Paul's Writings Underpin Western Thought

[SteveII]

[brewer]

Your objections are easily answered by what was more important to God's plan: 1) Moral outrage against the long-standing institution that would have to be undone over a long period of time at the cost of 2) spreading the Gospel that would effect long-term, far-reaching change and get more than a few into heaven.  It is entirely consistent that God would let all kinds of social injustices occur as the price of more people coming to know him.

You claim to know gods plan? Did he speak to you about it? What's next for the world?

So much for Paul's free will.

[The Valkyrie]

Pretty sure I took the Hippocratic oath, not the Paul oath...

[Angrboda]

Your objections are easily answered by what was more important to God's plan: 1) Moral outrage against the long-standing institution that would have to be undone over a long period of time at the cost of 2) spreading the Gospel that would effect long-term, far-reaching change and get more than a few into heaven.  It is entirely consistent that God would let all kinds of social injustices occur as the price of more people coming to know him.

You claim to know gods plan? Did he speak to you about it? What's next for the world?

So much for Paul's free will.

Typical Christian. When God speaks, it's their lips that do the moving.

[robvalue]

If God didn't want there to be slavery, there wouldn't have been slavery. If he was just writing a load of rules and then sitting back to see who follows them, then he might as well have written "no slavery" along with all the other hundreds of ludicrous rules no one follows anyway.

[SteveII]

Just as a counterpoint, and lacking the energy for a greater reply, I want to suggest something.  I think, though I'd have to research it more, that what Paul is being credited for here is some of the more humanistic elements that he and his movement may have contributed to us.  Thinking back to such examples as The Eloquent Peasant, I can't help but be skeptical that such impulses are original with Paul, but rather reflect a greater zeitgeist that was already present in society.  (And I think it unfair to draw explicit comparisons to specifically Roman ideals as such a process leads to ignoring social elements that may have existed prior to Paul, but are not well represented by a simplistic take on Roman society.  I think specifically of the contributions of Hellenism and Judaism here, in addition to other movements we are not well informed about.  Such comparisons, especially in the hands of a dishonest and biased advocate, can be grossly misleading.)  With that digression aside, I think that one of the things we can credit to Paul and Christianity is to give a divine mandate to some of these more humanistic impulses.  However, in that I see a two-edged sword.  Society as a whole seems to have progressed best over the past few centuries in as much as it became secular and abandoned such divine justifications for purely human and mechanistic ones, based on a philosophy of rationalism, rather than a divine mandate.  It may be somewhat unfair to attribute this all to secularism in contrast to the religious impulse and its contribution, but I don't think it can be sufficiently minimized as to be ignored either.  We have noticed in numerous contexts the effect of religion and Christianity impeding progress in various areas, from the scientific to the social, and often explicitly via the authorization of its divine mandate.  So, in some senses, even if Paul's thinking brought us one or two steps forward, it simultaneously set us one or two steps back.  (I think of the issues of free will and morals, and the notion that we should still be largely constrained in our search for answers by ancient appeals to divinely sanctioned bollocks like the soul and the divine origin of morality, particularly as it applies to same-sex relations, abortion, and so forth, and can't help but think we are still experiencing the regressive effects of sourcing our views in any religion's "special revelations.")  Regardless of how much or how little one attributes the advances of the past few centuries to the rise of secularism, it's indisputable that some of the most profound contributions to the modern world and human well-being, from agriculture, to medicine, to government, to globalization, and to technology, have come in an era where divine mandates were pushed aside in favor of secular imperatives which did not impede our progress to the same extant as religion did.

So, ultimately, I'm skeptical of how much Paul and Christianity contributed that we supposedly wouldn't have had without them (and that seems to be the implicit thesis, not only that there were good things in Paul, but that without Paul and Christianity, we wouldn't have had these good things).  I'm, as noted, highly skeptical of such a thesis, and, lacking specific competence in the relevant subjects of history, and so forth, I'm not inclined to believe such claims when put forward largely as mere assertions, many of which quite likely rest upon a selective and biased reading of the evidence.  That being said, just intuitively, I think Paul and Christianity did as much to set us back as move us forward, and the ways in which they did were explicitly based in being religiously based contributions.  I'm not inclined to favor the more general thesis of an overall benefit, given the slim evidence presented in this thread, nor do I intend to do a significant amount of research into the relevant fields to answer the question on my own.  So I'm inclined to remain agnostic about Steve and Holland's claims, admittedly colored by considerable skepticism, as well as being colored by an element of cynicism on account of prior experience with apologists and apologist arguments, both as to the specific type of thesis -- Christianity's contribution to the greater good -- as well as generally -- being that apologist's have a well-attested track record of shitty and sophistic arguments, cherry-picking, distortion, bias, and outright dishonesty.  My skepticism needs no defense.  And I think my cynicism is quite well justified.

(Now, I've talked at length here and still haven't responded to Steve's most recent contributions.  Hopefully, I'll get to that in the coming days.  First, however, I'd like some clarity from Steve on just what his thesis is, as noted in my last post.  He doesn't appear altogether clear himself.  Anyway, as noted, I'll try to muster the energy to reply to Steve's latest volley at another date.  I may not succeed.  Oh well, I guess.)

My thesis is that Paul's instruction on Christianity significantly shaped western thought. Absent it, things would have turned out differently. How different? That's hard to know. What we can look at are changes in the western culture following the time of Paul and determine what beliefs were not likely a result of Roman progress (or the breakup of the empire) but do appear to have a causal connection to the brand new worldview inherent in Christianity. Additionally, we can look at other cultures that were isolated from the west and what some differences might have been a result of the Christian influence versus no Christian influence. 

I pointed out several categories in Post#35.

Regarding some of your comments above, for the purposes of this thread, I am not interested in what "Christians" did centuries or millennium after Paul.  I am interested in the questions of the core philosophy and if it changed the course of western thought. Secularism seems to be more of a result of overreach from man-made Christian institutions rather than the rejection of some of the core principles of that religion.

[Mister Agenda]

You claim to know gods plan? Did he speak to you about it? What's next for the world?

So much for Paul's free will.

I should think that if Paul's story was true, his free will took a steep dive on the road to Damascus.

[robvalue]

Where was God when slavery started? Was he on the toilet? Why did he sit around doing nothing until it took a stranglehold?

[The Grand Nudger]

A separate equality, lol.
So was proclaiming jesus king.  Here, though..really think about what you're saying.  Underneath it all there is an assumption that God Himself would be opposed to slavery..and that a proper understanding of scripture would effect that change...and laying aside the fact that it didn't (quite the opposite!)....you're only telling us that..maybe, "Paul" omitted this or that which might be politically or legally inconvenient in the word of the lord.  

You're the recipient of the...... "letter".  They are polemics. 

So..omitted politically inconvenient portions of the word of the lord in service to some personal fear of his that never came to pass?  Jesus christ...this all sounds so familiar, lol.

Your objections are easily answered by what was more important to God's plan: 1) Moral outrage against the long-standing institution that would have to be undone over a long period of time at the cost of 2) spreading the Gospel that would effect long-term, far-reaching change and get more than a few into heaven.  It is entirely consistent that God would let all kinds of social injustices occur as the price of more people coming to know him.

What objections, lol?  Before, you painted paul as a cold-hearted and calculating fisher of men.  Now.... it;s god who's getting the Steve Treatment.  Why would I object?

[possibletarian]

As I recall my days of faith, once you believe there is a god with a plan then anything that happens (no matter how inconsistent with others views or logic) necessarily have to be consistent with gods plan.  I don't think I even realised I was doing it and I was very good at explaining things away, you only see how convoluted that logic or thinking is when you become an unbeliever.

No wonder at least from the eyes of whoever wrote the Pauline letters it appeared that those who lost their faith became blind, from a believers perspective that's exactly what it looks like, and in any case they would have to believer it to continue to justify their faith and is a common theme through all religions.