One that was strongly implied by what you were saying, and is a standard Christian claim.
Other than yourself, you mean? If you’re going to point out that pre-Christian religions preached the Golden Rule but then weren’t all that great about putting it into practice, isn’t it relevant that the Christians likewise weren’t all that great about putting it into practice either?
Abandoning your family is not a Christian principle-those who fail to provide for their family are condenmned as being worse than infidels.
Christian principles means also the unique doctrines of Christianity such as that the only way human beings can be redeemed from sin was through Christ.
Religions, plural? Which ones? What heroes of the Old Testament were lauded for their kindness to non-relatives and non-tribesmen? What New Testament heroes were given a free pass to cheat their brothers out of their inheritance, to pimp their wives out to Pharaoh’s men, to kill their rivals and steal their women, to bond their grandson into slavery? Aside from Judaism (because you mentioned multiple religions), which other pre-Christian religions made any connection at all between ethics and theology?
You’ve got issues with Christianity? So do I. Some of the same ones as you, actually. But if pairing personal decency with religious faith wasn’t Christ’s innovation, may I ask what you think his significance to world culture was? Because I don’t think any major world religion was based on some magic tricks at a wedding.
He lent his name to a rabidly aggressive religion that conquered & slaughtered its way to being one of the world’s most numerous religions. Intolerance and aggression are the two most historically & culturally important features of Christianity; without those it would at most be some relatively harmless local sect.
Its most important features were proclaiming a brotherhood of man. And Roman pagan religion was spiritually bankrupt by 300, only Christianity could offer a real path rather than just Oriental mystical mummery.
Yeah, it could offer Middle Eastern mystical mummery.
Nonsense; empty words at best. The overarching theme of Christianity has always been one of division; the True Believers, and the Unbelievers. And the former trying to destroy, convert or enslave the latter. You might as well try to characterize some empire like Rome as standing for the Brotherhood of Man because they kept trying to conquer everyone. Like Christianity, they wanted everyone to be united; under their thumb, and no matter how much blood they had to spill.
:rolleyes: As if Christianity isn’t “mystical mummery”.
But:
Mark 10:29-30
Matthew 19:29
Luke 14:33, 18:29-30
would indicate that this was not the teaching of Christ…is it “Christian?”
The post right above yours anticipates and answers your question:
It’s the perfect sales pitch: you face eternal damnation, or neverending paradise, in the afterlife – which means there are no falsifiable promises about payoff or punishment here on earth, where God only ever works in mysterious ways – such that infinite incentives hinge on whether you declare yourself for a Judaism offshoot that likewise strips away the inconvenient down-to-earth stuff: delicious bacon is back on the menu, painful circumcisions are unnecessary, you simply accept otherworldly forgiveness and move on, spreading the word to folks who spread the word.
That’s a devastating little competitor, as world-religion memes go: it doesn’t involve a rain god who sometimes doesn’t deliver, there’s no reason to question your faith when you see an unbeliever enjoy a long and happy life before serenely passing away; there’s little to it beyond Pascal’s wager. (Which often gets derided hereabouts for being useless given hypothetical religions that offer similar stakes for similar terms – but were any other religions selling that back when? Or were they all offering comically less, in risk and reward, while failing to offer a pat explanation for why a deity sure didn’t seem to be intervening as expected when expected?)
On this we agree. When someone says “I’m a Christian” it tells me zero about their character as a person.
Buddha taught incredibly similar principles of living and our treatment of others, 600 years before Jesus did.
Which beats Confucius, who IIRC was teaching the golden rule maybe 500 years before Jesus.
I don’t see that as a principle at all. I see it as doctrine or dogma. It certainly doesn’t apply to the context of the phrase.
A nation made up primarily of Christians , went out of it’s way to keep religion out of the government. No Christian doctrine there.
That’s why I object to the term and the idea that it is often repeated and accepted without really being thought through.
The fact that Christianity became a world religion doesn’t indicate innovation at all. IMO world religions contain a lot of the same elements and reflect mans common quest for answers,and meaning and how they connect to the world around them.
I asked for religions that mandated it. Confucianism isn’t a religion. And as every Buddhist I’ve ever met keeps reminding me, neither is Buddhism. Try again.
I understand what you’re saying, but… Green activists eschew pork. So do Muslims. But they do so for profoundly different reasons. Plenty of philosophers prior to Christ taught that empathy and considerate behavior were good common sense, but none of them claimed that it was essential to gaining favor with God. Short-changing foreigners was never endorsed outright, but it wasn’t forbidden either. Goofus and Gallant existed in some form in every culture, but the Good Samaritan didn’t.
I’m pretty sure you’re incorrect about the good Samaritan. As I said, Buddha taught 600 years prior to Jesus. As far as gaining favor with God, that’s kind of my point. That doesn’t strike me as a principle , but more doctrine. The actual principles were around long before Jesus , which means , while Christianity may have principles in common with other religions and philosophies, there really aren’t any uniquely Christian principles.
Unsatisfying as it is, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I semi-agree whether Buddha was a religious figure in this context.
As I’d already alluded to, Christianity was late on the scene compared to the rabbi Hillel – who boiled down the Torah for a gentile who asked him for a standing-on-one-foot summary: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.” He presumably did so because Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness and the rest drew no distinction between locals and outsiders; they were merely delivered from on high, by God’s designated lawgiver, in the absolutist language of universals.