Will the decline in Christianity result in the demise of civilisation?

[Moontanman]

Hi, I have just been informed that the logo's on the childrens T shirts are part of a no smoking drive. Is this correct? ..arthur..

 

No Arthur it is an attempt by Christians to disenfranchise Gay people, you know that.

[C1ay]

Here's another "Love thy neighbor" influence on civilization brought to you by the Westboro Baptist Church...

[Moontanman]

"that you, me and every person who we know and every person who we have ever known or met and every person who we have ever seen, and, every person who we have ever heard of and every person who lives or has lived in a Sophisticated Civilised Society; AND, Everything that you or I and any of these other people have ever done, thought, wanted or owned as well as every judgement and decision that you, I or they have ever made has been, or is, directly or indirectly influenced by or is the product of the tenets of Christianity and the Judaic ten Commandments irrespective whether you, I or they are conscious of the fact.

 

Yes I can see this being true, it would be difficult to live on this planet and not be influenced by Christianity.

 

It is because of these tenets that, Sophisticated Civilised Society exists. It is because of them that you, me and anyone else, whether you or I or they are clever or thick, intellectual or not, has the freedom to pander to their or our expectations of and enjoy the freedom, the security and protection that the society affords, irrespective of any contribution that any of us has made to it"

 

This part is pure unadulterated bullshit. As a matter of fact it is due to our society gelding the power of the church that these things are possible. In a society where the Church has the power, like during the middle and dark ages, the church inhibited freedoms, greatly. The church inhibited humanity by allowing them to be enslaved by the rich and powerful by decree of the church. Kings and other royalty whose power was granted by the church were tyrants and if we had not taken away the churches power we would still be under the boot of that tyranny. The church also limited scientific progress, the general quality of life and society as a whole in a extreme negative way.

[Moontanman]

Arthur, you are the king of obfuscation, You ignore what you don't want to answer or cant answer and keep repeating things we have challenged you one as though repeating them makes them somehow more powerful as statements. So far you have not proved that the decline in Christianity will do anything but make your society stronger and better as the decline in Christianity has done so far. People like you who would like to see church control increase are misguided at best and evil at worst. The idea of you speaking to 15 years olds is horrifying, you would never have been able to speak to my boys, I would have forbidden such a indoctrination but in any case at 15 both of my boys were too smart to be influenced by such as you anyway. .

[CraigD]

The original post of this thread hints at, I think, some deep and discussion worthy questions. I fear, however, that its presentation and subsequent responses and counter-responses so closely follows the form of internet trolling that these questions have been lost amid the fervor.

 

So, what say you, Arthur, to ceasing the hyperbole and cries of persecution, and everybody else, the criticism of same, and seeing if something can be salvaged of this thread? In the immoral (and misquoted) words of Rodney King, can’t we all just get along?

 

The title question “will the decline in Christianity result in the demise of civilisation?” though in form purely hypothetical – a simple “if A occurs, will B follow?” – it implies the affirmation of A and itself – that is, that Christianity is “declining”, and civilization’s demise near. As religionists of nearly all kinds at all times in history tend to hold that their religion is declining, often also that this will bring about the end of civilization (or even the physical universe!), I prefer to consider the question no further than to note that in all the centuries of such claims being made, the decline of various religions has proven merely change, and civilization has not collapsed.

 

A deeper question underlying this thread’s and similar is, I think:

Is human social behavior possible without belief in the supernatural?

 

The two possible answers to this question appear to me to be most strongly supported by two opposed sociological theories:

• Human social behavior requires only the prevalence of the Golden Rule – that is, the cognitive and emotional understanding, acceptance, and belief that one should treat others as one wishes to be treated. In the metaphor of the carrot and stick, this theory is the carrot – a desirable and apparently attainable thing.
  
• Human social behavior requires fear of punishment. This is reflected in the common religious assertion of hell, the idea that the un-virtuous are ultimately punished terribly, such as by eternal burning or other physical torture. Some religious formulation lack eternal torture, asserting that the virtuous live forever, the un-virtuous die. In the carrot and stick metaphor, this theory is the stick.
  

Proponents of the carrot theory tend, I think, to see belief in the supernatural as unnecessary, because the Golden Rule is essentially a rational principle. Proponents of the stick theory tend to see belief in the supernatural as necessary, because life and eternal torture after physical death are most commonly explained supernaturally.

[arthur]

Thank you for the clarification. Just to be sure I understand, you don't have any subtext, do you? If I say "Yes, from the evidence we have now, the development of a sophisticated, civilized society seems to take place to the same degree with or without Christianity," would that be an answer to your question, albeit not necessarily one you'd agree with?

 

I used to have a friend who would make the most trivial requests in an extremely harsh, imperious tone, just to see if people were paying attention to what he was saying. I hope that is what you have been doing, because I love that sort of thing. If not, I'll let other people respond in whatever ways they have of responding.

 

Good luck, assuming . . . .

 

--lemit

 

 

p.s. My "Yes . . . " answer is what I truly believe.

 

 

 

 

 

Hello lemit, thank you for your polite reply. No I do not have any hidden agendas for I have nothing to attack or defend. I have no axes to grind, I never loose my temper, I am never irritable and I never blame a creature for it's nature (although occasionally I have been tempted, particularly when I see hordes of those pretty green and yellow caterpillars devouring my garden) (and when I see some despot causing to be slaughtered innocent beings)I am always polite and tolerant to honesty no matter how ill-founded or miss-guided it might be, and occasionally sarcastic to pompous and arrogant bullies, and I abhor gratuitous cruelty. In short I am just a boring old fart past my allotted span who feels that life is a gift that should not be wasted. and finally for this CV. I have no religious affiliations.

 

I now may have a problem, how do I comment upon and answer the following quote without causing offence, of course, if I am sure that we are both being academic here, which I hope that we are, there would be no problem for I could ask any question without causing an emotional response, say, for example I asked, what *evidence is there that some thing *seems* to be so*?" would you immediately, or even after thought, recognise the incongruity of the statement and if so how would you respond? Because I do believe that you have no hidden agendas I don’t believe that you will take umbrage and subsequently become aggressive, competitive or rude, as has happened for me in this forum. Anyway.

 

Quote:

"Yes, from the evidence we have now, the development of a sophisticated, civilized society seems to take place to the same degree with or without Christianity,"

 

I would like to know the evidence that you mention, But with out doubt a sophisticated and civilised society could come about with out actually having Christianity in it as one can see in the increasing sophistication of, for example with China which is the one usually cited, although not so very long ago no body would have cited China as anything other than a torn society that survives on people killing people, and with N Korea.

 

Now here lemet I don’t know how familiar you are with the administration of these two countries, but ,very simplistically, China is what could be called, in comparison to western democracies, an emerging democracy which, again simplistically, is a country which is becoming to be run primarily for the benefit and comfort of its citizens which includes the citizens having an input in how they are governed.

 

Now N Korea on the other hand has absolutely no pretensions of democracy and manifests little to show that the citizens are anything more than pawns in a struggle by an elite cadre to become, and I quote, a power to be reckoned with. Both of these countries, civilisations, nations are undoubtedly technically sophisticated but only one of them, eventually, now, has at last, in the core of its existence, on a governmental level, the sophistication of a humane respect for the well being of all of its citizens.

 

I didn’t want this to become a lecture, and I hope that you are interested. and to any 'nit pickers' think before you pick.

 

Many areas in China were not unfamiliar with Christianity, as can be attested by reading of the London China missions, Methodist, and subsequent Catholic missionary endeavours. My favourites were Cable and French which if you read will give one a greater insight into the horrors of being Chinese in China than any academic paper.

 

Before the Cables and the Frenches there was no concept of this ethereal thing called freedom, of "proper" justice or of any kind of human rights for the proletariat, it was never considered, until the round-eyed pink skinned big noses came and gave them the words that said that it should not be like this, "you are not cattle, etc, etc".

 

After the death of Mao the Chinese government *very* gradually entered the world economic stage and slowly learned from and adopted many western Christian inspired attributes and influences particularly in relationship to how people should be treated, etc.

 

What one needs to do, for understanding the affect of Christianity on the human psyche, is to compare a groups of creatures that don’t ascribe or adhere to the contrived Christian ethic of love thy neighbour etc. Street gangs in you local big city, Chimpanzees on the wild life channel, to your intellectual sophisticated self. This is the natural state of man, not the b/s that so many pseudo intellectual philosophers and "scientists" claim when they use that famous scientific term *we*. *we* are naturally inquisitive etcetera.

When in reality all that *we* really want is to eat, to screw, to titillate and satisfy our emotions. When we are hungry, *we* don’t *really* give a monkeys, what ever that thing a monkey has, about all of this pseudo intellectualism which is supported by no more than ego driven interpretations of snippets from the internet or from local "science" magazines.

 

A boy standing in the path of a pompous and arrogant philosopher, "excuse me mister," said the boy, "what evidence do you have that I exist" said the philosopher, the boy looking down at his steel toe caped working boots thought and walked up to the philosopher and kicked him hard on the shin and continued on his way. On looking back he saw, no surprise to him, the hoping philosophers supposed philosophies wafting into the aether as he screamed at the boy "you little B I will effing kill you"

 

 

So back to China, (Viet Nam, Japan, Taiwan etc) that does have millions of active "Christians" (which is having a growing importance in the development of it as moral society and is becoming an important influence in the whole of SE Asia)

But even if it didn't have Christians it would still be functioning under and with the influences of R.C. and the tenets of Christianity even if it were only, by employment law, illegal to force workers to work from dawn to dusk seven day per week as used to be the case not so very long ago. But now, (mysteriously?) it is six days of labour with a day of rest, resulting in enormous changes to the nature of the society.

 

All of these other countries, nations, civilisations have been influenced to recognise and act as if 'might is not right' as in the past it had always been. And, (maybe coincidently) in the whole of the 'natural world' it is only Judaic religiously inspired humans that act as if this were true, but then it is only religiously inspired humans that can conceive of a power outside of them selves that can give them the right. Etc, etc ,etc,

 

 

Lastly lemit I hope that you didn't interpret this post as a display of arrogance, and I hope that you do not consider my next comment as arrogance which is, as I always do, remember that the meaning of what is read is in the interpretation of what is written and not in what is written.

 

I have reread all of the posts (except the one that has mysteriously disappeared, did you read it? the one that displayed an arrogance and rudeness toward me and my proposition from some one who was either pretending to have or does actually have the attributes necessary for arrogance, the most important of which is an (emotional) sense of superiority and a desire to manifest it, in this case to me) and from the first disrespectful act of putting my thread under the heading of silly claims there has been a virtual bombardment of bigotry and accusatory rudeness, have you noticed? and other than the playful post which I hoped would curtail, what in effect, was an onslaught of religious bigotry all of my posts have been respectful, and manifestly with no intention of anything other than to encourage intelligent rational debate, and I respectfully suggest that if any body does detect what they emotionally feel is arrogance from me to remember that arrogance is a subjective display of an emotion which is not conducive to intellectual discourse which is what I have been trying hard to maintain.

 

As a lad I tried to define cleverness and found that I couldn't but I did define what it isn't.

 

There is nothing clever in knowing what one knows;

There is nothing clever in being able to do what one can do; There is nothing

clever in an idea spontaneously coming into ones head; No creature is more

intelligent than any other; The art in being an intellectual is being able to

interpret meanings without reference to bigotry, bias or prejudice; So if you

think that you are, what is it that make you so clever?

 

A group of axioms that I believe a lot more people should subscribe to.

 

Any way lemit I hope that you didn't find this post too tedious or the tone of it imperious, and I hope that it answered your query.

 

with my regards …arthur..

[HydrogenBond]

One effect that religion creates is a longer term view of the world. If one believes in eternal life or eternal damnation, one tries to plan beyond their own physical life in preparation for the second half. If life ends at physical death, the time scale is shorter and tries to shoots it wag in the first half. Both time scales will have an impact on priorities, social behavior, and the future.

 

As an analogous example, say we compare two college students, one who is planning their four years of college all the way to the goal of getting a job. The other student is not looking that far, but is living in the now. The one in the now is more easily influenced by any party that appears. The student with the longer term vision, will also be influenced, but is more likely to weigh the impact on their long term goal. The one with the short term goal also weighs the impact of the party, but only in the present. Maybe there is a better party or they need to visit both.

 

One possible effect of wider scale shorter term planning, is movement toward things that bring quicker gratification. One would expect movement towards the animals as the ideal, since there also don't plan in the long term. Character development is something that takes years to where it becomes reliable. While being a character, such as dress for success, is faster, and would be preferred. Charismatic leaders and quick fixes would also be more important, than someone boring with a long vision. The former better fit into the needs of a short time scale. Entertainment would have a higher priority than education since this is quicker and requires little effort. Marriage in a longer time scale is for life. In a short time scale, if can't last as long, since one is not looking that far.

 

If you look at conservative and liberal, the first is more religious and the second is more atheist, although there are many exceptions. Conservative means a longer time scale where large change is resisted or slower. Liberal is more in the present, with quickie solutions to anything that appears to need changing. They will react quicker to any new fad like green, global warming and require an immediate gratification without looking at longer term impact. The conservative time scale will try to put on the brakes to quick fixes to make sure the future stays on an even keel.

 

Say all of culture became short term, due to doing away with religious planning beyond one's life. Culture would propagate short term. If we look at the example of college students, say all students now live for the present, with none looking far into the future. That one generation would have the time of their life. But the future of business would be shaky as they enter the working world. This scale of planning does not mean the student won't be intelligent, but they will expect immediate changes to short term movements in the economy. Money managers might make their quickie number by laying off, since that is the quick fix. There is no incentive to look 10 years down the line and deny immediate accolades and rewards. Luckily education looks a little further down the line, with religion pulling even further toward the future. Both buffers the effect of only short term, quick fixes, so these don't create too many wild card variables.

[arthur]

The original post of this thread hints at, I think, some deep and discussion worthy questions. I fear, however, that its presentation and subsequent responses and counter-responses so closely follows the form of internet trolling that these questions have been lost amid the fervor.

 

So, what say you, Arthur, to ceasing the hyperbole and cries of persecution, and everybody else, the criticism of same, and seeing if something can be salvaged of this thread? In the immoral (and misquoted) words of Rodney King, can’t we all just get along?

 

The title question “will the decline in Christianity result in the demise of civilisation?” though in form purely hypothetical – a simple “if A occurs, will B follow?” – it implies the affirmation of A and itself – that is, that Christianity is “declining”, and civilization’s demise near. As religionists of nearly all kinds at all times in history tend to hold that their religion is declining, often also that this will bring about the end of civilization (or even the physical universe!), I prefer to consider the question no further than to note that in all the centuries of such claims being made, the decline of various religions has proven merely change, and civilization has not collapsed.

 

A deeper question underlying this thread’s and similar is, I think:

Is human social behavior possible without belief in the supernatural?

 

The two possible answers to this question appear to me to be most strongly supported by two opposed sociological theories:

• Human social behavior requires only the prevalence of the Golden Rule – that is, the cognitive and emotional understanding, acceptance, and belief that one should treat others as one wishes to be treated. In the metaphor of the carrot and stick, this theory is the carrot – a desirable and apparently attainable thing.
  
• Human social behavior requires fear of punishment. This is reflected in the common religious assertion of hell, the idea that the un-virtuous are ultimately punished terribly, such as by eternal burning or other physical torture. Some religious formulation lack eternal torture, asserting that the virtuous live forever, the un-virtuous die. In the carrot and stick metaphor, this theory is the stick.
  

Proponents of the carrot theory tend, I think, to see belief in the supernatural as unnecessary, because the Golden Rule is essentially a rational principle. Proponents of the stick theory tend to see belief in the supernatural as necessary, because life and eternal torture after physical death are most commonly explained supernaturally.

 

Craig you are being unfair.

 

I was tempted to send all of the posts that contained blatant, unable to respond to accusatory bigotry and ask you if my observations of them is correct.

 

Then I was going to send all of my posts and ask you to point out where is there any cry or any indication, exaggerated or not, that I feel or have felt persecuted.

 

Maybe the inaccuracy and the unjustness of your accusation was to appease other members of this forum, or, which I feel is more likely is, an indication of your feelings towards me, for why else would some one be willing to demean them self so?

 

As non-rhetorical questions why did you make such an unfounded statement and apparently expect me to reply to your post? Maybe you didn’t expect a reply but just felt a need to muddy the waters a little more so making it difficult for anyone being able to follow the thread. Were you the one who relegated this thread to silly claims with out understanding it, or even reading it? Have you read my proposition and have you read any of my posts? if you have why haven't you addresses the proposition?.

 

If I was a moaner, if I was upset, and if I were forced to stay, with the inclusion of your post, I would certainly have a just claim of being persecuted but I am not a moaner and I am not upset and I don't have to stay but I will admit to a little sadness to the difficulty of finding so little integrity, albeit amongst so few people, and a little sad at the displays of prejudice and rudeness and the resulting illogicality of those poster.

 

The obvious way that this thread can be salvaged, is for people like yourself to treat the time and effort that I have put in polity trying to encourage a sensible critique of my proposition with the common courtesy that self respect should call for, and it should not be in the silly claims forum for it is anything but silly.

 

 

..arthur..

[Moontanman]

Arthur, no matter how many times you say it, no matter how many time you misrepresent or twist the idea, no matter how many times you ignore information to the contrary, no matter how many times you ***** and complain about us being unfair, no matter how many times you denigrate the people who disagree with you the fact remains that the idea Christianity being responsible for civilization is simply not true.

 

I will agree it has had an influence but that influence was both good and bad.

 

To imply civilization is the result of Christianity ignores a huge amount of evidence to the contrary, much of which has been pointed out to you in a very reasonable manner.

 

If anything it can be shown the civilization didn't really advance into the modern world until Religion in general and Christianity in particular had it's power taken away in favor of governments. I have shown this, you choose to ignore anything that disagrees with you or you try and ***** and moan about being mistreated or try to tear down the people who disagree with by making personal derogatory remarks about them.

 

I do agree this thread is in the wrong place, it should be in a dead threads forum where trolling posts go to die.

[Cedars]

(Will the decline in Christianity result in the demise of civilisation?)

 

My regards..arthur...[/size]

 

Yes. 100% positively. There is no doubt in your mind this will happen. You are spot on and there is nothing else left to say.

 

You are simply an unrecognized genus trying to enlighten the poorer minds of the www. I see it.

 

Now can you go away happy?

 

Regards,

Cedars

[Donk]

I usually like to see people even older than myself active on the net - it gives me hope that I may have a few more years before dementia strikes. In your case, Arthur, I'm not so pleased. You may once have had a fine mind, but not any more.

 

A quick internet search shows that we're not alone in our opinion of you:

from Volconvo Debate Forums: Debating political, religious, and news-based topics

The reason that we're not making progress is that like every other answer since your OP, you just repeat ad nauseum that we don't read your gems of wisdom and further don't show you the respect of reading them several times, with the underlying insinuation that we're a little dim-witted. The problem is that you, in turn, don't read our replies and just use them as a springboard for another wooly diatribe.

from ToeQuest Portal

You and Greg had a discussion about what might define a sophisticated civil society. You proffered one defining view of that and Greg proffered another defining view. I as a participant in this thread supported Greg’s meaning. That typically is how debate and discussion flows as a process. I would not see that process as using posts as a conduit for critical, patronizing lectures, trading stories, spewing emotion or admonishment.

[HydrogenBond]

In the modern era, i.e, AD, starting with Rome, and then the Holy Roman Empire, the impact of the Christian Church was felt through the old Roman Empire, which was Europe and parts of Asian and African around the Mediterranean. After that the Christian kingdoms, which became France, Germany, Italy, England, Spain, Portugal, etc., spread their influence throughout the known world, colonizing and dividing it up. The Christian nations of England, France and Spain, settled the New World, which was to become the United States of America. These Christian cultures formed important documents like the Magna Carta and the Constitution which assured human rights.

 

If Christianity had never existed, would history have followed a different line to the present? Maybe a useful mental exercise is assume Christianity never happened. We will start with Rome at 0 AD, and try to extrapolate to the present with that budding cult call atheism, taking the place of Christianity in the time line. First, how do you recruit when 99.99% of the people have no education? Would the anti-god pitch be enough, and if so how would Rome react to the unrest in the empire? This is year 1 and we got 2000 to go.

[lemit]

Arthur,

 

Self-flagellation doesn't need to be a social event.

 

You aren't going to find much support here. If you look at the posts attacking you, you will see that a lot of them are attacking all religions, the people who wrote them not realizing they also have some supporting belief system that informs their life.

 

For example, Stephen Leacock's farm family in "Caroline's Christmas"

 

John Enderby showed all the passion of an uncontrolled nature. At times he would reach out for the crock of buttermilk that stood beside him and drained a draught of the maddening liquid, till his brain glowed like the coals of the tamarack fire before him.

 

"John," pleaded Anna, "leave alone the buttermilk. It only maddens you. No good ever came of that."

 

"Aye, lass," said the farmer, with a bitter laugh, as he buried his head again in the crock, "what care I if it maddens me."

 

"Ah, John, you'd better be employed in reading the Good Book than in your wild courses. Here take it, father, and read it"--and she handed to him the well-worn black volume from the shelf. Enderby paused a moment and held the volume in his hand. He and his wife had known nothing of religious teaching in the public schools of their day, but the first-class non-sectarian education that the farmer had received had stood him in good stead.

 

"Take the book," she said. "Read, John, in this hour of affliction; it brings comfort."

 

The farmer took from her hand the well-worn copy of Euclid's Elements, and laying aside his hat with reverence, he read aloud: "The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, and whosoever shall produce the sides, lo, the same also shall be equal

each unto each."

 

The farmer put the book aside.

 

"It's no use, Anna. I can't read the good words to-night."

We can find comfort in lots of things, such as the eternal truth of an isosceles triangle. We can construct a civilization on such simple beliefs as that parallel lines will only meet in infinity. We can meditate on the question, "Where do the parallel lines go after that?"

 

Sorry. I know Christianity was pretty directly involved in Sir Isaac Newton's physics, but the numbers he used were, after all, non-Christian. And the impulses he was avoiding were apparently non-Christian.

 

A lot of the civilization we now have is Christian because the Crusaders were careful to destroy the non-Christian civilizations in their way. Gresham's law, that the bad drives out the good, works. We as a culture have become dominant by destroying civilizations more advanced than ours.

 

--lemit

[Boerseun]

I do say that the moral values, codes, and taboos which we use to allow us to live in comparative harmony this sophisticated society initially came as the result the tenets of Christianity.

Okay Arthur. That's your belief, and you are more than welcome to it.

 

Problem is, that Christianity as you know it today, is lightyears removed from what the Bible, the foundation of Christianity, spouts as morality and moral behaviour. If we were to live according to the literal bible, the world would look entirely different than the one you currently see around you. For one, you will not find very many pig farms nor crayfish restaurants around. You also will not see homosexuals nor prostitutes (a profession even older than professional preaching) around, except for the corpses of those that were stoned last night.

 

The thing is, Christians pick and choose those verses in the bible that are compatible with the world at the time. Which means that the moral filter as used by Christians is actually society, and has very little, if anything, to do with Christianity or the bible. Christians maintain that they impose their morality on society, with the bible as source, whilst it is, in actual fact, precisely the other way around.

 

I don't see the disappearance of Christianity having any negative effect on society. Quite the opposite. Consider, for instance, how the Netherlands bloomed in the early Rennaisance when it threw the dogma of Catholic Spain off and turned into the most liberal country in Europe. Art, science and philosophy like you have never seen in such a small area before. Imagine that same blooming of the human spirit world-wide, if we can cast off the yoke of anything even remotely religious.

 

The church is a chain, choking the mind. Christianity is merely a bit more lenient and lax than the more severe forms of Islam, but the principle holds the same for all. And none of them are the issuers of morality they pretend to be. Society is imposing its will on the church, and the church merely follow suit, meekly being led by worldly affairs and wordly issues, whilst loudly pretending all the while that it's leading the world. The church is a cultural remnant of our ignorant past, and very much like the appendix, serves no readily discernible useful purpose.

 

I propose a global appendectomy. Because appendicitis can kill. Look at the World Trade Center, for that matter.

[lemit]

Boerseun,

 

I have a feeling Arthur might have come from the same kind of world I came from--the Bible Belt. There, all life is seen through the filter of Christianity, in the way I sometimes think it is seen here through the filter of anti-Christianity. Neither is really a view of the world at large.

 

I don't think you see the world that way. I'm just saying that some people ask the original question out of innocence and interest in how their world might relate to a larger world. I have a feeling Arthur might be one of those people. If you can't see the world from his point of view, from his front porch, you might not see how he is reaching out, trying to learn.

 

--lemit

[arthur]

I usually like to see people even older than myself active on the net - it gives me hope that I may have a few more years before dementia strikes. In your case, Arthur, I'm not so pleased. You may once have had a fine mind, but not any more.

 

A quick internet search shows that we're not alone in our opinion of you:

 

 

Hello Donk,

 

quote:

I would not see that process as using posts as a conduit for critical, patronizing lectures, trading stories, spewing emotion or admonishment.

 

My sentiment exactly, will you be passing on the sentiment to your chum's?

 

quote:

The problem is that you, in turn, don't read our replies and just use them as a springboard for another wooly diatribe.

 

Now come on Donk, that is blatantly not true, it is true that I don’t read your friend moontainmans diatribes because of their aggressive and rude nature and them having little or no relationship to my proposition but not for any one else's posts. As for me using diatribe as a method of destroying debate that is just plain silly for I have done little more than attempt to encourage unemotional rational debate in an attempt to elicit an unbiased, logical critique of my proposition, my proposal, my suggestion of an explanation, my idea and nothing more.

 

I do, I believe, In your post, detect an element of annoyance and I feel that it is towards me as a person. (In your case, Arthur, I'm not so pleased) If this is true would you also be annoyed if a friend of yours said "Hi Donk, what do you think of this idea"? even if the friend then cited my proposal. I suspect that you wouldn't consider such a request as any more than an honest request for you opinion, and I suggest that your self respect would guide you to be polite, tolerant and accommodating and if your friend corrected a misconception that you might have concerning his idea I suggest that again your self respect would deter a hormonal response of anger, irritation or annoyance thereby maintaining your tolerance and politeness'. That is of course unless you have a psychopathic tendency which I don't believe that you do have.

 

So Donk, if you see the principle of the above as true would you un-accusatorily and politely explain how I can tap into the obvious intellectuality and intelligence of forum members to achieve a polite, rational and honest response to my request for a critique? It really is pleasant to receive such posts, for the few that I have received, thank you.

 

Donk I do apologise for any inconvenience, hurt or pain that, what I now see as unfair, the suggestion that by default you understood my proposition, might have caused you. If defence is necessary, I have non, I can only put my action down to naivety, you see Donk I wasn't fully cognisant of the competitive nature of your posts, being only familiar with sensible and academic debate and so with out too much thought I just took it as an opportunity to try and encourage you to positively respond to the proposition, which sadly failed, but which I feel would have succeeded if you had been able to view it with good will and objectivity.

 

Dementia is not really a problem for me, yes I do forget botanical names and such, but have lost little of my powers of analysis (I think). The problems comes with the carcase and the subsequent minor frustrations, for example it has taken me three and a half hours to type this letter which is ridiculous when in the past it would have taken 5 or 6 minutes and this is all happening whilst I should be picking my sweet corn.

 

Clear logical thinking with intellectual integrity and passivity in ones early life acts a bastion against future dementia as opposed to the futility of becoming dependent upon the hormonal rushes causing knee jerk aggressive responses to things in live that have no real significance what so ever to improvising the quality of ones own life. I suspect Donk that you know all of this. and that you also know the saying, "the proof of a pudding etc" But having said that, there is a lot of luck involved or it might even be just the result of a roll of a dice by the god's, but whatever…..

 

 

My regard. .arthur..

[CraigD]

If Christianity had never existed, would history have followed a different line to the present?

I think this nonfictional alternate history is a pretty well-reasoned treatment of this IMHO excelent and much considered question. To summarize it:

Christianity never takes hold. Judaism is stamped out by the ninth century AUC

[1st century AD. Year AD =~ year AUC - 753]

. The Roman Empire still breaks apart, but in a more peaceful way. There is no Dark Age in post-Roman Empire Europe, but there is a period of inactivity that lasts 300 years

 

Though it doesn’t truly suppose “Christianity never existed”, L. Sprague de Camp’s 1939 novel Lest Darkness Fall is considered one of the best fictional alternate histories of the “what if the Roman Empire hadn’t collapsed” category.

 

I find a key feature common to historical speculation in this category is that the influence of the medieval Christian churches (preeminently the Roman Catholic Church) was not due to any particular strength of its theological or moral ideas over contemporary competing religions, but due to the legal and governmental vacuum left by the collapse of the Roman Empire. The Churches didn’t fill this vacuum very well – the Dark Ages were not called “dark” for no reason – but for a period of about 500 to 1000 years, they were the best replacement available.

 

To their credit, IMHO, the loose theocracy of medieval Christian and Islam (it’s a serious historic error to assume Christianity to have been the only significant theocracy of the Dark Ages) ceded authority much less catastrophically than the more rigid mercantile system of the Roman Empire. We don’t speak of “the fall of the Catholic Church”, but rather describe the wresting of power from the Churches by secular governments and private organizations by such terms as “the second Babylonian captivity”, and these “conquests” didn’t plunge much of the world into centuries of lost knowledge and technology, as the various conquests and dismemberings of the Roman Empire did a millennium before.