Explosion near Stadium in Paris, multiple shootings and hostage taking...

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by Itse

Let's try this from another angle.

I think few would deny that there is a popular brand of Islam right now that does encourage violence and martyrdom. However, Islam existed for hundreds of years without being any more (or less) violent other major religions (or atheists for that matter).

So while religion does play a part, it's not Islam in general that is the problem. It's the specific brand that is the problem. (There are actually names for it, but I forget.) So really blaming Islam is not so much wrong as it is simply inaccurate.

That inaccuracy is IMO however really harmful. It encourages fear and violence towards all Muslims, which is unfair and dangerous. Plus it directly benefits extremist groups such as ISIS.

That inaccurate language is also the biggest thing blocking constructive Western discussion of what exactly is the role of religion in that conflict. It's the language people use when they WANT war between Muslims and Christians. It's for example the language ISIS wants to use.

So seriously. If you're not deliberately trying to promote religious wars, don't talk like that.

Funny how a similar thing is happening to Christians. Apparently every Christian is a violent psychopath now because of the crusades, because one group of people did something somewhere they are all the same...

I think what happens is emotion heavily clouds judgement in these cases where religion and violence are so closely related. Imagine how pissed off all the normal Muslims must be, every terrorist attack must be a blow to their ego and faith. I'd get together all the most prominent religious leaders in the Muslim faith and have a Muslims don't murder people meeting, then when some group of morons goes and does something stupid they can be exiled. Oh ISIS just killed some people, well they're not Muslim, they're radical psychopaths.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

... To which ISIS says, "No, we're the real Muslims, you're all apostates, and I have the scriptural authorities right here to prove it." No true Scotsman...

Also, I don't anyone anywhere suggesting that modern Christians are violent because of the Crusades. I'm not sure if that was facetious.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Really?

You really don't think there's a difference between 93 per cent of people believing homosexuality is unacceptable and 31 per cent believing it's unacceptable? Or a population where 94 per cent believe sex outside of marriage is immoral and a population where 30 per cent do?

Do you really think 87 per cent of Christians believe a wife must always obey her husband?

Numbers matter.

50 years ago people in the west were chemically castrating homosexuals, putting them in prison or killing them outright. It wasn't until 2003 that anti-sodomy laws were struck down by the US supreme Court (That's just 12 short years ago, around the same time Klein was threatening to use the non-withstanding clause to prevent equal rights for homosexuals).

Buggery was a death sentence in England years after it had been decriminalized in India.

It wasn't even 200 years ago that the United States nearly split in two over the idea of Slavery.

Are you suggesting that the Arab world is somehow less capable of evolving from tribalistic or religious notions like Western society has?

I'm not saying you are, but pointing at public opinion polls doesn't tell us anything at all except for contemporary feelings.

I'm sure if you'd done a public opinion poll in Canada in the 1960s, when homosexuality was illegal and could land you an indefinite prison sentence I'm sure you'd see similar numbers.

In 1980, 40 percent of american's polled believed the Bible was the actual word of God. Last year, 22 percent of Americans believed not only was the bible the word of god, but it was also supposed to be taken literally.

The point being that while you and I are on the same side of the fence when it comes to religion, it does nothing to address how these opinions changed over time.

When it came to attitudes towards slavery in the American south, I can guaran-damn-tee you that if Southern States were receiving hundreds of billions of dollars from foreign governments in the form of Cash and military equipment, that the American Civil War may have gone a bit different and our current attitudes towards race might be a bit less evolved.

Unless you are of the belief that Arabs themselves are incapable of cultural evolution, there MUST be something else at work here.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I don't want to speak for CliffFletcher but I'm having trouble seeing where anything in that post contradicts him or undermines the way he was using opinion polls to make his case.

In fact, I think similar trends among Muslim as those you've identified; i.e. gradually fewer people thinking that an archaic book is the literal word of God or that homosexuals should be killed, is exactly the best case we could hope for.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

50 years ago people in the west were chemically castrating homosexuals, putting them in prison or killing them outright. It wasn't until 2003 that anti-sodomy laws were struck down by the US supreme Court (That's just 12 short years ago, around the same time Klein was threatening to use the non-withstanding clause to prevent equal rights for homosexuals).

Buggery was a death sentence in England years after it had been decriminalized in India.

It wasn't even 200 years ago that the United States nearly split in two over the idea of Slavery.

Quite right. So why did things change? How?

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Are you suggesting that the Arab world is somehow less capable of evolving from tribalistic or religious notions like Western society has?

I'm saying that it's worth noting that the Arab world is about a century behind the West when it comes to a lot of important social issues. It's always good to start any discussion with factual knowledge, no matter how distressing those facts, rather than work backwards from how we want the world to be (or who we want the villain of the story to be).

Liberals don't hesitate to denounce evangelical American conservatives as a threat to liberal values. Why should ultra-conservatives be treated any differently just because they're from a different religion or ethnicity? Bad ideas are bad ideas, regardless of who holds them.

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

I'm not saying you are, but pointing at public opinion polls doesn't tell us anything at all except for contemporary feelings.

Don't contemporary feelings matter? Opinion polls show half of Americans are fiercely protective of their rights to own personal firearms. That matters, because it's the reason it's so hard to restrict gun ownership, and it contributes to lots of people dying.

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Unless you are of the belief that Arabs themselves are incapable of cultural evolution, there MUST be something else at work here.

Two things:

Islam does not have a 'render unto Caesar' approach to civil authority. That makes it much more difficult to separate religious observance from public laws. Yes, Christians often try to influence public policy to reflect their beliefs. But they aren't strongly encouraged to do so by the bible.

The Arab world has had tremendous difficulty adapting to the modernity for a host of historical and political reasons, some of which can be laid at the feet of the West, but some of which are self-inflicted. Fiercely patriarchal, anti-cosmopolitan, warrior-culture, backward-looking societies are going to fail in the modern world. There are demographics at work as well. Very high birth rates by the least educated, in a society that discourages girls from learning to read, is not a recipe for success.

And to be clear, I'm not saying Muslims can't be good citizens and neighbours in a secular country. I'm perfectly okay with the Syrian refugee plans in Canada, and I don't have any problem with Muslims immigrating to Canada. For the most part, those who come here are quite willing to live in a secular country. And since we tend to attract educated immigrants, I don't expect Canada will have Europe's problem of an enduring underclass of uneducated and un-assimilated Muslims. Let's applaud and welcome secular-leaning Muslims in our communities, and treat the ultra-conservatives the same way we treat ultra-conservative Christians - with a wariness and vigilance to ensure they don't undermine our liberal values. That's where the struggle is really going to be fought - between moderate Muslims and conservative Muslims. But let's not kid ourselves about the proportion of the one to the other globally.

[peter12]

So, just additional drive-by corollary:

- All or almost all of the countries known as Christendom have, disregarding catastrophe, developed into the freest, and wealthiest countries in the world.
- All or almost all of the countries under the Caliphate have, disregarding massive oil reserves, developed into some of the most despotic, and poor countries in the world.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by peter12

So, just additional drive-by corollary:

- All or almost all of the countries known as Christendom have, disregarding catastrophe, developed into the freest, and wealthiest countries in the world.
- All or almost all of the countries under the Caliphate have, disregarding massive oil reserves, developed into some of the most despotic, and poor countries in the world.

Now, this seems like a pretty obvious oversimplification, if the implication is that Christian doctrine is inherently imbued with some magic that causes adherents to emerge from their dogmatic cocoon as free-thinking secularists. I suppose your argument on this point would have to be that "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" is somehow crucial to developing societies with a wall of sorts between Church and State. I don't think that comes close to covering it.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by peter12

So, just additional drive-by corollary:

- All or almost all of the countries known as Christendom have, disregarding catastrophe, developed into the freest, and wealthiest countries in the world.
- All or almost all of the countries under the Caliphate have, disregarding massive oil reserves, developed into some of the most despotic, and poor countries in the world.

There are plenty of Christian countries outside of Europe, where all the brutal colonial powers came from, where things are not going so well.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Now, this seems like a pretty obvious oversimplification, if the implication is that Christian doctrine is inherently imbued with some magic that causes adherents to emerge from their dogmatic cocoon as free-thinking secularists. I suppose your argument on this point would have to be that "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" is somehow crucial to developing societies with a wall of sorts between Church and State. I don't think that comes close to covering it.

Yeah, it is such a gross oversimplification that I almost didn't post it. However, I think it is enough of a stark difference to observe significant difference in general principle.

The Christian orthopraxy of charity, and an almost doctrinal regard for the dignity of the person set the groundwork for societies with regards for a liberty of a type never seen before, and laid the groundwork for the highly resilient and responsive democratic governments of the last 300 years.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by blankall

There are plenty of Christian countries outside of Europe, where all the brutal colonial powers came from, where things are not going so well.

Well, I did say Christendom.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by peter12

Yeah, it is such a gross oversimplification that I almost didn't post it. However, I think it is enough of a stark difference to observe significant difference in general principle.

The Christian orthopraxy of charity, and an almost doctrinal regard for the dignity of the person set the groundwork for societies with regards for a liberty of a type never seen before, and laid the groundwork for the highly resilient and responsive democratic governments of the last 300 years.

I would suggest that there were plenty of other philosophical factors beyond those you've identified, many of which were resisted consistently and in some cases violently by the Church, that were crucial in laying that groundwork... one wonders if we wouldn't be in better shape had Buddhism or Jainism caught on instead. But it's a wholly academic discussion.

I know you weren't suggesting the same but the way you worded that drive-by could give someone the impression that you think something like, "all you need to bake yourself a good liberal secular democracy is Christian morals and time".

[peter12]

I would suggest that there were plenty of other philosophical factors beyond those you've identified, many of which were resisted consistently and in some cases violently by the Church, that were crucial in laying that groundwork... one wonders if we wouldn't be in better shape had Buddhism or Jainism caught on instead. But it's a wholly academic discussion.

Of course. Although, it would be foolish to say that Christianity didn't have the greatest impact out of all of those other factors, or that didn't create spin-off factors that, while not explicitly Christian, borrowed heavily from the tradition. It gets very academic, but I have said before, Augustine, interpreting Plato, was speaking to a Christian audience that spanned from France to what is now Turkey - a polyglot of peoples if there ever was one!

I know you weren't suggesting the same but the way you worded that drive-by could give someone the impression that you think something like, "all you need to bake yourself a good liberal secular democracy is Christian morals and time".

You know, I actually don't think that is such a preposterous thing to say. Basically the only decent liberal secular societies around on this old planet practiced orthodox Christianity, especially Catholicism.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by peter12

Basically the only decent liberal secular societies around on this old planet practiced orthodox Christianity, especially Catholicism.

Huh? Say the Nordic countries, which are often used as the stereotypical liberal secular countries...

And what about South Korea? Japan? China? Singapore?

Just off the top of my head, those are some of the most secular countries in the world.

Mongolia, Vietnam? Israel? Uzbekistan is pretty secular, and muslim.

Estonia, just to add an Eastern Orthodox country too. They're almost completely non-religious.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by peter12

You know, I actually don't think that is such a preposterous thing to say. Basically the only decent liberal secular societies around on this old planet practiced orthodox Christianity, especially Catholicism.

Like Honduras?

The majority of Latin America is a mess and that's the area in the world with the strongest catholic faith at the moment.

Looks like any religion is a drag on progress.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by peter12

You know, I actually don't think that is such a preposterous thing to say. Basically the only decent liberal secular societies around on this old planet practiced orthodox Christianity, especially Catholicism.

I'd think the preposterous part of the statement is that they flourished because of Christianity, not despite it. We could sit here and list all the ways the church has fought liberal democratic polices, but I don't think that's necessary. I'd think most of them are well known.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'd think the preposterous part of the statement is that they flourished because of Christianity, not despite it. We could sit here and list all the ways the church has fought liberal democratic polices, but I don't think that's necessary. I'd think most of them are well known.

But I don't think it can be denied either that without the Church, Europe would likely be Muslim right now. The Muslim invasions were held off in France and Austria because the Church was able to unify a continent of enemies against a single cause. Make of that what you will, but if you believe that Islam has held back the ME from making progress in the modern world, then you can imagine how different things would be without Christianity in Europe to counter it.

During the middle ages, the Church was the only educational and social system in all of Europe. Kings and queens didn't care if the people were taken care of or educated, and although the Church kept literacy to a select few, it was better than nothing. It was enough to at least transmit culture forward. Muslims would have certainly replaced it with their own, and most pagans in Europe didn't even have a written language or record their histories.

I can agree that the Church probably kept discover at a snail's pace for a while, but without the Church at least operating universities and preserving history, that pace probably would have been a complete halt.

I'm not religious at all, but from a completely historical and academic perspective, the Church was an important institution in medieval Europe.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

During the middle ages, the Church was the only educational and social system in all of Europe.

Unless of course you count universities, which have been around for over 900 years.

[Fuzz]

FlamesAddiction-
Muslims at the time were much more progressive than they are now. They basically kept knowledge and scientific progress alive during the "dark ages". Did the church help protect Europe from invaders? Sure, but I don't think that has much to do with them being bastions of liberal democracy. Let's not kid ourselves, given the opportunity they would much rather continue to run Europe under a Conservative Theocracy. They still try with the Vatican. Fortunately we are free enough form the Church that we can mostly ignore it.

If you look at one of Europe's great Renaissance cities, Florence, basically run by the Medicci's, most of the advancements made were by them ignoring the church and funding scientists actively working against church doctrine.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Itse

Unless of course you count universities, which have been around for over 900 years.

Which were essentially branches of monastic schools and were run by clergy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

FlamesAddiction-
Muslims at the time were much more progressive than they are now. They basically kept knowledge and scientific progress alive during the "dark ages". Did the church help protect Europe from invaders? Sure, but I don't think that has much to do with them being bastions of liberal democracy. Let's not kid ourselves, given the opportunity they would much rather continue to run Europe under a Conservative Theocracy. They still try with the Vatican. Fortunately we are free enough form the Church that we can mostly ignore it.

If you look at one of Europe's great Renaissance cities, Florence, basically run by the Medicci's, most of the advancements made were by them ignoring the church and funding scientists actively working against church doctrine.

I never tried to imply that the Church was a bastion of liberal democracy, but it isn't opposed to it either. Theocracy is harder to justify in Christianity because even Jesus preached a separation of church and state. The fact Europe was held back from being democratic had more to do with wealthy families not wanting to give power to the people. The Church was often at odds with monarchs when it came to social justice. Even in so-called democracies of Europe like ancient Greece and the Italian Republics of the middle ages, voting was limited to a very small elite class and the Church was still used to press their claims, especially those against Byzantium. Those riches acquired in the name of God were what funded their advancement. Let's not pretend that the Medici's were part of any liberal democracy either. The Medici family actually produced 4 popes.