Maxprop wrote:
"Jeff" wrote in message
However, civilized societies have emerged all over the world, without
the benefit of Christian salvation.
"Civilized" and "moral" are not synonymous.
Which is better? Is un-civil behavior acceptable if you say a prayer
while doing it?

"Moral" and religious are not synonymous either. You've missed the entire
point of the discussion.

I haven't missed your point; I've been giving you the benefit of the
doubt. Or are you claiming that morals are always "good" and they
only come from Christianity? So far, that's about all you've said.


On behalf of all of the would be barbarians of the world I would like to
say that we were getting along pretty well before you came along, and we
could have done just fine without your help, thank you very much.
Yeah, those damned framers of the Constitution and their Christianity.
They ruined everything.
Well, this would be the real issue here. Obviously, all of the framers of
the Constitution were influenced by Christianity. And I appreciate that
books have been written trying to show that much of it was derived from
biblical sources.

However, the Constitution represents a massive break from our European
political heritage. Starting, obviously, with denying the divinity of
royalty, the Constitution is not an endorsement of organized religion, but
a rejection of it.

I believe that is a bit harsh. I've never interpreted our document as a
repudiation of religion, but rather as an affirmation of the need to
separate religion and affairs of state.

You have to look at where European politics was at the time. Almost
all countries were hereditary monarchies. Organized religion ordained
the divine right of kings. British monarchs are still anointed with
holy oils. The feudal contract was church supported. Even the
seemingly "liberal" movements did not involve much toleration - The
Maryland Toleration Act made denying the divinity of Jesus a capital
crime. The Act of Toleration in England tolerated certain dissenting
Protestant sects, but not Catholicism, and so on.

Further, the rejection of organized religion as a political authority
is not a rejection of religion in its entirety. It is a rejection of
the concept that a religious authority has the right to dictate to
others what is right or wrong.


Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence,
was a Deist, that is, he rejected the divinity of the Trinity. Although
raised in the Church of England, he later seemed to favor Unitarianism.
He clearly did not favor organized religion, writing: "the serious enemies
are the priests of the different religious sects, to whose spells on the
human mind it's improvement is ominous."

John Adams, another major force in the Constitution, also was a Unitarian.
He was trained as a youth to be a minister, but he felt that being a
lawyer was a more noble calling! He wrote of the Catholic Church: "Since
the promulgation of Christianity, the two greatest systems of tyranny that
have sprung from this original, are the canon and the feudal law."

Both Jefferson and Adams approved of Christian morals. Adams even said
that the Bible is "the best book in the world." Of course, at that time
the Western world was not exposed to most of the world's religions and
philosophy.

James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" was a protege of
Jefferson, and clearly shared many of his views. He was the author of the
Bill of Rights, which guarantees freedom of religion, and often wrote
about the complete separation of Church and State.

Unfortunately, the original Constitution was flawed in that it permitted
slavery. This was required, of course, because the southern states
refused to join the Union if slavery was abolished. I'm sure they had
good Christian morals supporting their position.

Once again you are having a tough time distinguishing between morality and
civilized government. All of the quotes and attributions you cite above
really have little or nothing to do with morality.

They certainly imply that the founding fathers did not feel that the
Church had the moral authority to control our lives. God bless them!

As for slavery, it was
grossly immoral, and I suspect that those who supported it cited *sound
Christian principles* to justify continuing the practice. They were
immoral positions, not fostered by Christian principles, rather economic
motivations.

All you're claiming here is that anything bad that happened was not
"Christian" and that anything good was the result of Christian
morality. The fact that the Pope support slavery for economic should
tell us something. Perhaps its that those who claim moral ascendancy
can't be trusted?


It's no secret that for centuries men have misused religion to
further immoral activities.

If this was only true of isolated individuals, you might have a case.
When its the official position of the Pope and the Church of England
for extended periods then it becomes something different.

That in and of itself does not alter the
historical influence of religion upon morality in the western world.


But you have to take the bad with the good. Otherwise, its like
defending Fascism because Mussolini made the trains run on time.

The problem I have is that its hard to take measure of the motivation of
people from a distance of 2000 years. Its easy to look around today and
see numerous examples of "Christian" generosity or compassion. Can you
honestly say that the same moral motivations were absent in other
societies?

According to historians there were early societies that lacked any moral
compass.

That seems to have also happened in modern times, in Christian societies.

They also lacked a religion based upon the principles of
Christianity as we recognize it today. Undoubtedly some of those societies
were complex and relatively stratified, making the isolation of certain
variables difficult, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to draw conclusions
based upon general principles. Morality, as we tend to define it today,
held a far greater presence in later societies and civilizations which also
had Christianity to deal with.

What basis do you have for this statement??? It sounds like
self-serving hogwash to me.

While it proves nothing, the relationship
appears to be more than casual; enough so that historians point to the
relationship as causal.

Christian historians, no doubt.

Historians have also shown a direct relationship between the teachings
of the Church and the Holocaust. So where does this leave you?


History does not record the motivations of the ordinary people, especially
in peaceful societies. In fact, unless a culture waged a war, its hard to
tell that it even existed! And even the opposite is true - major
societies that we thought existed because of the claims of their conquests
(such as the empire of David and Solomon) we have trouble finding physical
evidence for.

Since there is no way to determine the moral convictions of ordinary
people in societies from the distance past, all we have to go on is how
well the society functioned and how well did the government provide for
the needs of the people.

Why is there no way to determine the moral convictions of the people? From
literature, missives, and various other documents we can draw many
conclusions about people and their beliefs.

You can't be serious. Are you actually saying that societies that did
not leave literature behind could not have morals? There's plenty of
evidence that ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians led a good, orderly
life - how are you going to prove that this was not because of moral
conviction?


It's a pointless discussion anyway. The majority of 18th, 19th, and 20th
Century European historians concur that western religions played the
majority role in shaping the morality of the periods. Debate them.
Well Duh! Even a twit like Ellen can see that the morality of any period
is heavily influenced by the religion of the time.

Thank you for finally agreeing with my position.

I've only agreed that your position is understood by a twit.


The issue is whether Europe (or the world) would have been better off had
some other religion other than Christianity been allowed to grow and
develop. I claim there's no way to know this.

I won't dispute that. But since we both have acknowledged the role religion
has played in shaping the morality of this country from its inception, why
take the unproven and unpredictable path of abject secularism from here on
out?

When have I ever advocated "abject secularism"? This show the
fundamental flaw in your logic. You've been assuming that without
Christianity we would have "abject secularism." All I've been saying
is that without Christianity we would have had some other religion,
and there is no evidence that the morals that would have derived from
that religion would have been any worse than those that came from
Christianity.

Further, by describing any alternative to Christianity as "abject"
you're pretty freely claiming that you are not willing to listen to
any other possibility. I suppose that's a lot better than trying to
claim you're open minded.

Experiment with someone else's country. I like this one the way it
is.

Fine. You can be frozen in amber. The rest of us will move on into
the future. Oh, and we'll be taking our country with us.