A very good essay by Vasko Kohlmayer, at American Thinker;
Virtually demolishing the West�s traditional morality, the Left has managed to legitimize promiscuity, illegitimacy, abortion and homosexuality. This transformation has reached a point where in many quarters these behaviors are not only considered acceptable but outright commendable.
Through its aggressive atheism, the Left has succeeded in virtually eliminating Christianity from our public arena, and to a large degree from the private sphere as well. This trend has been especially pronounced in Europe where only some seven percent of the population engage in some form of regular religious observance.
The Left�s seemingly insatiable hunger for governmental expansion has bucked the West�s long-term trend toward the limited State. Dominated by large, all-intrusive welfare states, the condition of many European countries could be justifiably described as soft socialism. The excessive taxation and regulation which are the inevitable byproducts of this have virtually strangled their free economic enterprise and induced long-term economic malaise. Diametrically opposed to the ideals of classical liberalism, this state of affairs represents a complete subversion of western political and economic tradition.
By teaching that the masterpieces of the West�s greatest creative minds are no more intrinsically valuable than artifacts of far less advanced societies, the Left has deprived westerners� of their justified pride in their own culture. And by lying about the West�s past, it has managed to suppress our consciousness of historical greatness.
The Left�s successes have been largely due to its takeover of the two main channels for the dissemination of knowledge and information � the media and academia. Careful to avoid positive portrayal of the West in almost any context, they abound in aspersions and criticism. In the process, the Left has devised an ingenious and effective mode of censorship to further its ends. It is called political correctness.
Read the whole thing.
Sticking with the theme….
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It would be so cute with your orange jumpsuit, dahling … |
The Origins of Political Correctness
An Accuracy in Academia Address by Bill Lind
http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html
It is a mistake to attribute the decline of Christianity to the rhetoric of the Left. Christianity took much more of a blow from the Enlightenment, a much more right wing phenomenon (individual rights et al), and from the rise of Science which progressively removed areas from the religious domain.
If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
Jim, You need to identify the point at which Europeon society as a whole disconnected not the elites. Try post-WW2.
Kate’s post is close to the mark. The enlightment and science are not substitutes for religion. The modern state tries to be right down to providing a different set of things to feel guilty about (smoking, weight, homophobia etc.).
While the US has stricter legal separation of church and state than we do, they have managed to keep religion more public and co-incidently (?) they have two kids per completed family.
The difference between Western states are probably of more interest to look at than the similiarities. I still suspect WW2 unhinged Europe. The Netherlands is the case in point.
The Return of Patriarchy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376
Political correctness means always having to say you’re sorry.
I think this article gets it half right.
The refusal of the west to stand up for it’s own values has been a fundamental cultural failure of the past 25 years. Academia must take a large part of the blame for this.
BUT…
This article GETS THE VALUES WRONG. Lack of Christianity isn’t the problem. Failure to adhere to socially conservative norms is not the problem.
The values that make the west different and successful are Liberty, Democracy, Reason, and Tolerance.
These are the values of the elightenment. These are the values that set the west apart.
The Netherlands is, in fact, almost a perfect example of these values (Canada, the US, and the UK are all good examples too).
The problem is, the intellectual elities of the west have, in the past generation, refused to assert the rightness of these values. They have refused to say “our societies are better because they are equal and free”.
What the west needs is an intellectual and political elite that is willing to stand up for the western small-l liberal democractic model.
It is wrong to cane women for adultery. It is wrong to enforce a religion with coercion. It is wrong to advocate murder over a cartoon. It is wrong to deny free expression and elections.
Not all political systems are equally legitimate.
I just wish we had leaders who would say so.
Yes, it’s all the left’s fault. Ignore the rapists and pedophiles in the clergy and focus on blaming the left who have just wrecked everything for everyone.
GM,
Liberty, Democracy, Reason and Tolerance are based in the Bible. Like cut flowers, they will not thrive for long when disassociated from their roots.
By the way, I consider my debauchery as nothing more than me doing my part to fight those evil Islamofascists who demand I straighten up and fly right. Abortions on demand or the terrorists win.
yeah i heard the Left has so much power that Capitalism is now run out of a little Marxist office in Berlin. You see Capitalism is over but the Leftists keep it going because they really dont know how to break it to the True Believers.
AND the Left has created global warming as a plot to finish off any last vestage of the DREAD Capitalism which of course gets its fuel from that most fervent of all religions NEOCONISM.
No really by bringing into light prostitution, abortion, homosexuality what the left has done is expose the Right as deathly anal retentive and hypocritical about some human realities that need to be demythologised and seen for the human constant that they are. Yes folks now we actually have to face these things. Disneyland is over.
“Political correctness means always having to say you’re sorry.”
…good one, RWS 🙂 A point missed in that essay is the constant never-ending bombardment with guilt…we’re supposed to feel guilty about everyting we do. I don’t feel guilty and don’t need to be forgiven…
D
not sure what steve d and robert are trying to say, but I don’t think that there can be too much doubt about how the Left is against Christians, especially evangelical ones like George Bush, and how they love every culture except their own. Oh and they are also for self-determination except when it comes to Jews in their own tiny land
This article started out good and then entangled itself in so many cliches, I started to tune out. I was beginning to think it was a leftist pretending to be on the right, just to confuse everyone.
the AMERICAN THINKER?
Vasko Kohlmayer defected from Communist Czechoslovakia at the age of 19. He lives in London and works in the publishing industry.
GM,
I agree, the relative lack of Christianity has helped rather than hindered western civilization. It is a mistake to think that Christianity was the inovating force behind the unequaled advances made in the western world. You hit the nail (almost) on the head, reason, individual liberty and rational self interest are the key to the (once again relatively) strong position we find ourselves today. We have achieved this largely despite the influence of religion or mysticism. Mysticysm can take many forms: Christianity, Islam, and yes the left wing mentality this article pivots on are but different versions of the same thing as are the various manifestations of totalitarianism we have seen throughout history. They all have as their fundamental base the need for altruism as thier highest value. Sacrifice for the greater good, be it the state, christ, the environment, you name it. And no tolerance is not of itself a value but a bi-product of rational self-interest.
The writer of this article makes the same mistake so often made by conservatives. Athiesm is the absence of a deity in any form, that means the Stalinist state, Nazi Germany or whatever other “godless” example you hold up. Those despots knew that substituting their own “values” for god only gave their depravity legitimacy in the eyes of people who craved a power, any power, that they could relinquish the responsibility for their own lives to. Athiesm is not to blame, the inability to take responsibility for ones own life is.
ex -liberal,
One thing that the bible and christianity does not support is reason. The bible and christianity demand a leap of faith that is fundamentally opposed to reason. Nor is liberty biblically supported unless by liberty you mean that you are free to worship any god as long as it is one that demands you prostrate yourself and tremble in the presence of god.
White guys in suits will save us, and they’ll probably be old white guys. They didn’t achieve all this just to have it thrown away for the sake of pleasant or not so pleasant dictatorships. Western english speaking countries are the most free, most wealthy places in the world – the best in other words. Everyone agrees with this worldwide – does anyone emigrate from these countries? No. Do people who live in savage and backward lands want to get in? Obviously!
There is no debate – all those pithy pundits in media and academia who hate what ‘evil white guys in suits’ have done etc – they’re hypocrites and they know it, you won’t see them buying a house in the suburbs of Tehran or Beijing or Nairobi anytime soon.
I feel like sticking ‘Christian Supremacists’ on this one.
Robert: you’re obviosly drinking some powerful sh*t tonight.
Mark F: you obviously just came back from a long visit to DU or Kos. When you’re done reading Michael Moore’s latest tract in Mother Jones, take two days off and re-read the article by Kohlmayer.
And don’t prove me right by responding with pure contraries.
I’m not sure the west is doomed. When I first visited Denmark as a strapling — hnnkkkkk — excuse me — in the seventies it was pretty much the most Liberal place on earth. And yet one giant wet slap has managed to do what a decade long-series of nudges have been unable to — take a lot of the air out of lofty words. Where Danes used to congratulate themselves on their kind and flexible openness, they are now dealing matter-of-factly with the chafing, painful morning-after results of their own blitheness.
The rest of the Western world is also beginning to realize that there’s a world of difference between noble-sounding sentiments and the inevitably bad results which occur when a ship of state is built on such utterances.
So “collective suicide” as a term is a bit overly pessimistic. The West is starting to realize that the Left has been taking a big messy crap in our collective watering hole. That they have been loudly narrating the entire event isn’t exactly helping them anymore either.
Doug:
I think Michael Moron is way out there.
I have heard of but never bothered with those sites you mentioned, I can at least thank you for not including the word koolaid in your post.
I agree with much what Vasko Kohlmayer says. I feel he makes some leaps in logic that are too much. I also feel that the number of cliches detracts from what could be a scholarly article.
I merely noted that he works in the “publishing industry”, great way to “kill the golden goose”,(aka MSM) 😉
Ex-Liberal,
while i do not deny that christianity can be conductive to the values I have described, and has aided in the development of the west in this regard, I disagree that christianity is necessary for them.
Tolerance, reason, liberty, and democracy can stand on their own. These were (largely) the values of Athens.
Here is the big problem with this article:
The problem with the west is NOT tolerance for homosexuality, promiscuity, or abortion.
The problem with the west is tolerance for dictatorship, theocracy, oppression of rights, and bigotry.
If we excuse these evils in other countries, if we pretend that they are not ALWAYS wrong, we deny both the value of our own civilization and the rights of those, trapped under the rule of tyrants, who desire something better.
Tolerance, reason, liberty, and democracy can stand on their own. These were (largely) the values of Athens.
Seems to me that society came crashing down.
Canada and most European states are still surviving on the foundations laid by Christianity. If you want to look at a truly secular state check out China, North Korea, and the former USSR. Seems to me that some of those values, (Liberty, Democracy, Reason, and Tolerance) that Christianity is supposedly not responsible for are glarringly absent in these countries.
If you truly believe that Christianity has had little impact on the development of Western Society, then i would point to the fact that most of the great academic institutions throughout the western world were founded by Christians. Also, the longest running, largest and most effective charities, oh yeah, all Christian. Pretty sure the ground work for and abolishment of slavery were laid by Christians. The concept that all men are created eqaul, that idea wasn’t too popular before Christ.
But I don’t blame the Left for the decline of Christianity (in the West) Long ago Christians decided to remove themselves from the market place of ideas. Their voice was becoming increasingly unwelcome in thinking circles. However, the choice of silence was freely chosen. Recently that trend has started to become reversed, whether it can be turned around remains to be seen.
I would agree that there is a certian type of self-hatred amongst the Left in Western society.
DT you said:
“Athiesm is not to blame, the inability to take responsibility for ones own life is.”
If no ultimate Source bestowed moral conviction upon mankind, what standard are we to set for ourselves? Without some kind of known moral code, would not mankind have destroyed itself with vicious self-interest long ago?
“The Bible and Christianity demand a leap of faith that is fundamentally opposed to reason.”
Unless you have proven the non-existence of God, then I’m pretty sure that atheism also demands a leap of faith. Where’s your TOLERANCE of other people faith?
I didn’t Say that christianity wasn’t USEFUL in the development of the ideas i’ve listed (quite the opposite; i said it was helpful).
What I said was that Christianity is NOT what defines the west.
I stand by that statement.
Canada and the United States can more easily trace their origins to John Locke or Montesque (christians but profoundly secularist) than to the bible.
Ol Hoss,
Actually, Athens didn’t “come crashing down”.
It ceased to be independant after Alexander the Great, but it’s Ideas continued to inform helanistic and later, Roman rulers (by the time rome fell Rome was largely christian).
The essence of Athenian political/philisophical culture was revived in the renaisance and persists to this day.
I would be very proud if modern western civilization had a similiar legacy.
What I said was that Christianity is NOT what defines the west.
Canada is 80% Christian, that makes us a Christian country.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo30a.htm
Actually, Athens didn’t “come crashing down”.
Sure it did. Permissiveness and a lack of morality weakened them to the point they couldn’t defend themselves.
As is always the case where there is no foundation other than the incessant debates of academics.
“Canada is 80% Christian, that makes us a Christian country.”
1) the percentage of actual, churchgoing christians is much lower then that
2) Our civic values are fundamentally secularist. we do not impose christianity on our society as a whole.
“Sure it did. Permissiveness and a lack of morality weakened them to the point they couldn’t defend themselves.”
Simply not true.
What you have said describes the fall of Rome (which, go figure, was christian by the end)
Athens fell (though was not destroyed) because it was a small city state overwhelmed by the more numerous Macedonians, who spoke Greek and shared much of Athens’ culture (Aristotle had been Alexander’s tutor).
In Fact, Athens, along with the other Greek city states, had successfully repelled the Persians only a few short years before. By the time the Macedonians arrived, Athens had been militarily exhausted not by “permissiveness” but by another protracted war with sparta.
the point is, culture had nothing to do with it.
the percentage of actual, churchgoing christians is much lower then that
A church, scripturally, isn’t made of wood or stone, so that would be no measure of Christianity.
Our civic values are fundamentally secularist. we do not impose christianity on our society as a whole.
Our Head of State is also Defender of the Faith.
Certainly some values are imposed, equality before the law comes to mind.
the point is, culture had nothing to do with it.
All they were was a debating society with slaves to do the work.
” i would point to the fact that most of the great academic institutions throughout the western world were founded by Christians. ”
It was difficult not to be a Christian when Christians purged anyone who disagreed with them. Think of Christianity as the Islam of the Middle Ages.
I basically agree with Ryan’s statement “…I don’t blame the Left for the decline of Christianity (in the West). Long ago Christians decided to remove themselves from the market place of ideas.”
I’m a Christian, ‘returned to the Church after 14 years away–and that was a long time ago!–and was quite shocked to find many of my fellow-constituents so meek and cowed by the left-lib-fem coalitions. There is so much history in Canada that can be defended as the left-lib-fem guys try to trash it and tear it down: virtually all of our hospitals, schools, and universities were founded by religious institutions, be they Christian or Jewish–and the thing about hospitals, schools, and universities founded by Christians is that they have always been open to ALL Canadians, not just Christians. This is true tolerance, diversity, and openness, but you’d never know it from the predominant buzz in the media or academe.
BUT, Christians have to stop hiding their light under a bushel and mount a spirited defence of our faith and what it has contributed–and still is contributing–to our country’s health and well-being. We have to stop being afraid to speak up–and we can do it compassionately (and passionately) by simply speaking truth into lies. I do this quite frequently. And while it’s true that my husband and I are scratched off certain people’s party lists, we’ve made some wonderful, and sometimes surprising, friends while standing up to be counted.
Hey Jim
you said:
“It was difficult not to be a Christian when Christians purged anyone who disagreed with them. Think of Christianity as the Islam of the Middle Ages.”
Christianity was hardly the Islam of the middle ages. The Crusades were launched more for political and economic expansion then the cleansing of Jeruselem. Don’t confuse what is done in the name of religion, with the actual message of religion.
Your pointing to a low ebb in the history of mankind, and making it the fault of Christianity simply b/c it existed at the same time. Is it really surprising that in mankind’s darkest hour, religion would become perverse? If anything Christianity is partly responsible for pulling mankind out of the darkness and into the light.
Also I would point to the fact that Christian and Muslim scribes were the one who preserved all the the “sacred” knowledge that has survived from the ancient world. Hardly a purge.
All of the debate about christianity misses the point, I think.
If the war going on today was between totalitarian, medievil christians and totalitarian Medievil Muslims, I would be utterly indifferent to the outcome.
Christianity, until about 300 years ago, was no more tolerant or peaceful than fanatical Islam is now.
Both religions CAN be religions peace, but they must be tempered by reason and reformation.
The war that is going on in the world today is NOT christianity vs. Islam.
It is democracy versus theocratic facism.
Our side has Christians, Jews, Muslims and others on it.
Victory will not be to convert people, but to liberate them.
Okay, Ol hoss:
“Certainly some values are imposed, equality before the law comes to mind.”
Sure. But those values are not just christian values. Indeed, Christianity has often imposed inequality, historically.
“All they were was a debating society where slaves did the work”.
Athenian society was in no way perfect. My point was that their IDEAS, which predate christianity, still influence western society today. Indeed, it would be very hard to describe “the west” without some reference to those ideas.
(btw: slaves did the work, but citizens did most of the fighting)
Sure. But those values are not just Christian values.
Maybe you can find some other set of values that espouse equality before the law.
Athenian society was in no way perfect. My point was that their IDEAS, which predate christianity, still influence western society today.
The pioneers built this country. The ideas of some ancient debating society only offered the tool of democracy as a method of government.
The actual ideas implimented, within the framework of democracy, are Christian. Certainly the Athenians didn’t have equality before the law.
Marxism-atheism isn’t the answer anywhere in the world. According to this article (excerpt)Buddhism and Christianity are growing in China:
Beijing (AsiaNews) � At least one-third of the 60 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) belong to a religious organization and half of these, some 10 million members, participate regularly in religious services. But the Central Committee is not standing by passively and is prohibiting party cadres from participating in religious activities and is promoting Marxism and atheism, but many members are defending themselves: �Faith is a personal matter and we will never sell ourselves to the Party.�
There are various fundamental causes for the growth of the religious phenomenon within the ranks of the CCP: the first is the collapse of the strengthen of Communist ideology and its ethics, which has stimulated many people to look to religions for a meaning to life.
In the attempt to counteract the wave of religious faith within its ranks, the CCP initiated a campaign two years ago to promote atheism through radio and television programmes, internet and university seminars. As of a few months, it as also invested 20 million euros in a campaign to revitalize Marxism.
If anyone has ever seen wasps gorge themselves on apples, you can get a good image of the state of Canada.
Was visiting a friend who had an apple tree out front and went to pick one. It looked ok, but something a bit weird, wasn’t as shiney and round looking but still looked like an apple.
Upon closer investigation I see a small hole on one side and inside were two wasps gorging themselves. They were so full that when they left they did akin to a couple of feet drop and then managed to get up higher.
Looking inside it was almost hallowed out.
I couldn’t help thinking “this is Canada”. We let the Liberals gorge themselves on what it took to make Canada a proud country and turn it into an empty shell of an apple. Someday if things aren’t resored, this empty shell will collapse on itself from lack of inner support.
I hope Harper & Co. does indeed restore Canada, but if not, we will just be an empty shell of something that was once shiney, offer nurtients, and proud for the world to see.
I’m Sorry ol’ Hoss,
But tolerance and equality before the law are NOT just christian ideas.
In the middle ages, for example, muslim societies were considerably MORE equal than christian ones.
Equality before the law developed slowly, and more out of the demmands of an emerging middle class than any Christian idea.
In fact, the church was traditionally largely agianst the idea, since the church was allied with the Aristocracy.
Tolerance was a REACTION to christianity, as a result of the brutal wars of the reformation. Religious tolerance (and later cultural tolerance) emerged as a necessary means of co-existance.
Tolerance, in the west, emerged as a way to clean up the mess that Christianity created.
This is not to say that Christianity is incompatible with equality or tolerance (although the the bible endorses killing gays and owning slaves). Far from it.
The main reason, however that christianity works with ideas like tolerance and equality is that is has been re-interpreted to do so. Christians choose to ignore intolerant and unegalitarian parts of the bible. This, is, of course, necessary and commendable.
But it doesn’t make tolerance and equality purely christian ideas.
“The pioneers built this country. The ideas of some ancient debating society only offered the tool of democracy as a method of government.”
Actually, they also added ideas like formal property ownership, Rational inquiry, and to some extent, freedom (they were the first people to even have a word for it!). Imagine western civilization without these ideas. I can’t.
“Maybe you can find some other set of values that espouse equality before the law.”
As I’ve said, Christianity does NOT, in and of itself, require equality before the law. It has often been interpreted to the contrary.
But since you asked…
Secular humanism
or, if it must be religious…
Buddhism
LOL, now the pioneers who built this country were secular humanists or Buddists…well, according to the latest leftist re-writing of history.
Better go back to your debating society and debate some more, your credibility isn’t too good here.
As I’ve said, Christianity does NOT, in and of itself, require equality before the law. It has often been interpreted to the contrary.
No doubt deemed so by the local debating society. It’s so simply written even a child can understand it. Well, other than leftist children who indulge in incessant debate over some mythical history.
Numbers 15:16, “One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.”
It strikes me that solely blaming the “left” for the decline of Western values and religion doesn’t capture the whole picture. I think that the post-WWI extreme right (which one could perhaps dub “left” when they are contrasted to conservatism or liberalism – the Nazis were after all a [National] Socialist Workers Party) and the cataclysm of WW2, as others have mentioned, really nailed the coffin shut.
Though fascists often made overtures to the Christian churches (in Germany with a fascist Protestant church, in Italy with the Papal Concordat and in Hungary between the Church and Horthy) their doctrines were fundementally opposed. Even fascist movements that dubbed themselves catholic, like the Belgian Rex movement or the Action Francaise, were officially denounced by the Church.
Hitler and his ilk insisted on the elimination of Christian virtues and values. Chastity: Italian and German women were to be solider-factories, and special breeding facilities were indeed set up in Germany. The facists also undermined the liberal ideas of autonomy and individualism – forcing and encouraging people to rely on a hyper-inflated state apparatus that would dominate their lives. Nazis and their collaborators could not tolerate the morality of Christianity and so their propaganda worked to undermine it: how else to justify exterminating the weak and the social-darwinain ideal of dominance by the strong?
The enormous upheaval caused by WW2 only served to further alienate the young from the trappings of Christian values and from authority figures in general.
“Fascists” (a lose and unweildy term) controlled large parts of Europe for between 15 and six very important years in European development. Their impact on the course of modern western society is often discounted, either because it is unpleasant to talk about (which it is!) or because they lost the war, and so we consider the whole episode best forgotten, save for ensuring the atrocities committed are remembered to avoid any repetition.
Regardless, in excess of 500,000 young (non-German) Europeans served in the German armed forces either in Russia or in their own countries: some were surely conscripts, sadists or opportunists. But many, rather disturbingly, must have been motivated by idealism.
The post-war societal combination of these morally-detached individuals (there were likely 5 sympathisers for every one person in uniform) with those shattered by the experience of a “total war” AND those loyal to “leftist” ideas created a natural maelstrom for Christian virtues.
Ol Hoss,
Did i say that that the pioneers were secular humanists or buddhists?
No.
You asked me to name one value system other than christianity that could work with equality before the law. I named two.
STOP deliberately taking quotes out of context. It is beneath you.
Let me ask you this:
If christianity requires equality before the law, and indeed, is the only system capable of doing so, then can you explain the first 1500 years of the history of your faith?
five hundred years ago christianity was interpreted to be AGAINST every value we’ve listed.
It was used to justify absolute monarchy, brutal religious wars, torture and inquisitions.
“No doubt deemed so by the local debating society. It’s so simply written even a child can understand it.”
Really? then why have popes and kings taken christianity to justify intolerance, inequality and other abominations?
“The local debating society” didn’t do these things. Devout, powerful christians did.
Then the reformation and the elightenment happened. People began to hold christian institutions to their own alleged values and question authority using rational inquiry. The people who pushed for elightenment, were in many cases, avid students of some arcane debating society I’ve mentioned. Yes, these people (locke comes to mind) were christian, but their fudament value was not faith, but reason.
Christianity (like many other faiths) has been responsible for both great advances and terrible crimes. Let’s not pretend that it has been any other way.
ol hoss,
secular humanists do not want to see, or they are just illiterate when it comes to the Bible. Thank-you for pointing out that verse from Numbers. Mosaic Law unlike anything in the ancient world (Hammurabic law in particular) instituted that everyone was equal before the law, even the king. The idea that humans are “created in G-d’s image” means that all human life is equally valid. The idea of the ‘brotherhood of man” stems from everyone being the children of one G-d.
a joke;
when Moses was coming down from the mountain with the 2 tablets, he said to the people: Listen I have some good news and some bad. The good is, we still get a day off. The bad, adultery is still in.
One other thing:
Don’t accuse me of “leftist re-telling of history”
Everything I’ve said about history gives a very traditional version of the story: that the history of western civilization is the history of reason, democracy, and tolerance defeating ignorance, absolutism, and sectarianism.
Any leftist/post-modern historian would undoubtedly condemn my version of history as Euro-centric and patriarchial.
Actually, I’m probably more angry than you are over the fact that the values of the elightenment such as reason, free inquiry, and democracy are being rejected in favour of political correctness, post modernism, and anti-americanism in many schools.
You believe that western civilization is good because it is christian.
I believe it is good because it is free and rational.
There are those who believe that western civilization is evil. I think we both oppose them.
But ex-liberal,
I ask again: how is it that so many christian rulers have used (other) parts of the bible to justify slavery and inequality?
Could it be that christianity, like Judaism and Islam, can be twisted by powerful people to serve their purposes?
I do not deny the value of the bible, I only worry about its misuse.
‘Atheism is the absence of any diety.’ Is intellectually preposterous. Or as Dylan said – ‘You’ve got to serve somebody’ – or something, even atheism itself.
The west is in a passive, socio-political civil war right now. The left invented the war and has been more and more militant, if not violent in prosecuting it, and therefore have won so far. Or at least won as much as the right has allowed them, due to its own ignorance. But the right has woken up and has been forming it’s own lobby groups, think tanks, NGO’s, etc. The lines are drawn and if in the end it becomes an all out physical war – it would be better to be on the side that has most of the intelligence, money and muscle. Not to mention history and purpose.
But if there is a cultural “war” going on within the west, how can either the left or the right win it without sacrificing the fundamental western ideas of rational inquiry and free debate?
Isn’t the real problem with political correctness that it muzzles criticism?
I’m not attacking the idea that there is such a war, but I wonder about the results.
The left liberals lose again. +
Anti-terror law wins final congressional approval
Thu Mar 2, 2006 3:35 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Capping months of partisan wrangling, the U.S. Senate gave final congressional approval on Thursday to renewing the USA Patriot Act, a centerpiece of President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism.
A day after passing a related bill to better protect civil liberties in this war, the Senate approved the renewal measure on a 89-10 vote. It next goes to Bush to sign into law. The House of Representatives passed it in December.
First enacted after the September 11 attacks, the Patriot Act expanded the power of the U.S. government to obtain private records, conduct wiretaps and searches and share information.
With 16 provisions of the act set to expire next week, the bill would make 14 of them permanent and extend two others by four years. +
http://www.voy.com/178771/725.html
Really? then why have popes and kings taken christianity to justify intolerance, inequality and other abominations?
For the Biblically literate, the answer is readily available.
Matthew 24:5, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ (Christian); and shall deceive many.”
Christianity (like many other faiths) has been responsible for both great advances and terrible crimes. Let’s not pretend that it has been any other way.
Christianity isn’t responsible for any crimes. See above.
I do not deny the value of the bible, I only worry about its misuse.
Do you worry about the misuse of secular humanism? I’m thinking of Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Mao…at least 100 million murdered between the lot of them. See The Black Book of Communism.
Hi ol hoss,
“Do you worry about the misuse of secular humanism? I’m thinking of Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Mao…at least 100 million murdered between the lot of them. See The Black Book of Communism”
….which is why I am not a communist or a facist. Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Marx were not hummanists. They were athiests, but fundamentally did not value individual lives.
btw, I never said the hummanism was my belief system, did I?
….
Actually, when it comes to the misinterpretation of Christianity, I think we agree.
If I may quote myself:
“Could it be that christianity, like Judaism and Islam, can be twisted by powerful people to serve their purposes?”
Prehaps I used the wrong words when I said that chirstianity was “responsible” for acts like the inquisition.
A better choice of words would be:
“A particular interpretation of christianity (and many other faiths), has provided a pretext for terrible crimes”.
I’m not anti-christian or anti-religion, but I do worry about the use of religion (and yes, polical ideas) to justify violence and tyranny. You cannot deny that Christianity has been used as a pretext for both.
On the other hand, can you name me an occaision where same is true of the ideals of classical liberal democracy?
I apolgize for the double post, but I think we should try to steer this back to the original issue.
Namely, the refusal or inability of the media and academia to defend western values.
Let me ask anyone who cares to read the following question(s):
Do we belive:
1) in free expression, democracy, equality, tolerance, and reason?
2) Do we agree that major institutions should make an effort to propogate these values?
3)Do we agree that all viewpoints, ideas, and religions should be subject to free, balanced and rational debate, without the fear of violent reprisal?
4) do we believe in the inherent rights and dignity of every individual?
….If you answer “yes” to all of these (I do)…
6) What can be done to ensure that these ideas are better articulated and defended by the media/education system/ political leaders?
On the other hand, can you name me an occaision where same is true of the ideals of classical liberal democracy?
Democracy is just mob rule. It has been used as such many times. Hitler used it to come to power.
That’s why neither the U.S. or Canada is a democracy.