I quite agree that when religion, including Christianity gets involved with how a country is run then, yeh things are not as they should be. and yes when "christians" get legalisitic and try to dictate morality in the society they are in, things are far from where they should be. The vast majority of Christians in the U.S.A however do not operate i a way even remotly resembaling Chritian.
Christianity's teachings on morality are quite clear, put everyone before yourself, be acountable to your fellow belivers but don't hold them acountable to yourself.
What has fucked up the states is a perversion, not hte real thing.
Fair enough point of view but the article states the US as being the chief offender not the only one.
More to the point, the moral position you state is just that; a moral position. There is no necessity to have a belief system attached to it other than the belief that it is better to treat people well than badly. One could make the argument that, as it is in countries like the States where literal belief in the Bible is more prevalent than the more liberal interpretations which are common here, that it is the belief that is at fault, not the morality. Also, no doubt the American style evangelists would say, as they are strong believers, that it is your, more liberal, beliefs that are the perversion, not theirs.
yes. I would agree. I however, can't deny that it is, for myself anyway, the belief in Christ that makes me want for live out the morality. There is absloutly no sane reason to put everyone before yourself, or at least to make a decision to try to, without that belief
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I'm not disputing your view on the moral content of Christianity, that all sounds fair enough to me. It's just that it's more or less the same moral content as that of Islam or Judaism or Hinduism or pretty much any modern religion. There are atheists and agnostics (and not just a few) that recognise that treating people around them well is likely to improve other people's treatment of them and contribute to a better social environment and that perpetuating a cycle of violence is fairly futile behaviour.
Incidentally, the reason the original tone of this post exhibited a pretty unjustified level of schadenfreude is because that historically it has been heavily implied (if not stated) that members of organised religions occupy a higher moral ground than secularists and I was somewhat amused to read that not only may this not be be the case but in fact the opposite may be true! (As I have long suspected, frankly.)
and were they to adhere to christian morality they would, and cetainly I would have thought being christian would make it easier to do so, but yes when organised religion starts trying to enforce morality its a slippery slope to a damned, psychotic and generaly unpleasent society.
Comments 6
I quite agree that when religion, including Christianity gets involved with how a country is run then, yeh things are not as they should be. and yes when "christians" get legalisitic and try to dictate morality in the society they are in, things are far from where they should be. The vast majority of Christians in the U.S.A however do not operate i a way even remotly resembaling Chritian.
Christianity's teachings on morality are quite clear, put everyone before yourself, be acountable to your fellow belivers but don't hold them acountable to yourself.
What has fucked up the states is a perversion, not hte real thing.
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More to the point, the moral position you state is just that; a moral position. There is no necessity to have a belief system attached to it other than the belief that it is better to treat people well than badly. One could make the argument that, as it is in countries like the States where literal belief in the Bible is more prevalent than the more liberal interpretations which are common here, that it is the belief that is at fault, not the morality.
Also, no doubt the American style evangelists would say, as they are strong believers, that it is your, more liberal, beliefs that are the perversion, not theirs.
Reply
Reply
Incidentally, the reason the original tone of this post exhibited a pretty unjustified level of schadenfreude is because that historically it has been heavily implied (if not stated) that members of organised religions occupy a higher moral ground than secularists and I was somewhat amused to read that not only may this not be be the case but in fact the opposite may be true! (As I have long suspected, frankly.)
Reply
Reply
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