KrisK10

Gerard,

Yes, I think you are on very dangerous ground. It looks impossible to me that Nietzsche is speaking only of some isolated concept of equality proposed by the Church. How do you reconcile this with his reference to "ALL theories of equal rights"?

Kris

andrewcriddle

I'll make two points here.

a/Christianity, (unlike to take an ancient example Mithraism), was potentially open to everyone whatever their race gender or social status. This unlimited availability appears to have been a ground of criticism by pagans. This distinguishes Christianity from groupings based on narrower criteria.

b/ In Christian writers such as Paul the union of believers in Christ is not the only basis for human equality. This human unity in the "second man" Christ is subsequent to the natural human unity in the "first man" Adam.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

Talk about hype and propaganda!

What exactly was the effect of xianity on 25% of the Roman population?

Might Spartacus have had a better grasp of human rights than any alleged historical Jesus?

I see this as a problem of one's ability to understand and emphasise with the other - something that has changed over time and is currently being discussed in the area for example of what rights do chimpanzees have.

Rawls Veil of Ignorance approaches this rationally.

On Nietzche, didn't I quote him and an anarchist that xianity is morally evil in the slavery and xianity thread?

PS the Pharisees were pretty good on the idea of spirit of the law.

neilgodfrey

Are you saying that Christianity is unique in being a collective or grouping open to everyone whatever their race, gender or social status?

Paul nowhere speaks of "human unity" that I know of. He speaks of the obliteration of gender and race at one point. But these obliterations relate to "unity in Christ" and bear no relationship whatever to one's being human and living in the carnal or material world. If I am wrong on that point then I welcome being shown the passages that I have overlooked.

We know very well his views re slavery and the status of women and even his views on political-social relations "in the world". His unity is entirely related to one's status as a believer (i.e. united in Christ) -- or sinner (i.e. damned regardless of race).

It is certainly true that Paul accords to believers certain rights, privileges, responsibilities, and a priori status vis a vis one another that are commendable to all races and all times. But I can imagine him, like anyone else from his era, looking at you curiously if you uttered the words "human rights".

If Paul was saying that "all humans" are united in sin and death until they are united, through faith in Christ, in salvation, then that concept is as far removed from "human rights" as any agenda you can think of. It is more correct to designate such a status as "divine privilege" (i.e. all are equal in the eyes of the divine) than "human rights". Paul's claims had no room whatever for religious tolerance. He was only enamoured of privileges (not rights) for those who had the right faith.

"Human rights" is a concept that emerged only after the relatively historically recent challenges to any legitimate notions of "divine privileges" or the notion of "only one true religion". Did anyone of the ilk or era of Thomas Paine ever draw on Paul to argue for the concept of "human rights"? To read "human rights" back into ancient exclusivist religious texts is surely nothing more than an ad hoc rationalization.

Neil

andrewcriddle

No not unique but unusual. In particular it seems to distinguish Christianity from your examples of the Grand Order of Cross-Eyed Scarlet Mooses which, (if it really existed), would presumably be a masonic type male only group and politically correct Aryans which would be an overtly race-based group.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

Is not the concept of Roman Citizen one that predates xianity? Who was that black Roman Emperor?

Solo

Nonsense ! The ideas of community (polis) of citizens (politai) who had certain rights as members of the community shaped much of Greco-Roman antiquity. The problem of course was that aliens, women and slaves were excluded from the decision making and had minimum protection by the laws as they were considered the responsibility of their hosts (aliens), family (women) or owners (slaves). Paul's formula of equality of all humans before God,

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

was a novel and breakthrough idea which had neither precedent nor independent parallel in antiquity or in modern times. Naturally, for Paul the equality was contingent on a religious confession; it was a revealed truth. Yet the vision behind it was so compelling, that once it took root, it acquired a life of its own. The rationalism of the eighteen century transformed it into a vision of a civil society, a truth that was self-evident without the religious casting. Yet it was at origin a religious vision which only an ignoramus or secularist bigot would deny.

....and fought with other Christians who thought it was a "notorious sin" , as the Quaker Benjamin Lay proclaimed in 1737's first anti-slavery treatise titled "All Slave-Keepers that keep the Innocent in Bondage. Apostates." One thing I can guarantee you: you will not find any secular humanist fighting slavery before the age of John Brown.


This is again simplistic broadbrush which has no handle on the historical developments of women's advancements and the churches' role in them. In the middle ages, the Church - while naturally upholding traditional gender roles - introduced novelties which strengthened the social standing of women. Most importantly: the canon law since 12th century required the consent of women to marriage. This of course, was not the church'es invention but adaptation of ancient Roman laws, nonetheless it created a specifically western style of marriage, based on amorous desire and "partnership", an idea either unknown or considered "crazy" in other cultures (Dinesh de Souza writes about this often). Aquinas in "Summa Theologica" stressed something he called "maritalis affectio" (marital affection) as the basis of dignified Christian marriage. Convents were often complex social institutions providing education, hospital care, orphan care and sheltering women social outcasts.

The Mariannic cult in the Middle Ages, bizzare as some of its aspects may seem to feminists today, had enormous impact culturally, countervailing the hostile or vulgar male stereotypes of women, supplying a model of feminine purity and grace, a spiritual being in her own right. The cult of Mary led to wide social acceptance of women as leaders of men (Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I.) but had much larger impact in shaping the courtier culture, and later in the defining of the bougeois "polite" society, which dictated respect for women. People who are ignorant of the social developments of women in the West simply would not know where the Western gallantry and responsiveness to women originates. One of the great jurists of the 13. century, Henry Bratton, a self-described as the "priest of the law", ruled thus on the right of gentlemen to sexual intercourse with an unwilling prostitute: " It is forbidden to force a harlot for the offender knows not her mind to be certain when she renounces her sin. Further, the law of England does not judge so hardly of offenders so as to cut off all opportunity of retreat even from common strumpets."

With Protestantism, women got even further. The Pauline equality between men and women was taken very seriously among Lollards, Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists and nearly all other Protestant denominations that followed. One of the forgotten aspects of the Reformation was the advance of elementary education in Protestant regions, and the fact it was co-ed. Thomas More had to educate his daughters at home. By the time of the Bard, women writing letters was commonplace: Malvolio in The Twelfth Night says that Maria’s letters are in Roman hand, which was taught in grammar school and replaced the earlier Gothic calligraphy.

The religious freaks had also their way with women batterers. Calvin declared wife-beating a felony in Geneva in 1550.

Finally of course, it appears that almost all the early women suffragists (in the US, at any rate) were organized in churches. In fact, all the major figures recruited from the Quaker, Calvinist, Methodist, and Unitarian churches as an offshoot of the early anti-slavery movement.

Go figure !

Jiri

KrisK10

Jiri,

You seem pretty well versed in the ideas of D'Souza. Would be curious your opinion on something he says on pg. 78 of "What’s So Great About Christianity":

"We may say we believe in human equality, but why do we hold this belief? It is the product of the Christian idea of the spiritual equality of souls. We may insist we believe that all human life has dignity and value, but this too is the outgrowth of a Christian tradition in which each person is the precious creation of God. There is no secular basis for these values, and when secular writers defend them they always employ unrecognized Christian assumptions. In sum, the death of Christianity must also mean the gradual extinction of values such as human dignity, the right against torture, and the rights of equal treatment asserted by women, minorities, and the poor."

It seem to me that D’Souza has a point. Western civilization, including its concepts of human equality, human dignity, and human value, from which modern democracy sprung, was built on and propagated through the Christian tradition. D’Souza concludes from this that there is no human equality, human dignity, or human value without Christian belief. But it seems to me that these things are more likely rooted in human compassion. In this case Christianity, instead of being the sole source of human equality, human dignity, and human value, is more accurately the primary venue which made a significant advancement in these concepts and then took them the farthest.

What do you think?

Kris

Toto

Let's suppose that in Europe and North America, concepts of human equality came out of the Christian tradition. (Notice how artful D'Souza has to be here: he can't claim that they are inherent in Christianity, or were introduced by Jesus or the Bible, because the evidence is against him. So he has to talk about the "Christian tradition." And even then, it took a long time for that tradition to develop.)

How does it follow that without Christianity, these ideas will die? We have tried them, and we like the society that results. We can be post-Christian, secular Jew, secular humanist, Buddhist, or whatever, but we believe in equality because we believe in the social contract, not because we recite the Nicene Creed and believe that Jesus was born of a virgin.

And please note that Christian history shows that many Christians have not believed in equality or human dignity, and have in fact practiced torture, including Christians that D'Souza probably associated with in his sojourn in Republican politics. The Christian tradition includes the Inquisition, burning witches, the divine right of kings, support for dictatorships which have not respected human rights, etc. Some Christians, nevertheless, developed some better ideas. Good for them. But what took so long?

spin

:wide: :wide: :worried: :worried: Surely this is GRD...?


spin