What is Reddit's opinion of Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World?
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> The various atrocities of the 19th and 20th century that were committed by Westerners and the guilt they have instilled seem to be the main driver to me, combined with the cultural influences of Christianity (I think the social justice movement is just the post-religion version of Christianity), which is a religion and philosophical system that preaches conciliation, peace and repentance.

This thesis, that Christianity is basically the air that everything in the modern West breathes, is the basis for Dominion, by Tom Holland. Highly recommended.

Matt 7.12 and Luke 6.31. Both have it. Confucious has the silver, not the golden rule. Big difference. Those who claim it predates Jesus ubiquitously need to cite some sources. Also, it would be helpful to read Atheist Tom Holland’s book “DominionDominion ” on the seismic effect of Xianity on classical morality

Check out agnostic history writer Tom Holland's Dominion, Christianity transformed ancient pagan society in many important ways. The West did not always have the moral values and theological assumptions it has today. To take one example, the poor were by and large ignored in Greco-Roman pagan antiquity. Charity was not common and "obvious" in the West prior to the arrival of Christianity.

I don't understand the distinction you're marking between 'morals' and 'understanding'. Are you going to say that all the civil rights activists China has imprisoned (even executed/disappeared) is purely a difference in 'understanding'? How about the morality in Russia which permits the invasion of Ukraine, vs. the morality of the Ukrainians? Is that purely a difference in 'understanding'? Or how about:

> The more years I spent immersed in the study of classical antiquity, so the more alien I increasingly found it. The values of Leonidas, whose people had practised a peculiarly murderous form of eugenics and trained their young to kill uppity Untermenschen by night, were nothing that I recognised as my own; nor were those of Caesar, who was reported to have killed a million Gauls, and enslaved a million more. It was not just the extremes of callousness that unsettled me, but the complete lack of any sense that the poor or the weak might have the slightest intrinsic value. (Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, 16)

Is that purely a difference in 'understanding'?

Wow this is like the most cynical and lazy view I’ve ever heard.

The ideas in the New Testament had such an impact on the earth it’s mind-boggling. They caused the fall of the Roman Empire (w/out violence). They pioneered the concept of human rights. They radically changed our understanding of moral values, love, justice, forgiveness, gratitude. None of this is disputed even if you aren’t a Christian.

Maybe your theory should address some of this stuff.

>There probably isn’t a time that provided more to mathematic, philosophical, or artistic contributions than the ancient Greeks.

I would tend to agree (for all practical purposes). A monumental, foundational period in the history of civilization.

Now let's just say for arguments sake that the influence of Christianity on Western culture has been roughly equal to that in magnitude (I think the case can be made).

Yet this Christian influence came from a single man. A no-name carpenter in a no-name town in Palestine, who only spoke publicly in the last 3 years of his life.

And so if you don't think that Jesus is who he said he was, then you are in the unfortunate position of wrestling with how this carpenter and his fishermen friends were able to have this type of impact on planet earth. It's not like saying "probably didn't happen" gets you out of the quandary.

This is really good. I am reading Dominion at the moment and am up to the 14th century. the church really lost the plot in those centuries, with the inquisition, fear and paranoia about heracies, and the terriible behaviour of the popes.

I just finished reading Tom Holland's Dominion. I never even considered the possibility that a book about the history of Christian influence on Western culture would give me an earworm, but here we are. I read the following passage late one night and actually had trouble getting to sleep because the song kept playing in my head:

>True wisdom was the knowledge of God that all mortals could have, if only they were prepared to open themselves to the Spirit: for God, Winstanley proclaimed, was Reason. It was Reason that would lead humanity to foreswear the very concept of possessions; to join in building a heaven on earth. His foes might dismiss Winstanley as a dreamer; but he was not the only one. The occupation of St George’s Hill was a declaration of hope: that others some day would join the Diggers, and the world would be as one.

As i said, it has been corrupted, like everything else, science, whatever. But in essence it's been very beneficial. I dont think you have an open mind to understand but for anyone else reading theres a great book on the subject called dominionthat explains just how big and beneficial christianity's influence has been on the world

Oh yeah, he wrote a book that definitely needed to be written. As in, super important book. Another book also came out recently showing how Christianity changed the world in terms of ethics and values -- Tom Holland's Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (and what's amazing is that Tom Holland isn't even Christian, he's an agnostic historian).

RE: Secular Christianity

I’d recommend Dominion by Tom Holland. It’s gotten some good reviews by historians, and it’s subject is how much of modern secular values and models of reality come from Christian thought and tradition.

https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

>Christianity has been the greatest force for good in the history of the human race.

A useful semi-secular resource here would be Tom Holland's Dominion, a quite-good history covering the idea that virtually all of Western Liberal Thought is rooted in Christianity.

I say semi-secular because Holland was atheist when he began writing, but was raised in the church and I recall reading he began attending again at some point during the process.

Just a nitpick here

> that obviously wouldn't affect the RCC's billion dollar budget.

This really isn't the right way to judge the Catholic Church's finances or any organization's finances. The RCC may bring in billions of dollars but that doesn't mean it has billions of dollars of liquidity. You have to judge it by income vs expenses, which would likely show a much a much lower number.

Remember, the RCC is not first and foremost a charitable organization, so it cannot simply spend all its money on charity. It exists first and foremost to glorify God and Christ. It's charity is just an extension of that mission. If that mission did not exist, the charity would not exist.

And, going off on a bit of a tangent here, the slack might not be picked up by any other organization, it's quite possible that without the Church, the charity provided by Christianity would literally not exist. Just look at this book, by an atheist author no less, on how Christian ideals reshaped society. Who put those ideals there? Oh, right....

But, going back to the original point, the RCC might not have billions of dollars to dump into one spot on the planet available at any given time.

"All modern Christianity is fake Christianity" your use of "all" is a logical fallacy. Having spent the last half century as a christian, I have found that pantheistic, deistic and agnostic beliefs CANNOT account for the universe nor for humanity. I highly recommend the atheist Tom Holland's excellent book https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507 Blessings in Christ (Messiah) Jesus.

> We'd be able to quickly agree on a very baseline moral code- helping people is good, hurting people is bad, that sort of thing. That kind of very basic morality is universal (indeed, its instinctual- this is basically what guilt tracks to).

Do the following examples fit your generalization:

>     By identifying rationality with social superiority – by taking for granted the deference of inferiors, of a domestic sphere – the ancient world had less need for a doctrine of the will. It had less need to posit a separate event or faculty preceding action in every person. The notion of human agency was shaped by the structure of society. Some were simply born to command and others to obey. Hence there was no ontological gap between thought and action. The status of the person who reasoned guaranteed the availability of action if required. (Inventing the Individual, 35–36)

Except they literally didn't. Before the Jesus movement, education was only for the wealthy class. Hospitals did not exist. And literally the entirety of racial and gender equality comes from this line from the Apostle Paul: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Please read Dominion by Tom Holland. He is a historian who also happens to be atheist but confirms everything I'm saying. Literally every concept you hold dear is from Christianity, you are just swimming in it so you can't even notice it.

https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

Your entire worldview is shaped by Christianity, you're just swimming in it so you can't even tell. Please read this book by honest atheist Tom Holland. Anything and everything you believe in is from Christianity.

https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

The entire of Western civilization is so Christian that all the atheists on Reddit would never be able to handle it. Equality of men and women, racial equality, no slavery, the idea that the weak or oppressed are the real heroes... these are ALL Christian values that came from Christianity exclusively. Read Dominion by Tom Holland (who is an atheist) if you don't believe me. https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

One is compatible with xenophobia and ethnocentrism, which we know were rampant.

The other requires a kind of moral fiber which did not obviously exist until Christianity started, e.g. with the rescue of exposed infants which so flabbergasted the Romans.

It seems like you may just not understand how brutal things were:

>     The claims of the city remained pre-eminent. An enemy of the city had no rights. A Spartan king, when asked about the justice of seizing a Theban citadel in peacetime, replied: ‘Inquire only if it was useful, for whenever an action is useful to our country, it is right.’[12] The treatment of conquered cities reflected this belief. Men, women, children and slaves were slaughtered or enslaved without compunction. Houses, fields, domestic animals, anything serving the gods of the foe might be laid waste. If the Romans spared the life of a prisoner, they required him to swear the following oath: ‘I give my person, my city, my land, the water that flows over it, my boundary gods, my temples, my movable property, everything which pertains to the gods – these I give to the Roman people.’13

If you think people can become perfect in a day, explain how we're willing to economically suffer to punish Russia for invading a country of people who look and behave like us, but we won't economically suffer to punish China for committing genocide against people who look different from us, talk differently, behave differently, and believe differently? (WP: Uyghur genocide)

>It bothers me that theism seems to be growing because I can’t understand how it gets more than a 5% credence in an honest Bayesian worldview.

Are there any other ideas that seem to be growing or have grown that you would give similarly low credence? If yes, why is theism the one that stands out as bothersome? If no, maybe that suggests there's missing data? (I do get that my 'if no' is basically what you're asking for already)

>threads on DSL

How long have you been around the Scott-sphere? If you've been around a while, then what I'm about to say is going to be rehashing old ideas, but DSL in particular is a weird case (as, essentially, a community that formed in Scott's SSC open threads and hasn't really changed since SSC died), and to a lesser extent The Motte, and lesser still The Schism, have the same reason for relatively high religiosity. That reason is: Scott, in his infinite niceness, was rarely-if-ever an asshole to believers, and did not deliberately and constantly alienate them like the vast majority of Internet atheists, including most other Internet rationalists. Over time they concentrated, for basically the same reason you did: they came to the part of the internet where they could escape having their faith mocked while indulging their rationalism. For certain cultural reasons, this has also resulted in a strange concentration of Orthodox in particular. If you've got one place you can "be yourself," you're going to stay there and defend it, and those with other places to be themselves are going to go elsewhere (similar explanations have been given for The Schism's low activity rate).

As for why you might be seeing it grow elsewhere: I suspect your explanations 4 and 5 overlap substantially and play a big role in the potential religious-rhetoric growth at HN.

Contrarians will wear out and move on to the next thing, but it's explanation #3 that covers why it is likely to continue growing, given... the rest of the cultural atmosphere. That "Christian atheist" position of people like Douglas Murray and basically anyone that thinks "Western Civilization" is a meaningful concept not to be destroyed. You've got some of these around The Motte and rat-tumblr too.

Reminds me of the story of the two rabbis that debated all evening, decided G-d couldn't exist, and go to bed. The next morning, they pass each other in the street, one going to get breakfast and the other going to Shabbat morning service. "Wait, I thought we decided G-d doesn't exist?" asks one. "What does that have to do with anything?" asks the other.

Something will fill that God-shaped hole, and a lot of people aren't satisfied with what filled it as new atheism rose and fell. So people, perhaps following Tom Holland's footsteps, try to build on a cornerstone their ancestors believed in rather than building on sand. Can it stay stable if you don't believe the rock is real, yourself? I guess we'll see!

> OP notice this is the book that all the atheists are telling you not to read.

A - I'm not an atheist.

B - Thinking a book is shit doesn't isn't a conspiracy. Just as disliking Christian assholes doesn't mean they are persecuted for Jesus' sake.

I like my history to come from historians. They are, you know, better equipped for it in general. I also like it to not come from smug assholes like DBH. I also don't like it to be packaged as a smug rejoinder against the general historical idiocy of people like Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris - they are as irrelevant here as they are when they spout off nonsense philosophical ideas.

I would recommend a far better book for OP which isn't "against atheism", but instead is just a good historical book. Tom Holland's Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World.

As you can see from this review, it has some of the same subtext - debunking bad history, but it has its own independent thesis to talk about that's a worthy one. https://historyforatheists.com/2020/01/tom-holland-dominion/

I think Dominion by Tom Holland, a non-Christian historian, is a good primer on the roots of the distinctives of the Western mind:

https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

Secularism, for instance, involving the State as self-consciously contrasted with 'Religion,' is itself a Western Christian invention, created for Christian purposes (first, to distinguish the supernatural from the natural functions of society, and later to mediate sectarian disputes among Christians). The Western ideas of universal human dignity (descended from the idea that we are made in the image of God, whatever else distinguishes us), the intrinsic intelligibility of reality (because God is logos and creation reflects that), the duty of the strong to the weak and the peculiar moral authority of the oppressed (rooted in Jesus's characteristic ethical teachings), of universal historical human progress (rooted in Christian eschatology), the primacy of conscience (rooted in the Christian drama of individual salvation) and universal rights, to name a few, are all rehashed Christian doctrines. It's not Christianity's mere presence that makes the West a product of Christianity, but Christianity's central role in explaining the dominance and prevalence of the West's signature commitments.

> What you seem to be advocating is spontaneous uncoordinated mass change of behavior where if everyone just read the bible they would become more moral →

Be that as it may, it isn't what I am advocating. I've already said that I expect the Bible to help us face ourselves rather than believe in falsehoods about ourselves, rather than helping us be moral. Whether or not we want to be moral is a choice—go back to Deut&nbsp;30:11–20, which I've referenced multiple times. And I'm certainly not talking about "spontaneous uncoordinated mass change of behavior"; the whole point of my previous comment was to talk about how to deviate from the present social order in an orderly fashion. The NT has a lot of respect for law; the first half of Rom&nbsp;13 says to submit to the authorities and the second half starts with "the one who loves another has fulfilled the law". In a very deep sense, the law is meant to get us out of self-focus so that the Other can exist in a non-threatening way, such that we can learn the joy of loving the Other and being loved by the Other. A revolutionary destruction of the Other doesn't accomplish this.

> ← without any central institutional force to change their behavior.

Do I hear echoes of Leviathan, where God tells Moses to delegate to 70 elders and he is able to extrapolate out and hope for the day when the Spirit of God rests on every single person. Furthermore, God's interaction with people in that vision is one of cooperation, not subjugation. One can see this by comparing God's appearance to Elijah to God's appearance to the Israelites during the Exodus. (1&nbsp;Ki&nbsp;19:9–13 and Ex&nbsp;20:18–21) The author of Hebrews sees the fear the Israelites had at Mt Sinai as very important, noting that we don't need to be fearful, as long as we're willing to listen (Heb&nbsp;12:18–29)—a very different stance than most people's take on 'divine revelation' [in my experience]. Rather than acting as a "central institutional force" as God had to in the Exodus, God's desired mode seems to be far more of an advisor. Or perhaps helper, seeing as God describes Godself with the same word used to describe Eve: עֵ֫זֶר (ezer). Moses names one of his sons Eliezer, El-i-ezer = "God is my help". And then there's the 'my baʿal' → 'my ishi' in Hos&nbsp;2:16–17, which signals a change from { lord, master, owner, husband } → { husband }.

> It sounds like a form of social saltation.

If by that you mean something other than evolution by natural selection, where the true shaping force exists outside of the organism: Yes! Social order will be obtained; the only question is how much of it will be generated internally via self-restraint, and how much will be enforced from the outside-in. The Founding Fathers had quite a lot to say about self-restraint. But surely neither Christianity nor Judaism could have been a major influence on that!

> And the bible is the most read book in history. There's zero reason to believe that it would happen now if it hasn't happened already.

If you don't see the Reformation as a saltation, I'm not quite sure what to say. The move toward valuing the individual's conscience over and against state & religious authorities was pretty epic. I would argue that it was only possible because individuals had learned to exercise a remarkable level of self-restraint. All that oppressive Roman Catholic ritual might just have accomplished something valuable. But no, may it never be! :-p

> Otherwise, I don't even know what you're trying to say here. That if everyone acted selflessly and trusted each other, the world would be a better place? I mean, sure. But wishes are for fishes. Also, why is any of this more insightful than, say, Buddhism?

This is why I said "The details matter." in another comment. How on earth do you chart a course to seflessness and trust? I believe the Bible has some excellent things to say in that realm. But it sounds like really establishing that for you, such that you would even take it seriously, could take a PhD dissertation or maybe 100. And I don't really blame you, given how awful Christians have been in the past few centuries. Ezek&nbsp;5:5–8 and 2&nbsp;Chr&nbsp;33:9 are very weird verses from which to obtain comfort …

Nevertheless, there are ways to get at the matter. See for example Tom Holland 2019 Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World and Larry Siedentop 2014 Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism. I myself think we could get a lot about looking at Alasdair MacIntyre 1981 After Virtue and subsequent. But it's a pretty big discussion. It's a shame that Silicon Valley hasn't considered that maybe building technology for far more sophisticated discussions might be of value to humanity. But hey, let's all worship the almighty $ some more—surely that will solve our problems. Sigh. (That last comment wasn't aimed at you.)

> You literally said that our main problem was morality and not technology.

Yes. If we treat each other well, science and technology are easy.

> You were implying that it was only important for God to teach people morality. By extension, this means that it wasn't important for God to try to help people save lives by teaching them how to make penicillin.

No. I don't think God needs to directly help us do science or technology. With the right moral & ethical conditions, they're easy. And I say this being married to a scientist who made it 7 years into a postdoc before finally bailing and going to industry.

> You then seemed to be offering the fact that rich people could do more to help as an excuse for God to not do anything about cancer, malaria, etc. My point was that they can't, so there's no sense in saying that it is humanity's fault that people die of cancer.

I'm working with a sociologist who is studying many ways that we could improve scientific inquiry, so I am 100% convinced that the bold is completely and utterly false. There is no known limit to how much better we could be doing, if we treated each other half decently. Oh, and I'm also in regular contact with someone high up in the bureaucracy of an R1 university. The amount of insanity which happens because we won't treat bureaucracy is necessary and not evil is mind-blowing. The number of faculty who simply cannot be arsed to learn how to interact well with other humans who have different interests from them is shocking.

> But this is a moot point because you've admitted that God just doesn't answer prayers because he is under no obligation to help people: > > > I reject the assertion that people always get what they deserve.

Sorry, but I don't see how what I said logically entails what you said.

> You've also rejected moral intuitions: > > > I know it's not the cosmic policeman / cosmic nanny you may be looking for, but the God of the Bible need not match up with your idiosyncratic idea of "goodness". > > > > Your subjective opinion is noted. All I can say is that your notion of God doesn't match what I see in the Bible.

I've no more rejected moral intuitions than empirical intuitions. Science regularly overturns our intuitions, yes? No? If yes, why can't the same happen with our moral intuitions? Surely you and I would both say there was something seriously wrong with these moral intuitions:

> If God has no reason to give people what they deserve then he can genocide whoever he wants and we can just dismiss our subjective intuitions that genocides are bad. But this does seem to be at odds with the fact that you use genocides as evidence that humanity is evil.

This only makes sense if (i) you don't think humans have the duty to establish justice amongst themselves; and/or (ii) you think God should always and immediately pick up the slack when humans fail. It should be transparently obvious that it is humans who fail to impose justice and actively promote oppression and violence. The Bible has God stepping in when there is no hope of a culture getting fixed—and yet you call the destruction of such cultures, 'genocide'. (By and large, the text talks about driving people out, which would destroy the culture and only those people who insisted on defending it to the death.)

> I mean, you've literally committed yourself to saying that God was justified in having somone more evil come

Habakkuk was as astonished as you. (Habakkuk&nbsp;1) The lesson is this: God isn't going to be a cosmic nanny or policeman. If you don't fight evil yourself, it will prosper. This is in strong contrast to ideological currents in the ancient near east which placed the responsibility, and guilt for failure, at the feet of the king. But here's the thing: the person or group you give responsibility to, you cede authority to. You end up subcontracting your conscience to them. And then you find out that you have little power to alter the status quo. From there, you cry out for the powerful to save you. The cycle self-reinforces. The OT exposes that cycle. And it calls for every single human to be empowered, rather than to continue the unjust systems in vogue—whether Babylonian hierarchy or Athenian democracy which was parasitic upon massive slavery.

> How do you know that the holocaust wasn't just God doing the same thing again and therefore a form of justice by your own lights?

Because the Jews weren't in Israel, with full political authority which they were using to spread injustice. The Holocaust is far more like Esther. And in Esther, the Jews were wise to place themselves in strategic political positions, so that they could see danger and thwart it. My guess is Mordechai and Esther were also obeying Jer&nbsp;29:4–9.

> Your intuition that it is bad is just as "subjective" as mine.

Of course! And given the demographics of r/DebateReligion, yours is likely to be given far more weight and experience far less scrutiny. But that just means I stand to learn more than you. :-p

> The only way of interpreting what you're saying that I can see is that you're committed to some form of divine command theory.

Nope, unless it's the trivial sense that because God created everything by words, words determine the nature of everything, and then words track the nature of everything and so the words are trustworthy. What that doesn't entail is that the words can change (e.g. "Rape everyone as much as you can!") without the reality also changing. I read much of the Bible as training people to figure out when the words uttered (especially: by the rich & powerful) track reality, or do not. Especially over time, especially over multiple generations. So for example, in the context of cheap forgiveness, Jeremiah says "the temple of YHWH, the temple of YHWH, the temple of YHWH" are false words. (Jer&nbsp;7:1–20) That is, what people think will emerge from said cheap forgiveness is not what will. For more, I point you to Yoram Hazony's excellent treatment of that passage in his 2012 The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture.

> God doesn't have to stop suffering because it isn't bad unless he says it is.

If you read through the Bible, God isn't nearly as proactive as most atheists I encounter seem to think God should be. Take for example the Israelites in Egypt who become enslaved. God didn't wasn't proactive. He waited until they cried out for help. (Ex&nbsp;2:23–25) Jesus indicates the same pattern in Lk&nbsp;18:1–8, with the parable of the persistent widow. God expects us to be active, not passive. The Bible doesn't describe a deity who tends Neverland. Rather, the Bible describes a deity who is training us up for the most glorious mission possible (Genesis&nbsp;1:28). When YHWH expresses a Leviathan fetish in Job&nbsp;41, that has to be read against Job&nbsp;7:12 and Gen&nbsp;1:21, 26–28. Among other things, Jesus is the imago Dei fully realized and so Hebrews&nbsp;1 makes use of Psalm&nbsp;8, which is about the exaltation of every human (rather than just kings).

> But that does seem to undermine your argument that the bible is divinely inspired because of its moral message. How can we know that the bible is true because it best explains our moral intuitions if we have no reason to think our moral intuitions are reliable?

Nothing I said logically entails that our moral intuitions are 100% unreliable. Abraham used his moral intuitions when questioning God and Moses used his moral intuitions when challenging God. Rather, the Bible describes a dangerous world and claims that humans are up to the task of Job&nbsp;40:6–14-type action. Most discussions of theodicy and the problems of evil & suffering assume that humans are absolutely pathetic beings, in dire need of a cosmic nanny or at least cosmic policeman. The obvious socio-political correlates of that are a very strong State—because of course, God does not exist. And so, these moral intuitions very easily support authoritarianism and even totalitarianism.

> If you can find a way to transport and preserve all of that food to the people who need it without having local officials and warlords steal it, you should submit the proposal to the U.N.

And so the problem isn't scientific or technological, but moral and ethical.

> Religion has no methodology to determine anything at all.

If you can read Summa Theologica and find no methodology whatsoever you could probably become famous by popularizing that finding. You might also want to inform everyone who studies and practices hermeneutics.

> Science is a methodology to determine how reality works.

Science has a far, far easier task than religion. By only talking about how reality works, and not how it should work, tremendous amounts of complexity can be completely ignored. But in fact, life cannot be lived without that should, because either people want to maintain status quo against forces of disruption, or people want to change things against the status quo people and those who would pull it in a different direction. This rich interplay of actors is guaranteed to produce something far more difficult to understand than the mass of the electron.

> If you can produce a method by which religion can determine anything about reality then you might have a point.

What religion is trying to do what science does? For one, humans have spent most of their existence adapting themselves to reality, far more than they thought of adapting reality to themselves. For two, observing the orbits of the planets will always take a distinct back seat to maintaining social order, if there is a conflict between them. Plenty of religion is concerned with maintaining social order, and a just social order. If you think that society would work just fine if everyone were measuring the mass of the electron and nobody were concerned with how to maintain integrity of the judicial branch amidst all the shenanigans humans like to pull … well, you might have the United States of post-2022-05-02.

> … something that has never produced a single result.

Tell that to atheist Tom Holland, author of Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (2019). Unless, that is, you mean 'result' to be the kind of thing which requires a stable enough social order to obtain. In that case, I could stipulate that Christianity did the hard part so that scientists could do the easy part. >:-]

>They’re pretty straight forward moral ideas about the an individuals right to life which don’t at all seem to be derived from Christian philosophy.

If you accept Tom Holland's arguments in Dominion, they are derived from Christian philosophy even if the Enlightenment made some attempts to secularize them. I would be with Douglas Murray that as Christian philosophy fades, so does any meaningful secular humanism, because those roots of a sanctity of and right to life lie in Christian soil. For reference, Murray describes himself as atheist but culturally Christian.

I think one could re-derive those moral ideas on stronger secular grounds, but if anyone has done so effectively, it doesn't seem to have been very popular. I suspect that even if one does so, it remains in the shadow of Christian philosophy due to history, and so the anti-Christian strain today would likewise ignore the secular philosophy in that shadow.

Likewise, that's why it's a politically useful weapon to make sure abortion restrictions and skepticism stay associated with Christianity; that's a useful boo-light for some populations.

> Dragging up isolated examples of behaviours that occur in minuscule communities or in larger groups for short periods of time as evidence of inconsistent morals between social groups when compared to the overwhelming consistency across time and geography of a small set of basic social norms , called morals , is as pointless as your Romans at war example.

Possibly you are correct on cannibalism, but genocidal tendencies? That's not isolated at all; we had plenty of it last century and unfortunately, more this century.

  > I note you don’t use examples of cannibalism from the bible (2 Kings 6 :24 )

It's irrelevant by both your criterion and mine. The question is whether the following claim is true or false:

> Zamboniman: Instead, religious mythologies took the morality of the time and place they were invented and called it their own …

Zamboniman is uninterested in supporting it with peer-reviewed material, and from what I can tell, neither is anyone else. That the Israelites were like their contemporaries in a number of ways is irrelevant; that is neither a sufficient or necessary condition for the above claim. A single major moral innovation over their contemporaries (e.g. treating the murder of slaves as a capital crime) could suffice to falsify it.

  > Your scripture , claiming to hold moral lessons is full of similarly aberrant acts .

My guess is that you were taught that the Bible is a perfect source of morality. For example, that King Solomon was [almost?] a paragon of virtue. You probably weren't taught that Solomon violated many and perhaps all but one of the laws in Deut&nbsp;17:14–20. Suffice it to say that I think the Bible presented a morality that was possibly doable by the people at the time, so that they could actually be guilty for falling short. Take for example Jer&nbsp;34:8–17, where the Israelites couldn't even bring themselves to obey the laws to release their own people from slavery. Atheists perseverating about the harsher laws for foreign slaves just don't seem to understand that if the Israelites are going to disobey the easier law, there's no hope of them obeying the harder law. But I lay almost all the blame here on terrible Christian teaching.

Another way to read the Bible is to see the utter depravity of which humans are capable. That might have been wise leading up to World War I and World War II. Who believed that one of the most Enlightened nations in the world, which exported the research university, would engage in such atrocities? If you were one of the ones who Ballo Excelsior an Italian play which premiered in 1881 and celebrated the awesomeness of Western Civilization. Now, these same people attended human zoos, but the point is they grossly underestimated the evil of which they were capable. And yet, you seem to think that a holy text purged of such evil would somehow lead to less inhumanity. (Do correct me if I'm wrong.)

  > rob1sydney: Christianity didn’t bring basic morals to humanity as evidenced by the fact that societies hold the same morals irrespective of religion

> rob1sydney: If you have a valid argument , make it .

Back at you. The US's morals are obviously different from China's. The reason for that can be traced, in part, to historical differences between the two nations. An excellent argument can be made that Christianity importantly contributed to some of the differences that you would probably label "good". See for example atheist author [Tom Holland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holland_(author\))'s 2019 Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World.

  > labreuer: [theological difference between Islam & Judaism] ~~These lead to very different social systems:~~

> rob1sydney: Citing areas of theological disagreement between faiths as evidence of moral differences is not a sound argument .

You seem to have ignored what I have put in strikethrough. Why?

  > Remove the theistic laws from the Ten Commandments and you have a universal code , for Jew , gentile, Hindu , Buddhist alike .

I'm willing to bet that most Jews would say that this doesn't get anywhere close to capturing the Jewish way of life (that is, more than just theology). Just because you can find an abstract core, which is held in common between various religions and cultures, doesn't mean they are therefore nigh identical in all of the important ways. For example, it doesn't even indicate whether slaves are considered humans or not. (see my earlier comment)

Compare:

> Cultural anthropologists have long recognized how all human societies have similar basic norms of moral conduct. (Center for Inquiry: Morality evolved first, long before Religion

vs.

So, what exactly is meant by "similar basic norms of moral conduct"?

First, there's this:

> “Thus says the Lord YHWH: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. And she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her; for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes. Therefore thus says the Lord YHWH: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you, therefore thus says the Lord YHWH: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. (Ezekiel 5:5–8)

Second, many scholars contend that secularism was a natural outgrowth of Christianity (specifically: Protestantism), rather than a pure reaction against Christianity. Do you think they're all wrong?

Third, there's this:

The author, [Tom Holland ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holland_(author\)), is an atheist btw.

Quit being annoying.

God would be "tortured" in this state because his nature is pure and perfect love, which by the Christian definition requires relationality between persons (better said it's actually the reverse, it's Christian revelation that gave us this definition of personhood and of love). Love intrinsically requires 3 - the lover, the loved, and the love they share. Pope Benedict uses the prepositions "from, for, and with". These are the irreducible aspects of love, according to Christians - God is the perfection of these, and each human person is a reflection, an "image" of them.
God is 1 by definition in monotheism, as "everything that rises must converge", ultimately to a single point. Yet God is also perfect love, so see above why he must be also be 3.
You've got it backwards from the way Christians understand it. As u/Excellent-Law528 said, Genesis straight up tells us we are images of the creator of the universe. We actually believe that, and we've been unpacking it what the implications are ever since. Instead of demanding a "demonstration", whatever that even means, and shutting the conversation down before it even gets started, Christians have remained open to further thought and understanding. The Judeo-Christian tradition has cultivated this seed, and to make a long story short, no other single idea has had a bigger impact on human progress and been more foundational to the idea of human rights and human dignity in all of recorded history. Sources: See here for an overview of how Christian ideas shaped the West and modernity more than any others, and here, here, and here for how the Christian idea of the human person as an image of God has been explicitly used in the fight for progress on human rights. So to answer your question, we subscribe to the idea because of how unbelievably, incredibly fruitful its been. I honestly could care less if that doesn't pass your "demonstration" test.

>This seems far fetched...

As incredible as it may sound, it's true. Charity was scarce in the ancient world. It only became "normal" or commonplace in society because of Christianity. Organized charity was invented by the Judeo-Christian tradition. You may check out scholar Pieter van der Horst's article, "How the poor became blessed" for poor about this.

Agnostic historian Tom Holland also affirms this as well in his book, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World.

> Oh yes lets pretend that "holy wars" havent existed and committed genocide as well all just to suit a narrative.

The difference is that when that occurred, it was not in accordance with what Jesus taught. Said wars contravened the teaching's of Christ, and were predicated on selfish political agendas, as opposed to doing the will of God. God and Christianity are not to blame, rather, prideful, hypocritical people are.

> They were talking about needing a uniting narrative to replace religion
with and people can easily replace it with an anti-religion narrative.

That's already been tried. You naively assume that everything will be ok if we just release ourselves from the shackles of religion, but history demonstrates otherwise.

> And no, that does not mean genocide and you act like your religion
propped up america when it didnt. The declaration of independence was
written bya nonchristian named thomas jefferson.

The Declaration of Independence wasn't written by Jefferson, exclusively, but also Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.

Also, the human rights that you take for granted are not recorded in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence (which Jefferson wrote):

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their *Creator* with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Whether Jefferson was a Christian or not, he recognized that we were created by at least a general God. Moreover, I'm not even American, rather, I'm a Canadian, but the entire Western world was built on the bedrock of the Judeo-Christian worldview.

I would recommend reading the following book, by the non-believing historian, Tom Holland:

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World: https://www.amazon.ca/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

> The slaves were freed by a nonchristian named abe lincoln.

With respect to Lincoln, his religious convictions, or lack thereof are in dispute. Some who were close to him think that he might have been a Christian, while others don't think he was. Whatever the case, Lincoln is merely one of many who were instrumental of the abolishment of slavery. Another was William Wilberforce, who was a devout Christian.

> Actually, texas used your bible as a defense for slavery, no fucking joke.

Just because someone uses the Bible to leverage personal agendas, that does not mean that their actions are justified, or supported by the text that they cite in defense of their objective. Anyone can use the Bible to push their selfish interests, but that doesn't mean that Jesus would necessarily approve of those actions.

> And there are plenty of philosophical leaders that werent christian throughout all of history.

I agree. What's your point? I never implied that many important figures throughout time weren't atheists.

> FFS you just picked a fight because youre anti-humanist and cant stand that people can unite without religion.

You're attacking a straw man. I admit that my initial comment was provocative, but I wasn't picking a fight, rather, suggesting that China and North Korea are the logical outworking of atheism. I am not saying that all atheists are bad people, rather, in the absence of God, man inevitably deifies himself, which is what all dictatorships have in common: maniacal leaders who think they are superior to all else, and unanswerable to anyone.

Moreover, I never said anything about humanism. What I said is that we have already experimented with societies that shunned God, and it resulted in catastrophe and more bloodshed than under any society that embraced God. What are people going to be united under if God is thrown to the wayside? We're basically living in such an age, in the West, yet, we are more divided than ever, and it seems clear that said division is largely propagated by the secular far left.

> Tough shit, the world has science now, religion is declining, get over it.

This is a non sequitur, and it is also demonstrably false. First, the scientific method was fathered by a Christian (Bacon). The most pivotal trailblazers of science were also Christians: Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Maxwell, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel, etc. I would gently encourage you to watch the following video:

God, Science, and Atheism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y2ICUYwp4E

Lastly, religion isn't declining, on a global scale. It may be declining in the West, but it is rapidly growing overseas.

Also, there's no need to get your back up, merely because you are being challenged. I'm not attacking you as a person, rather, I am challenging your ideas.

>You’ve described relativism as a part of the plot?

Depends on what you mean by relativism. Do you mean there is no objective truth? The Church would of course say NO. But if you mean "As we learn we change our views and our interpretations - simple as that." (your quote), the Church would say YES.

St. John Henry Newman would in particular agree in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine:

“The profession and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the time, and silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not then held, but that it was not questioned.”

Worth noting that the image of God that Dante chose in his Divine Comedy was a sort of light in constant motion, juxtaposed with the image of Satan, who is frozen solid in a lake of ice at the bottom of Hell.

>But what we really have to take note of is the core story’s of the Bible as plagiarized / facsimiles of pagan beliefs.

Couple notes on this idea. This first is another quote from Newman from the same essay:

“That great portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of Angels and demons is Magian; the connection of sin with the body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is Pythagorean; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues from it,—'These things are in heathenism, therefore they are not Christian:' we, on the contrary, prefer to say, 'these things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.' That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide over its extent; that these have variously taken root, and grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an immaterial principle in them, yet have not souls, so the philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools of the world; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, noting and visiting the doctrines she found there.”

But the second, and probably more important, point, is that the Gospels are not the same level of story as these ancient myths that predated them. “Those who say the Gospels are mythic haven't read many myths.” - C.S. Lewis. It's clear when reading the Gospels that this was an account of a shockingly weird and not-yet-understood "miracle" (there's no more accurate word though I acknowledge the connotation that it has).

>There were plenty of other ideas blossoming around the globe of equal or greater value around the same time or after. As many of the Asian philosophies, as I call them, demonstrated a much more intrinsic understanding of the world and map out a better relative blue print.

My short answer to this would be "the proof is in the pudding". No other system of thought has had a greater impact on the earth than that of Jesus of Nazareth. NOT saying there's no truth in Eastern traditions. Perhaps we still have some integrating to do there.. there's still some cultural barriers to be brought down.

>I can’t say I agree with this attempted normative assessment of science being one with religion when you base your core off dogmatic presupposition that are unfalsifiable.

Science has its unfalsifiable dogmatic presuppositions too - ones it borrowed from religious/philosophical systems - namely that the physical world is intelligible and that our consciousness allows us to experience an objective reality.

>And the only thing I see the church having a long history of doing is trying to explain their bias, when those inconvenient truths emerges as they always will, it’s again a “how do we make this work cover story.”

This is what any rational scientist does in the face of new evidence. It's just how it works when you accept the unity of truth. If an undisputable proof came along that denied the existence of God, we would have to accept it... until then we wait. Seems unlikely though as our framework includes a God who created and sustains all matter.

>I don’t buy the claim JP that the enlightenment was “what ,Christianity was really supposed to be like.” BS BS BS.

I'd again cite the book "Dominion" and maybe JP's recent episode with the Oxford & Cambridge guys. We had to dethrone the Greek and Roman gods to de-mythologize matter. Once matter is a "good" gift from the creator, ours to be stewards of (see Genesis), we can go about our scientific inquiry without worrying about pissing off Poseidon.

>And I repeat there is no amount of superficial good you can pretend makes up for that (the sexual abuse crisis).

I'm not really disagreeing with you on the unthinkable harm that's happened. St. Paul said "we carry a treasure in earthen vessels". Because you hinted otherwise though, I can't go without mentioning the work the Vatican has done over the last 11 years to change. I don't expect a change of your opinion on that.

>for over a thousand years

The magnitude seems to be on a different level in the last 60 years, not only in the Church (see #MeToo). Pope Benedict made this point, partly blaming the sexual revolution of the 60's.

That would almost make sense if early Christians weren't persecuted and killed for spreading the word.

But really my point was not about just spreading some ideas. My point was that the profundity of the ideas central to Christianity is so great, to believe that it was made up by these 1st century Palestinians is to believe they were some of the most profound, deepest thinkers to ever walk the planet.

We've been unpacking the implications of whatever it is that happed for over 2 millennia. The ideas in the Gospel - which center on the resurrection - have been foundational for Western culture. No other system of thought has had more material impact on the earth than that of Jesus of Nazareth.

>“But again, this was an off ramp. I believe the evidence is clear that Christianity alone does not make a person or culture morally superior (because for every good thing you can show me a Christian has done, I can show you a good thing done by a non-Christian; and for every bad thing you show me a non-believer has done, I can show you a Christian who has done the same)”.

I disagree and think the evidence points towards in the opposite direction.

But yes, I do agree with you though that atheists can and have done very good things. Likewise, Christians (of course) can and have done very bad things. I do want respond to you with three points though.

There is a big difference between your average Christian on the street and a devout Christian. Most Christians are cultural Christians (who don’t even strive to follow the gospel and live worldly lives in terms of sex, drugs, etc). There’s a very big difference between these Christians and devout Christians.
Although atheists can and have done very good things and Christians can and have done very bad things (so atheists are capable of great good and Christians are capable of great evil -- I agree with you), non-belief is incapable of matching the virtue of those whose lives have been utterly transformed by Christ and the gospel – I’m talking about the lives of Christian saints. Read up about these people, their lives are incredible. I’m a devout Christian who seriously strives to follow Christ 100% and when I look at the saints -- I’m just literally in awe. They loved, gave of themselves and have sacrificed in ways that I don’t think I can do. Think St. Francis of Assisi, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Damien of the Molokai, St. Therese of Lisieux, etc. Here, let me share with you a write up on Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati as an example.

>A more ordinary but certainly extraordinary model of Christian charity would be Pier Giorgio Frassati, who carried out exemplary efforts to help the poor before dying at the young age of 24. Pier Giorgio was a normal young man in many ways. He loved having fun with his friends, cracking jokes and playing sports. He also had a passion for mountain climbing. In addition to these, Pier Giorgio had a deep Christian faith that shone through in his life (in this discussion, we will only focus on his charity though).

>
>There are many stories of how Pier Giorgio loved the poor. One time, when Pier Giorgio was a young boy, a frail woman knocked on the door of his home with a barefoot child in her arms. Pier Giorgio quickly removed his shoes and socks, gave them to her and shut the door before anyone in his family could object. Another time, during a freezing night, his father asked him where his coat was when he arrived home without it. Pier Giorgio told him that he gave the coat away: “You see, Dad, it was cold”. At times, he would also give his train money to the poor and hurry back home on foot.

>
>Pier Giorgio was also selfless with the money that was given to him. When his sister, Luciana, got married and gave him 1,000 liras from her wedding gifts, he gave it all away to charitable causes. Likewise, when his father gave him 5,000 liras instead of a car, Pier Giorgio donated all of it to good causes as well.

>
>An important event in Pier Giorgio’s life would be when he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society at the age of 17. When Pier Giorgio joined, he was assigned specific poor families to visit and care for. Pier Giorgio loved these visits. He saw them as a chance not only to offer material support but also spiritual encouragement. He visited the poor daily and lifted their spirits. By the time Pier Giorgio was 21, he was personally helping several families (e.g. purchasing medicines for them, helping them find work, carrying firewood, etc) and making sure that the local children received the sacraments (he would sponsor many of them himself).

>
>Although a lot more can be said about Pier Giorgio Frassati, one striking aspect about his charitable work is how low-key he was in carrying them out. Although his family knew that he carried out acts of charity, they did not know the extent to which he did so until after his death.

>
>When Pier Giorgio passed away, his loss was felt in Turin. To the shock of his family, thousands of people showed up to his funeral, including many of the poor families he helped. These families gave accounts of how Pier Giorgio helped them and Luciana collected hundreds of these testimonies in a book entitled “The Charity of Pier Giorgio”. Although Pier Giorgio’s acts of charity were rarely mentioned by him. He did make a reference to them in a letter to a friend: “Jesus comes every day to visit me sacramentally in the Eucharist; I return the visit by going to find him among the poor”.

That’s a man utterly transformed by the gospel. Although non-believers are capable of great good, I don’t see how a worldview of non-belief can move people as powerfully to love and give of themselves as Christianity.

I also think you’re forgetting to factor in the fact that our society has thoroughly Christianized. Our values and assumptions are not Greek or Roman, they are Christian.

Ancient pagan society was very different you know? Charity was scarce. The poor and weak were disregarded and those in power had no qualms about treating them callously. It was truly a survival of the fittest situation. Christianity radically changed this society for the better and the result is the West as we know it today. Don’t take my word for it, check out agnostic historian Tom Holland’s book on this issue, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World or you could also check out part 4 of my series on ethics.

Non-Christians are capable of great good but these people have taken in the values and assumptions of Christianity, which have so deeply saturated our society that we take them for granted and assume them as true and obvious when they actually aren’t. A look back at history clearly confirms this.

>But ultimately, at the end of the day my point is that we can’t ask “who’s the nicest?” to determine which worldview is correct.

Agreed, it does not prove anything. I do think it does point to the truth of Christianity though. ;)

If God did reveal Himself in a particular religion after all, then one would expect that religion to have made an immense positive impact on our history. We would also expect this religion to have to capacity to transform people for the better in tremendous, radical ways. Christianity satisfies both of these points impressively.

Not to give credence to the Republicans but it's pretty obvious that everyone in the Western world has Christian values because Christianity has infused itself into Western societies and cultures for two thousand years.

For someone, like a Republican to refer to ''christian values'' is pretty pointless because everyone has them. Notice how many people who are very for social justice are prone to say phrases such as 'Preach it!' or 'Fuckin Preach, Brother!' That's incredibly Christian to say something like that. The meek and low in society shames the strong and the powerful.

The idea of 'equality of souls' and 'the meekness and humility of the weak shames the strong' are very, very Christian in their origin. Christ on the cross shames the Sanhedrin and the Romans. There are no other parallels in ancient cultures. It's all, ''might is right.'' Or ''order is good.'' No real sense of compassion there. Ancient Sparta never had any of that. Christianity is subversive by design. The bottom of society shames the top of society.

Notice how so many Roman Emperors thought themselves to be gods either after death or during their lives but after Christianity came to the Roman Empire, they were now, in the eyes of God, equal with everyone in terms of their soul. All souls now had equal value. Everyone, from the meekest peasant, to the mightiest of kings, had to earn their salvation. The heads of state may have seen themselves as representatives of God, but never again would they think of themselves as deities in the ancient sense.

Evangelicals in America may have Christianity but they are stunted because they only refer to the Bible and nothing else for their reading while in Catholicism or other Protestant sects, you are allowed to read secular books or 'pagan' books to gain other broader understandings or insights. It's one of the downsides of the Protestant Reformation.

Sorry for the splurge of text, but I was reading upon the early history of Christianity and how revolutionary it was for the ancient world. People really need to be aware of how horrible the ancient world was before Christianity came. Aristotle referred to slaves as 'living tools'. He didn't think of them as equal to him.

Dominion by Tom Holland makes a good case for how Christianity shaped the Western mind.

https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507/ref=sr\_1\_1?dchild=1&keywords=dominion&qid=1608314714&s=books&sr=1-1