Racist quote from a Ron Paul supporter

Christian Religion is in psychological terms submitting your ego to a higher judgment. A Christian culture is a guilt culture. Guilt is an emotion that rises after a transgression of cultural values.
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Again you're generalizing. This has more to do with culture than with religion. Eastern Orthodox Christians as found in Greece and Russia are more shame based, despite the fact that Greece has the highest percentage of people admitting they believe in god than any other nation in Europe. Yet, their mentality is that those who admit to doing wrong are idiots and it's very hard to ever find a Greek who admits to a crime or even a minor infraction. A great many of them will spend their last breath pointing the finger at others and never accept responsibility. And all this contradicts your statement that Christianity somehow creates this culture of guilt. It doesn't. People of certain regions of Europe always had a culture of guilt and when Christianity was adopted, their old values shifted to the new religion. Likewise with Russians and Greeks and their culture of shame. Same with Middle Eastern Muslims - their views on women were well enshrined in their culture far before Islam came about. European Muslims such as Bosnians are much more liberal. Religion is a product of the culture just as much as it shapes the culture. This should surprise no one as religion is man made after all, it's merely a reflection of a society's already existing norms with a bit of mysticism thrown in for effect.
 
In that case Irish American catholics must win the Guilt Award
 
Glaucus said:
This has more to do with culture than with religion. Eastern Orthodox Christians as found in Greece and Russia are more shame based, despite the fact that Greece has the highest percentage of people admitting they believe in god than any other nation in Europe. Yet, their mentality is that those who admit to doing wrong are idiots and it's very hard to ever find a Greek who admits to a crime or even a minor infraction. A great many of them will spend their last breath pointing the finger at others and never accept responsibility. And all this contradicts your statement that Christianity somehow creates this culture of guilt.
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Interesting specific observations. Russia was officially atheist under communism, so the influence of the Orthodox church was much reduced. Almost all of Europe can be considered a guilt based society, but the influence of honor & shame took a long time to be eliminated, e.g. dueling was common until the 18th century.

What do you think is the reason is that Greek culture remains honor based despite the 2000 year influence of Christrianity?
 
Glaucus said:
And yet it seems they imposed some rules in this case. You're correct that atheists don't believe in a universal moral code, but that's not to say that they don't operate under a moral code. All social creatures understand a moral code even if they are not capable of defining them. The moral code for wolves is to allow the alpha male to eat first. I don't think wolves need a religion to impose their moral codes. For us humans, religion is a convenience to impose such rules. Unfortunately a little too convenient as it's often abused.
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Can people be decent and moral without believing in a God who commands us to be good? Sure. There have always been kind and ethical nonbelievers. But how many of them reason their way to kindness and ethics, and how many simply reflect the moral expectations of the society in which they were raised?

In our culture, even the most passionate atheist cannot help having been influenced by the Judeo-Christian worldview that has shaped Western civilization. “you can be good without God,” is a statement that can be said only because our society so steeped in Judeo-Christian values that those values are taken for granted.

Humanists are, in fact, free riders. In the real world where it’s “rule or be ruled,” where the nice guy is a sucker, where alpha males use violence with impunity to dominate others, “be good for goodness’ sake” doesn’t provide much moral weight. Don't confuse human with humane, we certainly aren’t genetically programmed to be moral, or fair.
 
metalman said:
But how many of them reason their way to kindness and ethics, and how many simply reflect the moral expectations of the society in which they were raised?
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How many religious morality systems simply reflect our instinctive morality? On the major issues, don't kill, don't steal, don't do gratuitous harm - pretty much all of them. On the more obscure morals - having only one god, not boiling a kid in it's mother's milk, sacrificing the first born - not so much.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
How many religious morality systems simply reflect our instinctive morality? On the major issues, don't kill, don't steal, don't do gratuitous harm - pretty much all of them. On the more obscure morals - having only one god, not boiling a kid in it's mother's milk, sacrificing the first born - not so much.
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The Aztecs believed they were chosen to nourish the gods with human blood. They were the chosen people of their god Huitzilopochtli and that Huitzilopochtli had forbidden alliances. The Aztecs would wage war with neighboring tribes to exact tribute and to capture prisoners to sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli. Only by giving blood sacrifices to the sun, would the fifth sun obtain enough energy to continue to rise each morning. The Aztecs believed blood was the vital element that kept man alive, and if blood was not given to sustain the fifth sun's life, chaos would rule. Earthquakes would rumble and destroy the world. The fifth sun would meet its final end when the earthquakes shook the very stars down from the sky

archaeologists have found that Aztec sacrifices often involved children and a broad array of intentionally brutal killing methods.
Victims had their hearts cut out or were decapitated, shot full of arrows, clawed, sliced to death, stoned, skinned, buried alive or tossed from the tops of temples. "It was considered a good omen if they cried a lot at the time of sacrifice"

The Aztec society as a whole was very strict in the moral sense. Violating Aztec morality with behaviors such as disorderly conduct, promiscuity, or dressing improperly for their social position were often penalized by death. The gods needed blood.
 
metalman said:
The Aztecs believed they were chosen to nourish the gods with human blood.
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And that's not the only example of such people. They sound a lot like the ancient Hebrews who were similarly favoured and whose god was quite content to encourage his people to go on genocidal rampages .

Similarly, the Spaniards who wrote of the Aztec bloodlust were hardly less lusty in those regards and were not ashamed to be depicted in wood cuts smashing the brains out of the babies of the savages ... presumably because god is really a Spanish Catholic. Religions can justify the most appalling behaviour and override normal human morality.


And famously there are people like the Piraha who have no concept of a god or religion and haven't slaughtered themselves out of existence yet.


I was interested to learn, from the article you linked, that the Aztecs seemed to prefer sacrificing sick children. In a way this makes some sense in a time before modern medicine and is almost a mercy - if it weren't for the burning alive. Then again, when the Inquisition was burning alive perfectly healthy women (except for having been broken by horrific torture), it was seen by the Christians who did it as a kind of mercy also.
 
metalman said:
Can people be decent and moral without believing in a God who commands us to be good? Sure. There have always been kind and ethical nonbelievers. But how many of them reason their way to kindness and ethics, and how many simply reflect the moral expectations of the society in which they were raised?
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How many religions are a reflection of the morals of the society? Afterall slavery and treating women as a 2nd class citizens are Biblical themes. Religion had to change else become discarded. It seems you do not believe in self-evident truths that the Founders put in the Declaration. Instead you believe truths to only Biblically dictated. That's far from the guiding ideas of Enlightenment that founded this nation.

Don't confuse human with humane, we certainly aren’t genetically programmed to be moral, or fair.
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Humans are wired to form societies. It's within a society that questions of sharing and equality become necessary. If humans were genetically programmed to be immoral and unfair a society could never exist. Walking into church ensures morality about as much as walking into a garage makes you a car.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
And that's not the only example of such people. They sound a lot like the ancient Hebrews who were similarly favoured and whose god was quite content to encourage his people to go on genocidal rampages .
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only against the Amalekites

FluffyMcDeath said:
Similarly, the Spaniards who wrote of the Aztec bloodlust were hardly less lusty in those regards and were not ashamed to be depicted in wood cuts smashing the brains out of the babies of the savages ... presumably because god is really a Spanish Catholic. Religions can justify the most appalling behaviour and override normal human morality.
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Stalin & Mao justified the most appalling behavior and overrode normal human morality in their atheist paradises


FluffyMcDeath said:
the Inquisition was burning alive perfectly healthy women (except for having been broken by horrific torture), it was seen by the Christians who did it as a kind of mercy also.
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burning at the stake was a civil penalty
 
faethor said:
How many religions are a reflection of the morals of the society? Afterall slavery and treating women as a 2nd class citizens are Biblical themes. Religion had to change else become discarded.
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The cultural change toward women is due to the Germanic cultural influence in Europe. Women in Germanic society had traditionally high status. The Holy Roman Empire established after the fall of the Roman Empire resulted in an elevation of women's status within the Catholic Church due to Germanic Influence.

It was the Christian abolitionist movement that was responsible for ending slavery


faethor said:
Humans are wired to form societies. It's within a society that questions of sharing and equality become necessary. If humans were genetically programmed to be immoral and unfair a society could never exist.
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Many immoral and unfair societies have existed in history
 
metalman said:
only against the Amalekite
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You need to go back and read the Bible. Recall the Bashan, Midianities, Og, Jericho (yeah remember that story), Ai, Sampson had permission to slay 1000, Moabities, Baal worshipers, Haman's army. And that list if far from inclusive. That's just what I could pull out of my grey matter. ALL were permission from God to ethically cleanse.
 
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