Jesus Week

[Gangerolf]

Sweden has turned away from God and embraced Satan

[Last Conformist]

God is for gay people.

[Gangerolf]

Yes. God loves all His children

With some exceptions: http://www.godhatessweden.com/

[Last Conformist]

I meant, God is only for gay people.

[Son of David]

Originally posted by JohnT



"Let's make the Jews second-class citizens for the next 2,000 years, while giving the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution to the very Italians (and their friends) who ordered my sons death!"

The reason there was a 'Renaissance' in Europe is because Christianity put it into the Dark Ages for hundreds of years first.

But of course - centuries of stifled creativity burst forth once the iron rod of Christianity was weakened.

This is also true of Jews, who, once unleashed from the ghetto, basically created a second Renaissance in Europe with their genius.

[Last Conformist]

The Rennaissance is overrated, and was pretty much over when the scientific revolution got going.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Son of David
But of course - centuries of stifled creativity burst forth once the iron rod of Christianity was weakened.

IMO that's a bit cliche. Fits for certain parts of the middle ages, but so in general it's rather misleading.

[Son of David]

Gee whiz, was Galileo persecuted during the Renaissance?

Was Francis Bacon railing against Renaissance values when he talked about the dogma of Christianity preventing man from inventing helicopters, cars, and other prototypes he imagined of?

[BeBMan]

What are you trying to tell us?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Son of David
Gee whiz, was Galileo persecuted during the Renaissance?

Depends on what temporal span you accord to the Renaissance.

Was Francis Bacon railing against Renaissance values when he talked about the dogma of Christianity preventing man from inventing helicopters, cars, and other prototypes he imagined of?

He was railing against attitudes essentially orthogonal to the Renaissance movement, which took minimal interest in technology.

[Son of David]

Originally posted by BeBro
What are you trying to tell us?

Nothing, if you're looking for an 'atheistical' point of view.

But if you look and see the post I was replying to, I demonstrated that it was not God giving Christianity to the Europeans that made them great scientists and artists, but rather the OVERTHROWING of those Christian (idolatrous) mantras which unleashed the classical spirit that CHristian had walled and welled up for so long, and which subsequently spilled over into what seems like us today a flood of creativity.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Son of David
But if you look and see the post I was replying to, I demonstrated that it was not God giving Christianity to the Europeans that made them great scientists and artists, but rather the OVERTHROWING of those Christian (idolatrous) mantras which unleashed the classical spirit that CHristian had walled and welled up for so long, and which subsequently spilled over into what seems like us today a flood of creativity.

You've demonstrated nothing of the sort.

[Elok]

LotM: St. John Chrysostom was A. not a perfect man, B. was only a single man, and C. was generalizing onto a group of people from the particular. You also undermined yourself with the second part of your quote; he said that his biggest reason for disliking the synagogues is precisely that they have access to the scriptures but do not believe in the Christ those scriptures point to. In other words, an ongoing action committed by the individual. Rather narrow-minded and simplistic (and I most certainly do not agree with it), but it in theory implicates the present generation in the sins of the past insofar as they continue to remain within the system, which is a voluntary action, as opposed to being born to distant relatives of the guilty, which is not. In other words, not blood guilt.

But again, we are judging by irrelevant standards. This crap is all demonstrably bad interpretation; the bit in Matthew quoted by Chrysostom is the only thing I know of that might be cited to support such a position. And even that was said rather hastily by an angry Jewish mob to shut Pilate up and assure that they would take responsibility. I believe Judaism has some concept similar to blood guilt ("the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the ninth generation" or some such)? Christ himself hammers home a message about forgiveness AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, and even restores the amputated ear of one of his captors after Peter goes nuts.

This is incompatible with persecuting people for hundreds of years after the fact. And of the doctrinal variations you've mentioned, to my knowledge only the medieval Catholics' and the Calvinists' are of the sort that would lead to a belief in such a thing. The Catholics cooked up some insane notion about Original Sin amounting to inherited guilt as well as predilection (plus the blood atonement, which was used as a limited metaphor by Iranaeus but taken literally in the West beginning around 1000 AD). That particular doctrine strikes me as the second most abominable thing done to Christianity by a major group, right after the Calvinists' virtual abnegation of individual responsibility.

The Calvinists, as you mentioned, did not spare you out of superior moral feeling; they actually considered you and everyone else who had not been plucked out of the "evil" bowl at random before birth as equally depraved. Since they generally lacked the power to destroy or degrade everyone who was not of the Elect (which I submit many of them, at least today, would gladly do), they settled for general, cordial contempt. Other Christian sects, being less completely gonzo, were thereby more vulnerable to prejudices such as generalized xenophobia (rationalized with some extraordinarily bad theology). It is "related" to their beliefs, in the same sense that not having the gene for sickle-cell anemia makes you more vulnerable to malaria.

But your judging by physical consequences, knowing this, decides that they must have been morally superior somehow because they did not happen to hurt your people personally as much as they hurt/intended to hurt everyone else. The fact that Calvinism today is driving all the most hateful, xenophobic and backwards elements of society (with apparently "valid" justification from their warped perspective) is somehow irrelevant.

Kind of like people say the Muslims were "enlightened" because they were canny enough to keep marginal unbelievers around as abusable second-class citizens rather than killing them outright and starting a battle to the death with an organized and devout community with experience at hiding. That's called shortsightedness, LotM. It's understandable to an extent, but it's not logically valid.

And I know modern Calvinism is rather altered from Calvin's original ideas, but my barb at Calvinism that started this was aimed at the moderns.

[Son of David]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

You've demonstrated nothing of the sort.

Yaboo sucks!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Elok
LotM: St. John Chrysostom was A. not a perfect man,

Sinners all - sure - but not antisemites all.


B. was only a single man,


His words are the most extreme, but there are other church fathers who said similar things. And he is a very widely quoted figure, a very respected figure.


and C. was generalizing onto a group of people from the particular.

Well yeah, thats what bigots do.

You also undermined yourself with the second part of your quote; he said that his biggest reason for disliking the synagogues is precisely that they have access to the scriptures but do not believe in the Christ those scriptures point to. In other words, an ongoing action committed by the individual. Rather narrow-minded and simplistic (and I most certainly do not agree with it), but it in theory implicates the present generation in the sins of the past insofar as they continue to remain within the system, which is a voluntary action, as opposed to being born to distant relatives of the guilty, which is not. In other words, not blood guilt.

Well yeah, it wasnt racist, you could get out of it by converting to christianity. Just as you can get out of adams sin by faith (but maybe not if youre not elect, according to Calvinists) But you STARTED with especial blood guilt because you were born a Jew. And this is only a short sample.


"But again, we are judging by irrelevant standards.

Er, you were the one who said that Orthodoxy hadnt changed since the 8th Century. I agree that contemporary Orthodoxy is different - but this is the interpretation that WAS mainstream for centuries.

This crap is all demonstrably bad interpretation; the bit in Matthew quoted by Chrysostom is the only thing I know of that might be cited to support such a position. And even that was said rather hastily by an angry Jewish mob to shut Pilate up and assure that they would take responsibility. I believe Judaism has some concept similar to blood guilt ("the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the ninth generation" or some such)? Christ himself hammers home a message about forgiveness AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, and even restores the amputated ear of one of his captors after Peter goes nuts.

This is incompatible with persecuting people for hundreds of years after the fact. And of the doctrinal variations you've mentioned, to my knowledge only the medieval Catholics' and the Calvinists' are of the sort that would lead to a belief in such a thing. The Catholics cooked up some insane notion about Original Sin amounting to inherited guilt as well as predilection (plus the blood atonement, which was used as a limited metaphor by Iranaeus but taken literally in the West beginning around 1000 AD). That particular doctrine strikes me as the second most abominable thing done to Christianity by a major group, right after the Calvinists' virtual abnegation of individual responsibility.

The Calvinists, as you mentioned, did not spare you out of superior moral feeling; they actually considered you and everyone else who had not been plucked out of the "evil" bowl at random before birth as equally depraved. Since they generally lacked the power to destroy or degrade everyone who was not of the Elect (which I submit many of them, at least today, would gladly do), they settled for general, cordial contempt. Other Christian sects, being less completely gonzo, were thereby more vulnerable to prejudices such as generalized xenophobia (rationalized with some extraordinarily bad theology). It is "related" to their beliefs, in the same sense that not having the gene for sickle-cell anemia makes you more vulnerable to malaria.

Well everyone thinks their morally right - within the Calvinist system they are right, and within Nicholas II's moral system hes right. Its impossible for me to investigate and understand every nuance of the persecutors moral standards - I must judge him by his actions.

Oh, and even discounting the Jews, the Calvinists are hardly particularly bloodthirsty by premodern standards, compared to Catholic or Orthodox regimes.


"But your judging by physical consequences, knowing this, decides that they must have been morally superior somehow because they did not happen to hurt your people personally as much as they hurt/intended to hurt everyone else. The fact that Calvinism today is driving all the most hateful, xenophobic and backwards elements of society (with apparently "valid" justification from their warped perspective) is somehow irrelevant."

IIUC, most American fundies are Baptists, Pentecostals etc and are not strictly Calvinists, or sometime are FAR from Calvinists. I dont find that kind of backwardness in churches that actually have Calvinist roots, like Presbyterians or UCC.



"Kind of like people say the Muslims were "enlightened" because they were canny enough to keep marginal unbelievers around as abusable second-class citizens rather than killing them outright and starting a battle to the death with an organized and devout community with experience at hiding. "


Actualy muslims were relatively enlightened.


" That's called shortsightedness, LotM. It's understandable to an extent, but it's not logically valid.




And I know modern Calvinism is rather altered from Calvin's original ideas, but my barb at Calvinism that started this was aimed at the moderns.