A World Apart

The Washington Times ^ | December 26, 2001 | Julia Duin

[FormerLib]

What if Jesus had never been born? Western culture would not exist in its current form, scholars say, were it not for that event that demarcated world history two millennia ago.

"Christianity has gotten a bad rap from people who have not done their homework," says retired Illinois College sociology professor Alvin J. Schmidt, author of the recent book "Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization."

[FormerLib]

Of course, they missed the part that most of the Christian-bashers in this nation have made the concept that Christianity played no part in the founding of this nation the central core of their new faithless orthodoxy. One that may not be challenged.

[FormerLib]

Ping.

[bayourod]

"Were it not for Christianity, Gloria Steinem would still be walking about in a veil." "

Bad example.

[Ancesthntr]

Were it not for Christianity, Gloria Steinem would still be walking about in a veil

I was going to say, is this a "for" or "against" argument?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Churchill said of democracy that it is "the worst form of government--except for all the others."

A parallel might be drawn between his description of democracy and the analysis of Christianity which look first at the faults of Christians but then is open-eyed about the alternatives which actually have been on offer.

[don-o]

From a recent and remarkable rant by Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. She is an atheist.

Thanks, FL. Your pings are appreciated.

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Masochists, yes, masochists. Why? Do you want to talk about what you call the Contrast-between-the-Two-Cultures? Well, if you really must know, it bothers me to even talk about two cultures: to put them on the same plane as though they were two parallel realities of equal weight and equal measure.

Because behind our civilization we have Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Phydias, for God’s sake. We have ancient Greece with its Parthenon and its discovery of Democracy. We have ancient Rome with its greatness, its laws, its concept of Law. Its sculptures, its literature, its architecture. Its buildings, its amphitheaters, its acqueducts, its bridges and its roads. We have a revolutionary, that Christ who died on the cross, who taught us (too bad if we didn’t learn it) the concept of love and of justice. >p> Yes, I know, there’s also a Church that gave me the Inquisition. That tortured me and burned me a thousand times at the stake. That oppressed me for centuries, that for centuries forced me to sculpt and paint only Christs and Madonnas, that almost killed Galileo Galilei. Humiliated him, shut him up.

But it also made a great contribution to the History of Thought: Yes or no? And then behind our civilization we also have the Renaissance. We have Leonardo Da Vinci, we have Michaelangelo, we have Raphael, we have the music of Bach and Mozart and Beethoven. And on and on through Rossini and Donizetti and Verdi and Company. That music without which we could not live and which is prohibited in their culture or supposed culture.

God forbid you should whistle a tune or hum the chorus of Nabucco. And finally we have Science, for God’s sake. A science that has understood a lot of diseases and that cures them. I am still alive, for now, thanks to our science. Not Mohammed’s. A science that has invented marvellous machines. The train, the car, the airplane, the spaceships with which we’ve gone to the Moon and Mars and soon will go who knows where. A science that has changed the face of this planet with electricity, the radio, the telephone, the TV, and by the way: is it true that the gurus of the left don’t want to say what I have just said?!? God, what pricks! They will never change. And now the fatal question: what is behind the other culture?

Damned if I know.

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Go to the link to read it all. Well worth the 30 minutes it will take.

complete text on #22

[waxhaw]

Indeed, Christ and Christianity has transformed the world; the list is endless. I'm re-reading Rabbi Daniel Lapin's book "America's Real War" and while he is Jewish he still credits the West's advances in science, medicine, technology, culture and economics to Christianity. And he understands that it is Christian belief and practice of the Judaic/Mosaic law which has generated these advances. This is one reason why Rabbi Lapin warns of the ultimate dangers to society if Christianity is successfully driven out of the public life and forced underground.

[FormerLib]

Were it not for Christianity, Gloria Steinem would still be walking about in a veil.

Yeah, but so would Lynne Cheney, Ann Coulter, and Condoleeza Rice so we're just going to have to take the good with the bad on this one. ;-)

[Valin]

The editorial writers at the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer

Have these idiots EVER read ANY history? For every negative influence they could mention I bet I (or many here) could name 5 positive. It's not by accident that liberal democracies developed it the Christian west and not in southeast asia, or meso-america.

[don-o]

bump

[wideawake]

executing scientists whose findings contradicted the religion's tenets

This part of the NC Observer's lying rant is the funniest.

Which scientists were executed by Christians? This claim is often made to me, and I always say: "Name one of these scientists". That shuts them right up.