Clutch

Since you give zero argument for this foolish generalization, I will assign it all the rational weight it merits.

If you have particular posters in mind, by all means make your case via some actual reasoning. I do not think it unlikely that a good case can be made for some.

If, however, you intended your remark to have any relevance to the present discussion, then the argument you owe is one that will, for instance, undermine Vorkosigan's claim that contemporary American Christianity has social and political manifestations that are both very powerful and on balance dangerous both domestically and internationally.

Maybe you could give such an argument. But a silly, irrelevant, and baseless ad hominem generalization isn't it.

gurugeorge

It's interesting - my opinions go across some of the regulars' here.

I am a rationalist (in the sense of being stingy with belief), yet I've had mystical experiences and think they're a good thing, even that (in a particular sense, too complex to go into here) they are fully as "cosmic" as they seem.

I am a JMer, and despise literalist Christianity, and my opinion of people who support it intellectually isn't much higher. Yet I think there was a genuine message, a real Good News in real Christianity - i.e. the Jewish-influenced Mystery religion, as it undoubtedly originally was.

In politics, I think Islamofascism is the most urgent current threat to the world, and (like Robert M. Price, another JMer) I support the WoT and the Iraq war in this perspective. I saw Bush as the lesser of two evils in the last election, and I don't join in with the handwringing about zombie theocratic fascist hordes taking over the US - I think that's just "liberal" drama queen sour grapes b******t. I also despise Communism, and think that "liberals" are in denial about quite how how much of an intellectual blind alley socialism was, and how much death and horror those silly little ideas led to. (I see this as a state of denial somewhat analogous to the state of denial literalist Christians are in about the horrible long term effects literalist Christianity had on human culture.)

The fact is, these ideas severally stand or fall on their own, and aren't necessarily connected together - they can even be connected in unfamiliar ways, as I connect them.

Toto

This is not the forum to discuss how a small minority of fundamentalist Christians actually have taken over American while Bede was not looking, or the problems with Communism. Check out the Politics Forum and Church State Separation Forum.

Please refrain from personal comments. I may split this thread if I get the time.

Lafcadio

Nor enviromentalist/anti-enviromentalist doctrines are (directly) based on christian values, so Vorkosigan's argument fails too.
Please note that I didn't claim that communism is based on atheism, just that communism as applied in Eastern Europe aka "scientific socialism" was based on atheism (but also anti-theism, see mass demolishion of churches, a certain style in books and speeches of praising atheism and science and denigrating religion and other relevant phenomena we can talk about if anyone feels like it). Therefore if Vorkosigan claims that starting from his right-wing christian movement's anti-enviromentalist behaviour can blame all christians, then by analogy (all for one and one for all ), from some communist countries' regimes' doctrine one can blame all atheists.
Atheism and scientificism as basic value, as principle, in the wrong hands, led to horrible totalitarian, oppresive, leveling, value-annihilating ideologies. The same way one can blame christianity for some extremist applied cases, one can blame atheism (or any -ism or -ity, I chose atheism so that my reply can be more efficient, considering the atheist position of those that criticized).

It's interesting to notice that many "communist fathers" were atheists and communism as many other social ideologies born as a reaction to monarchy, as a reaction to institutionalized religion. Ironically, also, in the XVIII-th, XIX-th and XX-th century their most spreaded mottos were almost christian: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!
Another interesting thing is that after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, religion (christianity - mainly orthodox) climbed on new heights as psychologically, in the heart of the people, the connection was made: communism - atheism. In many anti-communist manifestos I noticed this association. Many philosophers from communist countries which succeeded to run in France or USA were deeply religious and associated atheism with this totalitarian, value-demolishing ideology.

If you can make a case about the quasi-universal/unanimous values/principles of christianity that led to certain aspects in evolution of mankind, I'd agree. As I already said, I agree to christianity to be anti-progressist and I can add anti-humanist, but these I can infer from the those values and principles I mentioned above.
Still if you cling to the behaviour of a certain group of christians, which is hardly linkable with "the" christian doctrine, I can find various counter-examples which will turn all ideologies in this world as potential dangers to humanity because always we can find those individuals/small groups who'll use them for an "ugly" purpose.


Trying to force this long paranthesis to get back on topic I will add that the official position in all schools (there were no private schools!) in the Eastern European communist countries was that all religions (including christianity) were based on myths and fiction. I find successful the results of the scholarships of those times, which in their efforts to prove christianity as fictious as any other religion, worked a lot on comparative religion history. I think that religion history has only to gain if it's considered that all religions have a common nature, a common likeliness.
Talking about interpretation, IMHO much more info can be squeezed out if the religion message is not assumed as false, or unlikely, but as idiosyncratic, as specifically interpretable, as subjective regarding a certain place in time, in space, in history, in culture. The ancient men from Bible might not lived a millenia, maybe it was the cult and worship of the ancesters, the nostalgia of for the golden dawns of mankind that made sumerians and jews to mention those long ages. The flood might not covered the world, but maybe for some the world was no larger than Mesopotamia.
Some might be legends, some might be truths. Ancient history (be it religious too) is a quicksand to walk on. Dismissing is not option as long as we don't even know when exactly Alexander the Great was born or that if was there any Agamemnon.

Vorkosigan

I never said they were. Rather, I maintained that (a) the Christian Right in the US, despite some stirrings, remains solidly anti-environmentalist -- not to mention racist, sexist, anti-science, and various other nastinesses; (b) that Christianity has never cared about the environment, and does so now only because it has absorbed those values from the secular culture. You may construct such strawman as you wish in your reply; I am retiring from this conversation.

Lafcadio

You're building a strawman to your own position because previously you said "At the moment Christinanity is threatening [...] the environment". You missed all my arguments against your unfounded generalization.

Before enviromentalism ever exist, no one cared about enviroment, more than "nature is sacred/godly given, let's not interfer too much in its course" and that attitude is not far from a christian one.
After enviromentalism started to exist, there are also many christian organizations that fight for protection of you-name-what. So this argument of yours lacks factual data (please note you're mentioning Christianity and not some extremist american christian organization).

From (a) and (b) I can only conclude that you either misread or misunderstood my position and just clinged to the same "omg, the fascist christians are so bad!", so I don't see any reason why you should debate further. A retirement is just what I expect from somebody who goes ad nauseam.