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To: Orosius
It does, but it also values warfare and taking an active role in creating victims (I am being a bit provocative there).

In ancient Rome and Greece being a good person was a bit more of an active thing tied to how much power you had or could exercise. In Christianity there is a sort of inverse relationship, such as in the verse "the first shall be last" sort of way.

In almost all other cultures there was a warrior ethos baked into their religions. I suppose in the Middle Ages there was a bit of that in the Christian West, but we mostly abandoned it and I don't think it fit particularly well. Violence is a part of any civilization but Christianity in principle has tried to tame that impulse that I think our relative modern commercial and legal cultural supremacy can be attributed to trying to minimize it, at least in theory.

15 posted on 05/24/2024 11:27:41 AM PDT by Dat
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To: Dat

Edward Gibbon thought much the same, that the pacifist bent of Christianity undermined the martial discipline of the Roman Empire and thus contributed to its decline and fall. That debate goes on, but if our civilization takes a similar course (as it seems to be doing), it won’t be because we’re too Christian.


17 posted on 05/24/2024 2:14:02 PM PDT by Orosius (“Wake America Up Again )
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