Maxprop wrote:
"Jeff" wrote in message
....
So
you can always make the claim that religion is responsible for everything
good, and all things bad are caused by ignoring religion.

I'd never make that claim. Dispite Katy's claim to the contrary, I doubt if
ignoring religion at this stage of the evolution of human endeavor would
result in chaos and depravity. The fundamental concepts of morality brought
about by western religions over the centuries are as much a part of the
fabric of Europeans and Americans (including N, S, Central, etc.) as any
other aspects of our lives. It isn't likely to disappear overnight, nor
over the next few centuries. Of course Christianity isn't likely to
disappear either, so the point is moot.

My claim would be that those "fundamental concepts" are part of human
nature. If anything, "western morality" was setback for many people.
It certainly didn't help the native-Americans, although they were
really done in by an accident of evolution.


However, you specifically claimed that pre-Christian "morality" was
insufficient, "Not much morality in evidence" was your comment. This is
total nonsense. You've completely ignored the thousands of years of
peaceful civilization that preceded the Christian Era. Mesopotamia, Egypt,
Persia, Greece, Rome plus others had long periods peace and prosperity.
All had a strong moral systems, "raping, pillaging, and homicide" were
not, as you claim, constant events.

Is peace the only measure of morality in your vernacular? China had lengthy
periods of prosperity and peace, but state executions were as common as
births in many of the early dynasties.

So that never happened in Christian countries, such as Nazi Germany?

So were punitive slavery, innate servitude,

So that never happened in Christian countries, such as just about all
of them?

and religious sacrifice.

OK, human sacrifice has lost some if its panache since Jesus. But
Christians do seem rather fond of martyrs.

China, to this day, has been at peace
with most of its neighbors for quite a while, but their version of morality
would be considered barbaric in many respects by western cultures. China
has never embraced Christianity, and only recently--within the last century
or so--tolerated it with a strong admonition of discouragement.

You have a lot of trouble with this path - for every "evil" empire of
the past its easy to find a good one. And equally easy to find an
evil Christian country.



How moral was the feudal system?

Curiously, the feudal system has its foundations in laws passed by Emperor
Constantine at the same time he was laying the groundwork for Christianity
as the state religion.

Christianity didn't affect the current iteration of morality from its
inception. The Crusades were evidence of that. Morality evolved from
Christian ideology, and it took time. Lots of time. It continues to
evolve.

But now you're just doing what you claimed you wouldn't - your saying
the evil things are because religion hadn't taken hold yet. The
feudal system was strongly endorsed by the Church. The Crusades were
ordered by the Church. Slavery was justified by the Church. Are you
trying to tell us the the Church was not really Christian until the
Quakers showed us the way?

Witness the changes in this country, from slavery to the relative
egalitarianism of today.

The evolution of morality is not a straight-line, upward slope. There are
always setbacks to any evolving philosophy. Witness some of the exceptions
mentioned by Popeye. This is not a perfect world, but it is strongly
improved by morality brought about, primarily, by western religion. And it
continues to evolve.

It would be just as easy to say the the Church had created a pretty
nasty place until the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. These were
largely secular movements.


You seem to be ignoring that fact that half of the colonial economy was
based on brutal slavery. It was so much a part of our society that it was
endorsed by our Constitution. And the Caribbean slavery was even worse.

You obviously didn't read on before making that statement.

Sure I read on. But I have trouble seeing the Quakers as mainstream
Christianity. In fact, I could probably make a good argument that the
Liberal Quaker movement "showing the way" is proof that the dogma of
"credo based" western religions led to terrible injustices.


but it took the combined efforts of such groups as the Quakers and other
prospering religions to finally convince the fledgling country that
salvery was immoral.
Are you really suggesting Quakers are the exemplars of organized Christian
religion??? If all Christians were Quakers I don't think we would be
having this discussion.

Did I imply that? Re-read my statement. Or did you miss the "and other
prospering religions" part of my statement? But I am curious--what is your
take on Quakers? Their sense of morality is beyond reproach, at least from
what I've learned about them.

I don't know enough to understand the current "majority view," but
I've gathered that many believe in Deism, that God transcends Human
experience and thus truth can only be determined through rational
thought. Others are Pantheists, believing that God and the physical
world are one and the same. This leads to Universalism, which is that
all religions are a valid path to the same spiritual reality. Both of
these forms I see as reactions against Church dogma, not an smooth
evolution of the church.



And what if Martin L. King has advocated a bloody racial war, as opposed
to his Christian-based movement of peaceful resistance?
So are you claiming that if King had been a cleric of an African religion
he would have advocating "raping, pillaging, and homicide" of the
Christians??? Can you see how racist that sounds?

Not at all--I have no idea where you came up with that. I was implying that
if King had been a secular anarchist, not unlike Bob Seale of the Black
Panther Party, and had held the same level of influence, the outcome of his
movement might have been radically different. Racial civil war comes to
mind. Fortunately Bobby Seale was far less influential. And there's
nothing racist about that. Do some study of the early Black Panthers.
Their manifesto was quite clear, at least that which hasn't been subjected
to the left-wing historical revisionists attempting to improve his image.

Wow! That is pretty racist! You're really trying to prove that if it
weren't for the Christian background of MLK he would have been a
secular anarchist!

My hypothesis (obviously unprovable) is that had the African slaves
been allowed to keep their native religion, MLK would have been a
non-Christian preacher with the same peaceful message.


What is even more amusing in all this is my undergrad European history
teacher, *an atheist*, who taught his in classes that the influence of
religion in Europe was the "sole impetus" for morality.
By one definition, "morality" is a sense of right and wrong based on
religion, while "ethics" is the same sense but based on the concept that
an orderly society serves everyone best. Using this definition, religion
*is* the impetus for morality, by definition!

You seem to imply that ethics and morality are mutually exclusive.

Not at all. Nothing that deep. I'm only saying that if one defines
morality as the religious teaching, than obviously religion is the
sole impetus. I believe that its rather impossible to separate ethics
from religious teaching, because religion has be part of humanity from
as far back as we can detect.

They
aren't. Not unless your version of ethical behavior extends to, for
example, the systematic elimination of genetically inferior individuals
(Downs, CF, CP, etc.) in order to serve the remainder of an orderly society
best. Without morality, ethics are merely a society's interpretation of
what is best for the masses. The Vikings had such "ethics."

You're doing that thing you said you wouldn't do. The Eugenicists
were probably all good Christians, doing what they considered the
"moral" thing. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote "three generations of
imbeciles is enough" but I don't think we can call Ollie an
Evangelical! As for the Vikings, I don't think I would want to hold
them up as examples of the highest morality, but the did get a bad rap
based on their early habit of attacking monasteries, that is, where
the money was. Other than that, its hard to say that they were that
bad. Would you claim that the Spanish Conquistadors were any better?


Also, as I've said, religion is/was always there. But modern Christian
writers have a tendency to downplay the role of any religion perceived as
"pagan."

Yes, they do. And that is Christian bias, plain and simple, but still fails
to refute the influence of modern western religions upon morality. For
example, I'm unaware of the practice of human sacrifice in modern
Christianity.

Not sacrifice, but there was that little thing called the Inquisition.
And there were those witches burned - perhaps 100,000 around the
15th century. But those were the "bad" Christians, right? Oh, wait,
as soon as the Pope became aware of the excesses of the Spanish
Inquisition, he sent his special representative make things more
respectable. That was Thomas de Torquemada.

Re-write? Are you claiming the great empires didn't exist?

That would be asinine. They did exist, but were they moral in the modern
sense? Did Caligula possess a strong belief in the rights of individuals?

To hold Caligula as an example of the typical pagan invites holding
Hitler as the typical Christian. Do you really want to go there?


Or that chaos ruled the world until Constantine?

Chaos did rule the much of the world prior to Constatine. And it still
rules various parts of the world. Somalia comes to mind.

Ah Somalia! That was certainly a triumph of Christian compassion.

....
Have you read the Qu'ran? That's a real eye-opener as well.

Yes, I've read part of it - its not exactly the easiest thing to make
sense out of. Of course, many Muslims have on read a small portion it.


Whenever I hear someone claim they must "accept this or that as the only
path to salvation" I am offended. It is the work of the Devil!

To believe in the Devil implies that you also believe in God. Do you? Just
curious.

I believe religion is a useful metaphor with which to view the world.
I also believe that the need to believe in a deity is hardwired into
the human psyche, such that in any group the will be some that "need
to believe," and that there will also be others unable to believe, and
many who go with the flow. As for my own beliefs, I have pondered,
I've read and studied the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Koran,
and other "holy" texts, and none of them hold the answer for me. And
so my beliefs remain beyond articulation; perhaps they lie somewhere
between the Theism and Pantheism I mentioned above. However, I've
come to the conclusion that it is a meaningless question - like the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, asking the question destroys the
answer. What is important is whether you lead your life as thought
there was a God.

I have nothing against religion, and I have nothing against most
religious beliefs. However, I don't think any of them hold a
universal answer.