Fear of Atheism

[Cypress]

So what?

So if me, the atheist scholar Bart Ehrman, and the mainstream Encyclopedia Britannica are essentially making the same points, then the discussion is about history and knowledge, not about proselytizing.

You seem to be unaware that Western civilization and religious history are mainstream topics taught openly at every accredited American university, every day of the week.

It's not some deeply personal religious faith issue that priests are telling people to shut up about and keep private.


More importantly, I was the one trying to keep the topic on the lattice of history and historical development.

You kept trying to change the topic to a weird theological disputation about how Christians are supposedly supposed to follow the ritual laws of Torah concerning shellfish and animal sacrifice.

 

[Cypress]

It's clearly not, C.
It's based on very sincere cultural hatred that shows no sign of diminishing.
We're going to live with it for the remainder of our lifetimes.

And we will partition eventually. Nothing stays the same forever.
It just won't come in time to temper the current animosity.

Most/or a lot of MAGAs who hate Democrats actually rely on social welfare benefits Democats invented. The idea that they want to go live in some kind of separatist sovereign right-wing theocracy that has dismantled the social welfare state and cut government to the bone probably is more fantasy than reality.

 

[IBDaMann]

Inconsequential.

Informative. It is a correction. Now you can avoid making the same error again and again. It's like pointing out that you can't use a plural pronoun to reference a singular antecedent. You're welcome.

This navel gazing and subatomic minutia is totally irrelevant to point I made that

You could have avoided this waste of bandwidth.

Christianity was the West's most pivotal and important transformational event, hands down

... or the discovery of fire. Since the discovery of fire occurred much earlier, it obviously had far greater impact.

-- and anyone who asserts Western Civilization would have been better off without Jesus and Christianity should be careful of what they wish for.

You can't use a plural pronoun "they" with a singular antecedent "anyone." You need to use "he," not "their," irrespective of the transformative importance of Jesus Christ. You're welcome.

Anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on the classical music tradition knows that the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, etc. were deep invested in Christian sacred music genres and traditions.

Nope. Stupid assertion.

 

[IBDaMann]

Most/or a lot of MAGAs who hate Democrats actually rely on social welfare benefits Democats invented.

Were you going to support your assertion or were you going to admit that you pulled that out of your azz?

The idea that they want to go live in some kind of separatist sovereign right-wing theocracy

Your claim that more than 25% of the US population wish live in a separatist kind of sovereign right-wing theocracy is stupid. I see why you didn't even try to support it.

 

[Ross Dolan]

So if me, the atheist scholar Bart Ehrman, and the mainstream Encyclopedia Britannica are essentially making the same points, then the discussion is about history and knowledge, not about proselytizing.

You seem to be obsessed with Ehrman. And I have NEVER suggested you are proselytizing. EVER!

You seem to be unaware that Western civilization and religious history are mainstream topics taught openly at every accredited American university, every day of the week.

I went to a religious college. I am aware that it is taught.

It's not some deeply personal religious faith issue that priests are telling people to shut up about and keep private.

You are opening yourself to scandalization...and I do not see you as smart or strong enough to resist. I actually told you to speak with your minister or priest about it...and suggested that your minister or priest would suggest the same thing. Want don't you try it.

More importantly, I was the one trying to keep the topic on the lattice of history and historical development.

Bull shit.

You kept trying to change the topic to a weird theological disputation about how Christians are supposedly supposed to follow the ritual laws of Torah concerning shellfish and animal sacrifice.

You are a sick person, Cypress. I have NEVER tried to make this topic about some supposed need for Christians to follow the ritual laws of Torah concerning shellfish and animal sacrifice...and you know it.

You are a liar...and a hypocrite. If you represent the kind of thing Christianity has to offer in its defense, it is already finished.

In any case, I have decided to stop dealing with you on this. I am putting you on ignore for now. I may remove you from that status at some point in the future. Maybe not.

 

[Cypress]

You are a sick person, Cypress. I have NEVER tried to make this topic about some supposed need for Christians to follow the ritual laws of Torah concerning shellfish and animal sacrifice...and you know it.

No point getting outraged Ross, This is how events on the thread actually transpired:

You told me a priest would tell me to shut up and not discuss the topics I have broached.

There's not a single podcast or class I've taken over on Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Western art appreciation, Classical music appreciation where the influence of Christianity was not discussed.

No priest has ever showed up and said these topics are to private and personal to discuss.


A thorough review of this thread will make it crystal clear you tried to divert my historical assessments away from history into weird theological disputations about quotes from Moses in the Old Testament and theoretical speculations about the relevance of the Jewish ritual law in Torah.

 

[Cypress]

Informative. It is a correction. Now you can avoid making the same error again and again. It's like pointing out that you can't use a plural pronoun to reference a singular antecedent. You're welcome.


You could have avoided this waste of bandwidth.


... or the discovery of fire. Since the discovery of fire occurred much earlier, it obviously had far greater impact.


You can't use a plural pronoun "they" with a singular antecedent "anyone." You need to use "he," not "their," irrespective of the transformative importance of Jesus Christ. You're welcome.


Nope. Stupid assertion.

I love how people who've never read any of the canonical texts of Eastern religions are so quick insinuate that if Christianity had never existed, and the West had just followed shamanism or one of the Eastern religions, we would be just fine. We would still have experimental science and the great art and classical music we've become accustomed to.


The Christian Bible is very legalistic, and for western natural philosophers it was not a big jump to go from a rational monotheistic moral law-giver, to a rational monotheistic natural law-giver. Christianity is premised on a rational personal creator that gave design and order to the moral and physical dimensions of the universe. Epistle to the Romans explicitly states that God is revealed in nature, aka God is revealed in the order and design of the universe.

^^ That backdrop is largely why experimental science and formal logic uniquely is rooted in the west. It didn't develop anywhere else. That Christian backdrop is a milieu that just begs for people to go looking for, and expect to find rational organization and natural laws.


The canonical texts of Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism are not nearly as legalistic. And philosophically the Eastern traditions look at reality as impermanent, in constant flux, and something of an illusion that blinds us to the truth. In some cases, the Eastern traditions are explorations of the irrational, intangible, subjective.

^^ That's not a recipe or matrix that points the way to inductive logic and experimental science.


I do think the west overemphasized technology, empiricism, physical materialism. The Eastern traditions have good insights into the non-empirical dimensions of life. One needs that kind of Ying and Yang.

 

[gmark77]

Most/or a lot of MAGAs who hate Democrats actually rely on social welfare benefits Democats invented. The idea that they want to go live in some kind of separatist sovereign right-wing theocracy that has dismantled the social welfare state and cut government to the bone probably is more fantasy than reality.

STRENUOUSLY disagree with this. It is most assuredly NOT fantasy for many of them. It is a very real threat to our modern democracy. They have already gone as hard "Taliban" as they can with the push for more and more strict abortion bans, many are espousing even more draconian measures enacted and they are getting closer to it happening.

There are a SIGNIFICANT number of voters on that side who DO want social welfare gutted. Sure you are right it will hurt them as well, but they don't understand that and they are pushing hard for it. The Big Beautiful Bill is currently failing because, in part, many on the Right believe it doesn't GUT ENOUGH.

So it is not a fantasy. To think it is and to dismiss what is happening right before our eyes right now would be very dangerous indeed.

 

[gmark77]

I love how people who've never read any of the canonical texts of Eastern religions are so quick insinuate that if Christianity had never existed, and the West had just followed shamanism or one of the Eastern religions, we would be just fine. We would still have experimental science and the great art and classical music we've become accustomed to.

Seems very "western chauvanistic" to assume that experimental science would not have arisen in any other culture but the West. As for the "great art and classical music", well it would be DIFFERENT but no less "great".

I do think the west overemphasized technology, empiricism, physical materialism. The Eastern traditions have good insights into the non-empirical dimensions of life. One needs that kind of Ying and Yang.

Yet somehow the benighted Chinese invented gunpowder, paper, early printing, the compass, the double action piston pump, matches, the propeller, as well as studying archaeology, and even climate, the list is endless.

No one is arguing that it wouldn't be DRAMATICALLY different if Christianity had never been at the core of Western Civ. That's obvious. Would it be better? I doubt it. Would it mean we don't have science? I don't really believe that. That's the kind of thinking that is currently hurting America. Those of us who work in industry have heard over and over "The Chinese don't invent, they make". That's a dangerous belief to hold too long. Because the Chinese are just as capable of invention as we are and they are poised right now to eat our lunch as a society and as an economy.

Sometimes our chauvanism for what we have and what others lack leads us to a kind of complacency that will hurt us in the long run.

 

[Cypress]

STRENUOUSLY disagree with this. It is most assuredly NOT fantasy for many of them. It is a very real threat to our modern democracy. They have already gone as hard "Taliban" as they can with the push for more and more strict abortion bans, many are espousing even more draconian measures enacted and they are getting closer to it happening.

There are a SIGNIFICANT number of voters on that side who DO want social welfare gutted. Sure you are right it will hurt them as well, but they don't understand that and they are pushing hard for it. The Big Beautiful Bill is currently failing because, in part, many on the Right believe it doesn't GUT ENOUGH.

So it is not a fantasy. To think it is and to dismiss what is happening right before our eyes right now would be very dangerous indeed.

I follow the evidence.

I've been hearing talk of succession and second amendment solutions since the 1980.

If 2020, Trump got on national TV and using the office of the presidency screamed that the election was stolen by dark forces and the fate of the Republic was in grave danger.

That is the most dire presidential announcement since the civil war, but even then Trump could only rally a few thousand nut jobs on January 6, aand of those a lot of them were mentally unstable ill and the vast majority weren't even armed with firearms.

The danger is not succession and civil war.
The danger is the erosion of democracy.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

The danger is the erosion of democracy.

The erosion of Democracy was promised in clear terms,
and the majority of the electorate chose that.

The majority of those who chose that are still supporting it.

I'm concerned about the handful of "voters' remorse" people who really didn't believe it was coming.

They need to develop an amniotic fluid test so fetuses that fucking stupid will be aborted before they can cause damage.

 

[Cypress]

Seems very "western chauvanistic" to assume that experimental science would not have arisen in any other culture but the West.

I follow the facts and the evidence.

There isn't anyone on this board who has written more about the appealing and attractive properties of Eastern religion and Eastern thought than me. I made a concerted effort to read all the canonical texts of Eastern religions because I perceived their value.

But you know what a Chinese Confucian education primarily consisted of?
It was primarily a moral education, supplemented by poetry, calligraphy, dance, and reading Chinese classics in prose and poetry.

You know what a Western education consisted of, going all the way back to the Middle Ages?
It consisted of the seven liberal arts: which included arithmetic, logic, rhetoric, astronomy, music, geometry. That is a development straight out of the Christian universities and monastery schools.

The Chinese and Japanese themselves realized how far the West had leaped ahead of them in science and technology, and they made concerted efforts to copy and adopt Western methods of education and science.

As for the "great art and classical music", well it would be DIFFERENT but no less "great"

Sorry, I like Taoist and Japanese art.
But it's never going to replace the incredible accomplishments of the Italian, Flemish, and Dutch Rennaissance master painters.

 

[gmark77]

Sorry, I like Taoist and Japanese art.
But it's never going to replace the incredible accomplishments of the Italian, Flemish, and Dutch master painters.

Do not get me wrong: I'm so utterly mad for the Flemish artists that I have taken day trips all the way across Belgium and sprinted through the Louvre just to seek out specific artworks! I would never diss the Flemish. Brueghel, David, Bosch, oh the list goes on. When I was working in Belgium the train to Maastricht always went by 'sHertogen Bosch which is where Bosch was from and I kick myself that I never hopped off the train at that stop any of the times I flew by it. Sigh.

But if we never had that I'm absolutely 1X10^100! % sure you would not miss them. The idea that there is some "inevitability" about any specific piece of art doesn't make any sense to me. From what I understand "great art" is nothing more than art that became popular and amassed a following (many of whom gravitate to that which they feel is most "popular") thus making "great art" nothing more than just what you like.

And that's EXACTLY what art should be. Whatever trips your trigger. There is no "great art". Only art.

 

[gmark77]

Art is actually a cool thing to talk about in relation to the Topic of the OP! Arguably Christianity has the biggest impact on the art of Europe.

When I see the art in the Medieval Cathedrals in Europe that I've been to it's hard not to think that the artists were so moved by their deep Christian faith that they created these amazing technical works! I've often wondered, though, could it also be the "workman" that was at play there as well. The Christian Faith provided a FRAMEWORK for their creativity. If it weren't the saints they were going to paint it was going to be SOMETHING. Even Michaelangelo seemed to be sneaking in some subversive content on the ceiling of the Sistine!

The power of the Church meant MONEY and money meant jobs and jobs drew people.

And in the end it kind of points out that Christianity was not the Inevitable In Europe, but SOMETHING had to act as the framework on which to hang our actions. If Europe had never heard of Christianity we would not be superior, nor would we be inferior. Just different.

I think Cypress is correct in the West's focus on the individual as opposed to the more collective thinking ways of the East, and I'm sure that changed how things happened over time, but I still think humans are humans and a lot of what we do doesn't really care what the framework is, it just needs a framework.

 

[Cypress]

Do not get me wrong: I'm so utterly mad for the Flemish artists that I have taken day trips all the way across Belgium and sprinted through the Louvre just to seek out specific artworks! I would never diss the Flemish. Brueghel, David, Bosch, oh the list goes on. When I was working in Belgium the train to Maastricht always went by 'sHertogen Bosch which is where Bosch was from and I kick myself that I never hopped off the train at that stop any of the times I flew by it. Sigh.

But if we never had that I'm absolutely 1X10^100! % sure you would not miss them. The idea that there is some "inevitability" about any specific piece of art doesn't make any sense to me. From what I understand "great art" is nothing more than art that became popular and amassed a following (many of whom gravitate to that which they feel is most "popular") thus making "great art" nothing more than just what you like.

And that's EXACTLY what art should be. Whatever trips your trigger. There is no "great art". Only art.

I guarantee if I had a magic wand that allowed anyone to create an alternate universe where Christianity and Western Civilization never existed, and Europe instead went down some path of Shamanism or Eastern mysticism, there isn't single person on this board who would take the risk of getting rid of the Renaissance and the Western traditions of science, art, music, education in the hope that something equivalent and equally transformational would possibly take place

 

[gmark77]

I guarantee if I had a magic wand that allowed anyone to create an alternate universe where Christianity and Western Civilization never existed, and Europe instead went down some path of Shamanism or Eastern mysticism, there isn't single person on this board who would take the risk of getting rid of the Renaissance and the Western traditions of science, art, music, education in the hope that something equivalent and equally transformational would possibly take place

That's an interesting conjecture.

I sort of see societies as "lifeforms". They fill a niche. No life form is in any way "superior" to another even though one may be more "developed" than another or one may have a dramatically different development than another.

Speaking as mammal I'm glad I'm not a parasitic worm, but the parasitic worm is perfectly suited to its ecological niche. It is perfectly happy and would never want to trade places given that I spent almost NO time inside a host organism.

Now the reason I said all that is because I love being in the West and I love all the art and stuff, but I'm not in any way convinced that a world without Christianity would have resulted in a WORSE world. A different world, yes, but worse? Not by a long shot.

 

[Sammy Jankis]

It goes without saying some people have done horrible things in the name of religion, science, atheism, capitalism, communism, and colonialism.

That doesn't change the fact that the transmission of Christianity to Europe was so transformational it had wide ranging and lasting consequences in ethics, education, literacy, science, art, music, philosophy, literature, capitalism.

That's not proselytizing, because even the highly regarded atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman will say that.

I transformational always good?

 

[Sammy Jankis]

I guarantee if I had a magic wand that allowed anyone to create an alternate universe where Christianity and Western Civilization never existed, and Europe instead went down some path of Shamanism or Eastern mysticism, there isn't single person on this board who would take the risk of getting rid of the Renaissance and the Western traditions of science, art, music, education in the hope that something equivalent and equally transformational would possibly take place

ethnocentric papist bullshit.

 

[IBDaMann]

I love how people who've never read any of the canonical texts of Eastern religions are so quick insinuate that if Christianity had never existed, and the West had just followed shamanism or one of the Eastern religions, we would be just fine.

I love how Cypress can pivot on a dime to something totally unrelated to the post he is referencing ...

We would still have ...

... and then seamlessly springboard into a long-winded subjunctive fallacy that leaves all readers totally confused about his original error.

 

[Cypress]

ethnocentric papist bullshit!

70 percent of the Christians in the world are people of color.

Even the Chinese, Japanese, and Indians copied and adopted western standards of science, education, and medicine. The logical empiricism and scientific method that originated in the western scholastic, Renaissance, and Enlightenment traditions were instrumental in that.

But feel free to turn your back and abandon western standards of science, medicine, and inductive logical reasoning, and embrace a lifestyle of Amazonian or Siberian shamanism.