I think the comment below NEEDS a discussion. Discussion about religion and the way "our" society thinks and acts upon others especially concerning religion...
Any thoughts??
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Surely there are better things to discuss than this?!
The spread of Christianity has always struck me as a sort of softer imperialism. Certainly not softer during the crusades, but rarely is physical force used to promote "faith in the one true god" these days. Instead scare tactics are used, or an appeal to Pascal's Wager. We will return to Pascal later.
Christianity did no spread like wild fire immediately following the death (and "ressurection") of Christ. Indeed, CHristianity, as a faith, was close to dying a quiet death. For decades after the death of Christ, Christianity was regarded as a sect of Judaism. Having another sect of Judaism wasn't a big deal, there were already plenty of them during the life of Christ, all holding different beliefs, much like prodestant denominations today. The biggest difference in Christianity lie not in its teachings (as there were many who already held beliefs similar to those taught by Jesus, noteably the Essenes, of which John the Baptist was one, and it is reasonable to believe that Jesus was also an Essene and likely a student of John the Baptist). The primary seperation from Christianity and Judaism is in the fervent objective of spreading the religion. Judaism didn't spread, it was a birth right, Christians believed they had something that everyone in the world should hear, the great commission.
As Christianity was a sect of Judaism and met with Jews in their synagouges, they were, more-or-less, under control of the Jewish church. The Jewish church didn't want Christians to spread thus they forbade them, for many years, from doing any sort of missions work. The Jewish church finally gave way, a few years later it reaches Byzantium and the pegan emperer Constantine.
Eventually Constantine put his stamp of approval on Christianity, the disciples continued their holy charge to spread the Gospel and in the 400's Christianity starts to trickle into Europe. Since the Romans had left most of Ireland, Scottland, England, etc, religion was in a somewhat chaotic state. Christianity offered a means of organization.
Christianity offered solutions to all of lifes problems, through faith in Jesus.
Pascal comes along and applies decision theory to religion. The problem with Pascal's Wager is that it only applies in the paradigm that it has created for itself and gives us only two options; either the Christian God exists, or there is no God. This is a error in logic--false dichotomy.
The Bible itself (and thus the religion of Christianity) is founded upon a similar error in logic. While a rigorous interpertation of the Bible, froma fundamentalist standpoint, leaves no room for another god, a more liberal, literary reading does not exclude it. Indeed, there are several areas in the Bible where Jehova (the "only" god) seems to be talking to others like himself, or make referance to a plaural, particularly in Genesis.
From a fundamentalist perspective, if God is the only God, then Christianity is the religion you want to follow. But this is a paradigm established within the bible itself. So, within the paradigm of the bible, Pascale's Wager is reasonable.
If the Christian God exists, then everyone should know salvation, everyone should accept Jesus as savior. The problem presents itself that not everyone holds to the idea that the Christian God is the only option. To some religions the idea of a higher power is non-existant.
To try to conform someone's understanding to a paradigm that has no value to them, to attempt to get them to shift into thinking that either the Christian God exists or he does not...will meet with resistance.
And why shouldn't it?
And the idea that we are a Christian Nation? come on!
My father is an ever abundant source of entertainment and refinement of my thoughts.
Recently over dinner we were discussing the coming election and I made the comment "just becuase you're a christian doesn't mean that you should be president"...right about now I would vote for anyone BUT a Christian. The appeal to "morality" is sickening, as though Christians are the only people who don't believe in corrupt politics (if they can even DEMONSTRATE by their actions that they do believe such a thing).
This Country was not founded as a CHristian Country...if that were the case the Pilgram's would have never left England. The Pilgrams didn't found the Country, lest I cause confusion with that statement. You can't found a country when you land on a piece of ground and start living there. Officially this country came into existance at the signing of the Declaration of Independance.
Jefferson, one of the contributing parties to the Declaration and third president, was a Deist, not a Christian. He has his own edition of the bible which has just recently been published by Dover. In it Jefferson removes all the miraculous or supernatural events of the bible. Deists believe that religion need be founded on human reason (not blind faith).
This is an interesting read on Jefferson's thoughts on religious freedom http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/rfindex.htm
I would agree with Jefferson; God has made the human mind free and has expressed that he wishes it to remain so.
To attempt to "save" someone because you don't want them to burn in hell is something applicable only to the paradigm of Christianity; that there is a hell and going there is punishment for not accepting Jesus as your savior. Outside of this paradigm, hell holds no sway.
I could continue into so much more, but I'll leave it at this for now.
I fail to see the point of that. I'm agnostic. I also fail to see the point of bringing Bach into the arguement, Christianity didn't give us Bach (as an aside, Bach was Lutherin). There have been many great composers who have been atheist or of non-disclosed religious convictions.
Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms (Bramms was an atheist), Wagner (a STRONG atheist), Schoenberg, etc, etc.
Bach is the only composer you will find who made any sort of point out of religious devotion.
To draw any lines of parallel between creativity and religious orientation is astonishingly foolish.
If you please, what other wonderful things, such as Bach, did Christianity give "us"?
History is a one-off experiment, and I can't prove that Christianity necessarily caused anything that it appeared to cause. But, in general, the musical tradition of the West was supported and developed by the church. It took me 10 seconds of research to find this one example:
"The founder of what is now considered the standard music stave was Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk"
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_notation
...you will find that many musical innovations, most notably those particular to the West, such as standard notation, polyphony, classical forms, etc, were created by or resultant from church figures.
Cause effect? I don't know.
What else--that's a subject for education I suppose. I might point to architecture or painting, etc. But those are too obvious.
Rather, modern science itself is a reaction against the errors of the church. Now, when I say "errors", think of it in this context: Einstein was a reaction against the errors of Newton. Church thinkers generally operated within a flawed theoretical system--but within that system, a good deal of work (incorrect or otherwise) was accomplished. Without Newton, no Einstein. Without the church...perhaps...no Newton.
Music history is not an area you wish to debate with me. d'Arezzo is considered...not concretely so. Within music history it is quasi-standard practice never to absolutly attribute the accomplishment of anything to any one person, so I will give you d'Arezzo. It would be prudent, however, to realize that our entire system of music (what is considered "western music") began with the Greeks, who, last time I checked, were not a Christian nation. The system of musical notation in the West originated with a charge given by Pope Gregory, to develope and perserve the sung liturgy. It took many years for the system to actually come into practice, but it resulted in what is commonply called "gregorian chant" and that system of notation was developed by a group of monks in Solems. So, we can grant that the entire system of musical notation is a result of the church...but it would be faulty to assert that without pope gregory we would have no system of writing today. We would. Indeed, the system of notation changed tremendously after the time of the Solems monks.
Indeed, the system of notation developed by the monks of Solems draws very heavily from Greek theory. It also goes to note that the modes used in church music (the so called "ecclisiastical" modes) are actually the Greek modes. Ionian, Dorian, Phrigian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian, were all modes developed by the Greeks and used in their compositions...so...the church piggy-backed.
The system of music that became westen music, descended from the Greeks and was brought from Greece to Europe by none other than the Pegans.
After a system of writing was established a great many of the changes, revolutions eve, in composition that took place took place outside of, and often in spite of, the church. The church for many years attempted to discourage any innovation in compositional techniques. It even called together a council in the city of Trent where it voted on many theological issues and included debate about musical composition for use in the church.
Music was, however, a wide spread activity outside of the church...it's just not so well documented as church music.
"Classical forms" is misleading, at least in the context in which it is used here (wikipedia is not the most reliable source of scholarly information). Forms are not the result of creation, that is, they are not an inductive parameter, they are a consequence. We find them after the fact.
Form is the result of a few different things, none of which is the church. Primarily, harmony. The innovator in western harmonic theory was Jean Philip Rameau whose tretise on the subject has set the standard for westrn use of harmony. He did so seperate from the church.
Many of the great theorists in music history had little to do with the church.
Intellectual accomplishment should not be considered the coupling of religion with desire, but rather the coupling of education with need. Religion has not accomplished any innovations in and of itself, but those in religious offices or groups have been the ones to come about certain innovations. This is for the simple fact that, for the better part of western history, monks were the educated people. Were they smart because they were christians? no. Being a part of a christian commune afforded them the luxury of education.
One must avoid the trap of faulty cause and effect. To say that we have western music becuase of christians is not an assertion that any historian would take seriously.
How is the work of Newton contingant on the church? Becuase they persecuted his ideas? hmmm...
I really fail to see any sort of clout your arguement carries.
Architecture and painting...you really want to go there?
How did christianity have anything whatsoever to do with architecture? Sure, gothic catherdrals are magnificent...but...I dare say you've seen pictures of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. What did that have to do with Christianity? A great dela of architecture comes from a knowledge of mathematics...any area of science dominated by the Greeks.
Painting? The first paintings to contain foreshortening were not of religious subects.
Artists painted a great deal for the church, granted...but that was becuase the church PAID...beucase the church had money, given to it by the people it was sending to hell.
The church may have a lot of music written for it, many wonderful buildings and scores of beautiful paintings...but it burned books, and women, and men. Murdered people of different oppinion, held power over kings, lied, cheated, stole...all in the name of...God.
Historically, more of society (politics, art, litereture, music, etc) comes from the Greeks, not the church.
Newton was coming from an intellectual tradition which included all variety of things, from Descartes to Alchemy to religion--all three of which he took seriously. As such, there's an influence there, for better or worse. From wikipedia, again: "In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science." Did it influence his thinking--surely. Did it drive him--undoubtedly. Of course, this is not something that can be said of modern scientists.
Now, I don't want to pick apart your previous comments. But in general please don't say this:
One must avoid the trap of faulty cause and effect.
...when I said this:
I can't prove that Christianity necessarily caused anything that it appeared to cause
The church's role in doing this or that thing generally follows the model of any other large institutions. For example, the US Government gets a great deal of credit for winning WWII/Flying to the moon/creating the Internet, when it was actually soldiers/scientists/engineers who did the work. But it is not out-of-line to credit the institution's backing of the same for what it is worth. So if the church bankrolled Bach/Michelangelo/Mendel (why not?), I'll give it credit.
it burned books, and women, and men. Murdered people of different oppinion, held power over kings, lied, cheated, stole...all in the name of...God
You might reflect that history's three greatest murderers, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were atheists. I think Pol Pot may have been #4. He was also an atheist. Cause and effect? Probably not. Most of the things you mentioned are part of a routine power struggle, and people will say "God this, god that" as part of the same struggle. That doesn't mean they're actually under the influence of dogma.
Again, not to pick apart your comments, but please:
How did christianity have anything whatsoever to do with architecture? Sure, gothic catherdrals are magnificent...but...I dare say you've seen pictures of ancient Greek and Roman architecture.
This contains three things:
1) A suggestion that X does not pertain to Y. 2) An example of how X does in fact pertain to Y. 3) An assertion that the fact that Z also pertains to Y somehow supported 1)
Well, we've veered away from the original post:
the way "our" society thinks and acts upon others especially concerning religion
...you know, other organizations have generally subverted religion's public roles. In previous times, the church was social club, welfare system, enforcer of justice, philosopher, and entertainer all together. Now, its territory has been encroached upon quite a bit.
6 comments:
Surely there are better things to discuss than this?!
The spread of Christianity has always struck me as a sort of softer imperialism. Certainly not softer during the crusades, but rarely is physical force used to promote "faith in the one true god" these days. Instead scare tactics are used, or an appeal to Pascal's Wager. We will return to Pascal later.
Christianity did no spread like wild fire immediately following the death (and "ressurection") of Christ. Indeed, CHristianity, as a faith, was close to dying a quiet death. For decades after the death of Christ, Christianity was regarded as a sect of Judaism. Having another sect of Judaism wasn't a big deal, there were already plenty of them during the life of Christ, all holding different beliefs, much like prodestant denominations today. The biggest difference in Christianity lie not in its teachings (as there were many who already held beliefs similar to those taught by Jesus, noteably the Essenes, of which John the Baptist was one, and it is reasonable to believe that Jesus was also an Essene and likely a student of John the Baptist). The primary seperation from Christianity and Judaism is in the fervent objective of spreading the religion. Judaism didn't spread, it was a birth right, Christians believed they had something that everyone in the world should hear, the great commission.
As Christianity was a sect of Judaism and met with Jews in their synagouges, they were, more-or-less, under control of the Jewish church. The Jewish church didn't want Christians to spread thus they forbade them, for many years, from doing any sort of missions work. The Jewish church finally gave way, a few years later it reaches Byzantium and the pegan emperer Constantine.
Eventually Constantine put his stamp of approval on Christianity, the disciples continued their holy charge to spread the Gospel and in the 400's Christianity starts to trickle into Europe. Since the Romans had left most of Ireland, Scottland, England, etc, religion was in a somewhat chaotic state. Christianity offered a means of organization.
Christianity offered solutions to all of lifes problems, through faith in Jesus.
Pascal comes along and applies decision theory to religion. The problem with Pascal's Wager is that it only applies in the paradigm that it has created for itself and gives us only two options; either the Christian God exists, or there is no God. This is a error in logic--false dichotomy.
The Bible itself (and thus the religion of Christianity) is founded upon a similar error in logic. While a rigorous interpertation of the Bible, froma fundamentalist standpoint, leaves no room for another god, a more liberal, literary reading does not exclude it. Indeed, there are several areas in the Bible where Jehova (the "only" god) seems to be talking to others like himself, or make referance to a plaural, particularly in Genesis.
From a fundamentalist perspective, if God is the only God, then Christianity is the religion you want to follow. But this is a paradigm established within the bible itself. So, within the paradigm of the bible, Pascale's Wager is reasonable.
If the Christian God exists, then everyone should know salvation, everyone should accept Jesus as savior. The problem presents itself that not everyone holds to the idea that the Christian God is the only option. To some religions the idea of a higher power is non-existant.
To try to conform someone's understanding to a paradigm that has no value to them, to attempt to get them to shift into thinking that either the Christian God exists or he does not...will meet with resistance.
And why shouldn't it?
And the idea that we are a Christian Nation? come on!
My father is an ever abundant source of entertainment and refinement of my thoughts.
Recently over dinner we were discussing the coming election and I made the comment "just becuase you're a christian doesn't mean that you should be president"...right about now I would vote for anyone BUT a Christian. The appeal to "morality" is sickening, as though Christians are the only people who don't believe in corrupt politics (if they can even DEMONSTRATE by their actions that they do believe such a thing).
This Country was not founded as a CHristian Country...if that were the case the Pilgram's would have never left England. The Pilgrams didn't found the Country, lest I cause confusion with that statement. You can't found a country when you land on a piece of ground and start living there. Officially this country came into existance at the signing of the Declaration of Independance.
Jefferson, one of the contributing parties to the Declaration and third president, was a Deist, not a Christian. He has his own edition of the bible which has just recently been published by Dover. In it Jefferson removes all the miraculous or supernatural events of the bible. Deists believe that religion need be founded on human reason (not blind faith).
This is an interesting read on Jefferson's thoughts on religious freedom
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/rfindex.htm
I would agree with Jefferson; God has made the human mind free and has expressed that he wishes it to remain so.
To attempt to "save" someone because you don't want them to burn in hell is something applicable only to the paradigm of Christianity; that there is a hell and going there is punishment for not accepting Jesus as your savior. Outside of this paradigm, hell holds no sway.
I could continue into so much more, but I'll leave it at this for now.
At the end of the day, if nothing else, Christianity gave us JS Bach, while atheism (per se) gave us the equivilent of the above.
I fail to see the point of that. I'm agnostic. I also fail to see the point of bringing Bach into the arguement, Christianity didn't give us Bach (as an aside, Bach was Lutherin). There have been many great composers who have been atheist or of non-disclosed religious convictions.
Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms (Bramms was an atheist), Wagner (a STRONG atheist), Schoenberg, etc, etc.
Bach is the only composer you will find who made any sort of point out of religious devotion.
To draw any lines of parallel between creativity and religious orientation is astonishingly foolish.
If you please, what other wonderful things, such as Bach, did Christianity give "us"?
History is a one-off experiment, and I can't prove that Christianity necessarily caused anything that it appeared to cause. But, in general, the musical tradition of the West was supported and developed by the church. It took me 10 seconds of research to find this one example:
"The founder of what is now considered the standard music stave was Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk"
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_notation
...you will find that many musical innovations, most notably those particular to the West, such as standard notation, polyphony, classical forms, etc, were created by or resultant from church figures.
Cause effect? I don't know.
What else--that's a subject for education I suppose. I might point to architecture or painting, etc. But those are too obvious.
Rather, modern science itself is a reaction against the errors of the church. Now, when I say "errors", think of it in this context: Einstein was a reaction against the errors of Newton. Church thinkers generally operated within a flawed theoretical system--but within that system, a good deal of work (incorrect or otherwise) was accomplished. Without Newton, no Einstein. Without the church...perhaps...no Newton.
Music history is not an area you wish to debate with me. d'Arezzo is considered...not concretely so. Within music history it is quasi-standard practice never to absolutly attribute the accomplishment of anything to any one person, so I will give you d'Arezzo. It would be prudent, however, to realize that our entire system of music (what is considered "western music") began with the Greeks, who, last time I checked, were not a Christian nation. The system of musical notation in the West originated with a charge given by Pope Gregory, to develope and perserve the sung liturgy. It took many years for the system to actually come into practice, but it resulted in what is commonply called "gregorian chant" and that system of notation was developed by a group of monks in Solems. So, we can grant that the entire system of musical notation is a result of the church...but it would be faulty to assert that without pope gregory we would have no system of writing today. We would. Indeed, the system of notation changed tremendously after the time of the Solems monks.
Indeed, the system of notation developed by the monks of Solems draws very heavily from Greek theory. It also goes to note that the modes used in church music (the so called "ecclisiastical" modes) are actually the Greek modes. Ionian, Dorian, Phrigian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian, were all modes developed by the Greeks and used in their compositions...so...the church piggy-backed.
The system of music that became westen music, descended from the Greeks and was brought from Greece to Europe by none other than the Pegans.
After a system of writing was established a great many of the changes, revolutions eve, in composition that took place took place outside of, and often in spite of, the church. The church for many years attempted to discourage any innovation in compositional techniques. It even called together a council in the city of Trent where it voted on many theological issues and included debate about musical composition for use in the church.
Music was, however, a wide spread activity outside of the church...it's just not so well documented as church music.
"Classical forms" is misleading, at least in the context in which it is used here (wikipedia is not the most reliable source of scholarly information). Forms are not the result of creation, that is, they are not an inductive parameter, they are a consequence. We find them after the fact.
Form is the result of a few different things, none of which is the church. Primarily, harmony. The innovator in western harmonic theory was Jean Philip Rameau whose tretise on the subject has set the standard for westrn use of harmony. He did so seperate from the church.
Many of the great theorists in music history had little to do with the church.
Intellectual accomplishment should not be considered the coupling of religion with desire, but rather the coupling of education with need. Religion has not accomplished any innovations in and of itself, but those in religious offices or groups have been the ones to come about certain innovations. This is for the simple fact that, for the better part of western history, monks were the educated people. Were they smart because they were christians? no. Being a part of a christian commune afforded them the luxury of education.
One must avoid the trap of faulty cause and effect. To say that we have western music becuase of christians is not an assertion that any historian would take seriously.
How is the work of Newton contingant on the church? Becuase they persecuted his ideas? hmmm...
I really fail to see any sort of clout your arguement carries.
Architecture and painting...you really want to go there?
How did christianity have anything whatsoever to do with architecture? Sure, gothic catherdrals are magnificent...but...I dare say you've seen pictures of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. What did that have to do with Christianity? A great dela of architecture comes from a knowledge of mathematics...any area of science dominated by the Greeks.
Painting? The first paintings to contain foreshortening were not of religious subects.
Artists painted a great deal for the church, granted...but that was becuase the church PAID...beucase the church had money, given to it by the people it was sending to hell.
The church may have a lot of music written for it, many wonderful buildings and scores of beautiful paintings...but it burned books, and women, and men. Murdered people of different oppinion, held power over kings, lied, cheated, stole...all in the name of...God.
Historically, more of society (politics, art, litereture, music, etc) comes from the Greeks, not the church.
Re: Newton.
Newton was coming from an intellectual tradition which included all variety of things, from Descartes to Alchemy to religion--all three of which he took seriously. As such, there's an influence there, for better or worse. From wikipedia, again: "In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science." Did it influence his thinking--surely. Did it drive him--undoubtedly. Of course, this is not something that can be said of modern scientists.
Now, I don't want to pick apart your previous comments. But in general please don't say this:
One must avoid the trap of faulty cause and effect.
...when I said this:
I can't prove that Christianity necessarily caused anything that it appeared to cause
The church's role in doing this or that thing generally follows the model of any other large institutions. For example, the US Government gets a great deal of credit for winning WWII/Flying to the moon/creating the Internet, when it was actually soldiers/scientists/engineers who did the work. But it is not out-of-line to credit the institution's backing of the same for what it is worth. So if the church bankrolled Bach/Michelangelo/Mendel (why not?), I'll give it credit.
it burned books, and women, and men. Murdered people of different oppinion, held power over kings, lied, cheated, stole...all in the name of...God
You might reflect that history's three greatest murderers, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were atheists. I think Pol Pot may have been #4. He was also an atheist. Cause and effect? Probably not. Most of the things you mentioned are part of a routine power struggle, and people will say "God this, god that" as part of the same struggle. That doesn't mean they're actually under the influence of dogma.
Again, not to pick apart your comments, but please:
How did christianity have anything whatsoever to do with architecture? Sure, gothic catherdrals are magnificent...but...I dare say you've seen pictures of ancient Greek and Roman architecture.
This contains three things:
1) A suggestion that X does not pertain to Y.
2) An example of how X does in fact pertain to Y.
3) An assertion that the fact that Z also pertains to Y somehow supported 1)
Well, we've veered away from the original post:
the way "our" society thinks and acts upon others especially concerning religion
...you know, other organizations have generally subverted religion's public roles. In previous times, the church was social club, welfare system, enforcer of justice, philosopher, and entertainer all together. Now, its territory has been encroached upon quite a bit.
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