The lesson of Christian culture

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I have to admit, my parents got me a birthday gift (about a month ago) that I kind of received with mixed feelings - mainly my mom *really* wanted me to listen to it and I had a feeling that I knew what I was getting into with this and I'd have to fake some enthusiasm or at least leave my criticisms inbetween my words. It was pretty much a Doug Giles 4x CD on 'How To Avoid The Marriage From Hell'.

I listened...begrudgingly...to three of the cd's so far and was about to put in the 4th (just to have this out of my hair completely) but I heard a lot of things on the other cds and Youtubeing the guy out of curiosity. The understanding I get from listening to these cds vs. looking at our culture is this - it seems like Christian values vs. progressivism is inherently a false dichotomy. I'll tell you why. While there was a lot of 'God' stuff, in a very traditional 'either you believe or you don't' type of context which annoyed the heck out of me - almost all of the dating and marriage advice and advice on what the human being is like the foundation we're built on - couldn't be more on point. When I was younger I might have thought that this made Christians more apt to be correct on everything where afterall - I agreed with them on economics, I agreed with them at least in theory on foreign policy, and I absolutely agreed with their observations on human nature - therefore, I found it strange that they believed in what could be seen as a really big easter bunny or Santa Clause but - if they were right on everything else and it pivoted around that belief it make me think there was something more to it.

Where I broke with that thought process and where I'm at right now - its quite painfully obvious what's going on in our culture and why we're having so much problems. Its not that progressivism is 'Godless', it just happened to throw out 2000 years of wisdom based on its supposed connection to 'God'. I don't think that these observations about the human conditions, why monogamy or abstinence before marriage, self-sorting in terms of emotional maturity, need any holy or metaphysical explanation on why they're good ideas. Seeing as how the Greeks barely even spent time with their marital partners, got it on with other men or little boys and only had their spouse on the side as "Well, if I want a son or daughter I kinda have to" - every psychologist today sees just how badly the human mind and body, instinctively, are built for long term relationships, monogamy, etc., and yet those two things as well as emotional stability are what's needed for good mental health - ie. the further you drift away from exerting good and healthy discipline over yourself and your mind/body, the more of a miserable wreck you become - its that age old lesson of taking immediate gratification over long term gain where long term gain is vastly superior in almost every way.

I guess that's what I really wish we could get over - all these things that are considered 'Christian values' are just brilliant applications of common sense, throwing them out is like throwing out the wheel if a Christian had been the inventor of it (yes, I'm sure that was quite a while before Christianity but you get the idea) - horridly impractical. We've had a choice, as a race, for a long time on how much we want to trade off - on one hand having a very humane and successful culture takes discipline but sacrifices license, a licentious culture takes much less discipline but sacrifices humanity and success.

Any thoughts on this? I guess I'd just like to get a sense of where you guys are at on this (those who can tell the difference) as well as what you think of the societal discipline/license fulcrum and where you think its at right now.

interesting topic tech,

I always thought the idea of "all sinned and fall short", everybody is equally bad, made sense to me. But now, Christians have told me the bible says different people will have different punishments of severity, and im not sure if i do believe that now, I think everybody has the same "badness" negativity that efflicts humanity, but i think l lot of it is caused by fear and bad circumstance, and buddhist type ways of over coming those feelings are useful, as opposed to the christian way of putting it all on jesus. I do believe in personal responsibilty and choice to an extent though.

I don't think that "Christian values" tend to be Christian. The New Testament, as I read it, is fundamentally non-conservative. I am not saying that conservatives have nothing out of there, it is just that there is a much stronger case for Christian pacifism, anarchism, and left-libertarianism out of the New Testament than there is for the Republican party.

Pretty much everything non-superstitious that christianity advocates had been around before there was even coherent language.

It is common sense to not rape, pillage etc. because you don't want to be rape/pillaged/etc yourself. But the important part of any religion is the part that defies common sense and reason, that's what makes it a religion and not something less profitable.

For me, accepting any morality as a rule to obey makes it inherently amoral because you would be following a rule rather than acting on your morality.

"With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” ~ Steven Weinberg

Why throw morality away in favor of rules?

I like your "progressive-ism" viewpoint.

Regardless of your take on Christianity and its values, it is a documented fact that when the Soviets wanted to find a way to take down the USA from within, they accepted the same thing the Nazis discovered....our strength as a nation was rooted in our values (albeit religious values). Erode those, and everything else would crumble.

Since that day, you have seen an assault on "traditional values" for being outdated, sexist, racist, etc., but what is offered as a substitute mirrors the bad habits every empire embraces shortly before they collapse from their own excesses.

I don't think there is any problem with any religion. All religions try to structure people's lives, give them purpose and inspire people to do good. I don't like the silly rituals that religions often force upon followers though, they serve to segregate you from other groups (Christians going to church every Sunday, Jews not eating pork, Muslims praying 5 times a day). Then of course is corruption, any organisation with power attracts those seeking power.

Lastly so many people that profess to belonging to a religion rarely act like the religion asks them to. There are a lot of a***holes out there claiming they belong to a major religion.

I like Buddhism because it is an atheist religion and your specifically taught to give up desire (for power, wealth, etc) and seek peace and harmony.

Mostly though I don't see why you need a religion to be nice and act with common sense and fairness.

Christian? Progressive values? Eh?

Unless you're talking about how libertarian the New Testament actually is, in which case you'd be correct, it is libertarian. Effectively, in terms of rules that must be followed, it all comes down to the Noahchide Code. Aside from those, you can pretty much do what you like. Although they *are* shockingly conservitive...

The title of this thread is soooo arrogant. This reads like one of Raggy's old threads.

Religion is amusing in that it allows you to express your individuality while remaining within social norms. With the decline of nation-states in post modernism, people seek to assert their individuality since their usual points of reference given by the state are confused and nonfunctional.

This is why you have what you have in America ~­.~ (And by that, i mean beauty contests and smaller, virtual communities, like hippies, Goths, people who like guns, and obviously:P Aspies, etc.). It is usually all the more true for the USA because it wasn't made like all the previous countries which were much more homogeneous (bluntly, of the same blood, like the British, the French, etc.) and where a form of social solidarity was present.

I can pretty much agree on some of the points you have listed, so yeah...

I can definately say humanity has strayed too far from its natural roots, by becoming civilized and trying to distance themselves further and further away from nature. This combined with the whole 'god am I' mindset that humanity is tending to develop, is pretty much more evidence to the fact that, humans are indeed bastards.