RE: The decline of evangelical Christians.
January 17, 2019 at 3:18 pm
(This post was last modified: January 17, 2019 at 3:22 pm by Brian37.)
(January 17, 2019 at 2:04 pm)Acrobat Wrote:(January 17, 2019 at 11:20 am)Brian37 Wrote: Where?
Less violent today, does not mean were never violent, nor does it mean they cant get violent in the future.
No, sorry, even today, even though the different sects of Christianity are more civil today, does not mean Christianity is the cause of that civility. Again, religion in the west became less violent in spite of religion, not because of it.
Even today even in America we see plenty of right wing Christian hate groups who have committed crimes against other liberal Christians. Even today you will not get a White Evangelical Trump voting Baptist to agree with a black Baptist who voted for Obama.
This isn't just about Christianity. Even in Asia, you wont get a Tibet Buddhist sect to agree with a Chinese Buddhist sect with a Japanese Shinto Buddhist sect.
The reason the west became more civil, is not because of religion, but because of concepts of checks on power.
And again, I am being very fair. Not even the word "atheist" denotes nationality, ethnic, race. "Atheist" doesn't even denote political or economic view. The world would still have divisions and conflicts, even if all 7 billion of us were atheists.
The point is all 7 billion of us are one thing, humans, the same species. Our borders and social norms we are used to, are of locality, but that does not change nor will ever change that we are the same species.
Okay I get it, when there's civility between different sects of Christians it's in spite of religion. If there's violence between christians sects, it's because of their religion.
This is a good example of what cognitive dissonance, and confirmation bias gets you.
Hello McFly, stop missing my point.
This isn't about Christianity alone. My argument would be the same if you claimed to be a Buddhist or Hindu or Jew or Muslim. I don't care.
Our species ability to cooperate existed prior to any written religion. Our species ability to be cruel ALSO existed prior to written religion.
In the west, our longer exposure to education and technology brought humans closer which caused us to see we were not as different as we thought.
Religion is not what causes humans to be cruel or compassionate. Our evolution is where our behaviors come from.
You keep missing the point that humans are going to do good or bad, all over the world, in every religion regardless. But even with the west, even with the age of enlightenment, it still took several centuries more to get to our modern age of pluralism.
There is an average of more civility in the west, only because the west has had a longer period of checks on power, including religion.
Christianity does not own a patent on morality, neither does any other religion.
