quote:Most Christians have been ignorant, cruel, bloodthirsty, power hungry savages through most of history. Their history is one of atrocities and exploitation.
No more so than non-Christians. The Christians just had the bonus of having more power than anybody else in their corner of the world for a long time.
posted
bev, But not all people have, nor have people been so in the same degree. Christian civilizations have, historically, been relatively more ignorant, blood thirsty, and power hungry than many other ones (Consider the description of various aboriginal Americans as peaceloving, gentle, and altruisitic by their Christian European killers and conquerors). They've also been less so than many ones.
America right now is a more violent nation from other nations. People are not equally violent and the cultural and/or religious systems they belong to do a great deal towards determining this. I don't find the handwaving "But everyone is like that" or "But what they profess to believe didn't influence their actions" to be compelling arguments.
edit: I'd be inclined to say that it's more likely that you weren't overwhelmingly predisposed towards empathy and felt the effects of your culture before you consciously were aware of it but it's entirely possible that you didn't have any empathy and had to be taught it. I try not to deal in universals. However, this was not true for me, nor is it true for the kids I interact with. Nor does it seem to be evident in much of the child psych literature that I read.
It comes back to, you may be a bad person or lacking in empathy or whatevern but that is no reason to assume that everyone else does.
quote:Consider the description of various aboriginal Americans as peaceloving, gentle, and altruisitic by their Christian European killers and conquerors
Also consider the description of various native American cultures as vicious, cruel, and bloodthirsty.
What about all the other "Christian" nations in the world? It could be argued that the US is aggressive which need not be tied to the assumption of Christian dominance of the nation.
Do we want to point out the modern genocides in Africa and Cambodia? Stalin's purges? Godwin's favorite child, Hitler? Ghenghis Khan? The Aztecs?
Yes, the Christian faith has produced Crusades and conversions at blade's edge, but no more or less than any other religion.
posted
MrS, you know I'm in the nonGod camp. But I gotta wonder where you're getting your information.
None of the South American civilizations were ever cruel or barbaric? Indian tribes that practiced torture, they were fine? Huns, Saxons, the middle east before Christ? For that matter, the middle east after Christ?
Some of the greatest atrocities of the world were committed by people using scripture for justification and vindication, I grant you. Some of the greatest benevolent acts also carried that banner.
People do what they do. Religion hands them a way to channel or form or justify it, but so do politics and patriotism.
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quote:Most Christians have been ignorant, cruel, bloodthirsty, power hungry savages through most of history. Their history is one of atrocities and exploitation.
Perhaps they weren't truly Christian but were using the organization as a tool to achieve their own purposes.
I think it would be interesting to examine the morals of Japanese society today, compared with morals before WWII. The Japanese turned their back on religion en masse about 50 years ago. They are now in the third and fourth generation of raising their children without religion. Sure there remain some religious zealots, and there is still the tradition of going through the motions of religious observation on holidays and in rites of passage, but the majority of Japanese are without religion in their everyday lives. Do you want to see some scary stuff?
Secular humanism does not transfer well from one generation to the next. The rules are constantly being rewritten, and the trend is toward a broader definition of what is acceptable.
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posted
porter, That's irrelevant to my argument. There were peaceful, altruistic cultures, who the christian europeans slaughtered, often under the moral dehumanizing reasoning that they were bad because they weren't christians. That there were other violent, blood-thirsty peoples doesn't take away from that.
And actually, I'd argue that it's precisely because Christians were so powerful that there are so many odious parts to the belief system. Christian theology historically was aimed towards the powerful, at least starting with Augustine and Constantine. Power corrupts and because power was the central office of Christianity for so long, the immature power seekers and those who appealed to them guided must of Christian theology. Often times, more peace loving, caring interpretations sprang up to have the central factions of the church (or in the early years, just the ones who weren't pacifistic*) put them down by force.
* - not recorded fact, only informed speculation.
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quote: don't understand how you can divorce motivation from morality. Morality breaks down into what people do, what people intend to do, or some combination of these.
I didn't say it wasn't tied to their motivations. I said it wasn't the primary driving force.
quote:Unless you're either denying free will or saying that what people do is not tied to their motivations, I don't see how motivation isn't the primary force between any of those three.
I know you don't see that. I think motivations are one of the least important things in the causal chain of what people do. This doesn't deny free will - it means most people don't develop the moral fortitude to make effective, moral use of their free will.
I'm saying that altering motivations is not sufficient to bring about moral living.
posted
Chris, I never said that there weren't some terribly savage (even more savage, those on a lesser scale than the Europeans) cultures in the Americas. Again, I don't think that's relevant. There were also plenty of peaceful ones, although the peaceful ones usually were relatively isolated, which generally leads me to speculate that there were likely many more peaceful cultures that got destroyed by the expanding aggressive cultures. You can see the same phenomena in a huge number of variations in the antropology of the Indonesian islands.
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Could you give me examples of these wonderful things that the historical Christians did?
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And for what it's worth, I'm not in the non-God camp. I'm not even in the anti-Christian camp. Some of the people I know are Christians. I consider some priests (a couple of whom I grew up with) friends. I'd be happy if the current mainstream interpretation of it went away, but that's largely because I consider it a perversion of what the much more enlightening and beenficial version that it could be.
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posted
Yeah, Squicky, your facts just don't ring true at all. They smack of a strong bias.
There are some examples of peaceful aboriginal groups. One might say that people getting together in large civilizations is what causes these undesirable qualities.
As for my level of empathy as a child, I was not without empathy. But it was not my strongest motivation, and thus was not usually the choice I went with. But in my dual nature, I had to be taught to choose good over evil.
I have observed that if I leave my children unguided for too long, the "digress" into greater and greater contention and cruelty. The more involved I am in teaching and guiding them, the better they behave. This strongly supports my theory in the need for moral teaching and guidance.
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quote: Christian theology historically was aimed towards the powerful, at least starting with Augustine and Constantine. Power corrupts and because power was the central office of Christianity for so long, the immature power seekers and those who appealed to them guided must of Christian theology.
And how does this have anything to do with Christianity? It has everything to do with the powerhungry wanting to oppress the masses. They twisted Christianity and used it as a tool to that end. (Some did, I'm not saying those specific men you mentioned did.) Any twisting that came from such behavior is *NOT* part of what Christianity was originally about.
But it has tainted the name of Christianity and has turned many sour against it. You included, apparently. It doesn't matter that those behaviors slowly died out over the past few centuries while Christianity as a religion is as strong as ever.
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quote: Could you give me examples of these wonderful things that the historical Christians did?
I am not well qualified to answer this question since I don't know enough about history, but I have little doubt that evidence is not difficult to find.
Some things that come to mind: The fall of the Roman Empire did a lot to bring about ignorance and dearth. The Catholic Church helped minimize the damage from this by making an effort to preserve civilization and education. There are some instances of "keeping people in the dark", but that just isn't the whole story.
Many "social programs" were started by Christians.
Orphanages were started by Christians.
Charities were started by Christians.
These things were started because the Bible teaches us to love and care for our fellow men. People read the Bible, felt moved by those teachings, and did something about it.
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posted
bev, Could you show me where you think my facts are terribly biased instead of just claiming that they are? I'm always looking to refine my way of looking at things, but you're not giving me much to work with.
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I have a somewhat different interpretation of why it's the large societies that seem to be more violent. Certainly there are a ton of factors about the large society that foster selfishness and violence, but there's also the underlying similarities in the groups that go on to form large and violent societies and those that don't. It's no accident that the three levantine religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) fostered violent, empire building, power seeking societies.
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I think you may have misunderstood me about the empathy thing. I'm not saying you need to leave kids alone and they'll do the right thing. That's crazy. Rather it's that they contain within themselves the qualities that, if they are strengthened and the opposing ones weakened, will lead to good behavior. I don't think that you necessarily disagree with this point, as it was specifically against the idea that people are intrinsically evil without the external imposition of morality.
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posted
bev, When exactly did people read the Bible? I assume you're talking about post Reformation. Up to that point (well, at least from the fall of the Roman Empire) the Bible was specifically kept out of people's hands by the leaders of the Church. And the communities that Luther and Calvin were hardly marked by their charity. Luther himself regarded it as the least of virtues and calvinist thought usually regarded it as against God's plan.
I'm not trying to suggest that christianity is/was this monolithic evil, but I'm willing to stand by the statement that the historical record has it as being bad guys in the majority.
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posted
Actually, I don't think Japan is terribly immoral at the moment. I think they do a pretty decent job, though their morals are placed slightly differently than ours. Though I do wonder about some of their treatment of POWs during the war.
Mr. Squicky, others pointed out the bias for me. I didn't see a need to repeat what they said. The point is, you are blaming Christianity for the evils committed in the last 2000 years when humanity has been plenty evil in the absence of Christianity. We have already seen that while some aboriginal peoples are peaceful, some are quite the opposite.
You yourself admit that there are people more peaceful than the Christians of history, and there are people more evil. So they fall somewhere in the middle. Might that have more to do with people being people than Christianity having an evil influence?
See my post that we might as well assume that large civilizations cause evil as to assume Christianity does.
There is no evidence here to say Christianity makes people evil. That is your bias.
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quote: but I'm willing to stand by the statement that the historical record has it as being bad guys in the majority.
Yeah. There is a reason for this. It's because most of the PEOPLE in that era and location were Christians.
People read the Bible after the invention of the printing press and the subsequent distribution of the book. I don't know how this lines up with the Reformation. But people in the locations we are discussing were still quite predomintately Christian up till... well, up till now!
So if people have gotten better, who's to say a better understanding of Christianity did not directly *cause* this change?
quote: And the communities that Luther and Calvin were hardly marked by their charity. Luther himself regarded it as the least of virtues and calvinist thought usually regarded it as against God's plan.
So? That doesn't change the fact that social programs were started by Christians. Of course, we could say again that this is only because the vast majority of people in this location and time were Christians. It does go both ways.
But considering the teachings that are actually in the New Testament, it is not illogical to conclude that those teachings encouraged people to help their fellow man.
posted
bev, There's plenty of evidence that aspects of the structure and beliefs of Christianity are shared by other aggressive, violent, savagish cultures. Most of the things I'm talking about are applied from anthropology, sociology, and psychology after the fact. That is, they were developed without Christianity in mind, but where either applied to Christianity in later sutdies or I'm just doing it here. For example, I've brought up in a couple of thread thats up until at least 1975 (the last study I read was then) American religious tested as significantly higher than American non-religious in prejudicial and authoritarian thinking.
There are reasons for why people and societies take on a certain aspect. It's not responsible to use dismissive handwaving "It's just people" to ignore this when you want to defend a group, especially in a thread that where it was implied that atheists and people like me are necessarily morally inferior because of their beliefs. Other people and peoples don't act this way and it has a lot to do with the patterns and mythologies they are in.
I know my history. I also know my theology and my comparative religion and quite a bit of anthropology. I don't say these things because I think christianity is bad. I think christianity has many negative influences that go unacknowledged because of all these things that I know. If you want to accuse me of bias, do me the curtesy of having facts and interpretations that disagree with mine, not just an accusation.
edit: And jeez, bev, you're agruing with my bias in the history of christianity and you don't even know how the printing press lines up with the Reformation? What the heck do you know that you're basing this on?
posted
A serial killer goes crazy and kills 100 people then says he did it for his wife. Do we blame the wife? Especially if the wife says "love your fellow man"?
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posted
I wish most Christians lived by the lessons of the New Testament (well, parts of it are icky - kings rule by divine right and all that - , but I still maintain that Paul is a really good guy taken in context). Heck, I wish that most Christians even knew the New Testament, but even on Hatrack, people's knowledge of the bible sucks. Christianity is so much more than what's in the bible, even if we're just talking about doctrine instead of including other central factors like social patterns, organizational structure, ancillarly mythology, etc.
In this particular instance for example, where we're talking about original sin, that's not actually in the NT, unless you stretch some of Paul's writings. But I'd argue that this is more central to mainstream christianity than "Love your neighbor as yourself" which Jesus held up as, combined with "Love God" which it is equal to, the highest law.
quote: And jeez, bev, you're agruing with my bias in the history of christianity and you don't even know how the printing press lines up with the Reformation? What the heck do you know that you're basing this on?
When did I ever claim history was my strong point? It soooo isn't. Just because I don't know how things line up doesn't discount my knowledge entirely. I provided examples and you have not attempted to refute them. So let's try again. In your boundless historical knowledge, do you agree that social programs such as orphanages and charities were started by Christians? Could this be due to their trying to better live their religion? If this were true (and it will have to remain hypothetical since it cannot be proven) ould this be construed as a positive influence directly from Christianity?
You say that you wish more Christians would live their religion. Well, when I speak of Christianity, I am referring to what I believe Christianity is *supposed* to be. I am speaking of the ideal. I assume you are speaking more of the practical--the reality of how people live it. I will agree with you that in practice it often is far from the ideal. But it just drives me crazy when people blame the problems of the world on religion when the evidence just does not support this. I have quoted you in this thread doing just that--making blanket statements about Christians being evil.
So you have problems with some of the ways Christianity is "carried out". You know what? So do I.
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posted
I think I want to become a Quaker. I am not exactly an atheist, more of a mystic, mor eof a believer that religion and action should be the exact same thing.
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posted
For some reason I always thought the quakers died out. Which is funny since I live down the street from a quaker school.
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quote:How is Japan this amazingly immoral country?
Well, most of what I have seen is sexual immorality. That wouldn't help to make my case here, since we Hatrackers are a fairly sexually liberal crowd.
The other example that I could state is my first-hand knowledge of corruption in the business world. That too doesn't make a very strong case, considering the insider-trading stuff we've seen here lately. Let's just say that unethical behavior in the business place is rampant and eclipses anything we've seen here. It's more like all out war than business.
"So what," you say. Well, when we shrug stuff like that off, it's just an indication of how far we've slipped.
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posted
I was talking to my bro-in-law the other day about Japanese culture (he was there on a mission). He was telling me about how strictly the people follow their code of honor. The result being that you can drop your wallet in the middle of a crowded street and no one will touch it (except to return it to you maybe.) You can go back an hour later and found it where you left it.
He talked about a boy who was loitering around a magazine stand and eventually couldn't bear the temptation and snitched one. He was caught, and everyone was shaking their heads and tsk tsking about how he had tossed his whole life away over a magazine. It seemed that once you have done something even so minor as that, it colors you for life.
Just some interesting stuff like that. I mean, maybe they have their own *forms* of corruption, and as I said before, their morality is not identical to ours (putting emphasis in different areas--e.g.: I don't like the pressure to conform in their culture) but I am totally impressed with what they are doing right.
Talking to my sister-in-law (who is Japanese) has also shed some interesting light on the customs there. They are horrified at the idea of guns. Even the cops often will not have them. And because their whole society is that way, there is *very* little violence due to guns. I don't think you could take our culture and make it be that way (too set in our ways), but I do admire the Japanese for it.
Also, they have a very powerful sense of hospitality and gift-giving. They are so very thoughtful! If you are sick, they will freely give you money to help you with your costs. At least, this is what I have experienced within our family, and what I have heard from others.
These are all "Christian values" that our American society isn't nearly as good at as the Japanese are. Obviously, these values are not unique to Christianity nor do they require Christianity to exist.
Take from that what you will.
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posted
You do not want to mess with Japanese cops. I believe they all are blackbelts in some form of martial arts.
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posted
It is safe to say that in Japan, on average, officers receive more hand-to-hand combat training than their US counterparts and the average Japanese officer takes that training more seriously.
I will concede that the average US officer receives more experience with firearms and that as a result, the average US officer is probably more proficient with his weapon than his Japanese counterpart.
But considering a firearm is only meant to be a weapon of last resort, you would think that LE programs would put a greater emphasis on the big three: Shooting, Driving, Hand-to-Hand than you see otherwise.
posted
Just a comment in regards to the original post.
Jay, for a joke that's pretty harsh. From my first post that you replied to I could tell that we held common beliefs. I'm also a Christian and hold a lot of conservative views. I think your Terry Shaivo post where you stated simply "legal murder' and then provided a link to the news was right on. But in this case I just want to say "dude, what's the point?"
I don't know you, how old you are, your background, anything. But I do know that you remind me something of myself when I was younger. I'm 36 now and just shake my head at some of the things I've said before. For the most part I'm an introverted guy, but when you get on a subject that is near to my heart, well I've been known to get on a soapbox and rant.
Funny thing is, in the past I used to do this a lot more than I do now and would actually alienate people without meaning to. I mean, I had what i felt was the truth on my side and I felt like I just had to blast folks with it. I remember an abortion speech i gave for speech class, there was a lot that i said that was good, but a lot of what i said was coming from a very harsh place.
Let me make a long post short (may be too late) and just say this: if your goal is to reach people for Christ, then calling them fools isn't going to do it. I've never won anyone to Him by saying "YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!"
It may very well be true that they are going to hell, but I have to remember that I was loved into the kingdom, not beaten into it. What drew me in was the kindness I received from strangers, not their judgment. Just a few things you might want to think about.
posted
Jay, I don't find your original post funny at all. When KoM started the "Oh, the irony..." thread, I thought the original post was a little funny, and ironic. Some people complained they were offended, and he changed it fairly quickly. You, on the other hand:
quote: Seems that pretty much every joke is offensive to someone. So maybe we should outlaw jokes....[or humorless posters--Morbo]
Oh well. I knew there’d be some who couldn’t take the joke. Figured it was worth it none the less. And yeah, it is intended to be more then just a joke. ...
If it's "more than a joke" then I guess people could be right to take it as an offense. --Anna ...
I guess if they’re offended something in their heart is bugging them that maybe they need to think about. Good.
...could care less if you offend anyone. You say "if they’re offended" yadda yadda "Good."
posted
I can't believe this thread has gone on so long while remaining unproductive.
I'd like to say, though, that I categorically disagree with Dagonee and Beverly on fundamental human nature: I believe most people are naturally good and empathic, and possess the ability and fortitude to make good choices, but that some people are not properly trained to take advantage of this natural aptitude.
This training can take many forms, one of which can be disguised as religion. There's no reason for religion to be the only effective method of social conditioning, of course, but for years it was one of the few that possessed internal justification.
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posted
Tom, just out of curiosity, why do you think, then, that humans throughout time have been so, bloodthirsty, powerhungry, cruel, oppressive, and unkind?
Because they lacked the proper training?
I agree with you that all humans have the capacity to be good--though I concede that there may be a few exceptions. I also believe that all humans have the capacity to *do* evil. I won't say "be" evil because it just seems too strong. While Christianity teaches that all people are fallen, I think that the word "evil" as most of us use it, is too strong to define the actual phenomenon.
"Evil" as most use the word actually doesn't describe very many people. Most people are drawn towards "goodness" as they perceive it, and despite their weaknesses, yearn for it and try to acheive it. Few humans are true monsters--though they do exist. They usually cannot function in civilized society, though.
Edit: A prime example of how, while part of all humans longs for goodness, when left to their own devices, they will not choose it:
Elementary school playgrounds.
We've all been there. When the cat's away the mice will play. When the kids go out for recess and there isn't direct teacher-interaction, they start to behave more unkindly to each other than when the teacher is with them or watching.
I believe in the "Lord of the Flies" model. The longer they are left without supervision, the more cruel children become. Children want to *be* good, but quite often they want to *act* in ways we consider "bad". They aren't very good at being good without guidance.
posted
Humans are hierarchical. It's something I really hate about this species, the constant need to assert dominance and to hurt others, all the while using the excuse of religion, "God wants us to!" Patriotism. "They are a threat to our way of life!" When none of this stuff really works. On some level we are meant to be compassion, to have empathy and sometimes that completely gets teased out of us by the time we enter school. Of course, it doesnt have to be that way. We can, instead, choose to listen to Buddha, Jesus, Ghandi and anyone who speaks of compassion instead of violence, because it really is becoming an epidemic in our culture alone.
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quote: The longer they are left without supervision, the more cruel children become.
I agree this is true with some children. However, others in the absence of adults merely become more and more anxious that everyone does the right, grown up thing. I think that usually these two halves balance.
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posted
"Tom, just out of curiosity, why do you think, then, that humans throughout time have been so, bloodthirsty, powerhungry, cruel, oppressive, and unkind?
Because they lacked the proper training?"
No. I think it's because they were actively trained to be bloodthirsty and cruel.
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posted
Crot, Yeah, I know. I thought about it for a while before posting and knew it would generate a lot of debate. But figured that was good in the long run. Plus I’m not the one calling them fools. So why they’re mad at someone they don’t believe in is the true irony here. Their hearts are very hard, so reaching them is next to impossible and I guess my hope was in some way to get them thinking. But anyway, done is done. Thanks.
posted
Ho hum. I'm no biologist, and even I can spot the flaws in that little lot.
quote:Failure to observe pseudogenes coding for a product under experimental conditions is no proof that they never do so inside an organism.
Yes, yes, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Come on, people, applying this argument to God is one thing, but it gets a bit thin for gene expressions.
quote:The persistence of pseudogenes is in itself additional evidence for their activity. This is a serious problem for evolution, as it is expected that natural selection would remove this type of DNA if it were useless, since DNA manufactured by the cell is energetically costly.
Well, that's just plain wrong. DNA is not so expensive that the disappearance of any one chunk, even a fairly large chunk, will make a difference. And the DNA-copying process cannot very well check whether the bit it's copying at the moment is important or not - these are chemical processes, after all, they do not think.
The advantages of having an extremely accurate copying process are obvious. That it carries the minor disadvantage of copying some parasite DNA along is just too bad. And in any case, the rest of the article argues that this DNA is not useless! I mean, you can have it one way, or the other, but not both. Either this is useless DNA that natural selection should have taken away (and hey, it's being worked on - it just takes time! You don't see us sharing useless sequences with birds, do you?) or it is useful and natural selection should work to preserve it.
quote:A large fraction of most pseudogenes differ considerably from their alleged parent genes which makes the interpretation of the data questionable.
Well, yes, when you differ in twenty of a thousand bases, gosh, I guess you could question the lineage. If you were really, really desperate to find a flaw. Here's the abstract of the article that reported the discovery of the Vitamin C gene :
"A comparison of these exons with those of their functional counterparts in rat showed that there are two single nucleotide deletions, one triple nucleotide deletion, and one single nucleotide insertion in the human sequence."
Six nucleotides different, yes, that's surely a 'considerable difference'.
quote:Although some pseudogenes such as LINEs and Alus appear to be hierarchically shared between primates, others clearly are not. An example of such a discordancy is the sharing of SINE elements between evolutionarily more-distant organisms to the exclusion of animals of intermediate evolutionary derivation, despite the presence of intact homologous genetic loci in the latter.
Pseudogene sequences are frequently exchanged. This complicates any interpretation of phylogeny.
So, um. One moment he argues that since humans share 'pseudogenes' with species further away than chimpanzees, we cannot reason from pseudogene sharing to ancestry. The next, he points out that there can be horizontal transfer, invalidating his previous argument.
Moreover, note the very clever parsing of that sentence : "Although some pseudogenes such as LINEs and Alus appear to be hierarchically shared between primates, others clearly are not." Yes, quite so. And the LINEs and Alus are the ones that do not transfer horizontally, and which therefore are used as evidence of common descent, unlike the SINEs, which do transfer horizontally. That's a nice, honest argument, that is.
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