Page 4 of 4 [ 61 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4

kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

04 Mar 2015, 9:49 am

As a species, we appear that way.

As individuals....we're not necessarily that way.



RhodyStruggle
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Nov 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 508

06 Mar 2015, 12:11 am

Without "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" it's doubtful we'd ever have seen the emergence of separation of church and state.


_________________
From start to finish I've made you feel this
Uncomfort in turn with the world you've learned
To love through this hate to live with its weight
A burden discerned in the blood you taste


emax10000
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 18 Jan 2015
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 180

06 Mar 2015, 12:28 am

Without Christianity, we would have found a new deity whose name we would invoke to justify mass murder and enslavement and genocide. The Crusades most likely would have happened anyway and the likes of Richard the Lionheart would be doing all of that in the name of a different European god. And if this God did not have a son who really did lead a sinless example and teach loving of others the ay Jesus genuinely did, then they would have had an easier time using this God to justify what they did. And even if there were no God, the belief that they are defending their culture and heritage form uncivilized savages would have been plenty enough motivation as well; indeed the European Crusaders and genocide architects of centuries past found this was plenty enough justification and never tried to quote from the Bible to justify what they did. There still would have been the slave trade, with the distinct possibility that it would have lasted even longer. There would likely have been severe homophobia, of the type you often see in India, China, former Soviet states or, in the worst examples, in African tribal societies or OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) nations.



Oldavid
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 May 2010
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 704
Location: Western Australia

06 Mar 2015, 9:13 am

Amusing!

You should look up eugenics as prescribed by "evolutionarily superior" Nazis... the "pinnacle" of "evolutionary development" that they proclaimed themselves to be.



Narrator
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2014
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,060
Location: Melbourne, Australia

06 Mar 2015, 10:41 am

Not so sure, Emax. Despite the different religious factions in Rome, I got the idea they were beginning to see gods as more of an academic question than a reality. Plato and Aristotle had some amount of influence in that regard. But then, perhaps you are right, Emax. Look at the academic discussion of gods we have nowadays, while the greater masses continue to stand up for their god, whichever one they choose. I guess current circumstances in that regard are not entirely unlike Rome. One difference does exist - to satisfy the competing masses, the Romans institutionalized/nationalized one religion. By contrast, in our modern times we fight to keep religion and state separate.


_________________
I'm not blind to your facial expression - but it may take me a few minutes to comprehend it.
A smile is not always a smile.
A frown is not always a frown.
And a blank look rarely means a blank mind.


techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,149
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

06 Mar 2015, 11:15 am

With the fall of Rome pretty much of it's own overextension and nihilism, if Christianity would not have moved into Europe we could assume that Europe, Britain, and the colonial world would be praying five times a day facing Mecca.

As for the wholesale lack of Christianity and no Nestorians to feed into Mohammad's narrative, we might have still had some kind of similarly aggressive monotheism come out of the Arabian penninsula, the Sabians were still there with their chroniism to have Mohammad praying for a way to unenslave the people from what had become apparently as cynical and crony as the Egyptian temples toward their demise, in that case we might not be facing Mecca five times a day specifically with "Allahu Akbar!" in mind but we'd still likely be facing Mecca five times a day, on prayer rugs if available, saying something of similar effect.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,149
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

06 Mar 2015, 11:21 am

AspieOtaku wrote:
If not for Christianity we wouldn't have the Westboro Baptist Church or the KKK. If not for Christianity we would not have genocide or homophobia!
Take a look into the realities of Hindu caste systems, what was done with wives when their husbands died over the centuries, and the only marginally better organized Buddhism.

You're also missing Judaism, Islam, and Communist coupes in your equations. You also have two groups of people in the Congo who've been hacking each other to bits with machetes based on group or race aspect, aside from one having been perhaps at a time friendly to colonial powers it's 5,000,000+ dead without Christianity as a culprit. I'd also highly doubt, in a world where cavemen were either killing or eaten, that any kind of dilettantism would have gone over in most places as society coallesced (of course there were the Spartan warriors, there were the pedophile teachers of Greece, all of that being the format of open-preference in that day) - same macho ethics, same homophobia and knuckling down anything giving the appearance of weakness, whether with different gods or none at all.

As much as I think some people hate to hear it natural pressures are 90% of the culprit, whatever religion that dominates just ends up taking the last 10% and even at that the 'useful corruptions' and creation of us-vs-them for power and control is again nature reflecting back on that particular dogma when it becomes a state or cultural system of sorts.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


slave
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 28 Feb 2012
Age: 111
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,420
Location: Dystopia Planetia

06 Mar 2015, 8:10 pm

emax10000 wrote:
Without Christianity, we would have found a new deity whose name we would invoke to justify mass murder and enslavement and genocide. The Crusades most likely would have happened anyway and the likes of Richard the Lionheart would be doing all of that in the name of a different European god. And if this God did not have a son who really did lead a sinless example and teach loving of others the ay Jesus genuinely did, then they would have had an easier time using this God to justify what they did. And even if there were no God, the belief that they are defending their culture and heritage form uncivilized savages would have been plenty enough motivation as well; indeed the European Crusaders and genocide architects of centuries past found this was plenty enough justification and never tried to quote from the Bible to justify what they did. There still would have been the slave trade, with the distinct possibility that it would have lasted even longer. There would likely have been severe homophobia, of the type you often see in India, China, former Soviet states or, in the worst examples, in African tribal societies or OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) nations.


The belief in deities is a SYMPTOM of the problem, but it is not the real problem.

The real problem is the intelligence of the average human at this point in our evolutionary history.

~1 billion humans are mentally ret*d. 8O

2.5 billion humans are capable of straightforward physical and mental tasks, some abstraction yes, but minimal critical thinking ability.

:arrow: The ability to think abstractly WITHOUT the capacity for critical thinking is why this segment of the human population is so easily deceived by myth and why they so strongly hold delusion. :!:

The next 2.5 billion are a toss up, with some rescuing themselves from the traditional deceit and many others lounging in self-imposed mediocrity.

Then there are the high intellectual flyers....and guess what :?: :!: :?: :!: :?: :!: :?:

THEY ARE MOSTLY ATHEIST :nerdy: :nerdy: :nerdy: :nerdy: :nerdy: :nerdy: :nerdy: :nerdy:



trollcatman
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Dec 2012
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,919

07 Mar 2015, 6:23 am

Oldavid wrote:
Amusing!

You should look up eugenics as prescribed by "evolutionarily superior" Nazis... the "pinnacle" of "evolutionary development" that they proclaimed themselves to be.


Even though nearly every German was Christian at the time, even I wouldn't go so far as to blame Nazism on Christianity :twisted:



Oldavid
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 May 2010
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 704
Location: Western Australia

07 Mar 2015, 7:08 am

trollcatman wrote:
Oldavid wrote:
Amusing!

You should look up eugenics as prescribed by "evolutionarily superior" Nazis... the "pinnacle" of "evolutionary development" that they proclaimed themselves to be.

Even though nearly every German was Christian at the time, even I wouldn't go so far as to blame Nazism on Christianity :twisted:
You'd have to bend the definition of Christian into impossible loops to define just about any European Nation as Christian then or now.

Christianity has been around for a long time... it is very well defined. That some self-appointed magistrates re-define it according to their immediate political convenience does not change what it is.



aghogday
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Nov 2010
Age: 63
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,562

07 Mar 2015, 11:26 am

Oldavid wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
Oldavid wrote:
Amusing!

You should look up eugenics as prescribed by "evolutionarily superior" Nazis... the "pinnacle" of "evolutionary development" that they proclaimed themselves to be.

Even though nearly every German was Christian at the time, even I wouldn't go so far as to blame Nazism on Christianity :twisted:
You'd have to bend the definition of Christian into impossible loops to define just about any European Nation as Christian then or now.

Christianity has been around for a long time... it is very well defined. That some self-appointed magistrates re-define it according to their immediate political convenience does not change what it is.


Hmm.. censoring in abridging information in revision of words changes almost everything that can be described as real... Literal IS LIE.. dog IS REASON.. and GOD speaks Chinese.. too...:)


_________________
KATiE MiA FredericK!iI

Gravatar is one of the coolest things ever!! !

http://en.gravatar.com/katiemiafrederick


UKdude1966
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

User avatar

Joined: 23 Apr 2014
Age: 57
Gender: Male
Posts: 5

07 Mar 2015, 3:02 pm

Heres some thoughts for you.

Christianity invented the book - codex to be precise - before that it was scrolls. (Larry Hurtado - "The earliest Christian Artefacts").

Christianity invented the space between words, upper and lower case, and punctuation in order to make the gospells easier to read (Larry Hurtado - "The earliest Christian Artefacts").

It was monks who promoted literacy for everyone not just the elite - and ran the first schools.

Many of the Crusades were nothing to do with religion at all EG control of trade routes and most notably in 1222 when Jews Chritians and muslims faught together to stop the Khan empire taking control of the middle east and the spice/silk routes (several other crusades were just to stop the Khan empire).

Printing was invented so as to make Bibles easier to afford.

Thats just a few to be getting on with.



Narrator
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2014
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,060
Location: Melbourne, Australia

07 Mar 2015, 6:15 pm

Some excellent points, UKdude, and welcome to the forums!


_________________
I'm not blind to your facial expression - but it may take me a few minutes to comprehend it.
A smile is not always a smile.
A frown is not always a frown.
And a blank look rarely means a blank mind.