Did Christianity inhibit intellectual progress?

Cypress said:
Taking history as a whole, there have never been very many atheists. They were always a tiny fraction of the population. So you can't expect them to have played some kind of enormous, outsized role in the history of human ethics. There just weren't enough of them.
Click to expand...

I often wonder about that. Atheism has never been socially acceptable (even today polls show that atheists are among the least trusted people in any given society). So there's a strong social pressure to act like one believes. It makes it easier to exist alongside others. I suspect, for example, that many politicians have passed through our society who didn't believe in any god or gods but who mouthed the words correctly and played along for the greater purpose of their own goals. Some nakedly embrace religion and use it to control others while, themselves, clearly not believing a word of it.
 
Quincunx said:
Apologies.
Click to expand...

I think it is very natural to organize our world into meaningful units. For example, we form countries and debate what laws to enact and how the government itself will function. This is quite secular and has nothing to do with spirituality. What meaning do I as a person have? Just fulfilling my duties as a citizen? Certainly more than that.
 
RB 60 said:
Those of us who were taught the religious language from these ethical traditions. And if these ethical traditions have been infused into human societies by osmosis, why try to strip them away?
Click to expand...
For the same reason you presumably adopted Jewish and Zoroastrian ethical traditions, even though you have stripped away the original religious context and adapted them for your own cultural and religious traditions.

Because theses moral tenets and ethical aphorisms are meaningful to decent humans regardless of where they came from.
 
BidenPresident said:
Christianity, in its intellectual iterations, didn’t replace Greek thought, Mr. Freeman argued in that earlier book, but adopted one part of it: that of Plato rather than Aristotle. Western thought consequently became inward, rational, deductive and “authoritarian,”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-re...n2l3tudgyt8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Click to expand...

If your thesis were correct, why did the Christian West advance so much further than any and all pagan societies?

It's not even close.
 
Cypress said:
For the same reason you presumably adopted Jewish and Zoroastrian ethical traditions, even though you have stripped away the original religious context and adapted them for your own cultural and religious traditions.

Because theses moral tenets and ethical aphorisms are meaningful to decent humans regardless of where they came from.
Click to expand...

You presume too much. Read my posts. I am considered the "miserable old white man" who yells at kids to get off my lawn.
I generally don't yell at them, I let them play as long as they don't ruin anything. I'm a "Reichtard" according to some here (lol1)
Hell, a few here think I'm a white supremacist! :eek2:, but I'm not. I'm just the average American who's quite proficient with a gun.

I have no problem with anyone from anywhere who wants to go through the legal channels to become American citizens.
but if they are leaving their countries and expect to bring their cultures with them, I say leave them there, or stay the hell home.
 
RB 60 said:
You presume too much. Read my posts. I am considered the "miserable old white man" who yells at kids to get off my lawn.
I generally don't yell at them, I let them play as long as they don't ruin anything. I'm a "Reichtard" according to some here (lol1)
Hell, a few here think I'm a white supremacist! :eek2:, but I'm not. I'm just the average American who's quite proficient with a gun.

I have no problem with anyone from anywhere who wants to go through the legal channels to become American citizens.
but if they are leaving their countries and expect to bring their cultures with them, I say leave them there, or stay the hell home.
Click to expand...

So you do have a problem with those who go through the right channels if they bring their culture!?!?
 
Quincunx said:
I often wonder about that. Atheism has never been socially acceptable (even today polls show that atheists are among the least trusted people in any given society). So there's a strong social pressure to act like one believes. It makes it easier to exist alongside others. I suspect, for example, that many politicians have passed through our society who didn't believe in any god or gods but who mouthed the words correctly and played along for the greater purpose of their own goals. Some nakedly embrace religion and use it to control others while, themselves, clearly not believing a word of it.
Click to expand...

I think Donald Trumpf and Richard Nixon were basically atheists, but they could never openly identify with it to the electorate. I am convinced Ronald Reagan was completely irreligious, but I'm not sure if he was essentially an atheist or not.
 
Jarod said:
So you do have a problem with those who go through the right channels if they bring their culture!?!?
Click to expand...

Yep. I sure do. They are coming here to America. They should adapt to our cultures and traditions. If I moved to, say Spain, I would learn their
language before I went and would adapt to their culture. I left America. Why would I want to continue practicing my American culture in Spain?
 
The Christian Liberal-Arts School at the Heart of the Culture Wars

When DeSantis and other Republican politicians try to articulate what they’re for—what exactly they want education to look like—one name comes up repeatedly: Hillsdale College. DeSantis has said that he probably wouldn’t hire someone from his alma mater, Yale. But “if I get somebody from Hillsdale,” he said, “I know they have the foundations necessary to be able to be helpful in pursuing conservative policies.”

In January, DeSantis’s chief of staff told National Review that the governor hoped to transform New College of Florida, a public liberal-arts school, into a “Hillsdale of the South.” One of the people involved in implementing the reforms is a dean and vice-president at Hillsdale.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/...-arts-school-at-the-heart-of-the-culture-wars
 
RB 60 said:
Yep. I sure do. They are coming here to America. They should adapt to our cultures and traditions. If I moved to, say Spain, I would learn their
language before I went and would adapt to their culture. I left America. Why would I want to continue practicing my American culture in Spain?
Click to expand...

Do you have any concept of how our culture got to where it is now? Obviously we do not follow the culture of the indigenous American.
 
Jarod said:
Do you have any concept of how our culture got to where it is now? Obviously we do not follow the culture of the indigenous American.
Click to expand...

Do we follow the culture of Christianity? NO, but we somewhat used to since our inception, and we were the most feared country on the planet. Thanks to the left, Joe & the Ho, that is no longer true.
 
RB 60 said:
Do we follow the culture of Christianity? NO, but we somewhat used to since our inception, and we were the most feared country on the planet. Thanks to the left, Joe & the Ho, that is no longer true.
Click to expand...

Missed your point. The US is feared because we are Christians or because we are not?
 
Uncensored2008 said:
If your thesis were correct, why did the Christian West advance so much further than any and all pagan societies?

It's not even close.
Click to expand...

The Christian West would have been virtually nothing if it weren't for the work of the Muslim empire that kept the knowledge of the ancient world during our "Dark Ages" (not that they were that dark even in Europe, but you get the point). And, indeed, we owe much of our MATHEMATICS to the Muslim societies.

Yes there was a lot of stuff we did in the West that was great. But the minute we lose sight of the important contributions from all other societies is the minute we get lost up our own behinds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top