Check your PM.
Then please withdraw or modify your “diminish” statement.
Longevity alone isn’t evidence. I’ve stated earlier that if Judaism had shared Christianity’s aggression and flexibility. it could have been the dominant faith. Similarly, the faiths of the Huns, Muslims and Mongols could have been the dominant faiths, with a little more military success. This leads me to speculate that aggression, flexibility and military success are key, rather than anything specific to Christianity.
And if you honestly can’t conceive any way in which your premise might be wrong, then the discussion is pointless. I can conceive of ways in which I might be wrong, in contrast, I just haven’t seen a sufficiently compelling argument and points I raise are being ignored.
You’re doing exactly what you accused me (and others) of doing; creating a strawman. Of course Christianity has a place, and a rather significant place, in human history. So do Buddhism and Judaism and the Greco-Roman pantheons and communism and capitalism and germ theory and Euclid and Plato and Newton and Einstein.
At this stage in human development, i.e. the information age, I’m prepared to say that Christianity (by which I mean the specific mythologies of a virgin birthing the saviour and related concepts) is no longer necessary and could gradually fade as other philosophies have faded. I doubt it’ll disappear completely; it’ll adapt, possibly becoming one particular flavour of universal Unitarianism. The Catholic Church will persist for quite some time, as will its influence, but it’ll never be a ruling body again. I suspect followers will increasingly see the church as a useful and comforting but not vital part of their lives and it wouldn’t surprise me to see papal approval of gay marriage in my lifetime. American evangelicals will continue to represent the fringe in Protestantism, and their fate will be most interesting to watch over the next few decades - either fade away or resurge with a new Reagan-figure. What charismatic leaders will rise after Billy Graham (now 90) and will freely-available information and opinion spread via internet help or hinder them? I personally think it’ll help them attract individuals who already think as they do, and they’ll gradually become a smaller group with a more extreme viewpoint, but you never know.
As for a “secular Red Cross”, I don’t see a critical need to get replace the current religious Red Cross, nor have I given any indication (that I’m conscious of) that I want it and similar organizations shut down.
The diminishment is in your insistence that some other hypothetical cultural form could come in and perform the same function.
But it didn’t. You are asking me to argue against things you are simply making up. ‘If Judaism was different from Judaism it could’ve happened thus.’, isn’t somethign I can respond to. If Gravity didn’t exist we wouldn’t be chained to his ball of dirt, but it does, and so we are. All this speculation about what could happen if history happened differently is pointless. WHat if Germany beat us to the bomb? What if Tamerlane had been smothered in his crib? What if the Mayans never developed their Calendar? What if South American cultures developed the dominant culture rather than Eurasian ones? What if the Moon was habitable and the Earth wasn’t, and we were living on the Moon? Sure, we can imagine all sorts of scenarios that didn’t happen, change a few essential points of history and all would be different. What if Caesar hadn’t conquered Gaul? What if Octavian Caesar had been a homosexual? What if the Spartans were rolled over at Thermopylae? What if Tokugawa expanded beyond Japan? What if…what if…what if…
You are just not arguing with it effectively. You are asking me to consider fictional scenarios.
Yes, good I agree with that entire paragraph.
Well I think you are right that we are moving toward a more post-Christian environment. I disagree that we have outgrown Christianity.
I wasn’t claiming that you did. My point was simply that Christianity still provides necessary and useful services. These organizations are inspired by Christian principles, and the world would be worse place for the lack of them. IMO of course.
It’s like the Libertarians who believe all services should be provided privately, but you don’t see many prominent libertarian charities. I think Christianity does compel people toward charitable acts, and that the loss of Christian charity would be a very bad thing for the world.
Then we disagree on what “diminish” means. It in no way diminishes an athlete’s accomplishment to point out that other athletes could make or have made similar accomplishments, especially when the nature of the accomplishment is itself subject to lengthy debate.
That’s because my repeated requests for you to name specific Christian concepts necessary to your claim get ignored. I’ll try to state this as clearly as possible and I’ll gladly restate if you’ll point out flaws:
What religious elements of Christianity, if lost, would make it not-Christianity? The divinity of Jesus? The sermon on the mount? The four gospels? How much of the “emphasis” of Christianity could be lost (indeed, how much of this was routinely lost when Christians went on Crusades and such) and yet have the same effect? Is Christianity special because of Christ, or because it stumbled across a very good formula for rapid growth - aggressive proselytizing, centralized power structures, assimilation of existing customs, and other prosaic methods? If it was indeed about Christ and not about power, why were there multiple schisms and wars within Christianity? Exactly (or at least roughly) when did Christianity bring about a compassionate unified Europe?
Until these issues are addressed, I see no reason to exaggerate the (admittedly significant) role played by Christianity. If it wasn’t Christianity in Europe, it would have been something else.
Well it is a diminishment if you refer to a fictional athlete. Yes of course the Flash could be Carl Lewis in a race, hands down no contest. You’re asking Christianity to be judged by the standards of speculative fiction.
You are again working from a fundametally flawed premise. You are looking at the parts and not the whole. The whole of Christianity as a culture as a widespread community encourages people to behave a certain way. Yes it is possible that those methods could be replaced, but the reality is that they are not. It’s not about trying to dissassemble Christianity and examine its parts.
I disagree with your premise that civilizing factors are predestined. “If not Christianity then something else.”, how do you know the world wouldn’t be looking at Europe in the same way as we look at Africa now? Maybe Europe would have just degenerated into complete Barbarism without a centralizing factor from Rome.
I wasn’t aware Judaism and Islam were fictional. I maintain your “diminish” statement is in error.
Parts of Christianity argued, often to the point of war, exactly what the whole of Christianity should be. How many sects and denominations are there currently? When did the monolithic Christian culture (the “widespread community”) you imply ever exist?
So speculation is okay when you do it? Indulge me - I dare you to say Europe might be more advanced without Christianity. If it’s all empty speculation, then you shouldn’t have a problem doing so.
You have not, in any case, attempted to respond to any of my points.
Your ‘if Judaism were different from what it was, and history happened differently from how it did then…’ statements are unaswerable. If history happened differently then yes anything is possible. That is the only answer I could give. What if Islam hadn’t become antagonistic to science around the time Christendom was experiencing the enlightenment? Who knows? It didn’t happen that way.
It exists now, the argument about rifts doesn’t change that. I see on message boards all the time where Catholics, Evangelicals, and Orthodox come to a common agreement quite regularly.
Europe might be more advanced without Christianity.
I can’t. All of your arguments are self-affirming. ‘If things happened differently but in an equal way then it could have happened.’, yes of course in your hypothetical where it happens without Christianity it can happen without Christianity. But when you ask me imagine this I think of all the lives that would not have been lived as they were if they were a different religion.
If Judaism had been a proselytizing religion the world would be radically different, unrecognizable from its current form.
You can’t list the basic and necessary tenets of Christianity?
Literature.
Earlier, I pulled a cite from an introduction to Aesop’s Fables. Now the author may have been talking out of his hat. But if he really maintains that kindness and compassion were outside of the popular imagination, then we have the makings of a potentially falsifiable hypothesis.
It’s my understanding though that there were a number of cults emerging at the dawn of the common era. For example, Apollonius of Tyana was reputed to heal the sick, perform miracles and foretell the future. Sound familiar?
The cult of Isis was also popular: “Behold, I have come to you in your calamity. I have come with solace and aid. Away then with tears. Cease to moan. Send sorrow fleeing. Soon through my providence shall the sun of your salvation rise.”
We might think of Christianity as a technological improvement upon some of the religions that came before it. But if it wasn’t initiated by Jesus of Nazarath, then something like it might have been developed by others anyway.
Then again, Christianity had certain traits that may have helped its longevity. It encouraged literacy, which meant that its practitioners were more likely to be hired by the state. It was intolerant of competing beliefs, which addressed the problem of dilution, mutation and replacement.
With qualifications, I think I can get behind this.
Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior is the only truly necessary tenet of Christianity. The rest is Judaism repackaged for a Gentile audience. The Decalogue and all that. Charity, Compassion for the sick and the poor. Faith being the source of all personal power.
I lost sight of that behind all the queries about fictional societies.
Historiography:
How does one assess the significance of an invention, person or event?
In the case of railroads, Nobel Laurette Robert Fogel posed the counterfactual: what would have happened if the railroads were not invented? Would the US still have developed as an industrial power? Could it have?
Fogel answers in the affirmative: to be sure railroads reduced transportation costs, relative to the alternatives. But to some extent such cost declines were already in place, largely due to the expansion of canals. Fogel illustrates that economic development is an organic process, one that doesn’t depend upon one critical lynchpin or another.
So the discussion of alternative histories is not merely wool gathering.
There is no way to reliably predict what proselytizing Jews or victorious Muslims would have built in Europe. So you can make whatever predictions you want, but good luck building that canal through the Rockies.
Okay, and if there was a religion that had all the methods of Christianity but did not believe in Christ as personal Lord and Saviour, (some factions of Christianity, as I understand it, leaned or are leaning in this direction, so it’s not even an absolute within Christianity, nor is the trinity concept itself entirely original to Christianity), is it possible Europe would have developed into something we could call “compassionate”?
Entirely my fault - instead of asking the same question a mere three times, I obviously needed to go for a fourth.
In any case, if the primary question of this thread is “Did Christianity have a sociopolitical impact on Pagan Europe”, the simple answer is “yes, along with innumerable other influences.” I don’t get the impression you consider analysis of the question and other possible answers worthy of the effort and on that note I’ll ease out of the thread. I’ll keep an eye on it (it has my name on it, after all) but barring the introduction of new arguments, I’ve said all I need to.
I think you’re going a bit far afield here. First, you’re confusing religion with culture. The former is a part of the latter.
One thing is predominantly noticeable in thriving artistic centers. They are also have great multi-culturalism and diversity. This was not acheived spontaneously through Christianity. It was acheived with a couple very important building blocks.
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The Roman Ceasars from Julius to Hadrian used the legions to build a highway system throughout the empire. This allowed travel and more importantly
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Trade. With the Roman highway system, merchants were able to move their goods to a greater number of customers. As a result everyone was exposed to new ideas and cultures. Ironically, without these two things the religion you claim spawned the Enlightenment would have either died in obscurity or moved down into Egypt or possibly Persia.
Look at the artistic centers in our own country. They are hubs of multiculturalism, not hubs of religion. New York, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Boston. All have world class museums, music, poetry, food, engineering, technology. All honor the traditions and customs of other cultures. If Christianity was such a driving force for creativity, the museum at Fort Worth would not be the sorry excuse it is.
I’m not even going to address the ridiculous assertion that Christianity inspired the Trans-Continental Railway.
Syntropy - Johann Sebastian Bach, Michelangelo for starters. The Roman High Church was very amenable to art and culture in a way that Evangelical salt of the Earth types are not.
Okay, I see your Michaelangelo and raise you the Pantheon, Pompeii, the Roman Baths and the Colisseum. None of those things were inspired by Christianity except for maybe the last one and that was only because it was fun to throw them at ravenous carnivores.
I’m not disputing that religion was a heavy influence in Renaissance art. A good chunk of it was. I am saying that all that art and culture and engineering did not begin and end with Christianity and it’s short sighted to say otherwise.
You are leaving out the process of Romanization and the self-conscious extinction of local languages and the co-optation of local religion and culture. Rome was most certainly not a paragon of diversity and tolerance. It is interesting to consider that of all of the greatest Latin authors of the golden and silver ages, among these paragons of romanitas, only one of them was actually Roman. Yet they were all Roman to the core. You would be hard pressed to find even the remotest trace of their local cultures in any of their thought and writing.
Oh, I never claimed they were paragons of all that was shiny and good in the world. Far from it. Rome leeched what was best about other cultures, kept those things for itself and discarded the rest. Catholicism is a great example.
My point was that the Enlightenment was far more likely the outcome of exposure to those other cultures than Christianity.
Right but you are sticking with one of the common straw man tropes. That an argument recognizing Christian influence over Western Culture is an argument that everything good in Western Culture came out of Christianity. I gave birth to my daughter but not even 2 yet and she is her own person. I and my wife are more influential on her life than anyone else will ever be, because she owes her life to us. The Enlightenment was similarly born to a Christian society. While the child may diverge from their parent and accomplish great things, their very roots are necessarily their very roots. That does not mean the Grandparent does not have its own accomplishments either. However, each of these Western Epochs brought to the world their own particular benefits and problems.
Mainly my view on it is that reflexive hate for Christianity is sad. It is a part of our culture and deserves recognition for what it is. A lot of the culture war hostility is overwrought and often just petty and cruel from both sides. I believe there could be greater understanding even without acceptance of core beliefs by either side. There is a lot there even just philosophically. Aristotle and Plato had wacky beliefs too, but they don’t receive the same vitriole, though Plato righteously deserves it for creating the myth of the impossibly wise ruler as an essential part of society. I believe Augustus Caesar really tried to be Plato’s Philosopher King, but from then on people were living in Caesar’s shadow, because as society gets bigger, and organization systems get more complex, the contribution of any individual human, even an exceptional one, is lessened by its proportion of the aggregate so we cannot have it, yet expect our rulers to be that. Is Barack Obama a Philosopher King, a Caesar or a Christ? Either way he’s going to be judged by the comparison to both. Plato’s unique little contribution to the personalization of the Demiurge. 
We all have impossible standards these days, and thus are often disappointed by people’s ability. Christians generally do not live up to the incredibly high standard that Christ sets, whether he is mythological or real. But I know real people who were violent and mean, self-destructive who have found a discipline against that craziness because of Christianity.
Um. Not as sad as the assumption that atheist MUST equal hatred of Christianity as an excuse for dismissing valid arguments. Sad, smug, condescending and dismissive. Also judgmental. Wrong as well.
I do not hate Christianity. Or Christians. My life is full of people I love that are Christians. That does not stop me from recognizing that Christianity is not the end all be all of civilization and that Christianity did not give birth to the renaissance whether you choose to acknowledge that fact or not. The renaissance happened in a Christian society. It also happened in a Chinese one as I have shown and both you and ITR Champion have been unable to refute. The fact that you both simply decided to pretend that post did not exist because it effectively proved you wrong was not lost on me.
I know people who are violent and mean, self destructive and petty because they think their Christianity allows them to treat others they deem “less Christian” than themselves cruelly and unkindly. Does my anecdotal data trump yours? No. No more than yours does mine. You’re playing mental twister because you cannot prove your argument with logic. Your argument has been reduced to “I’m right because I say so.”
Please quit using “Straw man.” You’ve been wrong every time you’ve said it.