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"A giant homophobic sky fairy? Okay. Worshipping Europe's many pantheons? You silly subhuman pagan."
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Comments
I think the Buddhist position is sometimes: there are Gods, but they are caught in the wheel of samsara like everyone else.
Well, it depends. This is true of strains of Buddhism like Zen Buddhism, but traditionally speaking there are actually a lot of gods, starting with the Asura.
While the idea that christian beliefs influenced western society is not without merit, when it comes to morality I think it's a bit ignorant of historical perspectives. Greek virtues were very familiar to modern virtues, the only difference being the absence of charity (exempting hospitility, of course).
It's still sad to see that condescendency towards non-"mainstream"/prep/whatever beliefs is morally acceptable here.
And I don't think I am particularly hypocrital in calling Yahweh an "homophobic sky fairy". Because that's essencially what he is (the fairy part becomes obvious with the iron chariots thing).
Except he's really not?
I mean, I am by no means a Christian myself, but last I checked, the only few mentions of homosexuality and it being wrong happen happen in Leviticus. You know, that book and series of events that is supposed to establish a certain ruleset that Jesus preached against during his life?
Like I said before, the sad fact is that people use God to talk about their beliefs and justify them. That doesn't make God homophobic.
And even without taking that into account, the fact is that it's a very reductionist statement and it's the sort of thing that you are criticizing here, just that it's aimed at a target that you don't care about.
On the other hand, the Greeks believed in slavery and considered military conscription to not only be okay, but to be a standard means of collecting soldiers for warfare. You can call it a "levy" if you like, but it's just putting a different word on the same concept -- enforcing military obligation on a civilian population. There's also the issues of sexism and sexual child abuse, both being widespread and even institutional in many cases.
This is just stuff the springs to mind.
The Greeks contributed a lot to the progression of Western culture, no doubt about it. Without them, we wouldn't be where we are today. But they were also very primitive in many respects, and their morals line up with us much less powerfully than those of post-Roman Christian Europe. It's the Middle Ages that truly set the conditions and foundations for modern Western culture. After all, the Greeks fell, as did the Romans. The medieval kingdoms didn't -- they just evolved and became nations. There is a direct line of cultural succession between us and our medieval, highly Christian forebears that doesn't exist as clearly with the Romans or the Greeks. And as bad as medieval society could be at times, it also ensured that our modern morality, in many respects, is the way it is.
I point out the Middle Ages because then we get the Renaissance, which was a re-emergence of Roman and Greek intellectual and moral concepts -- which, funnily enough, sees a resurgence of slavery, a rise in sexism and some other issues. Great technological progression, of course, but in many cases the Middle Ages were highly modern in a social sense compared to eras that came both before and after them. It probably isn't until well into the Early Modern era that Western society can be said to have reclaimed its lost social progression, and it might have been as late as the 19th century.
What I'm saying here is that I'm not ignorant of historical perspectives. If there is something I am not ignorant of, it is that thing right there, the one you have pointed out (the words are "historical perspectives"). I know this thing, because I like it and I think it is pretty neat.
I may be wrong, but weren't you the one who posted a link to a very non-homophobic interpretation of christianity in some other thread?
But!
@MadassAlex: Though sexism, slavery and child abuse still remained unchallenged during the Middle Ages. Forced military conscription is a trickier subjected, but Christian Iberia saw it through most of it's history.
Modern morality does ironically coincide with a rise in christian fundamentalism in anglophonic countries during the late 19th-early 20th centuries, though arguably as countering said fundamentalism (like the late 2000's backlash against atheist philosophies).
It's you, isn't it? Gigantula. You're the guy.
You're Falconfly.
I knew something was fishy about this guy.
You know what animal is pretty cool? Wolves.
The fuck just happened?
@Gigantala: you mean the Spanish Iberia, or the Caucasian Iberia?
Not sure about child abuse, but as a matter of fact, the others were significantly challenged. Sexism was diminished through chivalry, which contained within itself a prototypical form of feminism. This wasn't just a movement amongst privileged classes, but a wider cultural shift that changed everyone and everything; think about it as though the 1960s happened in the 13th century. Records of this time show that women begin to more commonly own land and businesses in their own right; some are knighted. Slavery was frowned upon, which is largely why 5% of people at the very most were slaves (see: serfs) at any given time, with that figure diminishing as the various periods of the Middle Ages move forward.
The Renaissance sees a reverse of those trends, with the empowerment of women falling and the slavery rates rising again. Not European slaves, mind -- foreign slaves. With advancing naval technology and the reintroduction of Greek and Roman social ideals, ship captains could go further abroad than ever before with less respect for their fellow man than ever before -- the perfect cocktail for establishing a new slave trade. So the slaves of the post-Middle Ages periods were usually black, thereby setting the foundations for modern racism.
I mean if you seriously think those were uncontested, then you probably look at the Middle Ages through grim-and-gritty semi-fantasy media rather than actual historical research, especially that research which pertains to social trends and raw data. After all, these are individually smaller societies that exist in a sort of equilibrium with one-another, which suggests from a social/mechanical point of view a greater deal of equality and general social harmony than a singular empire. That's generally how it goes; two smaller neighbouring societies at peace are generally more prone to progression than a single society with the same population density and geographical range.
Chilvary was not really as much as pro-feminism as it was part of the result of the relevance of honour. After all, it still enforced some pretty strong gender norms, and in the case of norse territories, it put an end to things like the power women held in the household, for instance.
Slavery was for the most part pragmatically unnecessary and even resource consuming. It only became widespread with the decline of traditional feudal models, and new opportunities in production.
Oh, and no "BUSTED" would be complete without adressing the flamers. I look forward to registering your hypocrisies and harassment
@lrdgck: Both, actually. Spain during Filipine rule is particularly infamous for this, but forced military conscription was always a major featured, frequently endorsed by the church, of course.
And people still haven't responded as to why hating everything but abrahamic faiths is a-okay. Oh well.
Uhh . . . dafuq is going on here? I've read the flags, and I'm still trying to figure things out. @Kraken: I'm not familiar with Falconfly. Where does this come from?
To clarify, some people got butthurt I pointed out why Christianity and Islam are societal cancers, so now they hide their butthurt behind trolling every time they see me.
Intellectual discussions are rare to come by these days.
Oh man, my only wild guess was Ukonvivi (now with more assertiveness).
Old-IJBM-er known for being heavily anti-religious and getting into huge flame wars.
Edit: ^ I guess that says it all.
Stop right there.
Uh.
Yeah, that's kind of really offensive, dude. Never mind how questionable the OP already was -- though I was planning on staying out up until this point -- and never mind that your response to these accusations is not conducive to intellectual discussions, never mind that argh.
Well, offensive or not, society at large regularly holds non-abrahamic faiths, atheism, non-heteronormative sexualities and several other view points as at best worthy of condescending "tolerance" and at worst of active erradication, so such a viewpoint becomes a witty little bit hypocrital.
And hypocrisy is condemned by most moral standards.
Hypocrisy is hypocritically okay to be practiced.
And hence pointless opression and murder.
But I would be okay if people didn't claim the moral high ground. Better to be honestly ammoral, which is less demanding and less likely of causing masses to follow you.
I'm jumping out here. Gigantala clearly knows very little about the Middle Ages and I can't be bothered to educate someone who's being contrarian for the sake of it. There were definitely bad things about the Middle Ages, such as rampant homophobia and religious intolerance, but in other ways it was highly progressive when compared to the historical eras it was wedged between. Necessarily so; we wouldn't have made it to our current junction had it not been for some of these perspectives, and it was a breath of fresh intellectual air, flanked by eras dominated by imperialistic Greek and Roman thinking. Given that I'm ceasing to be helpful at this point, anyone who honestly cares is obviously free to conduct research on these matters themselves. Well, you're always free to do that, of course.
Furthermore, as a mod, I now have to review Gigantala's reports against certain posts made against their person, so it's no good for me to continue this debate any longer. That said, Gigantala, your accusations of anti-intellectualism aren't doing you any good when you started the thread by talking in absolutes motivated by self-righteous fury, making sweeping generalisations and all that. As we all know, only Sith deal in absolutes.
So...let's see if I have this straight. You create your fourth or fifth one-sentence "mainstream religion is evil" thread, and now you're calling people butthurt and anti-intellectual because they didn't immediately declare you the only smart person on the site?
Actually, homophobia was far less a problem in middle ages than in modern times.
Granted, things like open homosexuality were, lets say, frowned upon, but having a male lover was common and even considered a means to contraception. It helped that marriage was only a monetary contract.
^That accusation seems unfounded by my statements. Could you please quote me?
Wow, Gigantala, you're so edgy and cool.
Are you majoring in history and theology? Because you're so insightful when it comes to these topics. Let's discuss more things, I want to hear your views.
^^
Literally what you said, first off.
I mean, we're going to ban you anyway, because you're unpleasant, but let's at least not pretend like we haven't wronged anyone here.