RE: "I disagree with you, but i don't think you're Hitler"
February 25, 2011 at 1:52 pm
(This post was last modified: February 25, 2011 at 1:53 pm by Rwandrall.)
(February 25, 2011 at 1:19 pm)Shell B Wrote: Even if what you say above is true, which I will argue in a moment, that doesn't mean that Christianity introduced equality, compassion and sanctity of life, or even that it represents it.
Do you think Aristotle was the first person to feel sympathy for the poor and express it? Have you not considered the civilizations that came before Ancient Greece? Furthermore, you have wandered off your original argument that compassion, equality and sanctity of life were introduced by Christians. You've now shown that compassion was introduced long before Christianity.
Compassion is not a concept that only describes feeling sorry for the poor. I am sure that compassion has existed as long as the concept of family or motherhood has existed. In other words, animals had it before we did. As for equality, check out Sumerian law. Women and men were equal, a concept Christians fought for a very long time. Sanctity of life? What is sanctity of life to old school Christians? Kill them if they piss you off? Pretend he's a witch and then you won't have to pay your debt because we'll burn the motherfucker?
Indeed, i guess i didn't explain myself well there. The concepts of equality, sanctity of life and compassion as we understand them today were present in a way, but they were nowhere as evolved and more importantly as central as Christianity made them to be. They were brought up and made as primordial values by the Church. For example, for equality, everyone is absolutely equal because everyone is a sinner. For sanctity of life, everyone's life is worth equal because we are all "made in God's image". For compassion, Jesus' utter and complete devotion to help those who can't help themselves was a step further than what the populations at the time were used to.
Utter bullshit of course, but bullshit that did shape our modern sense of morality.
And i think my position is not clear enough: i think Christianity IS harmful and IS a bad thing for humanity to have, that is without question. However Christianity (and religion as a whole) is not entirely a horrible cult of murderers and bigots, and its ranks are not entirely composed Jesus freaks and irrational zealots. A large number of theists are good decent people and as such making blanket statements about their religion being the root of all evil and calling them retards simply because of their religion and nothing else is simply something i object to.
