Posts by BenWilson
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Hmm, I don't think it quite works that way. Civil rights for minorities have generally been embraced as our society gets more secular.
Yup, but have a guess which societies moved towards secularism first?
Perhaps that was a function of how fuxored Christianity was, or perhaps it was a function of how fuxored it wasn't. Of course the Churches resisted the move, but the society itself, steeped in Christian morality, was what moved to the Age of Reason etc. And much of that is still with us.
I'm not convinced about this point, but I don't think it can be clearly discarded either.
The main alternative to my thinking is that Christian society had such a strong taste for violence that their arms race led to extremely rapid technological advances, and that in turn led to an alternative faith, that of science, by necessity. But once you embrace science, you've opened a can of whooparse on religion, since science provides such worldly benefits that it's hard to deny its core must be pretty strong.
This is not to say that a violent religion is required to foster science, but maybe it helped a lot. Wars have always been times of rapid technological expansion, and the almost perpetual war in Europe until the end of WW2 put them at the forefront of science in some areas, and gave them the guns to steal any other areas. So pretty soon they had all the guns and all the science.
The third thesis is that Christianity is not particularly violent or nice, just lucky. Depending on what you consider luck.
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Why do you think Christians were originaly against slavery?
Because huge numbers of them were slaves, or became slaves.
Some Old Testament Advice on Slavery
Nice. I don't see much of the word of Jesus approving of it there, although Luke says that he made some sort of point about how punishment should be lighter if you didn't know it was wrong. Which seems fair enough to me.
But OK all, I'm prepared to accept that the evidence of Christianity being less accepting of slaves is kind of weak. I forgot just how many places were Christian.
It wasn't my point though, which was more that the values we tend to automatically accept come mostly from the society we are raised in. Our current society abhors slavery and has a highly Judeo-Christian background. Perhaps this is only a coincidence, and we abhor slavery for reasons which don't find their roots in our deep seated moral feelings, which in turn have their roots in morals that were drilled in by churches, until historically very recently.
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Where do people get the idea that Christians have always been opposed to slavery?
OK, perhaps I was inspecific. They were originally against it, then for it, then against it again. Whereas some religions have never been against it.
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It must be annoying for Jewish people to be co-opted into the values of the American fundamentalist Christian right.
If they get to keep Israel powerful, maybe it's not such a big price to pay. Only the Jews that don't want Israel (or at least not at the cost it currently incurs) get annoyed.
It's a bit like the alliance between Maori and human rights organizations. Maori leadership probably would not freely choose to organize their society along lines that human rights organizations would approve of at all, but if they get their land back it is well worth paying lip service.
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Unfortunately the road to hell really is paved with good intentions
So's the road to heaven. So don't look at the cobblestones, read the signs.
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I have always understood "Judeo-Christian" to be more of a reference to the historical origins of a religion. Islam, for example, has Judeo-Christian origins whereas Hinduism doesn't.
Right, but would you think people who use the term intend to include Islam?
I still reckon it's one of those phrases which attempts by it's very connotation to say something, whilst masquerading as a fairly neutral term. They could have just said Christian, but they very carefully don't. And I think it's especially careful that Islam is left out, despite the common origins. Sneaky, but word-war always is.
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but looking at it completely objectively you would have to admit:
The self riighteousness of any group is dwarfed by the self riighteousness of the political left.
Not much that's objective about that, except for perhaps the fact that the political left dwarfs every other group.
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All have a common morality - which may differ, of course, in the individual severity of its application to everyday life.
I don't think it's quite that simple. Judeo-Christian doesn't just mean Old Testament. Christians probably revere the New Testament more. It's what distinguished them from other Jews, along with the fact that you could join the religion, rather than just having to be born in it. Which is in turn why it's a such a big religion compared to Judaism.
I think the term Judeo-Christian is nothing to do with emphasizing the Old Testament, and more of a political statement saying that Christian nations are allied with Israel. Which is not true, which is why the term is needed. In practice it really means American-Christian but that doesn't sound anywhere near as inclusive.
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... or peasants and indentured labourers all over Europe.
Hey I never said such values were well thought out. Christianity obviously had to reconcile it's slave origins with the fact that it took over the Roman Empire, and that involves making effective slaves in a different form, hence peasants.
And most Christians have no bitterness on buying the products of modern slavery. But to actually enslave someone themselves is a no-no.
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You mean small aberrations, like the American South for several hundred years, I presume...
Yup. Exactly. Was not the American Civil War claimed to be over slavery? Who else would ever have bothered for such a cause?
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