Posted on 12/26/2001 1:30:40 PM PST by FormerLib
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:36:29 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
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."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Bad example.
I was going to say, is this a "for" or "against" argument?
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.
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 Gods 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 didnt learn it) the concept of love and of justice. >p> Yes, I know, theres 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 Gods 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 Mohammeds. A science that has invented marvellous machines. The train, the car, the airplane, the spaceships with which weve 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 dont 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.
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. ;-)
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.
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.
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