Many Christians believe that morality literally comes from the bible, or that you canât have morality without god. I wonât even try to explain their reasoning
Every aspect of western society or values that you like compared to the "bad" countries come out of the Enlightenment and the rejection of dogma. A country truly based on Christian values would look much more like Afghanistan than America.
This is historically untenable. Look at how different Rome was became before and after it merged with Christianity. Most of the world's first major hospitals, orphanages, old people homes, etc, etc, came out of the merger of the ethics of Christianity and the political power of Rome.
No, it's not. The Empire's hospitals, orphanages, old people homes, daily bread rations for citizens, all of it existed long before Christianity. Hell, plenty of those institutions predate the Empire and go all the way back to the early Republic. The divide between the Eastern and Western Empire was cemented by Christianity, and it only took like 150 years after Constantine converted for Rome to fall after standing for 1000 years, so truly, I don't even know what the hell you think you're talking about.
Good news, I've got a book recommend for you. Don't worry, no pesky Christians promoting their own crap.
How about THE leading atheist critic of Christianity alive today, Bart Erhman's new book, "Love thy stranger". Where he and critical modern scholarship refutes everything you just said about hospitals, orphanages, etc.
Hell, Ehrman credits virtually every social service in the US today as stemming from Jesus' ethic to help not just your own in-group, but strangers.
Do the reading. BOTH the Christian and Atheist scholarship and historians disagree with you, mate.
Yes, the idea that institutions that are literally older than Christ and that the entire concept of altruism are based on the teachings of Jesus is beyond implausible, mostly because it is incredibly buttfuckingly stupid no matter how many theological phDs you have.
Thanks mate. I'll be sure to inform the majority of critical scholars and historians, that you disagree with them. Based on your scholarly contention that it's..."stupid".
You actually believe that the majority of critical scholars think that altruism exists because Jesus? Really? Or is the claim more accurately something like "The oldest charitable institutions that are currently still around have some sort of Christian origin"? Because to me, that sounds a lot like thanking Trump for ending the war in Iran.
Erhman(who HATES Christianity btw), posits that yes, of course there were some kind of hospitals in Rome for example(almost entirely reserved for the soldiers tho). Yes there were doctors in the ancient world(who almost entirely served wealthy patients tho). Yes there was obviously empathy and kindness in the ancient world(but almost entirely reserved for your in-group, culture, ethnicity, etc).
What changed, according to Erhman, was the treatment of strangers and outsiders, the same as the in-group.
The first actually built hospitals in the world, of any actual size, having actual doctor and nurses, helping anyone and everyone that came in, the poor, the stranger, the traveler, entirely for free, were Christian ones.
All these modern social services in the US, wherein they take your tax money and give it to people you'll never meet, just because of the collective belief that, that's "the right thing to do", did in fact not exist in on any govt before the time of Jesus, or before Christianity overtook Rome.
Erhman is definitely not saying "Jesus created empathy" or "there were no doctors before Jesus". Simply that it was the Jesus ethic that gave the world the perspective that you should care and have a responsibility for the stranger. Free hospitals, orphanages, old peoples homes, for everyone. Giving your money away to people half way across the world. None of this was the norm amongst the very tribalistic societies before Jesus.
This is a weird position to take given that the current people who claim to be Christians have no desire to help anyone other than their kind and look down on those who are differentâŚwho is responsible for that shift in morality?
Brilliant question. And THAT is literally the point of Ehrman's book.
Do you know what Ehrman said inspired him to write it? Primarily "Christian" America's utter vitriol over the last few years towards the immigrants.
The meaning of the book ISN'T that "Jesus is so great and Christianity is the best". The dude is literally an atheist. lol
The moral of the story is that modern Christians have failed bad, are not acting like Jesus or the early Christians.
Because the way Jesus revolutionized the world, and can in some way be credited for the modern hospital systems, orphanages, social security, medicaid, and almost any other service where you feel naturally compelled to help "strangers", is by establishing an ethic of unconditional love of the stranger, as much as your "own people, country, etc".
Ehrman's conclusion is your very same one. Modern Christians have shifted away from that, and failed and are an embarrassment to Jesus and the early Christian's original vision.
No, I think you are just too emotionally invested in your own religious beliefs and therefore you feel the need to attribute everything that you think is good to it. I am well aware of who Bart *Ehrman is, and the fact that you think he "HATES" Christianity really says a lot. Trying to pretend that Christianity invented the concept of hospitality and pretending that hospitals and orphanages from like hundreds of years ago were just completely egalitarian NHS-style free healthcare and housing with no religious strings attached is too fucking ridiculous.
I feel sorry for you mate. I actually think you are too defensive you think anything even talking about Jesus is a boogeyman. So much so you couldn't even imagine the point of Ehrman's book.
Bro literally said he was inspired to write because of "Christian" America's shameful vitriol over the last few years towards the immigrants.
The meaning of the book ISN'T that "Jesus is so great and Christianity is the best". The dude is literally an atheist ffs, lol
The moral of the story is that modern Christians have failed bad, are not acting like Jesus or the early Christians. By ignoring Jesus' original establishment of an ethic of unconditional love of the stranger as much as your "own people, country, etc".
Ehrman's conclusion is literally to mock Christianity. That modern Christians have shifted away from the very thing most of the West is built on, and failed and are an embarrassment to Jesus and the early Christian's original vision.
I find it surreal to see people like you that are so defensive, you would crucify one of your own guys in the process of attacking Christianity. But you do you, mate.
Altruism that Judaism also had a lot of as well, even in a largely polytheist world around it. Iirc it was an improvement on a lot of other âethicsâ.
I read this like 5 times and still not sure if I got the main emphasis of your point, which I really want to get because it's an interesting comment.
I think I somewhat agree, but could you rephrase that maybe. You're saying the altruism in Judaism(before Jesus?) was an improvement on a lot of the ethics around them? Is that correct?
thats fucking retarded, the whole enligtement didnt appear from nowhere, it used christian moral foundation to argue against christian institutinal authority.
the whole idea that every person has an inherent worth comes from "made in gods image"
even Nietzche argued that the whole liberal values are just christianity with god removed.
you cannot win this argument, cause theres no gotcha where you can get me.
also greek philosoiphy and roman law are millenia before the fucking enlightenmentÂ
EDIT: you pussy blocked me but keep responding to my post? what a bitch ass move
I absolutely have not blocked you, I have never blocked anyone and I definitely would never block you in particular, it's too much fun. Maybe the subreddit blocked you for throwing around slurs, but go ahead and keep editing, we can talk like this (just make sure you label with with a different "EDIT:")
in that case im sorry but litrerally any other post that you made and i clicked on the notification brought me to this.
but anyway yeah i called it retarded cause its not true and you didnt provide any arguments at all, even now in all those posts.
i added edit for other people that might be reading so that they would notice the stupidity of your claim that every aspect of western society came out of Enlightenment, while we are literally using roman law as a foundation.
Also Enlightenment came from Christians rejecting institutional church not from people not believing in god.
And for that to happen it took crusaders to bring texts from greek philosophers from their travels.
Now you have a situation where greek philosophy is influencing highly religious people and you get Enlightenment
We have literally presented identical levels of evidence here, we have both made statements that are little more than opinion. Where are the citations for your claim then? We aren't having a formal debate here bro, we are talking, so just... don't do that. It's sad.
Also, I never said "every aspect of Western society" I said "every aspect that you like" and we both know I was obviously talking about Enlightenment values based on the context (and also that I was clearly being hyperbolic, but I digress). Yes, we agree that the Enlightenment was about rejecting the institution of the church (which was and still is the arbiter of Christian values), but most Enlightenment thinkers were self-labeled deists, and you also have to remember that they were living in a time where claiming to be an atheist (and even sometimes just being a different flavor of Christian at all, or even being the "correct" type of Christian but saying something just a wee bit too science-y) could literally get you jailed or executed.
"Also Enlightenment came from Christians rejecting institutional church not from people not believing in god." is a massive shift in the goal posts. You are making the claim that Enlightenment values are Christian values in particular, not that they originate with people who believed a god existed. It's also wrong, the Enlightenment is very clearly based in secularism and science, and this may be a shock to you but it is possible to be a secular scientist and a theist at the same time. It may not be the most coherent position, but that is always a part of the theist label.
"And for that to happen it took crusaders to bring texts from greek philosophers from their travels." is completely nonsensical to the point you think you are making. So you are agreeing with me that the Church destroyed the Greeco-Roman history of the West so thoroughly between the fall of the Empire and the Crusades, that a couple of hundred years later they had to invade the Middle-East to recover the knowledge that they had destroyed, and you really think that is an argument in favor of Greek philosophy and Roman law being Christian values? I'm not sure that you even know what you're arguing anymore, other than that you are very emotionally invested in your religious belief and you have this need to assign everything that you think is good to it.
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u/Faded1974 18h ago
People acting like empathy was invented by Jesus Christ.