Is this true about Christianity?

[Zebo]

The Greatest Gift For All

By Paul Craig Roberts

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.

Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.

In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.

This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.

Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.

The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.

In recent decades we have begun losing sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by "political correctness." Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. Diversity is becoming the consuming value and is dismantling the culture.

There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law—except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard. One hundred million people were exterminated by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority.

Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as "unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything."

Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

What's the deal here? How does Christianity make individual count more than in other religions? Sounds like a bunch of BS to me and stealth proselytizing by Mr Roberts whom I respect.

 

[nonlnear]

Empowerment of the individual was an outgrowth of Christianity in a certain sense, but I think the timeline makes it hard to reasonably conclude that Christianity was the cause per se. After all, Martin Luther kicked off* the ideological end of the medieval era quite a while after Christ. If Jesus actually wanted to bring individualism to the world, he probably would have said something to that effect and saved us the hassle of a millennium and a half.

That being the case, Christianity did happen to be the cultural vehicle whereby that cultural germ was spread. Even atheism as it exists today was largely a byproduct off that transformation. Sure there have always been non-believers in every other time and place, but it required the concept of the moral primacy of individual conscience (a clear artifact of the reformations) to make that a publicly respectable position and not just an individual transgression of public sensibility.

PCR's view on what the Bible says about individuals is in no way representative of ancient or medieval Christianity. His blithely ahistorical read ("that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.") is the kind of claptrap that is only possible in one of the anti-historical Christian traditions that habitually backreads modern sensibilities into the ancient, highly collectivist text. Ironically, these traditions for the most part would recoil at anybody calling them humanist, but that is simply because they are generally in total denial about the nature and origin of their world view.

* I am using Luther as an easily identified breakpoint in religious and cultural life. However I think it's an overstatement to say that he started the whole thing. There were movements afoot (most notably the Magna Carta) well before him. However I think it's fair to say that Luther was the conduit whereby the ideological soil from which modern liberty sprang was brought from the ruling class to the peasantry.

 

[totalnoob]

What's the deal here? How does Christianity make individual count more than in other religions?

Nonsense...There is nothing in Christianity based on the empowerment of the individual. It is all about submission to god's will and preference for those who are in the correct faith. Nowhere in the bible is the inherent worth of all human beings praised. Nowhere is democracy supported. On the contrary, the divine right of kings get's it's justification from the bible (Read Roman's 13). Common peons are to submit to all earthly authorities and the will of the rulers no matter what, because god is in control and put them there. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2013: 1-6&version=NIV The enlightenment values of Jefferson, Locke, Paine, Voltaire, Hume, etc were largely a break from Xtian traditions. Respect for individuals and natural rights emerged out of resistance to dogma..not the other way around. Xtians are looking back with hindsight and trying to attach their faith to something that was born out of opposition to it. Don't let them get away with it.

 

[Moonbeam]

All real religion has its origin in the fact that the true self, the real potential of every single human individual is destroyed by the duality of thought imposed by language, the creation out of thin air of the notion there is good and evil, and the application of those ideas to the self. Occasionally individuals transcend duality and achieve perfect consciousness, awareness without thought, a presence in the now. Such folk, not plagued by unconscious motivations, lacking inner defensiveness and self deception, aware of what they feel. They become totally real and the reality they become is a manifestation of human love. These are the windows that open into God. These are the soul's desire, the hidden thing we unconsciously ache for. The self freed from ego is God or God is known to those who have no ego self. It doesn't really matter because one is just the same as the other. But if you tell a soul who hates himself that he is God, he will laugh at you. It is much better for the separated to think of God loving him equally to all others as it is for him to think he has to do that loving himself.

And since the true nature of man is God and all we project on him it is better for any culture to practice the sacredness of the true self in some fashion or another over the notion that everything is relative because of the illness of self hate and that ego power is the ultimate good.

Basically it amounts to whether the culture supports mental health or mental illness.

This is how I see it.

 

[Scotteq]

...after reviewing the history of Christianity, I have come to the conclusion that The Christian Church fully empowers individuals to take whatever hand is dealt them by whatever authority and live with it, secure in the knowledge that God will somehow make it right....

You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
—Matthew 5:38-42, NIV

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
—Luke 6:27-31. NIV

....after that individual DIES.



The author quoted in the OP is FOS. Period. End.

 

[Moonbeam]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zebo
What's the deal here? How does Christianity make individual count more than in other religions?

Nonsense...There is nothing in Christianity based on the empowerment of the individual. It is all about submission to god's will and preference for those who are in the correct faith. Nowhere in the bible is the inherent worth of all human beings praised. Nowhere is democracy supported. On the contrary, the divine right of kings get's it's justification from the bible (Read Roman's 13). Common peons are to submit to all earthly authorities and the will of the rulers no matter what, because god is in control and put them there. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...-6&version=NIV The enlightenment values of Jefferson, Locke, Paine, Voltaire, Hume, etc were largely a break from Xtian traditions. Respect for individuals and natural rights emerged out of resistance to dogma..not the other way around. Xtians are looking back with hindsight and trying to attach their faith to something that was born out of opposition to it. Don't let them get away with it.

I think you are talking about your own prejudice toward the Christian religion as opposed to the real message of Christ, two different things in my opinion.

So, Zebo, let me give you a more direct answer to your question as I see it.

How does Christianity make the individual count more than other religions. This is of course a better worse question, or the product of the belief in good and evil, that they are real and can be compared. This question can exist only for a mind plagued by duality. It is resolved at a higher level of understanding, namely, the state of unity.

But never mind that:

My understanding is that Moses brought God's law, how folk should treat each other according to how one would act filled with love and justice, which the sick never are. So the Jewish religion went off the rails as they all will and must since the masses never penetrate to the inner real intention.

So the Jews began to believe they were going to heaven, the projection into the future of the state of unity, again, just by obeying the law. One needed no revolution of consciousness to get to heaven, or to awaken in the here and now. Thus there's spiritual stagnation, so Christ brought the message that the LAW was not the way, that you had to die to the self to go to heaven.

Well to almost all people the notion that you have to die to yourself sounds like anything but an emphasis or call out for the self, but that confusion arises because folk have two selves, one they know called the ego, and the original self that was always perfect and in unity with the universe. It is that former self that must die for the latter to emerge from the wreckage. The real self is God. Jesus is the only way in the sense that Jesus is the exemplar of what he preached. Jesus is what being real is like.

But Islam isn't really different in intention. There, I believe, there is the notion of surrender of the will where the will is the will of the ego. In the state of unity all that happens has to happen and can't happen any other way. To accept that, to enter into it, is to end duality. Everything is the will of God and has to be perfect. We suffer because we are separate, divided within.

The idea of religion is that by loving God with all ones heart and soul, the love can swallow the universe. The lover and the beloved become one.

 

[Moonbeam]

...after reviewing the history of Christianity, I have come to the conclusion that The Christian Church fully empowers individuals to take whatever hand is dealt them by whatever authority and live with it, secure in the knowledge that God will somehow make it right....






....after that individual DIES.



The author quoted in the OP is FOS. Period. End.

You are very cynical and carry within you the feeling you've been used and betrayed, as indeed you have.

However, your escape depends on attitude. If you want to spend your life in anger and revenge for the injustices thrust on you, enjoy your short life and die miserable. On the other hand, if your faith that you are loved by God is great and drowns out your negative feelings, you will die happy. What is is of no matter. How you feel about it is everything. You can feed your self hate or you can try to nurture the love that was buried deep within you and find God there. It's just a matter of attitude.

 

[Scotteq]

You are very cynical and carry within you the feeling you've been used and betrayed, as indeed you have.

However, your escape depends on attitude. If you want to spend your life in anger and revenge for the injustices thrust on you, enjoy your short life and die miserable. On the other hand, if your faith that you are loved by God is great and drowns out your negative feelings, you will die happy. What is is of no matter. How you feel about it is everything. You can feed your self hate or you can try to nurture the love that was buried deep within you and find God there. It's just a matter of attitude.

I believe I have just been Moonbeam'd. <ROFL> This means you love me, right?

 

[PeshakJang]

But Islam isn't really different in intention. There, I believe, there is the notion of surrender of the will where the will is the will of the ego. In the state of unity all that happens has to happen and can't happen any other way. To accept that, to enter into it, is to end duality. Everything is the will of God and has to be perfect. We suffer because we are separate, divided within.

Modern Islam is based on total submission to God. Christianity of centuries past was probably more comparable, but of modern religion, especially if you are simply interpreting text, Islam allows for very, very little individuality. Everything that happens is predetermined, and you live to serve God. People can keep lying to themselves in the name of political correctness, but religions are not all the same, and not all equal.

 

[brandonb]

Not sure what the question is. I'm Catholic btw.

One of the most fundamental aspects of my faith is the following: There is a scale. One end of the scale is Love. The other end of the scale is Selfishness Love is giving, Selfishness is taking. One end of the spectrum, perfect love is God. The other end is perfect selfishness, that is Lucifer (I want more)... Adam and Eve was created in Gods image (Love) Eve was tempted to eat the apple "You want it. You want more."

That is the most fundamental aspect of Christianity. You want to be move loving, more like God. Evil happens because of selfishness. People rob banks, maybe shoot someone because of their selfishness. No regard to others because they only think of themselves. If you want to fight evil, you rid the world of selfish acts. But you can't, because selfishness will always exist. You can only lessen the evil acts, and Jesus said if someone wants your tunic, give them your cloak as well. Those people are already selfish. They are going to take it one way or another. However, if you give them more, you prevent the acts, and you make the world a better place.

Jesus was sent because God was feeling that the Jews were straying away from his image, and were becoming more selfish, and being God's chosen people, he had to come set them straight. The only time Jesus was upset or mad in the Bible is when he went to David's temple, and there was market places all over the place and that took priority over God and God's image. Jesus picked up a stick and destroyed the markets, and said that you can't workship two gods. God and Money... Thats obviously why the two religions split at that time. Jews went their way, Christians went their way.

So what was the question? People are free to do what they want. God is perfect love, not selfish at all. In his love, we have the ability to do what we want. But if you become too selfish, you made your choice, you get to live an eternity in perfect selfishness. We are on a scale somewhere. Where we end up is the extreme sides of the spectrum. With God or without... With perfect love or perfect selfishness.

 

[Modelworks]

If you want the truth about Christianity read the bible, don't rely on the cliff notes of others. One of the major reasons the church lost total control of the public is because of the printing of the bible. Before it was publicly printed the only way you knew the content was through a priest. Even the kings and queens could not read the text. Thank king james for the change. By putting the text out where anyone could read it the church could no longer say that the bible said one thing without being challenged by someone who had read it themselves.

 

[Modelworks]

What's the deal here? How does Christianity make individual count more than in other religions? Sounds like a bunch of BS to me and stealth proselytizing by Mr Roberts whom I respect.

Roberts is to me the scourge of the christian community. He has done more to harm the religion than help it. He is a money making idiot that I am sure God has a place for right next to all those others whose 'preaching' turns people away from God. Roberts is of the limited mindset of anyone not exactly like them will go to hell. He is the type of person that will tell you that if a person is honest and decent that they will still go to hell because they didn't follow his version of Christianity .


The idea that God would damn someone because nobody ever read the bible to them is absurd. I can't imagine a being that would create everything then do something like that. Maybe it would apply if you were born with the contents of the bible already in your brain, but not just because you hadn't heard of it.
Many churches used that to justify donations, claiming that without the money they wouldn't have the resources to spread the gospel and millions would be doomed.

 

[Siddhartha]

History of Christianity points to people being harshly punished, tortured and murdered, by the Church if they did not do what they were told exactly as they were told to do it.

 

[Scotteq]

History of Christianity points to people being harshly punished, tortured and murdered, by the Church if they did not do what they were told exactly as they were told to do it.

This is true of any number of religions and governments. Thankfully, at least some of them don't do things like that any more.

 

[Zebo]

Model works LOL - Opinion was of Paul Craig Roberts not a preacher which owns diamond mines in Africa and flies around in G6's via hustling old ladies like that other dude, not even sure he is religious. He's an economist and was tres sec under Reagan.

 

[Zebo]

Nonsense...There is nothing in Christianity based on the empowerment of the individual. It is all about submission to god's will and preference for those who are in the correct faith. Nowhere in the bible is the inherent worth of all human beings praised. Nowhere is democracy supported. On the contrary, the divine right of kings get's it's justification from the bible (Read Roman's 13). Common peons are to submit to all earthly authorities and the will of the rulers no matter what, because god is in control and put them there. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans 13: 1-6&version=NIV The enlightenment values of Jefferson, Locke, Paine, Voltaire, Hume, etc were largely a break from Xtian traditions. Respect for individuals and natural rights emerged out of resistance to dogma..not the other way around. Xtians are looking back with hindsight and trying to attach their faith to something that was born out of opposition to it. Don't let them get away with it.

Good post not so Noob. I agree 100%.

 

[Scotteq]

The idea that God would damn someone because nobody ever read the bible to them is absurd. I can't imagine a being that would create everything then do something like that. Maybe it would apply if you were born with the contents of the bible already in your brain, but not just because you hadn't heard of it.

/agreed

I'm much more inclined to believe (whichever version of) God would prefer to give his Love and Acceptance to someone who lived a 'Good' life without having to be told. i.e. <This Person> lived in accordance to the will/word of God simply because that person had it in (his/her) heart to be that way.


That, to me, is much more powerful than living that way because "The Church" told you to. Or because you read the instructions in the book.

 

[ElFenix]

If you want the truth about Christianity read the bible, don't rely on the cliff notes of others. One of the major reasons the church lost total control of the public is because of the printing of the bible. Before it was publicly printed the only way you knew the content was through a priest. Even the kings and queens could not read the text. Thank king james for the change. By putting the text out where anyone could read it the church could no longer say that the bible said one thing without being challenged by someone who had read it themselves.

you mean thank gutenberg. the bible had been translated into various languages well before james was even born, but it was the printing press and increasing literacy that made the bible accessible to the common man.

 

[brandonb]

Good post not so Noob. I agree 100%.

I suppose this entire question or topic is moot, since you'll only read what you want to read and when it fits your agenda.

 

[Zebo]

I suppose this entire question or topic is moot, since you'll only read what you want to read and when it fits your agenda.

I didn't really have an agenda bro..just trying to understand how the connection was made by author between sanctity of individual and a Christian god. I feel it's because of enlightenment thinkers not god but was willing to listen. Your post about selfishness is another issue entirely. Irrelevant to discussion but important as well in a political forum.

 

[sandorski]

If you want the truth about Christianity read the bible, don't rely on the cliff notes of others. One of the major reasons the church lost total control of the public is because of the printing of the bible. Before it was publicly printed the only way you knew the content was through a priest. Even the kings and queens could not read the text. Thank king james for the change. By putting the text out where anyone could read it the church could no longer say that the bible said one thing without being challenged by someone who had read it themselves.

The Fruits of Christianity are strewn throughout History. The original words are in the Bible, the "Real" Christianity is easy to see in any library.

 

[nonlnear]

The enlightenment values of Jefferson, Locke, Paine, Voltaire, Hume, etc were largely a break from Xtian traditions. Respect for individuals and natural rights emerged out of resistance to dogma..not the other way around. Xtians are looking back with hindsight and trying to attach their faith to something that was born out of opposition to it. Don't let them get away with it.

The enlightenment views were an outgrowth of the ascendancy of individual conscience - which started with the reformation. That's not to say that the church reformers resembled enlightenment thinkers (or would even advocate for some of the enlightenment views), but the process of ideological evolution was pretty clearly kicked off a good bit earlier than the enlightenment itself.

Don't worry, the position I'm arguing for has very little to do with the position that PCR is claiming. His assertion is that individuality was a natural consequence of Christianity. I think that's absurd. I'm just saying that Christendom happened, quite by accident, to evolve into the kind of culture where the enlightenment could happen. While it wasn't a natural consequence of early Christianity, it is in a sense, a phenomenon that was unique to Christian cultures. My assertion is MUCH weaker than PCR's.

 

[Scotteq]

The enlightenment views were an outgrowth of the ascendancy of individual conscience - which started with the reformation. That's not to say that the church reformers resembled enlightenment thinkers (or would even advocate for some of the enlightenment views), but the process of ideological evolution was pretty clearly kicked off a good bit earlier than the enlightenment itself.

Don't worry, the position I'm arguing for has very little to do with the position that PCR is claiming. His assertion is that individuality was a natural consequence of Christianity. I think that's absurd. I'm just saying that Christendom happened, quite by accident, to evolve into the kind of culture where the enlightenment could happen. While it wasn't a natural consequence of early Christianity, it is in a sense, a phenomenon that was unique to Christian cultures. My assertion is MUCH weaker than PCR's.

I would opine that the elightement arose from outside the Christian church and that - after failing to repress it - the Christian Church eventually adapted and evolved in order to stay relevant. Such enlightenment and knowledge is not unique to Europe and indeed flourished in the Middle East during the heights of the Dark/Feudal ages.

 

[sandorski]

The subjugation of Religion by Secular Humanism in the West/Europe is what brought us to this point. Humans rose, for the most part, above the antiquated mysticism of Religion. The article quoted in the OP is just a rewriting of history.

 

[Blackjack200]

The idea that God would damn someone because nobody ever read the bible to them is absurd. I can't imagine a being that would create everything then do something like that. Maybe it would apply if you were born with the contents of the bible already in your brain, but not just because you hadn't heard of it.
Many churches used that to justify donations, claiming that without the money they wouldn't have the resources to spread the gospel and millions would be doomed.

But you can imagine a being that would create children that starve to death as infants? I don't mean to be rude, I'm just trying to understand how you're rationalizing this. Specifically because it was when I rejected the idea of a loving God damning people to hell because they didn't believe something they had no evidence for, that I realized there are a lot of other things in this world that are incompatible with a loving God. When that first card falls and the house collapses, suddenly the idea of God makes about as much sense as Santa Claus.