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Author Topic: What Western Culture Owes to Christianity  (Read 2981 times)

Altair

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What Western Culture Owes to Christianity
« on: December 26, 2015, 10:40:33 pm »
I read this opinion piece, timed for Christmas, in the NY Times, and had mixed reactions. Some of it rang true, and some of it read as Christocentric. But I am the furthest thing from a comparative religion scholar, so I'd be curious what others, esp. those better versed in religious studies, make of this.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/25/opinion/the-christmas-revolution.html?ref=opinion
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Re: What Western Culture Owes to Christianity
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2015, 03:33:48 am »
Quote from: Altair;184065
But I am the furthest thing from a comparative religion scholar, so I'd be curious what others, esp. those better versed in religious studies, make of this.

 
It's treating one school/lineage of Greek philosophy as representative of all pagan thought. I'm not sure if non-Greek preChristian Europe is supposed to have been Platonic in its worldviews, or too barbaric to have worldviews worth mentioning.

So, not just Christian-centric, but an example of that particular sort of Western-centrism which equates civilization and culture with the purported lineage from Greece to Rome to Christendom - an exercise in self-congratulatory Whiggishness.

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Altair

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Re: What Western Culture Owes to Christianity
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2015, 07:35:32 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;184073
It's treating one school/lineage of Greek philosophy as representative of all pagan thought. I'm not sure if non-Greek preChristian Europe is supposed to have been Platonic in its worldviews, or too barbaric to have worldviews worth mentioning.

So, not just Christian-centric, but an example of that particular sort of Western-centrism which equates civilization and culture with the purported lineage from Greece to Rome to Christendom - an exercise in self-congratulatory Whiggishness.

Sunflower

Thanks, Sunflower.

I found this bit from the opinion piece particularly odd:
Quote
In his book “A Brief History of Thought,” the secular humanist and French philosopher Luc Ferry writes that in contrast with the Greek understanding of humanity, “Christianity was to introduce the notion that humanity was fundamentally identical, that men were equal in dignity — an unprecedented idea at the time, and one to which our world owes its entire democratic inheritance.”

Assuming the article's author is quoting Ferry correctly, he dismisses entirely the Greek contribution to democracy (!) and lays the credit instead at the feet of Christianity--which would enshrine a system of feudal lords and their Christian kings in Europe for how many centuries...?!
« Last Edit: December 27, 2015, 07:36:08 am by Altair »
The first song sets the wheel in motion / The second is a song of love / The third song tells of Her devotion / The fourth cries joy from the sky above
The fifth song binds our fate to silence / and bids us live each moment well / The sixth unleashes rage and violence / The seventh song has truth to tell
The last song echoes through the ages / to ask its question all night long / And close the circle on these pages / These, the metamythos songs

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Re: What Western Culture Owes to Christianity
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2015, 08:05:18 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;184073
So, not just Christian-centric, but an example of that particular sort of Western-centrism which equates civilization and culture with the purported lineage from Greece to Rome to Christendom - an exercise in self-congratulatory Whiggishness.

Yes, the author seems to completely ignore the many other Greek schools of philosophy, some almost as popular as Plato's at the time (but unlike Plato's had little influence on early Christian thought), let alone the rest of the world where important philosophies often had little in common with Plato's.
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Re: What Western Culture Owes to Christianity
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2015, 12:31:34 pm »
Quote from: Altair;184065
I read this opinion piece, timed for Christmas, in the NY Times, and had mixed reactions. Some of it rang true, and some of it read as Christocentric. But I am the furthest thing from a comparative religion scholar, so I'd be curious what others, esp. those better versed in religious studies, make of this.

 
Oddly, my quick skim doesn't have the thing that I think of.  And I have to caveat this with "not that the implementation worked out consistently", but pretty much everything else that's in there, the implementation didn't work out consistently - I mean, the "material world is bad" messaging that I've heard has been basically 100% Christian in origin.

That being: I think that Christianity made one of the first consistent arguments for universal spiritual equality among peoples.  (It then totally failed to follow through on it, see also the bit where the article comments about Christian arguments taking down slavery when he fails to acknowledge that Christian arguments also supported it to the point of actually creating denominations of Christianity still going strong in the US today.)  I mean, the ancient Egyptians figured that anyone had a shot of making it through to the afterlife, explicitly, but they also figured that they had the best maps, due to being Egyptian and all.

Unfortunately, that argument also happened to destroy the reasonably peaceable "of course those people are different, they have different gods, duh" sort of detente among polytheisms that was reasonably common before its arrival.  Instead of the sort of intertribal condescension that came before Christianity, there was the paternalistic attitude towards people who differ that came after and the need to actually destroy their differences in the name of that spiritual equality.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

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Re: What Western Culture Owes to Christianity
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2015, 04:02:26 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;184080
Oddly, my quick skim doesn't have the thing that I think of.  And I have to caveat this with "not that the implementation worked out consistently", but pretty much everything else that's in there, the implementation didn't work out consistently - I mean, the "material world is bad" messaging that I've heard has been basically 100% Christian in origin.


I was thinking the same thing. Not that I know much about what the Greeks thought of the natural world, but there are other people in the world than the Greeks.

Overall, the article was a shallow Jesus wank without any real historical insight.

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