Atheist warns: Without Christianity

[cholland]

we are heading into an impenetrable darkness.

https://stream.org/atheists-in-praise-of-christianity/

While studying the ancient world, Holland writes, he realized something. Simply, the ancients were cruel, and their values utterly foreign to him. The Spartans routinely murdered "imperfect" children. The bodies of slaves were treated like outlets for the physical pleasure of those with power. Infanticide was common. The poor and the weak had no rights.

In fact, Holland points out that without Christianity, the Western world would not exist. Even the claims of the social justice warriors who despise the faith of their ancestors rest on a foundation of Judeo-Christian values. Those who make arguments based on love, tolerance, and compassion are borrowing fundamentally Christian arguments. If the West had not become Christian, Holland writes, "no one would have gotten woke."

Holland's passionate defense of Christianity is fascinating because it appears to be part of a trend. As the West becomes definitively post-Christian, many secularists are suddenly realizing that Christianity may have been more valuable than they thought. While many including Holland cannot quite bring themselves to believe Christianity is true, they are starting to believe that Christianity might be necessary.

Douglas Murray, the conservative author and columnist, is also an atheist. In recent years, however, he has started to warn that the decline of Christianity is a dangerous thing. Society now faces three options. First, Murray says, is to reject the idea that all human life is precious. "Another is to work furiously to nail down an atheist version of the sanctity of the individual." And if that doesn't work? "Then there is only one other place to go. Which is back to faith, whether we like it or not."

[Mithrae]

Christian arguments based on love, tolerance, and compassion are borrowing fundamentally from Secular Humanism.

This seems to be fundamentally disingenuous, given that Christian arguments based on love, tolerance and compassion predate the existence of Secular Humanism by about eighteen centuries. It would be more accurate to say that the best parts of Secular Humanism have borrowed from the best parts of Christian tradition.

The name Secular Humanism is relatively new but the concept that "human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity" is not new.

Christendom often attempts to claim that which is not its to claim.

Even if this is correct, it would still be false and fundamentally disingenuous to say that Christian values are "borrowing" from secular humanism or its precursors, I'm sure you will agree: Biblical and later Christian advocacy for love, tolerance and compassion are thoroughly and unequivocally grounded in the religious beliefs that there is one universal God who sends sun and rain to all the earth, the just and unjust alike, that all people are created in the image of God and that all people are descended from the same family. So that initial comment was apparently a case of atheism/secular humanism attempting to claim that which it had no right to.

But do you actually have any evidence that secular emphasis on love, tolerance and compassion predated Christianity? Buddhism teaches tolerance and compassion, but obviously is not secular. Some Greek philosophers such as Epicurus and Democritus and so on arguably promoted secular philosophies but, from what little I've read, I haven't seen much if any emphasis on those particular values in their ethical systems. Epicurus for example is noted for his promotion of hedonism (albeit not in the shallow, self-absorbed sense we might view the word today).

[Zzyzx]

.

But do you actually have any evidence that secular emphasis on love, tolerance and compassion predated Christianity?

Would anyone argue that human beings are NOT "capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity" or that love, tolerance and compassion did not exist in secular society prior to biblical times?

[Mithrae]

But do you actually have any evidence that secular emphasis on love, tolerance and compassion predated Christianity?

Would anyone argue that human beings are NOT "capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity" or that love, tolerance and compassion did not exist in secular society prior to biblical times?

Which pre-Christian secular society are you talking about? Off the top of my head I'm not aware that any existed. There were certainly some individuals who could arguably be said to have held secular views/philosophies, but I'm not aware of them having particularly emphasized those values of love, tolerance and compassion. Note that the points of contention here are
1) that Christianity did not "borrow" those values from secular humanism as BGE originally claimed, and
2) that inasmuch as Secular Humanism promotes those values they could be said to have been borrowed from Christianity

You have chosen to ignore the former point, and you have not substantiated your claim contrary to the second. The fact that some historical individuals who were non-religious loved their family members obviously is not equivalent to love being a value of secular humanism, any more than non-religious bigots make bigotry a value of secular humanism. If you want to support the claim that secular humanism didn't "borrow" those values off Christianity we'd need to see some kind of visible, prominent emphasis on those values from secularists without Christian influence.

Personally I think it's not a very useful kind discussion to begin with - one fellow asserting that Christianity "borrowed" those things off a philosophy which wasn't identified until eighteen centuries later, another asserting that Christendom tries to "claim" things which don't belong to it - as if ideas and values were things which can be owned and are somehow shameful to use or borrow. If it's true that the best parts of secular humanism have borrowed from the best parts of Christian tradition, then that's a good thing. Isn't it? Just as it would be a good thing if Christianity had borrowed from secular humanism. I merely pointed out that whereas the latter is obviously and fundamentally untrue, the former seems quite probable.

I'm a little puzzled that you seem to have a problem with that, as though this were a case of anyone trying to "claim" those values unfairly, but still happy to discuss it: We just need to see some kind of evidence that those were prominent secular values sans Christianity rather than (as seems to be the case) values selected and emphasized by secular humanists from the Christian traditions of their society.

[Zzyzx]

.
Again: Would anyone argue that human beings are NOT "capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity" (secular humanism) or that love, tolerance and compassion did not exist in secular society prior to biblical times?

Since love, tolerance and compassion existed in societies that long predate Christianity, and since they seem to be 'human nature', Christianity has no claim to a copyright.

Here is from six million years ago:

Describe someone as a Neanderthal and the chances are you mean they are a bit of a brute, sadly lacking in manners.

Yet this caricature of prehistoric man is unfair, if the latest research is to be believed.
Neanderthals apparently had a deep sense of compassion and care, a study has shown.

Some of the earliest humans in Europe developed commitments to the welfare of others between 500,000 and 40,000 years ago, a team from the University of York has discovered.

Not so scary: New research suggests that Neaderthal man and dinosaurs weren't as scary as originally thought, and may even have been compassionate

Their findings showed that the injured and infirm were routinely cared for in this period. The researchers examined archaeological evidence for clues as to the way in which emotions began to develop in our ancestors.

Analysis of remains showed that a child with a serious brain abnormality was not abandoned, but lived until it was five or six years old.

And a Neanderthal who had a withered arm, deformed feet and was blind in one eye was taken care of for perhaps as long as 20 years.

The researchers from the universitys department of archaeology believe these feelings of compassion came about as a result of a long adolescence and the dependence on hunting together.

The study charted the beginnings of human empathy from six million years ago.

At this point, the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees began to help others, perhaps by displaying a gesture of comfort or by moving a branch to allow them to pass.

Empathy in Homo erectus pre-humans from 1.8million years ago was linked to the development of rational thought, the researchers said.

There is evidence of this species showing care towards the sick, while special treatment of their dead suggested they experienced grief at the loss of a loved one and a desire to soothe others.

Modern humans, such as Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals, started to displayed compassion in a similar way to humans today.

This compassion was extended to strangers, animals, objects and abstract concepts.

Dr Penny Spikins, who led the research along with Andy Needham and Holly Rutherford, said research developments such as neuro-imaging have enabled archaeologists to attempt a scientific explanation of what were once intangible feelings of ancient humans.

Compassion is perhaps the most fundamental human emotion, she said.

It binds us together and can inspire us, but it is also fragile and elusive.

This apparent fragility makes addressing the evidence for the development of compassion in our most ancient ancestors a unique challenge, yet the archaeological record has an important story to tell about the pre-history of compassion.

We have traditionally paid a lot of attention to how early humans thought about each other, but it may well be time to pay rather more attention to whether or not they "cared".

The research is published in the journal Time and Mind.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... thers.html

Even Chimpanzees and Bonobos exhibit such characteristics https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/16/6429.full.pdf

Might be a little difficult to claim that for Christianity, but some may try.

[Mithrae]

Again: Would anyone argue that human beings are NOT "capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity" (secular humanism) or that love, tolerance and compassion did not exist in secular society prior to biblical times?

Since love, tolerance and compassion existed in societies that long predate Christianity, and since they seem to be 'human nature', Christianity has no claim to a copyright.

They certainly did exist in societies long before Christianity, but you haven't shown that these were secular humanist societies. Without some kind of evidence on that front, any attempt to claim a secular humanist "copyright" on these values (if that's what you want to call it) would obviously be quite unpersuasive.

Even Chimpanzees and Bonobos exhibit such characteristics https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/16/6429.full.pdf

Might be a little difficult to claim that for Christianity, but some may try.

Are chimpanzees and bonobos secular humanists? Again, the points of contention here are
1) that Christianity obviously did not borrow those values from secular humanism as BGE originally claimed, and
2) that inasmuch as Secular Humanism promotes those values they instead could be said to have been borrowed from Christianity

Human nature includes a vast range of tendencies such as sexual and reproductive urges, love of family, tribalism, mistrust of outsiders, territorialism, acquisitiveness and competitiveness in the pursuit of social status, envy, greed, violence, empathy, compassion and so on. Societies and philosophies which have emphasized tribalism, love of family and territorial acquisitiveness (eg. the genocidal Israelites, ancient empires, colonial European powers, Nazi Germany, imperial Japan etc. etc.) are based on human nature at least as much if not moreso than those (few if any) which have emphasized tolerance and compassion. So it would be obviously fallacious to claim that the philosophies of secular humanism are directly based on or correlated with human or animal nature!

We might be able to see in apes' love of family and friends the basis for some of the values which we choose to emphasize, but that choice of which tendencies to emphasize and which to mitigate is still a higher-order social or philosophical decision. And that decision is obviously not made in a vacuum: The values of secular humanism, as such, were formed in predominantly Christian societies. I suppose a good case could be made that tolerance, while certainly one of the values expressed at times within Christianity, was not exactly a predominant value in the 19th and early 20th century societies in which secular humanism emerged. So that is at least one point which is ambiguous

[Zzyzx]

.

They certainly did exist in societies long before Christianity, but you haven't shown that these were secular humanist societies. Without some kind of evidence on that front, any attempt to claim a secular humanist "copyright" on these values (if that's what you want to call it) would obviously be quite unpersuasive.

It is NOT the secular humanists who attempt to lay claim to a 'copyright' -- but those who seem to think that love, tolerance and compassion stem from Christianity.

It would not surprise me if Christianity attempted to claim to be the source of air, elephants, and finger nails (guess they do by claiming that the Jewish God made everything -- and Christianity adopted the Jewish God). Many try to take credit for the Golden Rule even though it, known as the Ethic of Reciprocity, appears in many cultures, some of which long predate Christianity.

Even their God is taken from Judaism -- with the Jesus character grafted on using the rather awkward 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 concept (marketed as 'a mystery').

[Kylie]

Look at the least religious countries in the world.

Now look at the most peaceful countries in the world.

What do you notice?

[RJG]

Look at the least religious countries in the world.

Now look at the most peaceful countries in the world.

What do you notice?

Those without religion are often more peaceful.

[Kylie]

Look at the least religious countries in the world.

Now look at the most peaceful countries in the world.

What do you notice?

Those without religion are often more peaceful.

Exactly. The warnings from the OP don't seem to bad, do they?

[Mithrae]

They certainly did exist in societies long before Christianity, but you haven't shown that these were secular humanist societies. Without some kind of evidence on that front, any attempt to claim a secular humanist "copyright" on these values (if that's what you want to call it) would obviously be quite unpersuasive.

It is NOT the secular humanists who attempt to lay claim to a 'copyright' -- but those who seem to think that love, tolerance and compassion stem from Christianity.

I know that you've read the thread, so I'm really not sure whether or not you're serious with that comment.

Christian arguments based on love, tolerance, and compassion are borrowing fundamentally from Secular Humanism.

This claim to which I initially responded is not only obviously false, but also appears to be an attempt to claim some kind of ownership or "copyright" as you call it on those values.

As I commented in one of my early posts, I myself am a little puzzled by your reaction to my answer, because I don't really view it in those terms: If those are good values then it is good for them to promoted, by anyone, regardless of who did so first or who is doing the 'borrowing.' By contrast you seem to think that these values are or should be "copyrighted" by one group or another; that's your term, not mine. You apparently find something objectionable in the facts that Christianity obviously did not borrow those values from Secular Humanism - you have consistently failed to acknowledge that fact in every post - and that, if anything, to the extent that Secular Humanism as such promotes those values (which is debatable) it's more a case of them being emphasized from among the best values of the predominantly Christian cultures in which it arose.

In fact rather than just pointing out that you have offered little real evidence to support your position, I've even gone on to critique and refine my own original comments by noting that tolerance is at least an ambiguous case among those three, in that it has been particularly emphasized by secular humanists without being particularly prominent in historically Christian societies. But rather than continuing a potentially interesting discussion about how and why some secular humanists emphasize those values, you've instead gone off with some kind of tangential comments about all sorts of other ideas which Christianity has supposedly "taken" from others