Quote: (04-12-2015 02:08 AM)RawGod Wrote:
However, secular left-liberalism has inherited Christianity's zeal and moralizing, so be of good cheer if that is your thing!
I think to make any intelligent assessment of Christianity, one has to separate the cosmological elements which are grossly outdated, or must be interpreted as allegory ( Earth created in seven days, Christ arising from the dead), and the sociological elements: which include that each person has some value-- as an impetus for humanity to progress in the social steps beyond slavery and brutality-- as it was a religion that arose among slaves when I believe 80% of the population of Rome were slaves.
This is ironically why Nietzsche seemed to disparage Christianity as a religion of slaves.
The most important fundamental secular message of Christianity, which is compassion to all others, is still alive and well and has in sum been furthered despite horrible retrogressions in the Churches over the centuries.
I'm an atheist, and the Catholic church became not only zealous hypocritical and moralistic, but murderous as they tried to hold onto their linguistic monopoly with the Latin bible a few hundreds years ago, but now the top guy is talking what Christ basically said-- be compassionate to everyone. (Galatians " There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.)
Any decent examination of the positive aspects of Christianity makes it clear this was a revolution in accepting the value of the individual, what some might call a "liberal" idea, but which also could be called a libertarian one.
It was a religion that arose in the face of slavery, which I think is a little hard to argue for with a straight face.
The positive social aspects of Christianity are still deeply embedded into many institutions and the psyche of modern First World nations, and also poor countries like the Philippines.
All you have to do is look at the basic teachings of the bible++, and the respect given to each human in many places now is largely due to the type of consciousness Christianity eventually brought forth ( or one could argue the progression in consciousness that allowed Christian thought to flourish.)
The cosmology sucks, so--they didn't have modern physics and astronomy.
But we wouldn't have prisons-- we would just slaughter those we are angry at
We wouldn't have hospitals in America where they will care for you in an emergency even if you don't have money-- we'd step over the rotting corpses as people did in ancient cities.
We wouldn't have Social Security for the old, we'd let them rot in their feces as they declined. ( *SS reduced poverty among the elderly Congressional Budget Office)
Christianity is dead where and when there is cynicism and brutality, but its important ideas flourish whereever there is kindness.It's hard to argue that human compassion is dead, except in the most scarred individuals. To paraphrase Shakespeare, maybe "The fault lies not in our societies, but in ourselves."
Or as Jesus said -- something like-- "Look for the plank in your own eye before you look for the dust speck in someone else's"
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1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (New International Version)
Love
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1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
* Congressional Research Service that analyzed ways to improve the future financing of Social Security. The report starts: "Social Security has significantly reduced elderly poverty. The elderly poverty rate has fallen from 35% in 1959 to an all-time low of 9% in 2006, in large part because of Social Security. If Social Security benefits did not exist, an estimated 44% of the elderly would be poor today assuming no changes in behavior."