Maybe put "I don't speak for the entire Catholic church" in front of his political comments. I'm not saying he did anything wrong, I'm just suggestion another option.
Especially with regard to what we are talking about, ie: Modern ethics and philosophy.
There is nothing so powerful that it can explain everything, however, one can trace the travel of said ideas with the rise and fall of great empires.
that being said, it is obviously not the most important reason for such things, as the Roman empire was, compared to the Greek nation states, illiterate and not interested in art or science. Greek scientists at the time of the Roman invasion had began to create basic gears and mechanical devices. When Greece was destroyed, this technology was lost for hundreds of years.
Okay, maybe that would be a bit far-fetched. But plenty of religious individuals manage not to act like they speak for their church when they say something about politics.
Actually, this philosopher is arguing that the gospels have a fairly unique outlook on life, namely ethics, free will, equality of all men and women and a distinction between spiritual and earthly life. No other culture before christianity has displayed such a view on society, since no other culture before that did without a totalitarian rule. Even hinduism was very strict when it came (or comes even) to the caste system.
Jesus' views on equality between 'Greek and Jew', seperation between what is of the Emperor and what is of God, and the freedom to accept God or not, are quite unique. It's stuff like that, Lenoir argues, that crafted our western democracy where all men are equal.
Now, the guy's not a believer. He's just arguing there's a kind of ethic in the gospel that fuelled democracy as we know it. So why shouldn't a pope say stuff once in a while. Heck, christianity brought our western societies to where they are now. It's not more than like 50 years or so that churches are being abandoned. Looking down on almost 200 years of organised christianity, that's not a whole lot.
Rome illiterate??? You are so mistaken. The most highly held virtues of being Roman was being literate, fluent in Latin and knowledgeable about all availbale literature including Greek. It was rich in culture and art. It was an Empire that lasted for over half a milennium based on values of literacy, culture and education. Now, it was a totalitarian regime, ruled by dictators that did nothing about succession, only cared about their own positions. It's the Roman culture that kept it together for some 400 years.
Too bad the ideas of equality and freedom were ignored by Christian culture until secularization reintroduced them. Christianity had the same morals. But so did Germanic tribes. In the end, just because they were same, doesn't mean they influenced the thought.
I wasn't not talking about morals here, I was talking about philosophical views on society derived from the gospels. The Germanic tribes didn't care much about equality and political leadership was defined by strength and the ability to do away violently with any competing elements to the leadership. Ergo, the tribes were run by dictators that only cared for their own and the support of their own people. They didn't differ much from the way the Romans ran tehir Emprie, or most other ancient nations. It's only later, as in the famous sack of Rome by Alaric, that christian values helped in not entirely thrashing the Empire's capital. But of course, by the these Germanic tribes were already christianised.
Besides, secularity set in heavily halfway the 20th century. By that time democracy as we know it, with a multi-part systems, general rights to vote for everyone over 18 (men and women) and right te be voted, concepts of solidarity etc. were all in place. It's quite an ignorant mistake to think everything was dictatorial before secularisation set in.
As history shows, nations were ruled by dictatorships before christianity set in. It christian philosophy that altered the views on people who were different, that allowed for tolerance to others, including non-believers. Frederic Lenoir argues that any nation that did not hold these values high, even the ones that CALLED themselves Christian, were contradictory to the philosophies of the gospel. So his argument is that on a philosophical, ethical level there's still much to learn from te gospel. Something secularity has not been able to replace with something else.
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Last edited by queeq on Aug 21st, 2008 at 08:42 AM
I would freely admit that the idea of personal freedoms and maybe gender equality came out of the Gospel and ideas specific to Christian Europe after the Renaissance, though both are arguable, I think they are probably best understood that way. As for the rest of ethics, I would almost uniformly disagree unless you specify which ethical maxim we are discussing.
And the remark about Roman illiteracy was tongue in cheek, however compared to the far more artistically and scientifically inclined Greeks of the time, the intent of the statement is true. Also, I am still under the impression that the ability to read and write was rare among the common romans, and didn't they have scribes for the rich given their inability to read/write, or am I confusing Rome and Egypt?
I think you are. LIteracy and ability to comprhend, reason, leacture read write Latin in very strict classical rules WAS part of being Roman. It's very clear that when Barbarians climbed to higher ranks in the army or even in lower governmental positions, they were literate and romanised, well versed in Latin. If anything was considered living the Roman life, it was being literate. And I'm sure this didn't go for the poorer slobs in society, and farmers and stuff. But society was never ruled by these.
As for ethic maxim, in this case it was on a philosophical basis as it influenced the nature of democracy in Western society. Again, I didn't come up with this, a French philosopher did. And he wrote a whole number of books on the relationship between religions and society. It's rather striking that he stresses the importance of personal freedom and equailty as we know it as something that came forth from the New Testament.
I'm sure variations of that theme existed before. But in general it was directed towards the freedom of people in high places in one culture. A political system transcending their own culture, race or position of society is not something we find in older or calssic cultures.
Even Greece was clearly more focused on an oligarchial style of democracy: only a very limited group of priviliged MEN were allowed to have a say in governmental issues. In Rome, the Senate was formed by rich landowners and some high placed people in the military. In both cases, their democracy was nothing of the likes that we know it.
no, I actually agree with the argument if that is the way he was making it. It is completely arguable, however, that the idea of political and social equality came out of the practice, if not the written rule, of "Dhimmi" status among non-Muslims in Arab lands, but like I mentioned before, I personally believe that this argument is not as good as the idea of it developing in Europe, though the groundwork clearly was laid out in Arab lands and even in Greece to some degree (they had some semblance of Democracy as you mention).
Its strange how these two points cross, because the things I was talking about being adopted from Greek times to modern society are largely what you describe of Rome. To expand, learning, reason, logic, universities, libraries. These types of things were what spread, the entire concept of learning which enabled the eventual development of the scientific method, with huge additions from Arab scholars who were the first to introduce medicine to Europe in any significant way after the dark ages.
I guess it is a matter of where you look at it from. Some secular values, like most liberal rights, are obviously due to christianity. I think feminists would argue, as would I, that christianity does not support equality between genders. Other values, like reason and learning, were clearly passed from civilization to civilization, usually leading to the receiving civilization becoming much more powerful.
I'm sorry, but you honestly have no idea what you're talking about. A majority of Germanic Celtic, and Scandinavian tribes held the same system of republicanism that the US holds and most other countries hold. The Germans had the most gracious system of advancement during that time, and for many, many years later until we get to the late 1800s. And Rome was not sacked because of money and promises of land. Religion had nothing to do with the lack of murder and pillaging.
No, secularization of philosophers occurred much earlier before that. Those that came up with the ideas of democracy and the basic blocks of freedom were secularist.
You don't know very much about history. Celtic society was not a dictatorship, it was a decentralized republic. Iceland, before Christianity, was an anarcho-capitalist society. I can't believe you completely overlooked Athens and most Greek city states. Christianity did not come up with thoughts of equality. These were there long before the Gospel touched Europe.
I agree entirely with your sentiment about secular philosophers existing long before the 20th century. Personally, I feel you can go back to Socrates, Aristotle and Plato to find the origins of secularism, though surely someone more versed than me could draw it back even further.
However, with regard to the Celts. I've seen documentaries that make the same claims as you do, however, unlike the Greeks, I don't know if these so called barbarians would have had a way to export their socially progressive ethics to other places before being destroyed by the Romans.
What I mean is that, looking at the Renaissance, one sees a huge influence of the Greeks and of the Arabs, but (and I'm totally no expert) I've not heard of 18th century Europeans trying to revitalize celtic or Norman social values in this same way. Am I just ignorant here, or might the advancements in social values in these groups be more like the technology of concrete, lost until rediscovered, rather than passed from civilization to civilization?
(But yes, to your main point, I agree 100% that secularism and equality existed long before Christianity. There are ancient philosophers of Greece who can be considered, by modern names, as anarchists and marxists)
I can't comment on The Germanic tribes but I do know that The Celts gave more rights to women than they do in some countries today and gave more rights to children then The Romans did, I don't know much about there government but I don't think people like that would just do away with ecah other but of course they were not perfect but seem far more civilised than the Romans and that didn't have anything to do with Christanity.
I don't know about Germanic tribes but I do know that descendents of them did make a form of democracy in Iceland that didn't have anything to do wth Chrisanity either. Also if you read the Norse sagas not all Heathen Kings were brutes.
Anyway im sure you know the atrocities that The Crusaders commited.
I think Hindus in India had democracies and The Persians also at one point were quite a benevolent people. You can also use The Bible to justify a lot of evil and people have...slavery.
Last edited by Deadline on Aug 21st, 2008 at 04:25 PM
given the time, I'd suggest that gender and racial equality found in what the Romans deemed as barbarian hordes would be considered socially progressive.
In which point of view is that untrue, as I thought enforcing gender equality was one of the pillars of progressive ideologies, as applied to society, making it social progressivism.
You are free to believe that men and women aren't equal, but that is not progressive ideology.
I actually didn't name this one if all you are mentioning is word choice...
I don't suppose you've ever heard of the caste system . . .
And those ideas were meaningless until the population was of a type that would follow those concepts. Philosophers have almost always been secularist but their ideas only applied when enough of the other people decided they were right. The spread of Christianity (mainly by women who focused on the "neither east nor west..." type stuff) almost certainly accelerated the spread of democracy. Having a good idea is nice but applying it does so much more.
I don't know about you but a society where the greatest minds considered women so inferior that they had sex with boys regardless of their actual orientation doesn't seem too up and up on equality.
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Last edited by Symmetric Chaos on Aug 21st, 2008 at 05:01 PM
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Aug 20th, 2008 05:59 PM
LOL im bored now.....
