Good Stuff That Christianity Did

[Guest Davka]

A thread to list (and argue about) the good things that we can attribute to Christianity and/or Judaism.

 

- Hospitals. The whole feel-for-the-poor-and-sick thing worked out OK.

 

- Ending polygamy. I suspect most women are grateful for this one. Sucks to be property.

 

- Human rights. This is a Western concept, based primarily on the Judeo-Christian respect for the value of life. Sure, it's fairly new, but it's still based on Christian thinking.

[hereticzero]

Philosophically, human rights is not a Western concept. The United States is a mixture of people from all over the world who desire human rights. This idea did not originate with just one group of people or in Democracy. The notion of human rights is what brought early settlers to North America. Without the population to support human rights and a desire to enforce human rights, there would be none in the US. This population came from all over Europe, which means that human rights is a European concept given a voice in North America.

[FiddlingAround]

Irish monks, preserving books that otherwise would've been lost after the fall of the Romans.

[Realist]

A thread to list (and argue about) the good things that we can attribute to Christianity and/or Judaism.

 

- Hospitals. The whole feel-for-the-poor-and-sick thing worked out OK.

 

- Ending polygamy. I suspect most women are grateful for this one. Sucks to be property.

 

- Human rights. This is a Western concept, based primarily on the Judeo-Christian respect for the value of life. Sure, it's fairly new, but it's still based on Christian thinking.

 

 

Davka ..... it may have ended polygamy but does not Christianity say you are the property of your husband?

[Vixentrox]

Impressive architecture and works of art....granted, paid for with blood money or the fleecing of the flock.

[florduh]

Christianity does enough of blowing its own horn. It's my job to point out its serious flaws.

[Yrth]

Philosophically, human rights is not a Western concept. The United States is a mixture of people from all over the world who desire human rights. This idea did not originate with just one group of people or in Democracy. The notion of human rights is what brought early settlers to North America. Without the population to support human rights and a desire to enforce human rights, there would be none in the US. This population came from all over Europe, which means that human rights is a European concept given a voice in North America.

 

This subject is complex. Christians love to claim that modern values like human rights came straight out of Christian history and theology. And to be fair it's easy to build an argument for how that could have happened. But a more compelling case is made that says human rights and other modern values developed in and around Christianity, as if those ideas grew like vines over the Christian/Classic/Germanic structure of the period. Christianity has had, I think, an integral role in shaping our thoughts about human value(especially in the early middle ages), but I think saying that human rights comes straight from Christianity is like saying roses come straight from dirt.

 

Some more:

- Bibles. (Literacy at any cost)

- Written music (developed in monasteries)

- Higher Education (Western schooling began in churches as places to learn better ways to understand God. Ffw 100 years, the same schools taught students the best ways to make money. Huzzah.)

[Guest Davka]

Christianity has had, I think, an integral role in shaping our thoughts about human value(especially in the early middle ages), but I think saying that human rights comes straight from Christianity is like saying roses come straight from dirt.

 

Yeah, it's more accurate to say that Christianity provided a framework in which the concept of human rights could develop. Or perhaps that the Bible provided some key concepts that could be exploited by the proletariat to claim equal rights? (Of course, it also provided some key concepts that were exploited by the elite to prove the "divine rule of kings").

 

 

- Bibles. (Literacy at any cost)

 

. . . which led to the lay people reading and understanding the Bible, which led to apostasy and atheism.

 

- Written music (developed in monasteries)

 

. . . which led to scores being written for groups of musicians, which led to quartets, orchestras, bands, and eventually Rock and Roll, the devil's music.

 

- Higher Education (Western schooling began in churches as places to learn better ways to understand God.

 

. . . which led to the evolution of liberal universities teaching evolution and revolution (as well as pizza 101).

 

Gotta love the irony.

[Guest Davka]

Davka ..... it may have ended polygamy but does not Christianity say you are the property of your husband?

 

Some Christian groups claim this, but the New Testament doesn't support it.

[Midnight-mindwanderings]

The invention of the printing press and the early formation of schools in the united states. Though the idea of schools was based from a greek concept originally. But the printing press is probably my favorite invention of Christianity.

[OpheliaGinger]

Hospitals actually existed before Christianity. The Romans were pretty well known for their great hospitals.

 

I would have to give Christians credit for creating the gothic architecture. I'm not sure how the goth movement would have fared if it weren't for the goth movement of the 15th century. And the printing press was created as a result of wanting to promote biblical literacy.

[oddbird1963]

Does the covered dish fellowship meal and the Sunday Morning pancake breakfast count?

[Taphophilia]

Liberal Christians have done and continue to do a lot of good things. They were the abolitionists, civil rights activists, pro-choice activists, sexual rights activists, etc. Higher Criticism of the Bible started with German Theologians. Such men as the Theologian David Strauss whose portrayal of the historical Jesus whose divinity he denied scandalized European Christianity and influenced a young Fredrick Nietzche.

[Guest c2009]

Davka ..... it may have ended polygamy but does not Christianity say you are the property of your husband?

 

Some Christian groups claim this, but the New Testament doesn't support it.

 

That's one misquote that I still groan at today.

 

The next line says "husbands, you are the property of your wife". As any wise scholar, even a Biblical one will say "CONTEXT! READ IT IN CONTEXT!"

 

I think that's probably part of why I always felt off in Church. Nobody considers the full context.

 

Clear evidence that few actually read their Bibles in Christianity.

[Franko47]

As I mentioned the last time I attended a service at my cousin's Anglican Church, "Hey, I'm just here for the music".

[John09]

I am still in the process of coming out, but I must say that I have been thinking about this. I would definitely say that christianity did push me toward being more responsible for my actions. It also gave me some framework of morality. I desperately needed both these things when I was 20 years old.

 

I don't have a clue what it did historically for the good of the world.

[Realist]

Davka ..... it may have ended polygamy but does not Christianity say you are the property of your husband?

 

Some Christian groups claim this, but the New Testament doesn't support it.

 

That's one misquote that I still groan at today.

 

The next line says "husbands, you are the property of your wife". As any wise scholar, even a Biblical one will say "CONTEXT! READ IT IN CONTEXT!"

 

I think that's probably part of why I always felt off in Church. Nobody considers the full context.

 

Clear evidence that few actually read their Bibles in Christianity.

 

....well I guess anyone that can say the bible puts woman in any other light than the property of, or directly under the authority of her husband is reading a different book from what I am. Even just as it stands in the New testament. (I am reading this in the KJV by the way unless it has now been grossly watered down in later versions.) Try reading 1 Corinthians 11 verse 3 onwards; 1 Corinthians 14 verse 34 onwards; Ephesians 5 verse 22 onwards.

[Legion]

Amazing Grace on bagpipes...

 

 

"Amazing Grace" is a well-known Christian hymn by Englishman John Newton and first appeared in print in Newton's Olney Hymns (1779).

[Vigile]

A thread to list (and argue about) the good things that we can attribute to Christianity and/or Judaism.

 

- Hospitals. The whole feel-for-the-poor-and-sick thing worked out OK.

 

- Ending polygamy. I suspect most women are grateful for this one. Sucks to be property.

 

- Human rights. This is a Western concept, based primarily on the Judeo-Christian respect for the value of life. Sure, it's fairly new, but it's still based on Christian thinking.

 

You'd have a rough time proving causal correlation with most of these. Hospitals maybe, I'd need to know more about the history. Polygamy? The bible is rife with it. Xian values morphed with society's evolution, not vice versa. Human rights? C'mon. The Bill of Rights was established based on Locke's 2nd Treatise on government; if people bent to the Pope instead we'd still be burning witches and smashing the sculls of baptized babies.

 

If study of history shows us anything it's that xianity evolved with society, not the other way around; and usually they lag progress by 50 or more years. I'd be willing to bet that 50 years from now xians will accept homosexuals and will have a wealth of apologetics to support the position.

 

Maybe there's a shit blossom in their somewhere, but most of it just stinks like Karl Rove.

[Guest Davka]

....well I guess anyone that can say the bible puts woman in any other light than the property of, or directly under the authority of her husband is reading a different book from what I am. Even just as it stands in the New testament. (I am reading this in the KJV by the way unless it has now been grossly watered down in later versions.) Try reading 1 Corinthians 11 verse 3 onwards; 1 Corinthians 14 verse 34 onwards; Ephesians 5 verse 22 onwards.

 

First of all, the KJV is a seriously flawed translation. As in, the translators had little knowledge of the source languages, and were working from extremely limited source material. They also engaged in politically-motivated deliberate mistranslation, the most obvious of which is the rendering of "Ya'acov" in the NT as "James." Huh, Jesus had a brother with the same name as the King - what a coincidence.

 

If you want a decent translation, try the NASB. It's not "watered down," it's simply more accurate. (If you want watered down, try NIV or the Living Bible).

 

Secondly, in 1 Corinthians Paul was addressing a specific problem in the Corinthian church. The early Pauline church was being challenged by proto-Gnosticism, and Paul was having none of it. Since many of the most vocal leaders of this alternate stream of Christianity were women, Paul essentially used his letter to the Corinthians to tell them to shut up and sit down.

 

And finally, the passage in Ephesians 5 needs to be read in its entirety, in context. It really starts in verse 20:

 

"Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."

 

It goes on to tell wives to submit to their husbands, but the implication from the previous verse is that husbands should also submit themselves to their wives. This is reinforced in verse 25: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" Think about that - Jesus supposedly died for the church. Husbands are admonished to love their wives as Christ loved the church, i.e. to die for them.

 

This is all pulled together in verse 33: "Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband." That word translated as "reverence" is more accurately rendered as "respect." Yes, the patriarchal system is still firmly in place. No, the women are not made completely equal with men. Paul was a son of a bitch, and a sexist one at that. But he was a progressive son of a bitch for his day. He pretty clearly lifted women from the position of property to that of - oh, perhaps dependent children?

 

It ain't emancipation or women's suffrage, but it was better than the surrounding culture's dominant paradigm.

[Vigile]

Davka ..... it may have ended polygamy but does not Christianity say you are the property of your husband?

 

Some Christian groups claim this, but the New Testament doesn't support it.

 

Well, that just means you haven't read anything Paul wrote lately. He may not have promoted the idea of property, but he certainly contributed greatly to the idea of subservience.

[FiddlingAround]

It goes on to tell wives to submit to their husbands, but the implication from the previous verse is that husbands should also submit themselves to their wives. This is reinforced in verse 25: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" Think about that - Jesus supposedly died for the church. Husbands are admonished to love their wives as Christ loved the church, i.e. to die for them.

 

This is all pulled together in verse 33: "Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband." That word translated as "reverence" is more accurately rendered as "respect." Yes, the patriarchal system is still firmly in place. No, the women are not made completely equal with men. Paul was a son of a bitch, and a sexist one at that. But he was a progressive son of a bitch for his day. He pretty clearly lifted women from the position of property to that of - oh, perhaps dependent children?

 

It ain't emancipation or women's suffrage, but it was better than the surrounding culture's dominant paradigm.

 

These verses have always rubbed me the wrong way.

 

Yeah, maybe he was doing better than the surrounding culture, but the problem now is that it's in the Bible. The words of Paul have become the Word of God. The clear system of superiority (Christ is obviously superior to the church) is promoted from a response to a particular culture to absolute moral truth. So you end up with fundies today still believing that the proper role of women is eternal childhood.

[Deva]

First of all, the KJV is a seriously flawed translation. As in, the translators had little knowledge of the source languages, and were working from extremely limited source material. They also engaged in politically-motivated deliberate mistranslation, the most obvious of which is the rendering of "Ya'acov" in the NT as "James." Huh, Jesus had a brother with the same name as the King - what a coincidence.

 

We know that, but try telling it to the King James only crowd of fundies, like my parents. Not only is King James God's Word, but Scofield's notes in the "Scofield Reference Bible" as well.

 

Right down the street from my house not a mile away is a very small Baptist Church. The sign said one day "If you want a King James Church, come here' or something like that. These people are everywhere.

 

So it almost doesn't matter if it is a bad translation. We know it is, but I guarantee you won't be able to convince them.

 

Paul was definitely responsible for a lot of the mistreatment of women whether he originally intended it or not.

[Guest Davka]

Right down the street from my house not a mile away is a very small Baptist Church. The sign said one day "If you want a King James Church, come here' or something like that. These people are everywhere.

 

So it almost doesn't matter if it is a bad translation. We know it is, but I guarantee you won't be able to convince them.

 

*sigh*

 

Yeah, I gotta admit, you're right. We have these same folks up hyar in our neck of the woods. A fairly common bumper-sticker: "If it aint' King James, it ain't Bible!"

Paul was definitely responsible for a lot of the mistreatment of women whether he originally intended it or not.

 

Oh, I'm totally with you on this. I was just saying that he didn't go for the "women are property" idea. No doubt he considered himself quite the liberated man.

 

But yeah, now it's codified as the Word O' God^TM and that means that jackass men everywhere can condescend to the "little woman" and her narrow role in life as sex partner, cook, mom, housecleaner, and babysitter. It's a step up from cow or slave, that's all I'm saying.