The Truth About Tolerance and Acceptance

[segnosaur]

56 minutes ago, betsy said:

You are incorrectly assuming that these laws (e.g. against stealing, killing, etc.) are rooted in Judeo-christian values.

Restrictions on activities like those are actually common in many cultures,

Which actually, is an argument that supports the existence of the Christian God. 

No, no it doesn't. It would only be an argument supporting existence of god if there were no other explanations for those restrictions. Anyone with any real knowledge of biology or anthropology  (i.e. not a creationist) would find a more likely alternative.

We have those restrictions on killing/stealing because of a combination of evolutionary biology and sociology. Our ancestors became cooperative because being cooperative aided in survival. Any ancestors that we would have had that failed to aid the group (or who engaged in killing) would be less likely to pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, we developed empathy. As our civilization grew our basic empathy morphed into a series of cultural rules that were adopted in large part because they worked. (If a hypothetical society existed where murder or theft was accepted and common, it would fail to prosper because internal conflicts would limit the ability of that society to grow.)

Thousands of years ago, a group of near-illiterate, scientifically ignorant goat herders decided to write down these rules and assign them to a made-up god, because we didn't exactly have the philosophical underpinnings to look at things in a rational way. Thousands of years later, a bunch of people looked at the writings of these goat herders and somehow decided that these near-illiterate goat herders somehow knew more than modern scientists.

No need for an invisible sky daddy to make any of that happen.

[betsy]

10 minutes ago, segnosaur said:

No, no it doesn't. It would only be an argument supporting existence of god if there were no other explanations for those restrictions. Anyone with any real knowledge of biology or anthropology  (i.e. not a creationist) would find a more likely alternative.

We have those restrictions on killing/stealing because of a combination of evolutionary biology and sociology. Our ancestors became cooperative because being cooperative aided in survival. Any ancestors that we would have had that failed to aid the group (or who engaged in killing) would be less likely to pass their genes on to the next generation. Thus, we developed empathy. As our civilization grew our basic empathy morphed into a series of cultural rules that were adopted in large part because they worked. (If a hypothetical society existed where murder or theft was accepted and common, it would fail to prosper because internal conflicts would limit the ability of that society to grow.)

Thousands of years ago, a group of near-illiterate, scientifically ignorant goat herders decided to write down these rules and assign them to a made-up god, because we didn't exactly have the philosophical underpinnings to look at things in a rational way. Thousands of years later, a bunch of people looked at the writings of these goat herders and somehow decided that these near-illiterate goat herders somehow knew more than modern scientists.

No need for an invisible sky daddy to make any of that happen.

One of these days I'll make a thread showing how come most cultures having the same moral codes, is an argument supporting the existence of the Christian God.

Edited March 31, 2017 by betsy

[dialamah]

1 hour ago, betsy said:

One of these days I'll make a thread showing how come most cultures having the same moral codes, is an argument supporting the existence of the Christian God.

Science has already explained that similarities in moral codes across cultures is because survival of the group is more likely when certain practices are followed to limit conflict within the group and to protect it from outside aggression.  Attributing these practices to whatever God is in fashion with that just provides an 'authority' to help keep people afraid and compliant.

 

[blackbird]

5 hours ago, segnosaur said:

You are making 2 fundamental mistakes:

1) You are incorrectly assuming that these laws (e.g. against stealing, killing, etc.) are rooted in Judeo-christian values. Restrictions on activities like those are actually common in many cultures, and many of the other things you mentioned (e.g. freedom of speech, fair trial, etc.) come not from Judeo-Christian values but from more secular activites (such as the Magnacarta, which more of a political document than a religious one..

2) You are ignoring all of the restrictions that supposedly exist in the Judeo-christian culture (e.g. thou shalt not commit adultary) that are NOT part of our legal system

Ultimately, I think your biggest mistake is that you are assuming all of western culture is "Judeo-Christian" without actually defining what that term actually means. Just because some of our ancestors may have lived in a part of the world controlled by the catholic church does not mean all elements of our law and culture are traced back to biblical ideals.

I wouldn't agree with you because when I say Judeo-christian culture I am referring to the western world.  The western world that encompasses the Judeo-christian culture is the traditional Europe where the Holy Roman Empire existed, the Byzantine Empire (Greece, Constantinople), eastern Europe where the Ukrainian Orthodox church existed, and U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand.  Most of these areas have one thing in common although there are some exceptions in Eastern Europe, they are Judeo-christian. They have fundamental freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion.  The fact is the laws that I mentioned did come from these countries.  These countries have had large numbers of nominal christians and varying numbers of Jewish people.  That's why they are called Judeao -christian cultures.  I never said every part of the bible was written into laws.  You mentioned adultery.  That is not generally made illegal.  Even if Canada has a large number of immigrants from other parts of the world like Africa, middle east, Asia does not alter the fact that Canada was built on the same Judeo-christian culture as Europe and the other countries I have listed.  The laws came out of Judeo-christian culture. British North America goes back about 500 years.  The immigrants in the first centuries came from France (Quebec) and in the British part of North America, from the United Kingdom.  These people brought with them the nominal christianity from France and the United Kingdom.  That was the religion of 99% of the people in the major part of Canada's history.   Europe had many Jews all through history which is why it is called Judeo-christian culture.  You can argue against it but that is the history of the western world.  I never said the laws are copied from the bible.  It is the general ideas of generations of people who lived in Judeo-christian cultures that the laws originated from.  While I don't agree with much of the Roman church's dogmas, one must still acknowledge the ten commandments have been a central part of life in the western world since the early centuries, but ten commandments came from the book of Exodus in the bible.  These commandments remained central in people's minds down through the ages.  Much of the ten commandments did influence the writing of laws in the western world.  I know there are many left leaning and liberals who want to rewrite history so to speak and deny that we live in a Judeo-christian culture because of multiculturalism.  But immigrants from outside the Judeo-christian areas is a relatively recent phenomena, say in less than the last 100 years.  But the foundation of our society in the western world is Judeo-christian in nature. 

Edited March 31, 2017 by blackbird

[betsy]

2 hours ago, dialamah said:

Science has already explained that similarities in moral codes across cultures is because survival of the group is more likely when certain practices are followed to limit conflict within the group and to protect it from outside aggression. 

 

 

Surely you don't expect me to just take your word for it, do you?  Cite your scientific reference.

Btw, we're getting into objective moral values.  Wait now....before you respond, let me just create a separate thread for it since it's an entirely different subject.

Edited March 31, 2017 by betsy

[Moonlight Graham]

18 hours ago, blackbird said:

No, I don't think so.    Canada has a population of 36 million.  There are millions of refugees in the world. Canada would be overwhelmed and destroyed if it tried to take in millions of refugees.  We would become a third world country in dire poverty and ruin.  Not something Jesus advocated.  He never advocated marxism either.  Liberation theology is a marxist ideology of taking by force from those that have (government stealing) and giving it to everyone else.  Stealing is contrary to what Jesus taught.  It was advocated by some marxist priests in central and south America decades ago.  Back to the bible.

I agree I don't think Jesus would be a Marxist.  Instead of the state forcing people to redistribute money, Jesus was about people voluntarily giving whatever they could to the less fortunate whose needs couldn't be met.  I think Jesus also wouldn't want to force the state to bring in refugees most people in the country didn't want, I think he would try and convince as many people as he could to support such a policy, and I'm sure he'd privately sponsor as many people as he could.

I think Jesus would care a lot more about the poor people fleeing war, homeless and in desperate need, than he would about decreasing the very high quality of living of people already in Canada.

[eyeball]

17 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

I think Jesus would care a lot more about the poor people fleeing war, homeless and in desperate need,

I'm pretty sure Jesus would be kicking over the arms dealers and warmongers tables even more determinedly than he did the money-changers.  I know I would be.

[OftenWrong]

9 hours ago, segnosaur said:

You are making 2 fundamental mistakes:

1) You are incorrectly assuming that these laws (e.g. against stealing, killing, etc.) are rooted in Judeo-christian values. Restrictions on activities like those are actually common in many cultures, and many of the other things you mentioned (e.g. freedom of speech, fair trial, etc.) come not from Judeo-Christian values but from more secular activites (such as the Magnacarta, which more of a political document than a religious one..

2) You are ignoring all of the restrictions that supposedly exist in the Judeo-christian culture (e.g. thou shalt not commit adultary) that are NOT part of our legal system

Ultimately, I think your biggest mistake is that you are assuming all of western culture is "Judeo-Christian" without actually defining what that term actually means. Just because some of our ancestors may have lived in a part of the world controlled by the catholic church does not mean all elements of our law and culture are traced back to biblical ideals.

Western law is descended from the laws of the Holy Roman Empire.

From the link -
Roman law also denotes the legal system applied in most of Western Europe until the end of the 18th century. In Germany, Roman law practice remained in place longer under the Holy Roman Empire (963–1806). Roman law thus served as a basis for legal practice throughout Western continental Europe, as well as in most former colonies of these European nations, including Latin America, and also in Ethiopia. English and North American common law were influenced also by Roman law

[hot enough]

13 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Western law is descended from the laws of the Holy Roman Empire.

The first rapers and pillagers. 

[OftenWrong]

Just now, hot enough said:

The first rapers and pillagers. 

Very likely not the first.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, OftenWrong said:

Very likely not the first.

For sure.  Lucy was probably raped, and her people pillaged. 

[OftenWrong]

1 minute ago, bcsapper said:

For sure.  Lucy was probably raped, and her people pillaged. 

Humans have been violent for a long, long... long time.

[dialamah]

3 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Humans have been violent for a long, long... long time.

Only the left ones ...

[OftenWrong]

12 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Only the left ones ...

"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy. We fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us. "
- Chris Taylor