218-19). However, there is a pronounced difference between the pagan and Christian religions, that being the Christian presupposition of one God who is a rational being. Schmidt asks the question, ‘If God is a rational being, then may not human beings, who are made in his image, also employ rational processes to study and investigate the world in which they live?” (219). It was Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168-1253), a Franciscan bishop and first chancellor of Oxford University, who first proposed the inductive, experimental method and his student, Roger Bacon (1214-94) who asserted that “all things must be verified by experience.” Nearly three hundred years later Francis Bacon (1561-1626) gave momentum to the inductive method by recording his experimental results. Bacon has been called “the practical creator of scientific induction.” Besides his scientific interests he also devoted time to theology and wrote treatises on the Psalms and prayer (Schmidt 219). The inductive empirical method guided by rational procedures stood in stark contrast from the ancient Greek perspective of Aristotle which had a stranglehold on the world for fifteen hundred years. Even after these empirically minded individuals introduced their idea the scholastic world for the most part continued to hold to Aristotelianism which was the real “struggle” between the Catholic Church and science (Schmidt 219-220). One other prominent presupposition of Christianity is that God, who created the world, is separate and distinct from it unlike Aristotelian philosophy which saw the gods and universe intertwined. Pantheism regarded the scientific method as sacrilegious and an affront to divine nature and thus only in Christian thought where God and nature are separate would science be possible (Schmidt 221).
Schmidt quotes Lynn White, historian of medieval science, as saying “From the thirteenth century onward into the eighteenth every major scientist, in effect, explained his motivations in religious terms” (222). William Occam (1280-1349) had a great influence on the development of modern science. His concept known as “Occam’s Razor” was the scientific principle that states that what can be done or explained with the fewest assumptions should be used. It is the principle of parsimony. As was common with almost all medieval natural philosophers, Occam did not confine himself to scientific matters and wrote two theological treatises, one dealing with the Lord’s Supper and the other with the body of Christ, both of which had a tremendous impact on Martin Luther’s thinking (Schmidt 222). Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), while a great artist and painter was also a scientific genius who analyzed and theorized in the areas of botany, optics, physics, hydraulics, and aeronautics. However, his greatest benefit to science was in the study of physiology in which he produced meticulous drawings of the human body (Schmidt 223). Andreas Vesalius (1514-64) followed in Da Vinci’s footsteps. In his famous work, De humani corpis fabrica (Fabric of the Human Body), published in 1543, he corrects over two hundred errors in Galen’s physiological writings. (Galen was a Greek physician of the second century) The errors were largely found by dissecting cadavers (Schmidt 223). The branch of genetics flourished under the work of Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884), an Augustinian monk, who after studying Darwin’s theory of evolution rejected it (Schmidt 224). In the field of astronomy great advances were made under devout Christian men Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo. In physics we encounter Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Blaise Pascal (1623-62), Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), Georg Simon Ohm (1787-1854), Andre Ampere (1775-1836), Michael Faraday (1791-1867), and William Thompson Kelvin (1824-1907). These men held to a strong Christian faith as evidenced by their writings. Before he died, Kepler was asked by an attending Lutheran pastor where he placed his faith. Kepler replied, “Solely and alone in the work of our redeemer Jesus Christ.” Kepler, who only tried “thinking God’s thoughts after him,” died with the Christian faith planted firmly in his mind and heart. His epitaph, penned four months before his death stated:
I used to measure the heavens,
Now I must measure the earth.
Though sky-bound was my spirit,
My earthly body rests here (Schmidt 230).
Such was the mindset of the fathers of modern science who held to deeply religious beliefs and saw no contradiction between faith and science. Had it not been for those men who believed in a rational God who created rational men who sought only to understand the world that God had created and obeyed the command to have “dominion” (Genesis 1.28) over the earth, science would not be as it is today.
History books are filled with the rich details of men and women whose lives were changed by Jesus Christ and impacted the world through ideas found in Scripture in a wide array of disciplines. To deny the influence of Christianity on Western Civilization is to deny history altogether. Although at certain times there loomed dark areas in church history by those who deviated from the faith the overall positive contributions far outweigh the negative. There is no mistaking the fact that Christianity has changed the world for the better.
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Again, I repeat my point that without religion, and christianity most importantly, Western civilisation would not even exist. Western civilisation has been shaped primarily by religion.
tl;dr
So, can you simply point out a few things that were influenced by Christianity ?
illuknisaa wrote: It is irrelevant how many people would actually give food. Being good because some people tell you to be good is not what being good is about.
Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to define good.
The most evil thing I've heard is "infinate punishment for a finite action".
That doesn't answer my question. What are you using to define evil?
What is good? What is evil? What is best in life?
I don't have answers for these things because these things change from one culture to an another. There is no absolute answer. Only religion tries to give an absolute answer (without any success).
What is good in my opinion: It depends on the situation.
What is bad in my opinion: Punishment that lasts an eternity because nobody deserves eternal torment.
If end result is the same why bother with religion?
Because believing in a deity is a personal choice some people make. I'm not sure why the fact that some people would give free food to the poor without religion necessitates removing religion from society.
It doesn't but why have religion in the first place?
Religion does not give more resources (food, fuel, space, money etc.)
Religion offers poor moral standards.
Religion takes credit on things that it doesn't deserve and escapes responsibility when it can.
illuknisaa wrote: It is irrelevant how many people would actually give food. Being good because some people tell you to be good is not what being good is about.
Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to define good.
The most evil thing I've heard is "infinate punishment for a finite action".
That doesn't answer my question. What are you using to define evil?
What is good? What is evil? What is best in life?
I don't have answers for these things because these things change from one culture to an another. There is no absolute answer. Only religion tries to give an absolute answer (without any success).
What is good in my opinion: It depends on the situation.
Then how you can make a sweeping statement like "Being good because some people tell you to be good is not what being good is about."? If you have no overall definition of good, then you cannot say that "X is not good, because that's not what good is about".
What is bad in my opinion: Punishment that lasts an eternity because nobody deserves eternal torment.
But you're still giving an example of what you think is bad. How do you define any other act, such as killing, as bad?
If end result is the same why bother with religion?
Because believing in a deity is a personal choice some people make. I'm not sure why the fact that some people would give free food to the poor without religion necessitates removing religion from society.
It doesn't but why have religion in the first place?
Why not? Some people want to believe in a deity, what gives you the authority to take their choice away from them?
Religion does not give more resources (food, fuel, space, money etc.)
You don't say? Very few things give more resources back to society than they consume. Religion does at least make an effort to redistribute some of those resources.
Religion offers poor moral standards.
Care to expand on this?
Religion takes credit on things that it doesn't deserve and escapes responsibility when it can.
Please, explain what religion takes credit for that it shouldn't.
1.But you're still giving an example of what you think is bad. How do you define any other act, such as killing, as bad?
2.Why not? Some people want to believe in a deity, what gives you the authority to take their choice away from them?
3.You don't say? Very few things give more resources back to society than they consume. Religion does at least make an effort to redistribute some of those resources.
4.Care to expand on this?
5.Please, explain what religion takes credit for that it shouldn't.
1. I cannot explain any better. Just for fun tell me what is the absolute good/bad?
2. I'm not taking anybody's choise to pick their deity. I'm questoning the entire point of having a deity. If there is no point having a deity, then there is literally zero reason to have a deity.
"person is shooting his leg"
-Why are you shooting your leg?
-I dunno
-Maybe you shouldn't shoot your leg then.
-DON'T QUESTION MY CHOISE TO SHOOT MY LEG!
-....
3. Most western religions don't pay taxes, take alot of space with their religious places and affect the sociaety with their bs agenda.
Iv done missionary work in the past but I'd actually like to see less religion in goverment. My beleifs are a guideline I choose to follow, and should not force others to walk.
Come to Britain chum, religion is increasingly irrelevant to our culture.
True in the UK religion is a personal thing so people are unlikely to discuss such things publicly but we are described as a post-religious nation sometimes as god-bothering attendance collapsed since WW2.
I know no one that attends church for anything other than marriage or deaths some how we man age to cope.
Of course this means we have a great deal of empty public spaces for kids play groups and oh I don't know something fun like wargaming clubs.
'What is Good' can be summed up by the one thing that runs through all religions, 'do unto other as you would have done unto you'. But I don't think that religion is necessary to understand that rule, it is instinctive in all of us that have a capacity for empathy.
notprop wrote: Come to Britain chum, religion is increasingly irrelevant to our culture.
I am no expert on UK politics, but do you not have that Baroness Warsi spouting non-sense about the danger of militant secularism and all that jazz? Someone like that would extremely unlikely to be elected ever, in France, and those comments would likely launch a storm of negative reactions.
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dæl wrote: 'What is Good' can be summed up by the one thing that runs through all religions, 'do unto other as you would have done unto you'.
It does not run through all religion. And it is not even right. Different people, different tastes. There are tons of things I would not like to do but that I want other to be able to do.
notprop wrote: Come to Britain chum, religion is increasingly irrelevant to our culture.
I am no expert on UK politics, but do you not have that Baroness Warsi spouting non-sense about the danger of militant secularism and all that jazz? Someone like that would extremely unlikely to be elected ever, in France, and those comments would likely launch a storm of negative reactions.
Baroness Warsi wasn't elected.
dæl wrote: 'What is Good' can be summed up by the one thing that runs through all religions, 'do unto other as you would have done unto you'.
It does not run through all religion. And it is not even right. Different people, different tastes. There are tons of things I would not like to do but that I want other to be able to do.
I'm not sure I understand, care to give an example?
dæl wrote: I'm not sure I understand, care to give an example?
About religions that do not preach that? Or about different tastes meaning that sometime you should not do to other what you would like them to do to you, (or the other way, you should do to them what you would not like them to do to you)?
dæl wrote: 'What is Good' can be summed up by the one thing that runs through all religions, 'do unto other as you would have done unto you'. But I don't think that religion is necessary to understand that rule, it is instinctive in all of us that have a capacity for empathy.
A growing segment of the population has conditions which prevent the having of empathy. Many forms of Autism lack the ability to understand basic social cues like empathy.
And lots of animals have empathy... and they exploit that empathy by abusing/murdering/torturing rival groups's young to send a message and to claim dominance over a territory. They explicitly torture in order to have their family hear the screams and then they cannibalize what is left, not for nutrients but for 'fun' to show the other groups 'Yeah, I am chewing on your baby's ear... what you gonna do about it?'
So simply having the ability to feel or understand empathy doesn't dictate a moral code or make one act moral.
dæl wrote: I'm not sure I understand, care to give an example?
About religions that do not preach that? Or about different tastes meaning that sometime you should not do to other what you would like them to do to you, (or the other way, you should do to them what you would not like them to do to you)?
The latter, I'm unsure what you mean.
nkelsch wrote:
And lots of animals have empathy... and they exploit that empathy by abusing/murdering/torturing rival groups's young to send a message and to claim dominance over a territory. They explicitly torture in order to have their family hear the screams and then they cannibalize what is left, not for nutrients but for 'fun' to show the other groups 'Yeah, I am chewing on your baby's ear... what you gonna do about it?'
So simply having the ability to feel or understand empathy doesn't dictate a moral code or make one act moral.
Those animals are committing an evil act, it is done out of malice, which kind of supports my point about morality having some basis in empathy. If they were ignorant of the cruelty of their actions then that would be less wrong.
Empathy does not automatically make someone moral, but it can give them an idea of what is morally right.
nkelsch wrote:
And lots of animals have empathy... and they exploit that empathy by abusing/murdering/torturing rival groups's young to send a message and to claim dominance over a territory. They explicitly torture in order to have their family hear the screams and then they cannibalize what is left, not for nutrients but for 'fun' to show the other groups 'Yeah, I am chewing on your baby's ear... what you gonna do about it?'
So simply having the ability to feel or understand empathy doesn't dictate a moral code or make one act moral.
Those animals are committing an evil act, it is done out of malice, which kind of supports my point about morality having some basis in empathy. If they were ignorant of the cruelty of their actions then that would be less wrong.
Empathy does not automatically make someone moral, but it can give them an idea of what is morally right.
What makes it 'evil'? Nature shows survival of the fittest for millions of years. If patrolling your territory, seizing land and food from others helps propagate your genetics, then how is it 'evil' unless you have a belief all genetics within a species are 'equal' and have a right to exist?
If one animal can murder another because he is stronger and faster, then kill his offspring to force his mate to immediately ovulate and be ready for new offspring... why is it 'evil'? His stronger DNA will go forth and multiply. It is only 'wrong' if we feel every DNA and every trait has a right to exist and go forth... and that is anti-nature.
So how is it evil and immoral when that has been the law of nature for millions of years and the very definition of natural selection? The only way it can become evil is if someone makes an artificial construct to ignore the laws of nature and have that 'belief' in an artificial construct telling you something is 'wrong' or 'evil' and not to do it.
If a creature is torturing another creature, for the sake of causing pain, then that is unnecessary cruelty. That was the situation you outlined. Animals can be cruel in their actions, such is nature, but when they display empathy and, as you claim, exploit that to cause suffering, then that puts them into the realms of sadism, which I think most people would agree is immoral.
dæl wrote: If a creature is torturing another creature, for the sake of causing pain, then that is unnecessary cruelty. That was the situation you outlined. Animals can be cruel in their actions, such is nature, but when they display empathy and, as you claim, exploit that to cause suffering, then that puts them into the realms of sadism, which I think most people would agree is immoral.
What makes it so? If torture causes a rival group to submit or give up a food supply, it is a great benefit for the torture's DNA. Also, torturing animals while killing them provides much needed training for future hunting skills. What they see as training , the animal being repeatedly harmed for the amusement of the other creature is being tortured... Does that make our cats evil?
Is all of nature 'evil'? And what artificial construct makes humans distinct from nature and our morality set us apart?
Its entirely irrelevant but that example the animal in question (it's a badger right? In my head its a badger.) would be staking a claim to territory and sending out a warning.
Suggesting that animals are Sadistic is daft.
You should agree. I think this Badger is gonna claw you a new one if you don't, the sadistic bastard!
notprop wrote: Its entirely irrelevant but that example the animal in question (it's a badger right? In my head its a badger.) would be staking a claim to territory and sending out a warning.
Suggesting that animals are Sadistic is daft.
You should agree. I think this Badger is gonna claw you a new one if you don't, the sadistic bastard!
TBone stepped on a bug once just to watch it die.
And I thought Darwin had already proved that cats were evil. It was in his follow up book to Origin of the Species, the lesser known Origin of Why Cats Are Evilz
notprop wrote: Its entirely irrelevant but that example the animal in question (it's a badger right? In my head its a badger.) would be staking a claim to territory and sending out a warning.
Suggesting that animals are Sadistic is daft.
I had read recently that a group of scientists were out and about on the water, studying some animal, when the came across something they never expected to see.... They witnessed a group of otters in the middle of a territorial/mating/ whatever dispute. The male who ended up winning "defiled" the body of the loser, then, in front of the others started to skull feth the dead body. Naturally, some scientists and non-scientific people will call that act "sadistic" but it is like notprop is saying: this guy was sending a warning to those who would infringe on his space/women/food sources
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