Chistian Nationalists in the House of Commons

[Bonam]

Personally I admire those who donate their time to help others, the frail, poor, infirm, who have the patience to look out for people secular society has largely not bothered to devote much effort to.

I frankly don't get where you think that someone who chooses to spend his money on a bigger TV is equally as "moral" as someone who instead gives that money to a soup kitchen or a charity which assists the elderly.

I think those who donate time and money to help the poor ARE better, more moral, more selfless people than those who don't.

Someone who buys a big screen TV is paying their money to a company that produces and distributes big screen TVs. They are rewarding the workers who work there, the engineers that designed it, the executives that run it, the investors who foresee the success of that company and fund it. In other words, the person who buys the big screen TV is giving their money to people who produce wealth and value for our society, and make us more prosperous. They reward work and ingenuity.

In contrast, those who give their money to the poor, well, reward those who have done nothing for themselves, nothing to create wealth and value for our society, nothing to create greater prosperity. They reward laziness and ineptitude and victimhood.

The person buying the TV is more moral.

Edited July 5, 2010 by Bonam

[Argus]

I've always thought that the CPC were like a bunch of sheep in wolfs clothing, or something

But especially at their refusal to fund abortions for African wimmen, that based on some kind of piously hidden religions ideology. It re-enforced my views about them.

Talking about sheep - you are bleating.

Harper raised the importance of helping mothers and children in the third world, especially in Africa. Now I don't think this was especially altruistic of him. I suspect that it was, in large measure, a ploy to make him look more caring about the downtrodden etc. Still, regardless of the reasons, the additional help would certainly have been helpful.

Now Ignatief's boys looked at this and said "Hmm, how can we screw this up?" The first thing they came up with was (aha!) To take the position that maternal health care was 1000% reliant on abortions for everyone! Abortions on demand, abortions whether needed or not, Everyone must get an abortion! Without massive funding for abortions there was really no point whatever in any maternal health care help!

Now the fact the UN puts very little emphasis on abortions as a way of helping ensure maternal health is beside the point, as is the fact that maybe 3 countries in all of Africa actually allow abortions. The cry for abortions actually has absolutely zilch to do with helping third world mothers and everything to do with a political ploy of making the Tories either support abortions or (preferably) oppose them. Thus the opposition states proudly that as little interest as the Tories probably have in third world maternal health care the opposition has EVEN LESS! The whole thing is so bloody cynical I'm amazed that some of the sheep (that'd be you) actually bought into it one way or another and let themselves get their little knickers in a knot about it.

You'll notice that abortion funding was not even a minor issue at either the G8 or g20. No one else thought it was worth talking about.

It was a homegrown political thing created by the opposition who wanted to make the case, yet again, that the Tories are evil for not being 1000% in favour of abortions for all women of all ages at all times.

Because, if you're not totally in favour of abortions in the 8th month of pregnancy, you hate women. Yes, you do. Believe it.

[Michael Hardner]

But it's an idiotic apples-and-oranges comparison.

He wants to compare the relative charitable ways of religious versus non-religious people. That seems reasonable to me.

He seems to only have anecdotal information, but given that the a key value of Christianity is charity, it shouldn't be too surprising if a lot of Christians are charitable, relative to non-religious people.

[Argus]

Someone who buys a big screen TV is paying their money to a company that produces and distributes big screen TVs. They are rewarding

Themselves. The only point is selfish, to have a nicer TV. The rest is just so much blather and has nothing to do with morality one way or another.

In contrast, those who give their money to the poor, well, reward those who have done nothing for themselves, nothing to create wealth and value for our society, nothing to create greater prosperity. They reward laziness and ineptitude and victimhood.

So, volunteering to drive elderly people to their medical appointments is, to your mind, selfish? Instead, people would be more moral if they used that time to go watch a movie?

You have a freakish view of the world - and of morality.

[dre]

He wants to compare the relative charitable ways of religious versus non-religious people. That seems reasonable to me.

He seems to only have anecdotal information, but given that the a key value of Christianity is charity, it shouldn't be too surprising if a lot of Christians are charitable, relative to non-religious people.

The comparison still fails because its too simplistic, and because he refuses to place value on the main mechanism of helping the poor in a secular society (social programs, universal healthcare, universal education, etc etc).

He also doesnt take account for the fact that the Government itself plays a role in charitable donations, and that many of them are used for tax bracket tweaking, estate adjustment, and other accounting maneuvers.

To have a meaningfull comparison you would have to filter out all the accounting instruments, and figure out how to allocate altruistic intention to secularists that politically and financially support the the massive money we pump into helping the poor and providing upward mobility at the national level.

It would be almost impossible to do so me thinks.

Like I said... I dont give much in the way of direct contributions to charities that help the poor. But I vote for policies that help the poor in a broader sense, and dont complain about paying my share for them.

Secularists want to build a society that reduces poverty... why is that less altruistic or charitable than a guy that writes a tax deductible check for X dollars to a religious cause?

And take a look around the world at where the least poverty is? I betcha youll find that the least poverty exists in secular countries, not religiose ones.

Edited July 5, 2010 by dre

[Bonam]

Themselves. The only point is selfish, to have a nicer TV. The rest is just so much blather and has nothing to do with morality one way or another.

No, the rest is not "blather", it is what makes capitalist society work and prosper. And everything has to do with morality, not just what you deem to do so.

So, volunteering to drive elderly people to their medical appointments is, to your mind, selfish? Instead, people would be more moral if they used that time to go watch a movie?

No, I did not say that it was selfish. Volunteering to drive elderly people to their medical appointments, is, as you would say, selfless. But selflessness in itself is not a virtue. The foundation of our society, which has created some of the most prosperous civilizations on Earth and thus provided the best living conditions possible for more people than ever, is people acting in their own interest.

You have a freakish view of the world - and of morality.

Yes, I suppose it would look freakish. After all, a view of morality based on reason rather than faith and emotion must be quite unusual to most people.

[Michael Hardner]

I'm not gonna argue that religious people don't have their uses. However, my understanding of Argus's implication was that these people (who donate to the poor, volunteer at charities, etc) were somehow better or more moral, and with that I disagree.

In the sense that morals are standards of behavior that come from the group, of course they're more moral. Are they helping people ? I'd say they are because... they are HELPING people.

This reptilian "I help you when I do nothing for you" logic is only espoused by libertarians, and mother lizards as they eat their babies...

As for the rest of this thread, Argus has made reasonable claims about religion. Like it or not, religion and the plurality of the various competing protestant religions got us where we are today in terms of human rights, tolerance, etc. etc. If we hadn't, then we wouldn't have been able to survive, to get to the point where we can all disdain religion and blame it for everything.

[Michael Hardner]

The comparison still fails because its too simplistic, and because he refuses to place value on the main mechanism of helping the poor in a secular society (social programs, universal healthcare, universal education, etc etc).

He doesn't have to place any value on it at all.

He's asking whether religious or non-religious people give more of themselves or not. We all contribute towards the common good. Your point that conservatives tend to oppose social programs, and tend to be religious isn't strong enough.

He also doesnt take account for the fact that the Government itself plays a role in charitable donations, and that many of them are used for tax bracket tweaking, estate adjustment, and other accounting maneuvers.

Giving to charity never gives you back more than you give. You only get part of it back from the government.

Like I said... I dont give much in the way of direct contributions to charities that help the poor. But I vote for policies that help the poor in a broader sense, and dont complain about paying my share for them.

Secularists want to build a society that reduces poverty... why is that less altruistic or charitable than a guy that writes a tax deductible check for X dollars to a religious cause?

It's not an either/or comparison.

You appear to me to be setting it up that way in your mind. Lots of religious people also are Liberal and NDP.

And take a look around the world at where the least poverty is? I betcha youll find that the least poverty exists in secular countries, not religiose ones.

That is really a weak argument. There are a lot of factors that affect wealth, and poverty so you can't just simplify it that way.

[dre]

In the sense that morals are standards of behavior that come from the group, of course they're more moral. Are they helping people ? I'd say they are because... they are HELPING people.

This reptilian "I help you when I do nothing for you" logic is only espoused by libertarians, and mother lizards as they eat their babies...

As for the rest of this thread, Argus has made reasonable claims about religion. Like it or not, religion and the plurality of the various competing protestant religions got us where we are today in terms of human rights, tolerance, etc. etc. If we hadn't, then we wouldn't have been able to survive, to get to the point where we can all disdain religion and blame it for everything.

Like it or not, religion and the plurality of the various competing protestant religions got us where we are today in terms of human rights, tolerance, etc. etc.

No, secularism did. In almost every society with a good record regarding those things the church has been uncerimoniously booted out as a civil authority and relegated to an entity with the legal status of "club". Our society was formed by people FLEEING these institutions, and making damn sure that when we set up shop over here they no longer held a position of authority.

[ToadBrother]

No, I did not say that it was selfish. Volunteering to drive elderly people to their medical appointments, is, as you would say, selfless. But selflessness in itself is not a virtue. The foundation of our society, which has created some of the most prosperous civilizations on Earth and thus provided the best living conditions possible for more people than ever, is people acting in their own interest.

You have this incredibly myopic view of how our industrialized civilization came about. It was more complex and had considerably more interplay between government and industrialists/investors (ie. capitalists) than you tend to accept, largely, I suspect, because your ideology does not exactly permit a wider view.

History, particular complex historical narratives like how the West evolved from a feudal/mercantilist system into fully modern economies cannot simply be described as "people working for their own interests made it happen", because, frankly, that pretty much describes most economic activities.

If the early industrialists had continued on as they had during the 18th and early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution would very much indeed have ended much as Marx and Engels predicted (it almost did on the Continent with the abortive revolutions during the mid-19th century). What kept, at least in England, the whole thing tottering off the rails was a combination of enlarging the already long-extant social services (the Poor Laws in particular), liberalization and enlargement of the political franchise, the evolution of populism and centrism as the chief political forces dictating domestic policy, culminating in the substantial reforms that lead to the major social services programs like the old age pension and unemployment insurance (with publicly-funded medical insurance programs coming in later in most places but the US, which took a bit longer and created a really obnoxious system in the meantime).

One general rule can be gleamed from the long list of human societies throughout history, probably predating any ape we'd like to call human, and that is that societies have never functioned purely as "every man for himself", with some sort of accidental altruism. Even in rather harsh societies like Rome, the city itself at least had a rather expensive system of supplying bread, if for no other reason than the odd foot riot was incredibly destructive and costly to the folks paying the bills. In a nutshell, that's why societies have always had some degree of mutual assistance, if not as comprehensive as the modern welfare state. Whether it's free bread to mollify the masses of Rome, the state protections and programs extended to farmers that we see in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Poor Laws, and heck, the effective role of the Medieval Church as a supra-national branch of the governments of Christendom, taking on the role of social services provider funded in large part by the Medieval Church's own role as feudal landholders (the Church gained not insubstantial income by being able to basically levy its own taxes, and if that doesn't constitute a government I don't know what does).

[Argus]

No, the rest is not "blather", it is what makes capitalist society work and prosper. And everything has to do with morality, not just what you deem to do so.

Morality depends on intent. The guy buying the TV has ZERO intent to help capitalism. His intent is entirely based on satisfaction of his own desire for a better TV, or some other consumer gadget or product.

No, I did not say that it was selfish. Volunteering to drive elderly people to their medical appointments, is, as you would say, selfless. But selflessness in itself is not a virtue. The foundation of our society, which has created some of the most prosperous civilizations on Earth and thus provided the best living conditions possible for more people than ever, is people acting in their own interest.

I disagree. Society is based on a variety of competing interests and the foundation of our society is people compromising what is in their interests on behalf of others. Otherwise we'd still have slavery and workhouses for the poor instead of welfare and pogey. We never would have given women the vote - much less minorities, and each individual would oppose all taxation and spending which didn't directly benefit him.

I suspect you are mixing up society with capitalism. They are not synonymous. And while capitalism is based on everyone doing what is in their interests society has found it necessary to draw strict boundaries around such behavior - for society's sake.

[dre]

He doesn't have to place any value on it at all.

He's asking whether religious or non-religious people give more of themselves or not. We all contribute towards the common good. Your point that conservatives tend to oppose social programs, and tend to be religious isn't strong enough.

Giving to charity never gives you back more than you give. You only get part of it back from the government.

It's not an either/or comparison.

You appear to me to be setting it up that way in your mind. Lots of religious people also are Liberal and NDP.

That is really a weak argument. There are a lot of factors that affect wealth, and poverty so you can't just simplify it that way.

He's asking whether religious or non-religious people give more of themselves or not. We all contribute towards the common good. Your point that conservatives tend to oppose social programs, and tend to be religious isn't strong enough.

I disagree. The weak argument here is the one by Argus that attempts to allocate altruistic/charitable intent by measuring only contributions to private charities and ignoring all other avenues. And we dont "all support the common good" to the same degree. Some people fought for and politically support programs that have in many secular societies almost eliminated poverty as it was known before.

That is really a weak argument. There are a lot of factors that affect wealth, and poverty so you can't just simplify it that way.

The problem is the argument youre defending is also extremely simplistic and ignores all other factors in the same way.

You appear to me to be setting it up that way in your mind. Lots of religious people also are Liberal and NDP.

No Im not "setting up" anything in my mind. I already conceded that lots of religious people support our secular society.

Giving to charity never gives you back more than you give. You only get part of it back from the government.

Thats not true if your tax deductible contributions result in you dropping down a tax bracket. Charitable donations are massive accounting tax mechanism, and there would be much less of them if they were not enshrined in our secular laws. That doesnt mean there isnt lots of contributions that result from altruism, its just another example of why the claim being made here is to hopelessly simplistic to have any real meaning.

Edited July 5, 2010 by dre

[Bonam]

History, particular complex historical narratives like how the West evolved from a feudal/mercantilist system into fully modern economies cannot simply be described as "people working for their own interests made it happen", because, frankly, that pretty much describes most economic activities.

Exactly. "Economic activity" is the lifeblood of our civilization.

If the early industrialists had continued on as they had during the 18th and early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution would very much indeed have ended much as Marx and Engels predicted (it almost did on the Continent with the abortive revolutions during the mid-19th century). What kept, at least in England, the whole thing tottering off the rails was a combination of enlarging the already long-extant social services (the Poor Laws in particular), liberalization and enlargement of the political franchise, the evolution of populism and centrism as the chief political forces dictating domestic policy, culminating in the substantial reforms that lead to the major social services programs like the old age pension and unemployment insurance (with publicly-funded medical insurance programs coming in later in most places but the US, which took a bit longer and created a really obnoxious system in the meantime).

In other words, workers and the governments they elect acting in their self-interest to improve their lot in life.

One general rule can be gleamed from the long list of human societies throughout history, probably predating any ape we'd like to call human, and that is that societies have never functioned purely as "every man for himself", with some sort of accidental altruism. Even in rather harsh societies like Rome, the city itself at least had a rather expensive system of supplying bread, if for no other reason than the odd foot riot was incredibly destructive and costly to the folks paying the bills.

Yup, again, people acting in their own best interest. Acting in one's best interest doesn't mean "every man for himself".

[Michael Hardner]

No, secularism did. In almost every society with a good record regarding those things the church has been uncerimoniously booted out as a civil authority and relegated to an entity with the legal status of "club". Our society was formed by people FLEEING these institutions, and making damn sure that when we set up shop over here they no longer held a position of authority.

Secularlism is a big part of our society today, but freedom of religion had to happen first, before secularism could happen.

I'm not sure what you mean by uncerimoniously booted out as a civil authority. When/where did that happen ?

[Bonam]

Morality depends on intent.

For one, that is your opinion. Some might argue that morality depends just as much if not more on effect than on intent. Secondly, the intent of the person buying a TV or another luxury is to reward themselves and enjoy themselves with some portion of the wealth they have produced/earned. People working for themselves and enjoying the fruits of their labor... what is so wrong with that? You yourself have made the argument against welfare and endless social programs in other threads.

I disagree. Society is based on a variety of competing interests and the foundation of our society is people compromising what is in their interests on behalf of others. Otherwise we'd still have slavery and workhouses for the poor instead of welfare and pogey. We never would have given women the vote - much less minorities,

Women, minorities, and slaves, can all also act in their own interests. Do you think these groups rose to equality in society based only on the benevolence of their former superiors? No, they acted in their own interests to affect change and improve their position in society.

and each individual would oppose all taxation and spending which didn't directly benefit him.

Which indeed many do. People tend to dislike taxes if you haven't noticed.

I suspect you are mixing up society with capitalism. They are not synonymous. And while capitalism is based on everyone doing what is in their interests society has found it necessary to draw strict boundaries around such behavior - for society's sake.

Where such boundaries have been drawn, it has been done to benefit people in the society, that is, the rules were implemented by people (or their representatives) who wanted to, you guessed it, benefit themselves in some way.

[Michael Hardner]

I disagree. The weak argument here is the one by Argus that attempts to allocate altruistic/charitable intent by measuring only contributions to private charities and ignoring all other avenues.

The problem is the argument youre defending is also extremely simplistic and ignores all other factors in the same way.

No Im not "setting up" anything in my mind. I already conceded that lots of religious people support our secular society.

Thats not true if your tax deductible contributions result in you dropping down a tax bracket. Charitable donations are massive accounting tax mechanism, and there would be much less of them if they were not enshrined in our secular laws. That doesnt mean there isnt lots of contributions that result from altruism, its just another example of why the claim being made here is to hopelessly simplistic to have any real meaning.

Ok, I don't think we can progress on this argument if we are talking about money. As you say, it gets too complicated.

But what about time ? Certainly it's a lot easier for people to just cut a cheque than to spend their own time helping people ? And, again, a stated value of religious groups is to give of oneself so it's not surprising that religious folk would do so ?

[dre]

Secularlism is a big part of our society today, but freedom of religion had to happen first, before secularism could happen.

I'm not sure what you mean by uncerimoniously booted out as a civil authority. When/where did that happen ?

It happened gradually over thousands of years. The movement towards secularism and the origional pioneers of it were actually around for thousands of years before Christianity. Freedom of "thought" is not something that happened because religious insitutions voluntarily surrendered their authority, its something people fought for for a long long time, and free thought and science eventually won, resulting in you getting to live in the type of society you do today.

[ToadBrother]

Exactly. "Economic activity" is the lifeblood of our civilization.

Economic activity is the lifeblood of every civilization.

In other words, workers and the governments they elect acting in their self-interest to improve their lot in life.

More along the lines of "political parties wanting to increase the likelihood of achieving government liberalized in a number of different ways to bring voters on side, or simply made a larger voting pool by extending the franchise".

Yup, again, people acting in their own best interest. Acting in one's best interest doesn't mean "every man for himself".

You've entered a hairy little debate, and have taken the view that altruism does not exist, and yet there is ample evidence that it does in fact exist, and not only exists with modern humans, but with earlier ancestors, and is evident even among our closest living relatives. We can debate whether the altruism is true or simply enlightened self-interest, but your narrative that we're all in it for ourselves is not one that seems to describe many facets of virtually every human and hominoid society we have evidence for. The debate isn't whether altruism exists or not, but rather whether it is "true" in the respects that I list, or whether it's instinctual, or when acts are altruistic or self-serving in the enlightened sense.

I'd say that the people, in the example of the liberalizations that occurred in the political system, particular in England as feudalism and the Church (as in independent institution) faded and mercantile and proto-capitalist economies evolved were self-serving alright, self-serving for the new classes of the industrialists took over, and realized that they had to mollify the workers. That only went so far, and as we can see in the American South, lead to slavery essentially made into a self-perpetrating institution because, well, it was economically important (and expedient) to keep a non-free worker class.

As I said, the narrative is far too complicated to simply say "a bunch of people looking after themselves made our civilization". It's true, to an extent, but hardly the full story, but you seem to tell it that way because it serves the purposes of promoting Libertarianism, when in fact, the one thing we can tell for certain about all these titanic shifts is that Libertarian principles weren't really involved at all. The state didn't get smaller as the proto-capitalists and later the industrialists began accruing vast wealth. Quite the opposite, the state greatly enlarged in size and in what it sought to control. Government institutions, say, in 13th century England were far simpler, and the number of statutes far fewer, than what you would find in the 19th century, much as the pre-Imperial government in Rome was considerably less complex than what you find be the time the Octavian beat his last rival and became Emperor.

In fact, what we see is the exact opposite of the Libertarian narrative, because that's just how civilizations work. Simply, smaller societies tend to require fewer laws (in hunter-gatherer groups there really don't exist laws as such, moral codes, myths and tradition serve the purpose of establishing authority, punishments and duties of the members of the group). Once you find agrarian and later urban civilizations, governments as we know them come into existence, become larger and more complex, and what governments attempt to do increases, maybe because of altruism, maybe because the leadership needs to keep bellies full to prevent revolution and an end to their position at the top of the heap, probably, as we can see from our own civilization, a bit of both.

Or, in short, our civilization, like all, is based upon self-interest (sometimes base and sometimes enlightened) and altruism (the inherent requirements of any social species to co-operate to maintain the viability of the society over the medium and long term).

[Sir Bandelot]

Talking about sheep - you are bleating.

Now Ignatief's boys looked at this and said "Hmm, how can we screw this up?" The first thing they came up with was (aha!) To take the position that maternal health care was 1000% reliant on abortions for everyone! Abortions on demand, abortions whether needed or not, Everyone must get an abortion! Without massive funding for abortions there was really no point whatever in any maternal health care help!

You'll notice that abortion funding was not even a minor issue at either the G8 or g20. No one else thought it was worth talking about.

Canada Alone on Abortion Issue

The Canadian government broke from other G8 countries, in particular the United States and Britain, by confirming earlier this week that Canada’s contribution to the plan will not include funding for abortions.

Reproductive and Maternal Health in Africa

Africa is the epicentre of the problem because, in general, women there begin having pregnancies too early and then too frequently. In a mostly male-dominated society African females have little or no control over their own fertility.

The frequency of pregnancy causes many to take desperate measures; 5.5 million women undergo unsafe abortions every year in Africa.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100506/national/abortion_editorial

A top British medical journal is chiding the Harper government for refusing to put abortion funding on Canada's G8 agenda.

"Seventy thousand women die from unsafe abortions worldwide every year."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042903668.html

during a political controversy in Canada on the issue, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at a news conference in Quebec. "I've worked in this area for many years," she said. "And if we're talking about maternal health, you cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion."

The Toronto Star described this as a "grenade in the lap of her shell-shocked Canadian hosts."

Increased development assistance to improve global health has been one of the bipartisan achievements of the past decade. Millions are taking AIDS drugs, sleeping under anti-malarial bed nets and getting treatment for tropical diseases because ideology has not been allowed to sabotage goodwill.

But the political alliance on this issue has always been fragile. Traditionally, liberal advocates of global health spending have worked in uneasy alliance with conservatives -- mainly non-libertarian social conservatives -- who hold a moral view of America's role in the world. This is the Bono-Bush coalition that passed and then reauthorized the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) -- an initiative that intentionally avoided the issue of abortion to prevent infighting among its wildly diverse supporters.

It is in fact an issue of great historical contention.

But don't get maaaad at me...

[ToadBrother]

It happened gradually over thousands of years. The movement towards secularism and the origional pioneers of it were actually around for thousands of years before Christianity. Freedom of "thought" is not something that happened because religious insitutions voluntarily surrendered their authority, its something people fought for for a long long time, and free thought and science eventually won, resulting in you getting to live in the type of society you do today.

I have no idea what you would be referring to. Secularism didn't really exist as a notion prior to the Enlightenment. There was a semi-secularism in the Roman Empire prior to its Christianization, in that you could believe whatever you liked, worship whatever gods you liked, providing you paid lip-service to the Imperial cult. Earlier Empires, like the Persian Empire, were made up of many ethnic and religious groups, and also afforded freedom of worship to those groups as a necessity, but that's not really secularism either.

The idea that a man's beliefs were his own business grew in large part of reactions to the Thirty Years War (which sadly isn't taught sufficiently in schools, though it was in fact the most destructive European conflict up until the First World War), and in the case of guys like Locke, as a reaction to the Elizabethan Compromise, which let Catholics be providing they publicly espoused Anglican leanings, and depriving Catholics of many state jobs via religious tests (the major inspiration of the First Amendment of the US Constitution is the most exemplary example of this sentiment).

Secularism is a pretty new idea, really. A damned good one, but certainly not one that existed in any formalized way prior to the Enlightenment.

[dre]

Ok, I don't think we can progress on this argument if we are talking about money. As you say, it gets too complicated.

But what about time ? Certainly it's a lot easier for people to just cut a cheque than to spend their own time helping people ? And, again, a stated value of religious groups is to give of oneself so it's not surprising that religious folk would do so ?

No youre right, and I think you probably would find more of the activity traditionally described as "charity" within religious circles. The problem for me is trying to directly connect that to altruism, but then refusing to acknowledge a similar connection with regards to secularists (and others) who politically support programs that help the poor.

I would actually consider both to be quite similar. In both cases there is a carrot and a stick, and in both cases its hard to judge how much the behavior is coersed and how much is really altruistic.

Supposing a religious person donated money to charity under the assumption that doing this "good work" would help him achieve eternal life and avoid eternal torture and damnation. That wouldnt really be much different than a person paying their taxes to avoid going to jail for income tax evasion.

Both of those systems are political hierarchies with mechanisms to promote "good behavior".

For what its worth I dont really have a claim to make here. I dont know if religious people are "nicer guys" or not. I admit I dont have the facts and knowledge at my disposal to make a judgement here, but neither does Argus.

I would simply say that religious and secular values both promote acts of altruism they just do it using different mechanisms.

[Bonam]

You've entered a hairy little debate, and have taken the view that altruism does not exist, and yet there is ample evidence that it does in fact exist, and not only exists with modern humans, but with earlier ancestors, and is evident even among our closest living relatives. We can debate whether the altruism is true or simply enlightened self-interest, but your narrative that we're all in it for ourselves is not one that seems to describe many facets of virtually every human and hominoid society we have evidence for. The debate isn't whether altruism exists or not, but rather whether it is "true" in the respects that I list, or whether it's instinctual, or when acts are altruistic or self-serving in the enlightened sense.

I'd say that the people, in the example of the liberalizations that occurred in the political system, particular in England as feudalism and the Church (as in independent institution) faded and mercantile and proto-capitalist economies evolved were self-serving alright, self-serving for the new classes of the industrialists took over, and realized that they had to mollify the workers. That only went so far, and as we can see in the American South, lead to slavery essentially made into a self-perpetrating institution because, well, it was economically important (and expedient) to keep a non-free worker class.

As I said, the narrative is far too complicated to simply say "a bunch of people looking after themselves made our civilization". It's true, to an extent, but hardly the full story, but you seem to tell it that way because it serves the purposes of promoting Libertarianism, when in fact, the one thing we can tell for certain about all these titanic shifts is that Libertarian principles weren't really involved at all. The state didn't get smaller as the proto-capitalists and later the industrialists began accruing vast wealth. Quite the opposite, the state greatly enlarged in size and in what it sought to control. Government institutions, say, in 13th century England were far simpler, and the number of statutes far fewer, than what you would find in the 19th century, much as the pre-Imperial government in Rome was considerably less complex than what you find be the time the Octavian beat his last rival and became Emperor.

In fact, what we see is the exact opposite of the Libertarian narrative, because that's just how civilizations work. Simply, smaller societies tend to require fewer laws (in hunter-gatherer groups there really don't exist laws as such, moral codes, myths and tradition serve the purpose of establishing authority, punishments and duties of the members of the group). Once you find agrarian and later urban civilizations, governments as we know them come into existence, become larger and more complex, and what governments attempt to do increases, maybe because of altruism, maybe because the leadership needs to keep bellies full to prevent revolution and an end to their position at the top of the heap, probably, as we can see from our own civilization, a bit of both.

Or, in short, our civilization, like all, is based upon self-interest (sometimes base and sometimes enlightened) and altruism (the inherent requirements of any social species to co-operate to maintain the viability of the society over the medium and long term).

Good post, though I disagree with some of your analysis, I do like having a debate on this topic. Unfortunately, I have to run for now, but will be back later to respond in more detail.

[dre]

I have no idea what you would be referring to. Secularism didn't really exist as a notion prior to the Enlightenment. There was a semi-secularism in the Roman Empire prior to its Christianization, in that you could believe whatever you liked, worship whatever gods you liked, providing you paid lip-service to the Imperial cult. Earlier Empires, like the Persian Empire, were made up of many ethnic and religious groups, and also afforded freedom of worship to those groups as a necessity, but that's not really secularism either.

The idea that a man's beliefs were his own business grew in large part of reactions to the Thirty Years War (which sadly isn't taught sufficiently in schools, though it was in fact the most destructive European conflict up until the First World War), and in the case of guys like Locke, as a reaction to the Elizabethan Compromise, which let Catholics be providing they publicly espoused Anglican leanings, and depriving Catholics of many state jobs via religious tests (the major inspiration of the First Amendment of the US Constitution is the most exemplary example of this sentiment).

Secularism is a pretty new idea, really. A damned good one, but certainly not one that existed in any formalized way prior to the Enlightenment.

Youre looking at the modern events that resulted in secular society but leaving out the "struggle" that lead any of that even being possible and all the people along the way that were foot soldiers of science and free thought.

You can see the influences in Asian culture as far back as Confucious and "materialist determinism" and in western culture with materialists like Thales and later on Socrates. There was a steady stream of these people right up until the present day, many of them persecuted by religion, their work destroyed etc. During the dark and middle ages many of them would die for it... Hetzer, Giorgio da Novara Geoffroi Vallee, Dolet are examples of them. In dolets case he merely translated some Socrates LOL.

Christianity viciously opposed any other types of thought, and basically murdered everybody that had different ideas about how society should be structured or human thought should be influenced.... but they eventually lost, and without that society today would be a lot different.

[WIP]

No, just the ones who actually believe in it and, you know, go to church and stuff (eek!)

Oh, so Christians who don't support the right wing agenda don't go to church and are not real Christians I suppose! Fact is the religious right is a modern concoction. Until WWII, religious fundamentalists were never on the side of the people with the money. Money used to be the root of all evil...nowadays, the lack of money is the root of all evil, and the Parable of the Talents is used at nauseating regularity by right wing preachers to convince their flocks that Jesus wants them to be millionaires (and give 10% to the church of course)

Other than the crime issue - which is bedrock conservatism and nothing to do with religion, I can't think of a single major policy proposal this government has put into place which was inspired by a conservative ideology at all, much less religion.

Crime was not a divisive issue between Liberals and Conservatives until very recently, and Harper's agenda of building more prisons and the "tough on crime BS" is just parroting the Republican platform on this issue. At a time when crime is in decline, the Tories want an aging population that is afraid to walk the streets for fear of being robbed. It's a cynical ploy that does nothing to address drugs, poverty, and mental illness that are root problems that often end up causing crime. But real solutions are not what interests conservatives.

[ToadBrother]

Youre looking at the modern events that resulted in secular society but leaving out the "struggle" that lead any of that even being possible and all the people along the way that were foot soldiers of science and free thought.

What struggle? Prior to the Reformation, the only struggle I can think of was between the Christian princes and the Church (ie. the Investiture Controversy)

You can see the influences in Asian culture as far back as Confucious and "materialist determinism" and in western culture with materialists like Thales and later on Socrates. There was a steady stream of these people right up until the present day, many of them persecuted by religion, their work destroyed etc. During the dark and middle ages many of them would die for it... Hetzer, Giorgio da Novara Geoffroi Vallee, Dolet are examples of them. In dolets case he merely translated some Socrates LOL.

But neither Confucius or Socrates were espousing secularism. The concept of an a-religious society per se didn't exist in any quantifiable way until Locke.

Christianity viciously opposed any other types of thought, and basically murdered everybody that had different ideas about how society should be structured or human thought should be influenced.... but they eventually lost, and without that society today would be a lot different.

This is the motif that the Renaissance and Enlightenment historians propagated, creating this idea that prior to the Renaissance, Christendom was a pig-ignorant place where the Church suppressed all knowledge. It's a delightful story, but shares about as much with reality as Walter Scott's fables about Scotland and early Norman England had with the reality. The Dark Ages were not dark, the Church was no more suppressive an institution than any other at the time, it's worst excesses (like the Spanish Inquisition) as much political as anything else, and coming too late in the game to be blamed on the evil oppressiveness of the Medieval Church. In fact, the late Medieval and even Renaissance Church was typified by the sheer incompetence and weakness of the Papacy (which spent some part of that period basically dominated by France).

The underlying problem with your claim (which is pretty much a rip-off of Protestant and anti-clerical Enlightenment thinkers) is that it creates this idea that Christendom was some static entity, with the Church and the Kings on top (and bonking each other over the head periodically for dominance), with the whole structure of manoralism/feudalism beneath. In fact the Middle Ages were a dynamic period, the Church playing its part and no more and no less a villain than any other aspect. Historians, particularly since the 19th century, have become very critical of the view that the Church was some evil all-encompassing entity that controlled what everyone heard.

Clearly the truth is much more complicated and much more interesting. The Papacy, in fact, didn't gain the political clout to force anything like this level of control until the Counter-Reformation, and in part it did this as a service to the Catholic princes who had decidedly materialistic goals (ie. getting rid of rotten nasty Protestant rulers like Elizabeth I and the Princes of Orange). The Papacy gained a great deal of power during the post-Reformation period in Catholic countries, creating alliances with Catholic rulers, and at that point yes, we see some outrageous abuses, particularly in Spain, but also in the violent struggles of the Thirty Years War (though Protestants were no less vicious). In the end, of course, the Enlightenment percolated throughout the Catholic strongholds.

Your whole narrative is a fantasy. There was no long struggle for secularism. The Greeks may have been evolving towards a more materialistic society, but we'll never know how that might have ended up, because, as one historian put it, they lost their nerve and wiped it all out in the Peloponnesian War, and later surrendered it all under the banner of the Hellenized barbarians of Macedonia, in the person of Alexander the Great, who serves as the real model for the idealized, Platonic ruler that would dominate the West for over two thousand years afterward.

The struggle for secularism began in the ashes of the Thirty Years War, when it slowly began to dawn on the two camps of Christendom that some sort of accommodation was needed or the whole Continent would sink into an endless and increasingly devastating cycle of war. Out of that, and out of the abuses found both in Catholic and Protestant states against religious minorities came the views of great men like Locke that religion, and indeed the very relationship between God and any given man was something that he should be free to enjoy, and that the state, in the interests of peace and good government, should keep its nose out of. As much as anything , secularism was more a reaction to the poisonous merging of spiritual and temporal pursuits that had dogged Christendom. Prior to the creation of Christendom by Constantine the Great, in general, the Classical Empires had had little interest in any given group's religious affiliations, and had in fact often been rather tolerant (the Jews under both the Persians and the Romans, for instance, had enjoyed special liberties). What possible justification would there have been for secularism during the Roman period?