Fear of Atheism

[Cypress]

You had said, "

My response was, "Nothing wrong with that at all. I also think that Western monotheism was an important foundation for western ethics and morals. I find that to be unfortunate. We MIGHT be better off if we had used the foundations used by eastern cultures."

You don't, I suppose?

And you interpreted that to mean, "I see, your conviction that Western civilization would have been better off without Jesus only goes as far as an anonymous keyboard"

That is why I said, "I never said that." And considering my reply, I do not see how you interpreted that as "insinuating" it.

I certainly did not mean to.

I have often written that I have integrated (quite a lot) of the teachings of Jesus into my personal philosophy of a reasonable, decent life. I have no problems with his teachings...other than the "god/father" aspect. He, or the amalgam that is now considered him, had a great sense of morality and decency.

But the Christians of today focus on shit that obviously Jesus did not deem important enough to highlight.

That is my point.

Cypress: "I'm tired of Team Democrats losing elections because a vocal minority continue to insinuate that Christianity is evil or that Christians are ignorant. That's not going to fly in the culturally conservative Midwest and Appalachia."

Personally, I do not think "Team Democrats" are losing any elections because of a vocal minority insinuating ANYTHING...Christianity or economic. I don't even think Democrats are actually losing all that often. They have won majorities in the House and in the Senate in recent years...and the White House also.

The House and Senate do seems to be dominated by Republicans...but that appears to have more to do with the dynamics of congressional districts and with the inequality of Senate distribution than with any mistakes being made by Dems.

I suspect...JUST SUSPECT...that more will happen to favor Democrats during the next several years as a result of what Republicans do...rather than as a result of what Democrats do.

I am not a Democrat myself...but I am a leftist and find the Democratic agenda much more in keeping with the teachings of Jesus than the Republicans. MUCH MORE.

I'm reading a book by the well regarded atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman who asserts that:

the Christianization of Europe was the most important revolution in Western Civilization; probably the most transformative event in world history; the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, and probably the Enlightenment are unimaginable without Christianity; and in one way or another these events all shaped our lives and destiny in profound ways.

That's why I stated that you better be careful what you wish for when you made the statement that maybe Western civilization would have been better off with a history of Eastern religious tradition.

If a highly regarded atheist New Testament scholar is basically articulating the same ideas I have been, I don't think what I have been writing is radical, controversial, or off the edge of the map - which seems to be what you have been claiming about my writing.

 

[Cypress]

Interesting. I see it a LOT.

Is it ever fair to question the Religious Right when they try to force their beliefs on the body politic?

The loss of jobs due to corporate greed is definitely a bad thing. But, by the same token, telling people you stand with Jesus while demonizing the disabled, attacking trans people, calling half the nation "vermin", "disappearing" individuals for saying things the administration doesn't like, deporting children with cancer to undeveloped nations for them to die, imprisoning people for the wrong skin color, decimating the safety regulations and handing billions of dollars over to the ultrawealthy at the expense of the poor is not necessarily the solution to their problems.

You better get used to losing more presidential elections if every time you think of Christianity and traditional culture, you feel compelled only to put it in the worst light possible.

I myself want to win elections, and you don't do that in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania by coming across as a party of committed secular coastal atheists.

 

[gmark77]

the Christianization of Europe was the most important revolution in Western Civilization; probably the most transformative event in world history; the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, and probably the Enlightenment are unimaginable without Christianity; and in one way or another these events all shaped our lives and destiny in profound ways.

It is interesting that Europe and the West in general opted to call themselves Christian while undertaking so many of the greatest changes in our history in SPITE of the teachings of the faith. It's a no-brainer to say that "The West" and "Christianity" are intimately linked and that Christian thought DID bring a lot of value to the people of the West. But I wonder if it's reasonable to say that BECAUSE of Christianity the West thrived and grew strong. As opposed to say literally ANY given religious belief system.

Christianity acted as a great "common glue" for our society early on but one would be hard pressed to call the way we act as a species "Christian" by any stretch of the imagination. What you mentioned earlier: the focus on the INDIVIDUAL is, though, a really good thing which Christianity definitely embodies and which is kind of a hallmark of our society. But the faith per se seems more like a wish list we created and not necessarily how we comport ourselves overall.

Take the "Christianization" of Europe. That was largely undertaken at the point of a sword. The Reformation was followed by the brutal killings of the Wars of Religion. The Christian powers murdered countless "savage races" when they weren't actively FORCING their religion on them and ripping apart their families to quash the pagan races.

That's why I stated that you better be careful what you wish for when you made the statement that maybe Western civilization would have been better off with a history of Eastern religious tradition.

I think the West would have been DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT but not necessarily worse or better. The real value of religion is to provide COHESION in a society. And Christianity did it for us in the West and provided a common philosophical framework (which we very effectively ignore as we need).

What we call "The West" would also arguably have been MUCH WORSE OFF if it weren't for the Muslims who preserved so much of the knowledge of the ancients for our later rediscovery.

 

[gmark77]

You better get used to losing more presidential elections if every time you think of Christianity and traditional culture, you feel compelled only to put it in the worst light possible.

I don't. I think the GOP has disingenuously coopted a fake version of Christianity in order to take advantage of people. It was done in the run-up to WWII when Hitler leveraged his "Catholicism" (it's arguable whether he was actually a believer or not) to get Germans to buy into his antisemitism. "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord" is from Mein Kampf. "...in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people." from a speech in 1928 (Passau).

I myself want to win elections, and you don't do that in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania by coming across as a party of committed secular coastal atheists.

The Dems didn't so much "lose" the election in 2024 as Trump's brand of hatred and bile "won". That's a key difference. I won't accept that we on the Left have to become as hateful and evil as the GOP has become in order to win elections.

Because what you are asking me to accept is that the the GOP fielded a more "Christian values" type message when it was nothing of the sort. It was 100% lies.

Lies won. Truth and decency lost. The only "Christian" thing about MAGA is that it reminds us why Matthew 7:15-20 was written.

 

[Cypress]

Interesting. So before the Axial age people were OK with murder because it wasn't considered wrong?

I gotta admit my mind is kind of blown by this.

I thought the Sumerians way back in like 2000 BCE had written codes against murder (Ur-Nammu). Could it be that the discovery that murder is wrong goes back even before the Axial Age? Or were the Sumerians an outlier?

Either way I'm glad SOMEONE discovered it, I can't imagine what life would have been like in one of those societies you talk about where murder was "ok" and no one complained.

Back to using your mocking and denigrating tone with me, Perry?

I see that you tacitly concede that human sacrifice and infanticide were widely practiced in the Bronze Age, it was never considered wrong by those cultures, and there was no such thing as a concept that all human life has innate value.

Perry, the fact that ancient societies didn't want to kill people who were useful (aka, able-bodied adults) tells you nothing about how they valued life. Even animals will maintain and support useful members of the pack.

But all humans everywhere were never considered to have innate value. That's why orphans were rounded up for ritual sacrifice, disabled Spartan babies were discarded, the citizens of conquered cities were put to the sword, the concubines of deceased Egyptian pharaohs were sacrificed and entombed with him, and Mayan priests plunged knives into the chest of human sacrificial victims. None of it was considered immoral. It was considered necessary and appropriate.

If some murders are bad, but some murders are okay, you cannot claim ancient Neolithic cultures had a universal moral prohibition on murder.

An absolute, religious and moral prohibition on all murder based on the claim that all human life has equivalent and innate value was a later human cultural development.

 

[Cypress]

Interesting. I see it a LOT.

When you were posting as Perry, you would routinely equate being Christian with foolishly believing in invisible leprechauns. And you're not the only one who has celebrated that demeaning caricature.

The is demeaning to people of faith, particularly undecided religious voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

 

[gmark77]

When you were posting as Perry, you would routinely equate being Christian with foolishly believing in invisible leprechauns. And you're not the only one who has celebrated that demeaning caricature.

The is demeaning to people of faith, particularly undecided religious voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

I have not posted under that name. I only post under this name. I have said nothing about leprechuans and I don't believe that about Christians.

 

[gmark77]

I see that you tacitly concede that human sacrifice and infanticide were widely practiced in the Bronze Age

I don't know about "widely" practiced but sure, yeah, of course it happened.

But it wasn't because they felt the murder of children was "OK", rather, one assumes, that they, in their benighted state, felt that their god would not only want but deserve their most precious things: their children.

It isn't like the ancients were just prone to killing kids for the fun of it.

That sacrifice is the core of Christianity as well. Jesus was sacrificed specifically to atone Man to God because God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. That's the key part of Christianity.

the fact that ancient societies didn't want to kill people who were useful (aka, able-bodied adults) tells you nothing about how they valued life. Even animals will maintain and support useful members of the pack.

So even though human and animal behaviors end up being the same (care for individuals in the group) it is only "morality" for humans because you know we have established a "value" for the individual and we know that animals didn't?

An absolute, religious and moral prohibition on all murder based on the claim that all human life has equivalent and innate value was a later human cultural development.

So when the Sumerians were making codes outlawing murder millennia before the Axial Age, it wasn't the same kind of thing?

 

[Cypress]

I don't know about "widely" practiced but sure, yeah, of course it happened.

But it wasn't because they felt the murder of children was "OK", rather, one assumes, that they, in their benighted state, felt that their god would not only want but deserve their most precious things: their children.

It isn't like the ancients were just prone to killing kids for the fun of it.

That sacrifice is the core of Christianity as well. Jesus was sacrificed specifically to atone Man to God because God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. That's the key part of Christianity.



So even though human and animal behaviors end up being the same (care for individuals in the group) it is only "morality" for humans because you know we have established a "value" for the individual and we know that animals didn't?



So when the Sumerians were making codes outlawing murder millennia before the Axial Age, it wasn't the same kind of thing?

You failed to show there was any universal moral duty to not murder any human.

In the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, murdering able bodied useful members of your own kin group, tribe, or community was frowned upon. Even all other social animals will refrain from killing useful members of their own kin group or pack.

But the rules were more flexible for murdering people outside your kin group, or disposing babies who were deemed a liability.

That's exactly why it was not considered a moral outrage to discard disabled children, sacrifice orphans to pagan gods, or sacrifice the Kings concubines and entomb the bodies with the deceased monarch.


So a universal moral duty to not murder anyone is a relatively recent development in the evolution of human moral conscience. Your moral outrage about murder of any kind originates in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

 

[IBDaMann]

I simply insist that you live with and accept the consequences of atheism

What consequences can there be of NOT believing something?

morals are subjective, there is no ultimate purpose or meaning in life, all that exists is matter and energy, evil ultimately wins, all our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions are simply just biochemical reactions fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution, and human free will does not exist.

Why is anyone required to believe any of this?

That's an intellectual argument, it's not fear or hate.

Your argument seems like a fear reaction. You fear those who simply do not believe and worship as you do, so you declare that they must have odd beliefs that they do not have.

There's no reason for you to fear those who lack your particular belief set.

There's a possibility atheism is even correct,

What lack of belief is correct?

I have never ruled that out.

You have never explained what you think that even means.

If you find your discomfort level rising at the thought of accepting the price and consequences of atheism,

If you find that no one can make sense of your gibberish, try explaining some of the above first.

maybe you need to reflect on what you actually believe about atheism.

Maybe you need to understand that you are raving incoherently. Your argument is necessarily dismissed when you treat a lack of a belief as an affirmative belief.

 

[IBDaMann]

You don't have to be a Bible thumper to believe in universal moral truths.

What are you?

Do you believe that it is right or wrong to kill a living human who has not committed any crime and who has not expressed any desire to die?

That's why I don't understand the desire to run away from the term,

What car, exactly, is a lack of a car?
What piece of furniture is a lack of any furniture?
What item of clothing is a lack of clothing?

rather than just accept it as the logical consequence of strict atheism.

How does a strict lack of a belief differ from any other lack of that belief?

 

[Ross Dolan]

I'm reading a book by the well regarded atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman who asserts that:

the Christianization of Europe was the most important revolution in Western Civilization; probably the most transformative event in world history; the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, and probably the Enlightenment are unimaginable without Christianity; and in one way or another these events all shaped our lives and destiny in profound ways.

That's why I stated that you better be careful what you wish for when you made the statement that maybe Western civilization would have been better off with a history of Eastern religious tradition.

If a highly regarded atheist New Testament scholar is basically articulating the same ideas I have been, I don't think what I have been writing is radical, controversial, or off the edge of the map - which seems to be what you have been claiming about my writing.

Cypress...it matters not to me that you blindly guess there is a Creator God who makes rules we must live by in order to obtain rewards or incur punishments. You may even be correct in that blind guess.

It also matters not to me that this Ehrman person blindly guesses that there are no gods. He may even be correct in that blind guess.

I have never suggested that what you have been writing is radical or controversial. Fact is, what you have been writing is trite...and much over-worked over the years. It is not original to suppose that the advent of Christianity has impacted our lived in profound ways.

But my suggestion that being influenced by other forces MIGHT have served us better is not especially radical nor controversial. It might have! I do not know...and neither do you or Ehrman. My comment that you have gone over the edge has to do with other things you have written...and the way you wrote them. Look through you remarks and you may be able to see what I mean.

 

[Ross Dolan]

You failed to show there was any universal moral duty to not murder any human.

In the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, murdering able bodied useful members of your own kin group, tribe, or community was frowned upon. Even all other social animals will refrain from killing useful members of their own kin group or pack.

But the rules were more flexible for murdering people outside your kin group, or disposing babies who were deemed a liability.

That's exactly why it was not considered a moral outrage to discard disabled children, sacrifice orphans to pagan gods, or sacrifice the Kings concubines and entomb the bodies with the deceased monarch.


So a universal moral duty to not murder anyone is a relatively recent development in the evolution of human moral conscience. Your moral outrage about murder of any kind originates in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Quotes from the "God" you are asking that we should all worship:


"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be

put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their

lives." Leviticus 20:13





"If a man has a stubborn and unruly son who will not listen to

his father or mother, and will not obey them even though they

chastise him, his father and mother shall have him apprehended

and brought out to the elders at the gate of his home city, where

...his fellow citizens shall stone him to death." Deuteronomy 22:18ff





"When you march up to attack a city, first offer terms of peace.

If it agrees to your terms of peace and opens its gates to you,

all the people to be found in it shall serve you in forced labor.

But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead offers you

battle, lay siege to it, and when the Lord, your God, delivers it

into your hand, put every male in it to the sword, but the women

and children and livestock and all else in it that is worth

plunder you may take as your booty and you may use this plunder

of your enemies which the Lord, your God, has given you." Deuteronomy 20:10








If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. [Deuteronomy 13:7-12]




Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." [Deuteronomy 13:13-19]

The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: 'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest. I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.' [Exodus 31:12-15]



You should not let a sorceress live. [Exodus 22:17]


A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. [Leviticus 20:27]


Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. [Isaiah 14:21]


Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. [Deuteronomy 17:12]

 

[Ross Dolan]

And Jesus said that he was not here to change a word of any of that...not a letter of any word...not a part of a letter of any word of all that.

 

[Sammy Jankis]

It's definitely possible that the universe is nothing but blind physical forces, and we are nothing but electrochemically-bound collections of quarks and electrons.

I can't categorically rule that out.

In that case, there is no morality, and moral values are really just an illusory religious concept.
We are really just dancing to the tune of billions of years of genetic mutation, ultimately based on the self-preservation and propagation of our own genetic information.

no.

even if all that is true there is still morality and it still makes our lives better.

holy fuck you;re so dumb.

 

[Cypress]

Cypress...it matters not to me that you blindly guess there is a Creator God who makes rules we must live by in order to obtain rewards or incur punishments. You may even be correct in that blind guess.

It also matters not to me that this Ehrman person blindly guesses that there are no gods. He may even be correct in that blind guess.

I have never suggested that what you have been writing is radical or controversial. Fact is, what you have been writing is trite...and much over-worked over the years. It is not original to suppose that the advent of Christianity has impacted our lived in profound ways.

But my suggestion that being influenced by other forces MIGHT have served us better is not especially radical nor controversial. It might have! I do not know...and neither do you or Ehrman. My comment that you have gone over the edge has to do with other things you have written...and the way you wrote them. Look through you remarks and you may be able to see what I mean.

That's fine, but...

The highly regarded atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman agrees with me that Christianity was the most transformational event in Western history, and the landmark achievements of the West - Middle Ages, Rennessaince, Enlightenment, experimental science, art, philosophy, music - would probably be unthinkable without the Christian tradition.

And the highly mainstream and very moderate Encyclopedia Britannica agrees with me that Christianity profoundly influenced the history of Western ethics:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethics-philosophy/St-Augustine

And it's universally understood Jesus emphasized and taught the moral law, and he really didn't have time for people who obsessed about the Mosaic ritual and civil laws.


So given that, I'm still waiting for someone to precisely explain how anything I wrote was radical, 'disappointing', or way out in left field.

 

[Cypress]

Quotes from the "God" you are asking that we should all worship:


"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be

put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their

lives." Leviticus 20:13





"If a man has a stubborn and unruly son who will not listen to

his father or mother, and will not obey them even though they

chastise him, his father and mother shall have him apprehended

and brought out to the elders at the gate of his home city, where

...his fellow citizens shall stone him to death." Deuteronomy 22:18ff





"When you march up to attack a city, first offer terms of peace.

If it agrees to your terms of peace and opens its gates to you,

all the people to be found in it shall serve you in forced labor.

But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead offers you

battle, lay siege to it, and when the Lord, your God, delivers it

into your hand, put every male in it to the sword, but the women

and children and livestock and all else in it that is worth

plunder you may take as your booty and you may use this plunder

of your enemies which the Lord, your God, has given you." Deuteronomy 20:10








If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. [Deuteronomy 13:7-12]




Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." [Deuteronomy 13:13-19]

The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: 'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest. I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.' [Exodus 31:12-15]



You should not let a sorceress live. [Exodus 22:17]


A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. [Leviticus 20:27]


Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. [Isaiah 14:21]


Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. [Deuteronomy 17:12]

^^^ Grasping at straws. Cutting and pasting doesn't cut it, chap.

Christians do not have to follow the ritual and civil laws of the Torah. Clearly spelled out in Galatians.

The Pharisees themselves complained Jesus did not follow Mosaic civil law.

Since you did not stop eating shellfish or pork, and since you didn't practice Sabbath when you were a practicing Catholic, then it was obviously always crystal clear in your mind that you were not/never obligated to follow Mosaic civil laws, nor did your church require you to. Cutting and pasting on this messsage board doesn't change the fact that this was always crystal clear in your mind.

 

[gmark77]

And Jesus said that he was not here to change a word of any of that...not a letter of any word...not a part of a letter of any word of all that.

This is one of the more fascinating aspects to early Christianity. In many ways it seems that Jesus felt that he was doing nothing more than working within the Jewish tradition. But as Cypress has noted he also often took on the "establishment" and kind of upended some of the more "legalistic" tendencies in the faith.

The image we get of Jesus in the Gospels sometimes seems to carry within him some jarring inconsistencies.

And then when Paul is working on establishing the metes and bounds of the actual faith of Christianity he runs up against the Jerusalem Church who wanted to ensure Jewish rituals remained part of the faith (ie not just letting Gentiles join without circumcision etc.) I always found it ironic that Paul who never met Jesus would contend with the people who presumably might have actually met and lived with Christ and somehow Paul's version of the faith held sway.

I find the establishment of the early church to be absolutely fascinating. It's easy when one grows up in a faith to assume it has always existed as it does today.

 

[Ross Dolan]

That's fine, but...

The highly regarded atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman agrees with me that Christianity was the most transformational event in Western history, and the landmark achievements of the West - Middle Ages, Rennessaince, Enlightenment, experimental science, art, philosophy, music - would probably be unthinkable without the Christian tradition.

And the highly mainstream and very moderate Encyclopedia Britannica agrees with me that Christianity profoundly influenced the history of Western ethics:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethics-philosophy/St-Augustine

Well, since all that is so...I guess it is decided that Christianity has profoundly influenced the history of Western ethics.

But everyone knows that. That is not an original idea. Of course it did...and nobody here has suggested it is not so.

I have asked, though, if having something other than Christianity be the driving force...that perhaps we would be further along in our ethical evolution.

The answer to that is: I have no idea...and neither do any of you.

If the Eastern dynamics had taken root here...perhaps we would be closer to a decent species. As I pointed out, although humans were making great strides in philosophy, law, architecture, art and several other disciplines during the Greek and Roman ages...Christianity took hold...and thru us into a tailspin known today as the Dark ages. Lasted almost 1000 years.

We might be a hell of a lot more advanced as a species if Christianity had not taken hold.

I acknowledge that might not be the case. We might be much less evolved.

Can you acknowledge that it might be?

And it's universally understood Jesus emphasized and taught the moral law, and he really didn't have time for people who obsessed about the Mosaic ritual and civil laws.


So given that, I'm still waiting for someone to precisely explain how anything I wrote was radical, 'disappointing', or way out in left field.

 

[Cypress]

What consequences can there be of NOT believing something?

Not believing the doctor who says you have cancer, or the science community who tells you the Earth is relentlessly warming has consequences.

Why is anyone required to believe any of this?

Your argument seems like a fear reaction.

Nobody is required to believe anything. Some people are happy to go though life without doing much thinking or reflection.

The most famous atheist intellectuals of the 20th century were thinkers. And they had the integrity to face the fact that in a universe comprised of nothing but blind physical forces, there is no meaning, purpose, or objective moral agency. Humans individually just have to come up with their own reality and values.

C

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• Cypress