Posted on 04/24/2004 10:37:03 PM PDT by scripter
No, any country can surrender liberty, but it's never going to happen here, French-style. There will always be loud voices for freedom, even if they're in the minority. Political trends ebb and flow, but basic freedom always wins out. That's why the pro-gay-marriage side is winning this debate, they've successfully framed the issue as one of freedom. Merely reframining it as the freedom to discriminate against homosexuals is not going to move hearts and minds in the electorate.
You can carve out conscience clauses, we've done it on abortion. Churches have always, and will always, have the right to define who they will confer a blessing on when it comes to marriage. I don't know any court that has forced a Catholic church to marry someone who has been divorced, that will not go through the hoops needed to do a formal annulment.
Here, in the U.S. we do seem to be getting more and more PC in regards to homosexuality and that's one of the reasons I posted the article. From everything I can see we're heading in the same direction as Canada and that bothers me.
Y'know, I heard the same thing back in the racist suburbs of Gary, Indiana, when it came to interracial marriage. Yes, this may be different, but one thing is the same: This country will still be worth saving, no matter what any two of its citizens decide to do about their living arrangements. I trust even the Rats to maintain a semblance of a national defense to protect us all.
Analyze what your defeatist attitude on this subject does to persuade people who are on the fence on this issue. In my opinion, it just drives them further towards the other side.
AntiGuv said:
You are indeed inconsistent.
- That statement was not meant to invite response, particularly from you to whom it was not addressed. (post 21)
- I have no problem with anyone responding to me (post 24)
Hopefully scripter's pissing match won't obscure something important here: you don't have a clue what religion is for in the first place. You also mentioned science, but that really isn't incompatible with Christianity, and in any even if that's what you meant by empirical reality, Christianity could hardly get more or less different from it, since neither Christian doctrine nor the nature of rocks is changing. What you mean, it seems, must be the first thing you mentioned, "the social reality that Western civilization has increasingly embraced". As if serious religion were intended to make you feel good about doing what you were going to do anyway.
Well, I did say AntiGuv's statements in that regard were ignorant! Whenver I read statements similar to what AntiGuv said it reminds me of so many others I've engaged, and walked away shaking my head in disbelief. Folks who make similar statments aren't interested in reasoned debate on the subject and always have an ax to grind.
Well, there's no reason to be mysterious. Why don't you tell me what religion is for if you think that I don't have a clue?
Regardless of that, I wasn't making any attempt to qualify the purpose of religion. If I were to make any comment on that insofar as it's relevant to what I said, then I would say that religion serves whatever the purpose that its adherents want it to serve. In fact, one might extrapolate from what I did say that the decline of Christianity is due to its divergence from those other aspects of how Westerners want to arrange their lives (it is not diverging from how many non-Western peoples want to arrange their lives, which is why it's actually not even remotely in decline amongst them - quite to the contrary, it is vigorously expanding every but the Muslim world where Islam already serves that same purpose).
Now, I think I understand what the whole problem is here. Empirical reality is not "what is real"; it is: "what we perceive to be real" or alternately "what we experience to be real"... Science is certainly not incompatible with Christianity, per se, which is why I mentioned it as an afterthought. What science does provide is an alternative explanation for many of the same phenomena that Christianity served to explain in the past, and so it makes it easier to cast religious doctrine aside when it is incompatible with other features of how one wishes to conduct oneself. It is not that science is incompatible with Christianity; it is that science is indifferent to Christianity.
What you mean, it seems, must be the first thing you mentioned, "the social reality that Western civilization has increasingly embraced". As if serious religion were intended to make you feel good about doing what you were going to do anyway.
Yes, of course that's what I mean. That's what I said; there's not "seems" about it. To be more precise, I should've said "socioeconomic reality" because if anything I would argue that economics are at the root cause of the decline of Christianity. The manner in which Western civilization has chosen to arrange its economic affairs has influenced the manner in which Western civilization has chosen to arrange its social affairs which in turn has increasingly diverged from the manner that Christianity would seek to arrange those same social affairs.
As for the second part, that is precisely what I'm saying. In its most simplistic form I am merely stating that Christianity is in decline because it conflicts with what people want to do. Stated differently, people have abandoned Christianity because they want to. It's as simple as that. Now, one can of course argue that people are behaving contrary to Christianity because Christianity has declined, but that's a meaningless statement. In order for Christianity to decline, there has to be a reason for people to abandon it in the first place, after which naturally it exerts a reduced influence during one's youth, which accelerates its decline in a self-reinforcing cycle.
Whatever the case, there still have to be root causes for the initiation of the trend. All I did was summarize those without qualifying them into an assertion that Christianity is declining because people don't want to follow some part of its doctrines because they conflict with how they want to arrange their lives. Do you dispute that?
Now, as for what little jeremiah says:
Yup, this was the thread. When I saw the words "syncratic norms" (or was it "syncretic norms"?)I gave it up as hopeless.
First, there is no such thing as a "syncratic norm" to my knowledge. There is no dispute whatsoever amongst historians or even theologians that Greco-Roman civilization was syncretic versus Christendom which was ecumenical. In fact, the very term "Greco-Roman" is a glaring example of syncretism! LOL The statement that I made was nothing more than to say that the Classical world freely combined features from multiple belief-systems and that these coexisted with little conflict or tension. The Christian world was consistent with Eastern civilizations that imposed and enforced unitary belief systems with little tolerance for dissent or diversity.
The advent of Christianity and its prevailment in the Greco-Roman world was an unstable imposition of Eastern dogmatism onto Western syncretism. The two have never been reconciled and after a 1500 year interregnum where the former clearly prevailed over the latter, it is now in full-scale collapse as the previous norms which were never extinguished have fully reasserted themselves. None of what I've said would have been received as even remotely controversial by the Patristic fathers of the Church who spent several centuries agonizing over these very conflicts.
Some people are not rational, have an agenda (usually due to personal desires), pretend *they* are the rational ones, and it spirals downward from there.
If you think I'm irrational, feel free to explain how. Everyone has an agenda, always due to personal desires. If you claim you don't, then you are a bald-faced liar. I haven't suggested anyone is irrational. I have suggested that one individual is a dimwit, but that much is painfully obvious.
Service.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. (Mark 12:30)
In fact, one might extrapolate from what I did say that the decline of Christianity is due to its divergence from those other aspects of how Westerners want to arrange their lives (it is not diverging from how many non-Western peoples want to arrange their lives, which is why it's actually not even remotely in decline amongst them - quite to the contrary, it is vigorously expanding every but the Muslim world where Islam already serves that same purpose).
This is a very strange account. Do you suppose people want to arrange their lives in such a way they'll like get killed? That's what Christianity means in many places where it's growing, like China. The root of serious religious commitment is not a lifestyle choice.
In its most simplistic form I am merely stating that Christianity is in decline because it conflicts with what people want to do. Stated differently, people have abandoned Christianity because they want to. It's as simple as that.
Yes, but no. That is, you seem to be supposing that people pick the lifestyle they want and then happen upon a religion that supports that lifestyle (or at least recognize the religion's lifestyle as what they really want once they see it). But that's not how it is. The choice is, do you want to serve and glorify God, or do you want to serve yourself? People want to serve themselves, and Christianity conflicts with this; but this is hardly new, self-service is the natural state of everyone since Adam.
What you get wrong is supposing that the lifestyle causes the religion. The religion causes the lifestyle.
Eastern civilizations that imposed and enforced unitary belief systems with little tolerance for dissent or diversity.
This is wrong. Eastern peoples from Japan to India to Mesopotamia to Egypt to the ancient Hebrews themselves are/were enthusiastic syncretists.
Yes, at some early points some Eastern civilizations were enthusiastic syncretists. This includes the Hebrew world. Nonetheless, the rise of Judaism and Zoroastrianism and later Christianity and Islam were inherently Eastern phenomena consistent with other features of their originating civilizations. The entire history of Christendom has been the history of attempting to reconcile this Eastern dogmatism with the Western syncretism that it sought to displace.
The very earliest conflict was that between Paulism and those 'heresies' typified by Gnosticism. Paulism prevailed and the rest is history.
Obviously not, though in many cases they unquestionably do. This is because people make the choices by which they arrange their lives due to many factors beyond that of merely which choice most increases their odds of not being killed. If what you suggest were the case, then no one would be fighting in Iraq right now, by example, because none of the belligerants made the choice which most elevated the odds of their personal survival.
The root of serious religious commitment is not a lifestyle choice.
Sure it is. If you hold otherwise, feel free to explain. I am open to persuasion. Also, if we are to carry on a serious, useful conversation I guess this is the point where I should mention that I am not a telepath.
That is, you seem to be supposing that people pick the lifestyle they want and then happen upon a religion that supports that lifestyle (or at least recognize the religion's lifestyle as what they really want once they see it).
That is not what I am supposing. You are reducing these phenomena to an individual exercise; I am referring to what societies do in the aggregate, not to what any given person does in the individual. I am essentially saying that the arrangement of a society is a complex interaction between several dynamics, most notably economics, social regulation, and metaphysical belief. I am also suggesting that the three are never out of sync for very long, and that when they are in conflict one will inevitably prevail over the other.
At the present time, the tandem of consumer capitalism and 'individual rights' are prevailing over (indeed crushing) orthodox Christianity within Western civilization.
The choice is, do you want to serve and glorify God, or do you want to serve yourself? People want to serve themselves, and Christianity conflicts with this; but this is hardly new, self-service is the natural state of everyone since Adam.
Nonsense. There is no conflict there. No one wants to serve and glorify God unless they believe that serves themselves. Are you saying that people serve and glorify God who think that this will harm them? What I am alluding to is the reasons why one might not want to serve and glorify God; more precisely, the reason why Westerners are less inclined to 'serve and glorify God' than they once were. At the very least, there is no dispute between what I am saying and your response. If anything, you have merely reworded and reiterated the same point I've made (with simply a tonal variation due to our differing value-judgments).
What you get wrong is supposing that the lifestyle causes the religion.
I am not saying that. What I am saying is that people ultimately reconcile the two to their satisfaction, and that in the aggregate the determining factors are something other than the religious doctrine per se, which BTW is transparently manipulated throughout history and cultures to explicitly or implicitly coincide with the prevailing cultural arrangement.
The religion causes the lifestyle.
More nonsense. The vast majority of Westerners would define themselves as Christian. These same people live very, very different lifestyles as they redefine Christianity to coincide with however they choose to live those lives. The sum total of these modulations become the societal expression of religious belief. (That is somewhat reductionist, but it'll suffice for the purpose here).
No, it is not. I haven't the slightest doubt that there is an objective reality above and beyond what you, I, or anyone else can discern, regardless. The point where you and I differ are that you believe you know what objective reality is and I know that I don't know and have no way of knowing.
I have not made any attempt to describe any objective reality beyond that of a dispassionate, empirical observation of how societies function regardless of the objective, metaphysical reality within which they operate.
Syncretism is the combination, reconciliation, or coexistence of varying, often mutually opposed beliefs, principles, or practices; especially those of various spiritual or ideological belief systems. The ancient Roman Empire and the modern United States are clear examples of syncretism. The Holy Roman Empire and Saudi Arabia are clear examples of dogmatism - its opposite in this sense.
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