Christian ethics vs. Roman values

Sock Sockinski said:
I read for history or documentaries ,science isn't a subject of interest.
All religious beliefs are filtered thru the Holy Spirit.
No source filtered thru men is a good a source as the Holy Spirit.
Click to expand...

You're talking about your triune god, Jews and Muslims worship one God who is without form
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Agreed. Also like Christians, most Muslims mind their own business. They don't turn into terrorists seeking to impose their ways on everyone else.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Terrorists are a political movement using religion to justify their cause. Read some of the memoirs of terrorists--most were not religions but often former gang members and criminals who celebrated with drugs and alcohol attracted by the looting.
 
BidenPresident said:
Not exactly. Jesus does say he is the only way to God. It's a rather hostile assertion.

Early Catholic theology is very explicit about having to believe in God....as they conceive it.
Click to expand...

True, religion may say you are going to burn in hell for not believing in Jesus, but it does not call for a person to torture, murder, or steal from others. A lot of Old Testament stuff calls for stoning people for sins, but that is not Christianity.
 
Flash said:
True, religion may say you are going to burn in hell for not believing in Jesus, but it does not call for a person to torture, murder, or steal from others. A lot of Old Testament stuff calls for stoning people for sins, but that is not Christianity.
Click to expand...

Whole thing stinks. Old, New, whatever.
 
Jack said:
Think way back in time.
Wasn't there always a 'Big Chief' and a 'Witch Doctor'.
See, same thing, just different names.

The 'comparison' was to illustrate the identical excuses by the religious types. Anything 'Bad', it was somebody else or 'not really __________ ' (insert Religion here)
Click to expand...

And it also occurred by those not using religion as a justification. For some it was just conquest.
 
Flash said:
And it also occurred by those not using religion as a justification. For some it was just conquest.
Click to expand...



There always seemed to be some Witch Doctor, High Priest, Soothsayer around. It seemed to go hand-in-hand. After a 1,000 year Rule, the Renaissance finally drove a wedge between the State and the Church.
If you notice, 'Religion' continues to try and seize back Power.

Prefer Secular Humanist Law?
Or the Religious Law that kills people for 'working on the Sabbath', 'homosexuality', 'Witchcraft'?
 
Jack said:
There always seemed to be some Witch Doctor, High Priest, Soothsayer around. It seemed to go hand-in-hand. After a 1,000 year Rule, the Renaissance finally drove a wedge between the State and the Church.
If you notice, 'Religion' continues to try and seize back Power.

Prefer Secular Humanist Law?
Or the Religious Law that kills people for 'working on the Sabbath', 'homosexuality', 'Witchcraft'?
Click to expand...


I prefer secular laws (although some of the examples you mentioned were interpreted as secular).
 
Flash said:
Agreed. Terrorists are a political movement using religion to justify their cause. Read some of the memoirs of terrorists--most were not religions but often former gang members and criminals who celebrated with drugs and alcohol attracted by the looting.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Dumbasses want to blame the religion and can't see exactly what you pointed out: the terrorists are using it for political purposes to justify their cause.
 
Sock Sockinski said:
I read for history or documentaries ,science isn't a subject of interest.
All religious beliefs are filtered thru the Holy Spirit.
No source filtered thru men is a good a source as the Holy Spirit.
Click to expand...

You are going to be waiting a very long time for the Holy Spirit to fill your mind with knowledge about particle physics, Roman history, or Greek metaphysics.

I acquire that kind of knowledge from trained subject matter experts. I don't wait around hoping the knowledge will just pop into my mind by divine intervention.
 
Cypress said:
According to noted religious scholar and historian of Antiquity, Jack of JPP, the emergence of Christianity had no effect on the moral and ethical framework of the Roman world; Romans had exactly the same values and ethics as the Christian apostolic church.

Now, the mainstream, midde-of-the-road, milquetoast, highly reputable Encyclopedia Britannica reports almost exactly everything I ever told Jack about this topic:

-Judeo-Christian ethics were something new and influential in western history.

-For whatever it's faults were, Judeo-Christian ethics was a significant cultural shift in the west, including the diminishment of slavery and the end of the practice of infanticide.

-The Greeks and Romans emphasized a different set of values than Christian ethics emphasized.

-For the Greco-Romans ethics were something one chose to do as a matter of practical reasoning. The Greeks and Romans did not think of a distinctively moral realm of conduct.

-For christians, ethics were legalistic, they were morally and theologically binding and immutable. That was a new kind of metaphysical vision of ethics in the west.

^^ That is what I have consistently written and that is what Encyclopedia Britannica reports.
Click to expand...

Practice of Charity Changes in the Christian Roman Empire

According to Kenneth Harl, professor of antiquity at Tulane University, the nature and practice of charity changed dramatically as the pagan Roman Empire evolved into a Christian state.

The practice of public distributions, or almsgiving, in pagan Rome were dispensed according to rank: the higher your social rank, the more you received from the State.

The Christian tradition of almsgiving in the Roman Empire reversed this tradition: in the Christian tradition of almsgiving, the more you needed, the more you received. This ensured that the poor and destitute were the primary beneficiaries of charity. It was simply considered more pious to practice almsgiving this way
 
Cypress said:
Practice of Charity Changes in the Christian Roman Empire

According to Kenneth Harl, professor of antiquity at Tulane University, the nature and practice of charity changed dramatically as the pagan Roman Empire evolved into a Christian state.

The practice of public distributions, or almsgiving, in pagan Rome were dispensed according to rank: the higher your social rank, the more you received from the State.

The Christian tradition of almsgiving in the Roman Empire reversed this tradition: in the Christian tradition of almsgiving, the more you needed, the more you received. This ensured that the poor and destitute were the primary beneficiaries of charity. It was simply considered more pious to practice almsgiving this way
Click to expand...

Interesting change. Any idea what it was in ancient Greece or Persia?
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Interesting change. Any idea what it was in ancient Greece or Persia?
Click to expand...

The New Testament is the first piece of literature in the western tradition that writes directly about the poor and destitute with dignity and empathy.

There is nothing remotely similar in Greek literature of antiquity. To the extent the destitute and impoverished even show up in ancient Greek literature, they are treated as subjects of comedy or caricature.

So, I think Greek concepts of public distributions were probably not dissimilar to pagan Roman practices.


The moral of the story is the very idea that almsgiving should primarily benefit the destitute and poor is something all of us in the west inherited, knowingly or unknowingly, from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It just seems like a perfectly natural and self evident ethical imperative because that ethical tradition has been with us for 1,800 years.


A downside of Christian ethical tradition is that it left us as a legacy the burden of unnecessary guilt, particularly about sexuality.
 
Last edited:
I see jesus like socrates and seneca, a true philosopher murdered due to envy of the powerful.

the fact of the jesus cult merger with the roman imperial cult doesnt mean that much.
 
Cypress said:
The New Testament is the first piece of literature in the western tradition that writes directly about the poor and destitute with dignity and empathy.

There is nothing remotely similar in Greek literature of antiquity. To the extent the destitute and impoverished even show up in ancient Greek literature, they are treated as subjects of comedy or caricature.

So, I think Greek concepts of public distributions were probably not dissimilar to pagan Roman practices.


The moral of the story is the very idea that almsgiving should primarily benefit the destitute and poor is something all of us in the west inherited, knowingly or unknowingly, from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It just seems like a perfectly natural and self evident ethical imperative because that ethical tradition has been with us for 1,800 years.


A downside of Christian ethical tradition is that it left us as a legacy the burden of unnecessary guilt, particularly about sexuality.
Click to expand...

there was charity before christianity. you're whole notion is asinine.

morality is rational and evolutionary, darwinian murder berserker.
 
let's cut to it.

is valuing human life a strictly "religious" value?

and does that means separation of church and state mean allowing murder?
 
infinite ingroup is the next step of our evolution.

with infinite ingroup, divide and conquer has no meaning, and definitely cannot be used to destroy a target population.
 
AssHatZombie said:
there was charity before christianity. you're whole notion is asinine.

morality is rational and evolutionary, darwinian murder berserker.
Click to expand...

You have a substantial amount of work to do in improving your reading comprehension of the English language. You need to respond to what I actually wrote, not to what you wish I wrote.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top