Julian

I find it interesting that he would put that up in light of the fact that I took him to task on the crusades and got a very weak reply, including a concession that his numbers were incorrect here: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...86#post3082086

Bede is a fairly smart guy but the crusades are obviously not his area and his numbers are definitely wrong. I would have expected a bit more honesty and I respect him less because of this.

If you click on the thread I linked to and go back you will find my post beating up his crusade argument. The crusades happen to be one of my stronger areas of study.

Julian

sheep

but people really ought to give SOME credit to religion for establishing morals, no matter how flimsy they can get when dealing with people of a different religion.
this might not be a good place to ask but athiests out there, what are your morals? and if you dont think they are derived from a religion, where do you think they came from? simply "it's good for others" doesnt cut it because where did you get that from?

countjulian

No, they get no credit. At least not the ones we have. The code of Hammurabi predates the Torah by quite a bit and anticipates it in almost every regard. The more sublime ethical discourses of Jesus in the Gospels were part of contemporary Stoic and Cynic philosophy 300 years before the Christians arose (Robert Price's Deconstructing Jesus has a particularly enlightening section on this) . The ethical insights of Seneca were so close to those of Christianity that the Christians forged a correspondance between him and Paul in order to atribute all of his teachings to Christ.

sheep

i wasnt talking specifically about christianity. i meant all religions for as long as they've existed.
if im not mistaken, the code of hammurabi and stoic and cynic philosophy is closely associated with religion.

hatsoff

Bede's argument isn't convincing, necessarily, but it certainly seems relevant. The ultimate question seems to be: Should Christianity be stomped out and discouraged, nurtured and encouraged, or treated indifferently? To answer this question, we generally look first to lost lives; that is, would life expectancy around the world rise or decline if Christianity is removed? Despite other significant factors, namely those regarding quality of life, this is certainly a powerful starting point. Unfortunately, it's impossible at this time to reach any sort of agreement or consensus on the matter. Even if we were able to accurately identify historical loss of life as directly accelerated by Christianity's popularity, we'd still be left to speculate as to whether or not that had changed recently.

Each position has some merit. On one hand, we have many cases throughout history where men have killed other men in the name of Christianity. As noted above, the anti-Semitism which led to the holocaust can be traced back to Christianity. But then we have the opposing argument, which basically points to the Church's general teachings of peace and love. The Bible, after all, says "do not murder," so if a man was to go against this teaching it suggests some other factor is at work--factors which would not be changed were Christianity removed. And what of atrocities prevented by the peaceful theme of Christianity? How do we balance these arguments, since they all have obvious importance? As far as I can tell, we can't.

pharoah

One problem I see here is the Xian's very narrow definition of what constititutes an atrocity. From my POV, most wars are atrocities. WWI and WWII, the two biggest atrocities of the 20th century, were started by European Christian nations amongst themselves and then spread around the globe. The European colonization of the Americas and Africa between 1500-1900 was an ongoing atrocity, as was the US "manifest destiny" uprooting of the Native americans. Of course winners write the history books, so they get to demonize the losers and whitewash their deeds.

Steven Carr

Confession is good for the soul, and I confess I am not able to follow Bede's argument here.

hatsoff

I would consider WWI & II secular conflicts, fought by European, American and Asian secular nations. African and North American colonization, too.

Steven Carr

The Christian Science Monitor records how Rwanda was the most Christian country in Africa - mostly Catholic, some 75% of the population were members

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0412/p06s02-woaf.html

Djugashvillain

Care to elaborate?