20th Century as Effect of Decline of Christianity?

 

However I noticed one of your latest additions considering some correlations. Also the average global temperature has risen between 1901 and 2000 (20th century doesn't start in 1900, doh ), is this also caused by the decline of Christianity?

20th century was arguably the bloodiest (most victims) in the history of manking, is this also caused by the decline of Christianity? 20th century knows the most cases of AIDS or Alzheimer from the history of mankind (also because of the decline of Christianity?).

At the same time, isn't Japan a tolerant, modern country of the 20th century? Was Soviet Union for the most part of the 20th century tolerant, democratic or anything?

 

When one wants to talk about 20th century as a effect of decline of the Christianity must try first to consolidate the grounds he's staying on.

However, society in general makes the judgement, and I'm usually happy to abide by it as long as fundamental legal principles are followed. If a jury determines he is a murderer, then his arguments about motivation are no more relevant than his religious beliefs.   His arguments might have a 'humanist dimension' I suppose. However he's breaking the law. So he gets punished. And, given that the society doesn't agree with him, everything acceptable is done to ensure he doesn't do it again.   But you're mixing up criminality with right and wrong here, which is always a mistake.

I agree that mixing up criminality is a mistake, therefore I really don't understand why did you brought the issue in the first place? I'm not talking about criminality, but the humanist ethics which can be invoked by people whose acts are considered rather inhumane by many others. Therefore your technique of bashing an ethics starting from the acts of some individuals who allegedly follow some principles is a fallacious one. 
 

Then we have different experiences. The ones I know - none of them particularly distinguished - are attracted by her laissez-faire views on economics, her apparent libertarianism (whether she called herself libertarian or not) and things like her abhorrence of homosexuality, and her support for racial discrimination. In fact in almost everything Rand's political and economic views line her up witb America's religious right.

I have a problem imagining Christians following an atheist preacher (which among others said that religion is a primitive type of philosophy or that faith is harmful - if I'm not mistaken one of the metaphors assigned to it was: curse of the humanity - because it's the opposite of reason), but can't argue with your own experience but I can consider it inaccurate. And certainly you're wrong when you equivocate Randianism with America's religious right. Generally, these kind of philosophies promote a version of nihilism (talking of which, have you read Nietzsche? What does he say about Christianity and pity ) which basically anulls the love for God, for the neighbour or anybody else but the self.

Oh, come on and be serious. You know perfectly well the Roman Catholic Church supported that crusade. At least, maybe you don't since you have to ask.

I am not asking you, I'm raising rhetorical questions. The Catholic clergy which supported the crusade is not the Christianity (what can you say about the crusade from 1204 or other conflicts with religious load within Christianity?).

But they do.

Ad nauseam.

 

And actually there were some periods between 1000 and 2000 in which Christianity grew in influence as well as ones in which it declined. But I accept that the whole thing could do with more detailed analysis.

 

Christians are quick, as the start of this topic showed, very quick to claim that the perceived evils of contemporary society are due to a decline in Christianity.

 

However, when it is pointed out to them that

a) Christiantiy declined in influence from 1900-2000

while over the same period

b) many more countries became free and independent

c) toleration of minorities, especially sexual ones, increased tremendously.

d) provision of welfare care for the disadvantaged improved immensely

e) universal health care spread through most developed countries

f) many more countries became democratic, and dictatorship and auocratic government was considerably reduced (though not eliminated of course)

g) racial and gender discrimination diminished considerably (especially in the secular states)

h) precautions against child abuse - and prosecution of offenders - increased hugely

and so on, indicating how IMPROVED society is over the last 100 years, then suddenly it becomes 'just a correlation' with no necessary causation.

 

So - if things get worse, that'd because of a decline in Chsitianity. But if things get better, the decline in Christianity has nothing to do with it.

 

That's the point.

 

It seems to be cleared up now, though why putting in a bracketed comment should have made a difference I don't know.

 

So, what other convenient excuse can you find?

Chilbudios, you failed to answer my last message. I can conclude you ran short of emoticons (your only "arguments")?

 

My message waiting answer:

 

You didn't answer the question there either.   Yes, I did. I reissued multiple times the impossibility to infer from simple actions the ethics given by an ideology to which an individual allegedly belongs.

 

Chilbudios, there is an ethics of an ideology; of any ideology; there is an ethics of christianism. As I told you already, as long as the Bible incite to crimes and intolerance, and the fans of this ideology are puting in effect this demented incitements, you have no chance to convince "the imposibility [...]"

Be smart!

 

  

Originally posted by Chilbudios Epicurean ethics, insofar as there are any, are neither egoist not hedonist (in the modern sense).   'For Epicurus, the highest pleasure (tranquility and freedom from fear) was obtained by knowledge, friendship, and living a virtuous and temperate life. He lauded the enjoyment of simple pleasures, by which he meant abstaining from bodily desires, such as sex and appetites, verging on asceticism. He argued that when eating, one should not eat too richly, for it could lead to dissatisfaction later, such as the grim realization that one could not afford such delicacies in the future. Likewise, sex could lead to increased lust and dissatisfaction with the sexual partner. Epicurus did not articulate a broad system of social ethics that has survived.' It's futile to argue against one that googles for convenient quotes just to avoid to concede.

(As far as I can see the 'quote,/quote' pairs here are perfectly accurate. I can't see why they go wrong. - It's not the first post to which this has applied.)
 
What's wrong with looking for back-up to one's arguments? This is an online discussion group. I can't show you a book. There's not much point in referring you to a book, because you may not have it available. So I need a web reference. And the way you find those is to use a search engine.
 
That was really rather a silly remark, unless you can suggest an alternative. What you could do instead, if you don't like the quote, is find another one to counter it.

You're not making any point about self-interest/pleasure vs others. And from what I'm reading from your quote, if you somehow thought hedonism ment only physical pleasure or excesses (which often lead to pain, as Epicurus himself notices), then you were wrong. I haven't mentioned such thing, modern hedonism doesn't mean such thing.

Of course I don't think hedonism only refers to physical pleasure. That's why I quoted the Declaration of Independence (which I didn't have to google for). 'The pursuit of happiness' is quite a good definition of hedonism.
 
Anyway what's your definition, and where do you get it from? And you might as well define what you mean by 'egoism' too, since that seems to be a rather free-floating concept.
 

Increase in social welfare programs, from old age pensions to universal health care and education. Overseas aid programs. Care for unmarried mothers and their children. All sorts of very obvious stuff that spread like wildfire in the 20th century (admittedly having got a start in the 19th). The local social welfare is an investment. Usually people pay somehow. I pay taxes, so I want something in return. Healthcare, education, old age pension, I pay for them. I wouldn't call that charity or lack of egoism.

It's altruistic in that you are funding other people with your taxes. Now I admit that frequently people have to be forced to pay taxes and don't want to. My point is though that over most of the world many more people now happily pay taxes to support the poor, sick, old and otherwise unfortunate. They vote for governments that do that. They choose to do it.
 
The picture is somewhat different in the US of course, where opposition to welfare and taxes is deeply entrenched. But - strengthening my overall point - the US is more Christian than other developed countries, as well as more backward with regard to social welfare, and the need for the community to care for the disadvantaged.
 

Charity (probably with no intentions, as they couldn't care less anyway) is only from those who have enough wealth that they wouldn't  need anything given from these budgets. But if you give something you don't care about is not a proof of altruism, is it? You're not damaging your own interest, in some case, on the contrary. The overseas aid except some true volunteers (which are just some individuals) is not what you think. Companies make money from it.

 
I think this is a blinkered viewpoint that derives from looking only at the American situation. American attitudes are not typical since Americans contribute considerably less than any other developed country to overseas aid.
 

People give things they otherwise have to trash them, and eventually be more bothered than that. It's not common for modern people to live with bread and water because they shared their wealth with other thousands of subnutrited children which in this way benefit also from bread.

Hyperbole. It is much much more common for people to voluntary pay tayes and support social welfare structures than it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Immensely so.
 
They don't have to give up ALL their wealth to support others. It's enough to be ready to give up some of it.
 

That's largely because an infrastructure exists to ensure that there aren't people wandering around with no bed for the night. (Accepted that some fall through the net, but that's usually - not always - due to psychological or addictive factors that make them steer clear of 'authority'.) The infrastructure provides a possibility, not a certain realization.

Hyperbole again. Of course it isn't certain. Nothing in life is certain. It's providing the possibility that is the point.
 
That's as nutty as saying we can't have an immediate ceasefire because we want one that is guaranteed to last.
 

For instance, if I'm to come in Munich, no one can stop me of coming there without hotel reservation.

Yes they can. Unless you're an EU citizen, which you may be. Or of course, you could have arranged accomodation somewhere else.
 
I can't go to the US without having accomodation reserved (even though I have a visa). Same deal, different direction. The Germans are more lax about it however.

I know it, they know it. Only that they expect me to reserve or pay directly and not receiving favours from anyone. The bed is at the end of a long line of examples of how much I'm permitted to enter someone's private space (the same pattern apply, from un-modernized, un-crowded regions to more modernized and crowded), as we have interactions, as I'm invited to share something (more) with him. The social conventions and the distances seem much more rigid in the more modernized societies.

 
I don't understand what you're on about here at all. What does the conventionally accepted extent of private space to do with anything we're talking about? There's no connection to Christianity, and none to how well off people are now compared to 100 years ago.
 
Scandinavians like a lot more private space that Italians. So what? Also it hasn't changed in the last 100 years.
 

This is an idyllic and popular image without a lot going for it in fact. Write me on PM. Maybe you want a one week vacation to be persuaded on what hospitability may mean    But what on earth has it to do with the topic? Christianity is not a rural religion. If you want to say that the move from country living to city living has worsened human relations, you may well have a point. But it has nothing to do with the decline of Christianity.  Of course it has. The rural world (at least some parts of it - excluding satelite villages, touristic places, technologization in agriculture, etc.) is much more traditional than the urban world.

Accepted. Which is why pagan and other pre-Christian traditions have lingered longer there, as I said.
 
I'm not objecting to your rural-urban comparison, though rural societies can in fact be pretty paranoid and distrustful of outsiders. They do tend to look after their own however.
 

The rural world is less-industrialized and less-modern than the urban world. In many countries (mine included), the differences between modernity and the past are to be seen in the contact between these worlds. Christian Europe some many centuries ago was rather like some parts of today rural world than today's urban world.   know that hedonism emphasises the priority of pleasure, which is why I picked up on your reference to Epicurus, who in this sense is no hedonist. Of course he is. It's about priority in choices and decisions not excess in actions. But let's cut short this apparently unwilling to concede: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epicur.htm   I didn't claim anything whatsoever about south or east European anythings, or about Christian 'flavours' of hedonism. It's nothing about "Christian" flavours of hedonism (where do you read such things? ), but about European (southern, eastern) flavours of hedonism. Your earlier claims are unsubstantiated because hedonism exists where no Puritan tradition existed, therefore its appearance cannot be justified through the decline of Puritanism.

Of course it existed before. It probably is a fundamental part of human psychology.
 
The point is it was attacked by the Puritans, and reduced in Puritan society. The decline of Puritanism, and to some extent Christianity in general, allowed hedonism to re-emerge. I don't see how anyone can look at contemporary advertising, see contemporary films, listen to contemporary music or watch contemporary TV without realising that hedonism is much more blatantly appealed to than it used to be.
 
Something similar incidentally occurred with the rise of Epicurean and Stoic philosophies in the ancient world: they were also associated with a decline in hedonism.

If there's a special flavour of Western, post-Puritan hedonism, then please, do emphasize it!   In the 20th century, the search for a life devoted to pleasure increased substantially. The Puritanical attitude of deploring the search for pleasure as a diversion from one's duty to god decreased substantially. You're pointing now a reverse causation, that Puritanism declined due to the increasing of Hedonism (not that Hedonism was caused by the decline of Puritanism as you earlier claimed), an idea which seems reasonable to hold.

Was Waterloo a defeat for Napoleon or a victory for Wellington? Did Napoleon lose the battle because Wellington won it, or did Wellington win it because Napoleon lost it?
 
The decline of Puritanism and the rise (again) of hedonism are two sides of the same coin. It isn't a question of one being the effect of the other.

You miss the point completely. 'The pursuit of happiness' is a pretty good definition of hedonism. Equality has nothing to do with it: I just quoted the entire extract. You're the only one who misses the point. Hedonism is not about a right to pursue happiness, nor about equality in rights, but about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism.

? Funny - there's something wrong with that link. I finally found my way to it however.
 
You might care to read the discussion of the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hedonism
 
I fail to see how you can distinguish 'pursuit of happiness' from 'pursuit of pleasure', especially given the multitudinous interpretations of 'pleasure' that abound in this context. Is happiness not pleasant, in your view? Or does pleasure not make you happy?
 
In fact, given the contrasting definitions of pleasure that make the whole thing a little meaningless, I think 'pursuit of happiness' is a better definition. Though if it's adopted, I've no doubt the word 'happiness' would doon be as debased as the word 'pleasure' is.

Go read the books. Start with Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, followed by Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Max Weber's work is one century old and was severely criticised by modern researchers.

Not on the ground of his historical accuracy.

Among them Tawney criticised Weber's point, postulating a reverse causation, that Protestantism was influenced by Capitalism, not vice-versa.

Precisely why I recommended both of them. Have you read either? I even said in an earlier post that there different schools of thought about the causation factor. What I said was undeniable (and undenied) is that the two movements were correlated.

You're apparently not reading the materials you recommend. So, please read the books yourself and we'll talk about them, later, ok?

I have read them. A fairly essential part of my degree course. Many years ago, admittedly. I rather suspect however that you haven't, that you quickly looked them up, thought you had found something to contradict me, and ignored what I had actually said.

Of course they do. They're desperate to modify their Christianity to fit the prevailing Zeitgeist. Irrelevant Christian bashing. How is this arguing pro or against the fact that Christian ethics is a Humanistic one?

Because it is a relatively modern phenomenon. Christianity (some sects) over the centuries has tended to drop banning things it originally considered immoral - like, regarding the Weber/Tawney/Roper stuff, charging interest.
 
Another book you might care to read is Rattray Taylor's Sex in History, which is good on tracing such developments in the history of Christianity, though he has a rather Freudian rationale which I wouldn't entirely agree with. However, he gets his facts straight.
 

Of course there is, despite the sophistry. Ignoring the misery that banning divorce, for instance, causes because 'God' has forbidden it is inhumane no matter how many specious arguments are dreamt up to justify it. You're missing the point and create slippery slopes. What is humane? A killer may argue that he acts for the benefit of his victims as he cuts short their suffering. Can you disagree with him? Sure, by postulating your own values.

They're the only ones I have. Like everyone else.
 
However, society in general makes the judgement, and I'm usually happy to abide by it as long as fundamental legal principles are followed. If a jury determines he is a murderer, then his arguments about motivation are no more relevant than his religious beliefs.

But you can't say that, though in a very cynical way, his ethics wouldn't have a humanist dimension if he indeed would follow some coherent principles for his deeds (though they are seen as wrong by you or others).

His arguments might have a 'humanist dimension' I suppose. However he's breaking the law. So he gets punished. And, given that the society doesn't agree with him, everything acceptable is done to ensure he doesn't do it again.
 
But you're mixing up criminality with right and wrong here, which is always a mistake.

For the record, I don't believe in natural (objective) rights, nor in natural (objective) morality: I hope I won't receive arguments which will easily fall

You make them easily enough.

It obviously is secondary, in every church teaching I have ever come across. Ad nauseam. You haven't shown why. And I really doubt your accuracy in representing here various theologies, so you have to try better if you want to make a point

 
When a text says that something is FIRST and something else is SECOND the immediate natural English language assumption is that the first thing comes first. If you're claiming some twisted unnatural other meaning it's rather your job to find some reason to believe it, not mine to defend the natural meaning.
 
If you claim apples fall up into trees it's your job to demonstrate it, not mind to demonstrate they fall down. That's the natural assumption.

In fact it is also secondary in Judaism and Islam: it's a problem with any religion that accepts the need to behave according to God's will. A fallacy of equivocation. Christianity is nor Judaism nor Islam, nor subordonated to them. Nor "obey God will" or whatever trivialization you choose to minimize the inconvenient.

An idiotic remark. I didn't say Christianisty is Judaism or that Christianity was Islam or that Islam was Judaism. I happen to have published a school textbook on comparative religion back in the 1970s (by McGraw Hill if you want repute). i know a little about the subject.
 
Saying I confused them is simply ridiculous and smartass.
 
What I quite clearly said that in all of them the same principle applies: what God commands comes first. The same is true I think in any monotheistic religion.
 

Randians in my experience are almost all Christians. I've met mostly (if not only) atheist Randians (Rand herself was an atheist). Try iidb.com for online exponents. Somehow related to Randians are LaVey and his followers, and if these are not anti-Christians I'm not sure who is

Then we have different experiences. The ones I know - none of them particularly distinguished - are attracted by her laissez-faire views on economics, her apparent libertarianism (whether she called herself libertarian or not) and things like her abhorrence of homosexuality, and her support for racial discrimination. In fact in almost everything Rand's political and economic views line her up witb America's religious right.
 
I don't think a lot of her followers care about her metaphysics.
 
Of course if you want to say these people aren't 'true' Randians, or 'true' Christians for that matter, then I suppose you're entitled to your opinion. And they to theirs.
 

I don't recall social Darwinists being anti-Christian: in fact again many of them were Christian. See above (except the names).

 
The precursor Malthus was Christian. Galton was a Quaker. Anyone who held an academic post in Oxford or Cambridge in the 19th century had to be Christian (as Darwin himself was). Spencer started out as one, though I'd accept he changed later.
 
The Australian government that carried out the aboriginal children abduction policy was made up of Christians.
 
There's nothing in Social Darwinism (as opposed to actual Darwinism) to conflict with Christian belief: in general it would seem the average profile of Social Darwinists more or less reflected the average profile of the (academic) world at large.
 
And the same point about the religious right tends to apply.
 

As soon as you start bashing other people is usually the point it does. All I did was to talk about Christian ethics. If you can't handle it, it's not my fault.   There might be some point to that if you could suggest someone who thinks that those examples are good things. The point is that Christianity supported the things I mentioned. What Christianity? Has the Coptic Church supported the Albigensian crusade?

Oh, come on and be serious. You know perfectly well the Roman Catholic Church supported that crusade. At least, maybe you don't since you have to ask.

Has the Greek Orthodox Church supported the Salem witch hunts? Has the mountainous village with a wooden church and inhabited by 49 illiterate people and their priest supported the banning of "heretic" books? Has the ethics of Christianity, which I focused so much upon, supported the things you mentioned?

You are in your muddled way, making the point there is no 'Christian ethics' since different Christian sects (and indeed different Christian individuals) see different things as right and wrong. So there's no point in trying to discuss it.
 
What one can talk about is what Christians DO and HAVE DONE, because that's factual, not hypothetical. One of the things Christianity has more or less consistently DONE is hold back scientific progress and experimentation (though, of course, after a while they drop the opposition when it becomes untenable or risks losing believers).
 
In fact that is happening right now in the case of stem cell research. It's happening with the attempt to introduce creationism into US (and British, sadly) schools as a scientific study rather than a quaint exploded fable.

No-one supprts the ones you mention, except the perpetrators. The same point applies to the "Christianity" you identified. I don't understand why this double standard is applied. If some wrong-doer is Christian, he's immediately hidden behind this large scapegoat: "Christianity". If not, then he's isolated and treated like an individual.   "the system of philosophy based upon human reason, actions, and motives without concern of deity or supernatural phenomena"   Christianity fits that definition, does it? Huh? Another equivocation? I haven't said Christian philosophy = Secular Humanism (whose definition you quoted, apparently).

You said, if I recall correctly, that Christianity and Humanism were not inconsistent (or possibly incompatible). Unfortunately you clipped out what you originally wrote. On the basis of that definition, which looks fine to me, Christianity is inconsistent with humanism.
 
Consistency and equality are different things.
 

Read this paper about some differences: http://www.freeinquiry.com/humanism-uu.html (he uses a similar definition as yours and he calls it "naturalistic humanism").

I hardly need to - you're the one that said Christianity and humanism were compatible (or something like that). Not me.
 

The point is that they don't. If they did, yes then I would bash them.

But they do.
 

Of course atheists should be held responsible for what they do: I've never come across a single atheist or agnostic who held otherwise.

  Analogous for Christianity is the atheism, not the atheists.
[/QUOTE]
It's maddening the way you clip out what you wrote, and then distort it in recollection. Just for once I'll nail you down: usually it's too much trouble.
 
You actually wrote:
'And let me give an example. Observing the quarrels between Christians and their opponents, the latter defending atheism say "atheists cannot be held responsible for certain actions - as exponents of the atheism, of course - because their atheism does not have any morale imperatives".'
 
Your analogy was between Christians and atheists. Not between Christianity and atheism. My response was therefore perfectly valid, unlike your rather snide attempt at a putdown.
 
This is all getting to be too much. If you're not prepared to stick with what you say it's certainly too much.

On the other hand there are an awful lot of religious people who claim they should be exempt from laws because of what they believe. Becuase many religions have their own laws / codes. I don't understand what's the point.

Don't be naive.
 
The point is that you said that atheists seek to be excused from being responsible, whereas in fact it is the religious (not just Christians) who seek to be excused. There is no reason anyone should be excused from obeying the law just because of their beliefs, religious or otherwise.

In a completely objective, humanist legal system there is no reason at all to take into account anyone's beliefs in determining responsibility. You're making a mess of terms. If you refer to "Secular Humanism" and to objectivity as "scientific objectivity" then you have a point, but this one is not related in anyway with what we were talking about here. Don't be naive again.   You brought up the topic of relief from responsibility becuse of one's beliefs, not me. I just pointed out how wrong you were. Of cour Of course there are ethical constraints on atheists. Since we just mentioned Epicurus, take him as an example: an out-and-out atheist he certainly had ethical guidelines he followed (though no formalised ethical system). Perhaps you don't know what atheism is: What a pitiful childish attempt at a putdown. Of course I know what atheism is. Of cour http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/atheism a disbelief in the existence of deity; the doctrine that there is no deity I fail to see any ethical consequence. Your example of Epicurus is a red herring since you're not addressing his atheism, but his epicureanism

Epicureanism is atheist in the sense that Buddhism is - i.e. that gods are, if they exist, irrelevant.
 
And - in an attempt to head off some other sad excuse for an argument - that is not saying Epicureanism and atheism are the same thing. Or that Epicureanism and Buddhism are the same thing.
 

Funny to distort facts when scripta manent.

In general, preposterous is an epithet given to an idea or a situation, not a person. Well, one person with a cubic eye seems preposterous

 

I don't know what you're laughing at. What he was doing was discussing an ethical system, which you had said he wasn't doing. The fact that you coudln't see the connection and had to try and make a joke of it just shows up your own shallowness.

 

Leaving my shallowness aside, let's check others narrowmindedness. Deconstruction follows:

 

We are individuals,

Gee, I thought we're apples.

and our freedoms are individual before being collectives!

Collective freedom, interesting  You said ethics, Gcle2003? At the best this smells of economics or sociology.

Also, the very subtle point of our freedoms being first individual, then collective. Some kind of "collectivization" of freedoms happens and we have no clue about it

 

There is NO evil in individualism,

  I'm not sure what value has this while talking about ethics. If let's say this individual considers individualism as an ethical system, why would he consider its evilness? Is he also considering a "meta-ethical" system (I asked him if he's objectivist, he didn't answer), an ethics of the ethics, an ultimate ground?

Or he's judging individualism from his own (or Popper's as he quotes him too) ethical perspective (which frankly I don't give a damn about it)?

 

Sociologists and philosophers like Popper showed in their books to which extent this false ideea that individualism is evil, and that cherishing the collectivism is good, wreaked havoc in history, and he�s pointing his finger first exactly to philosophers of the beginning (Plato)!

And again ... ethics?

 

Needless to say that both of you have not read what he quoted from my reply:

Originally posted by Chilbudios' original point How many philosophies (having a certain extent) do not treat humanity like an ant farm? Individualism does not mean what these "similarities" seem to suggest, individualism it's an emphasis on the personal liberties and self-interest. Of course, if you focus on some rather recent reformated Christian Churches/sects from Western Europe, the discussion may get some nuances.

So in short I'm saying what individualism is and how is it matching or not the Christianity and he answers me individualism is not evil. I'm not joining this game, sorry!

 

You didn't answer the question there either.

Yes, I did. I reissued multiple times the impossibility to infer from simple actions the ethics given by an ideology to which an individual allegedly belongs.