Part Ib opens with our discussion using abortion as an example...
I think you are confusing the correlation with causation. Legalization of birth control, abortion, and easier divorce all occurs in the US in a narrow window starting in the mid-1960s. I am well aware The Church (of Rome) consideres sex outside marriage to be a sin and abortion to be murder. I have heard many a homily on the subjects. That was not the point I was addressing. Rather I was addressing the false assumption that women having abortions are unmarried and not in relationships.
I never made that assumption. That is your assumption on my thinking. Your creating an either/or. I am not placing any stipulations on why abortions happen. Only that they increased dramatically after those laws were changed. Its the combinations of all factors that led to the increase.
Its more about the fundemental ideology or belief basis for those laws which was that abortion and divorce were ok now. Or at least compromised from the biblical standard. That is what opened the gates.
Even a Christian within a marriage sees abortion murder and certainly unmarriage relationships and bearing kids is anti bible. So two wrongs don't make a right. But part of the problem is the devaluing of marriage so that sex is now acceptable outside marriage. Which then opens the door for unwanted preganacies.
This is not the case, then or now. Churches push this false impression all the time. Both birth control and abortions are used by married women because they don't want another child or one at the current time.
This is begging the question. You can be married today and not be a Christian. But if a couple are married under God as Christians then abortion is a sin. So you are conflating secular marriage with Christian marriage which is part of the problem and shows how secular norms and Christians norms are so different.
Since these things have occurred, unwanted pregnancy rates are down, abortion rates have fallen and so have divorce rates. (I suspect domestic violence is also down, but I don't have recollections of reading those statistics.)
You literally just told me I was conflating correlations with causes.
That's not what I said. I mentioned that "baby killing" was the other primary bit of propaganda used by anti-abortion Christians.
Why, is it propaganda when its a biblical truth. Stating truth is not propaganda. This is a good example of how Christian beliefs are now seen as hateful and in this case propaganda or some false belief that is being pushed.
Simply stating as Christians have always said that abortion and marriage outside biblical marriage is a sin is not hate or propaganda. Its simply expressing a belief and people have a right to express that belief.
What are non-biblical Christians? If that's the kind that never read the bible, then we were definitely them.
Ok Christians who reject the bible. If you can call them Christians. Christians who not only reject the bible but promote unbiblical ideas. You can't sit on both sides of the fense.
While churches certainly hold the position that "abortion is murder" that concept does not appear in any passage of the Bible. It is constructed by stacking conclusions upon on conclusions through theology. (That's they way theology is done it seems.) Other groups using the same sacred texts do not reach the same conclusions.
Yes this is part of the very ideology that supports progressive ideas. They have to undermine the bible to do so. By questioning the truth that abortion is wrong they open the door for abortion.
Are you saying there is no biblical determination that even erring on the side of caution as to Gods creation and the divine act of procreation in recreation Gods creation can be just terminated based on some relative justification. At the very least we should stop 99% of abortions.
No. Again, you didn't read carefully. You used two terms straight from Mao's revolution: "The Long March"
Then you don't know history. I explained this in the previous post. So perhaps you should be reading my posts more carefully.
Antonio Gramsci’s long march through history
The emergence of identity politics in Western Europe has come swiftly and aggressively. One key figure in the mainstreaming of Marxism in Europe, who enjoys little popular recognition for his success, is Antonio Francesco Gramsci. Gramsci, an Italian philosopher and politician who was imprisoned...
www.acton.org
and the "Cultural Revolution". Both are well known epoch in Chinese communist history and neither was relevant to your discussion from why I could tell, so I was trying to figure out why you kept using CCP terminology.
Well the4y also have meaning in the west. You should not have assumed and I did explain this as the Long March through the Institutions. Its was a new strategy coined by Gramsci that instead of armed conflict in taking over the establishment. They could infiltrate the institutions and and take over that way.
Which is Marxism and instead of being about Class thanks to the same academic ideologues Critical theories it became Cultural Marxism and about every percieved oppressed identity and not just class.
Hense gender, race, sex, religion and a growing number of newly created identities. Hense a Cultural revolution rather than an armed revolution. Though it seems now people are willing to use violence and arms because the Long March has not succeeded.
But then this type of political ideology was always going to decend into violence and armed conflict because thats how it was birthed in the first place. A oppressor and victim worldview so at some point violence will be needed to free the victims if all else fails.
Probably because I happen to thing the outcomes of the "sexual revolution" were good things.
But surely thats a subjective belief. So those who believe that it caused a lot of damage to people and society have an equal say. If a bible believing Christian tells their belief that sex outside marriage is a sin or SSM is a sin then this is not hate and wrong but just the right to express a belief by conscience. The same with those who believe sex outside marriage is good.
So how do we sort that out as to what public policy should be based on. You can't have both. Is it majority rules. Or maybe whoever can get into a position of influence. Maybe have more money behind them to market their morals lol.
The US was not a "Christian nation", then or ever, nor was it "Muslim" or "pagan". It was and is *secular*. (your country may be different, but I am not prepared or inclined to discuss your country.)
Then what did the Colonies base their morals on. What morals did the Federation base it morals on. Was it the majority social norms. What was the majority social norms based on.
In your house, perhaps, not in mine.
OK so does every house have an equal say. Which house holds the truth on what is moral so that we can make a determination over which house we should use as the basis for social policies and laws.
and built in part on false premises
What was the false premise. That abortion was wrong or that society was wrong about thinking abortion was wrong.
As I noted above, I agree with less influence of moralistic Christianity on sex and marriage.
So if we have less influence from Christianity then what influence do we use instead for social norms on sex and marriage.
This is an ongoing conflation of the mores of the 1950s with all periods before then. It just wasn't the case.
Its not a conflation because what the 1950s were using as their basis was the bible which was the same basis for every other time in history. Including back to the early church right up until today. It has not changed. That we can only find certain times where society aligned with those biblical truths is irrelevant as to their truth.
It is those never changing truths that are the basis and what is being used to compare with other beliefs and ideologies on social moral issues. I am saying for the times when society lived up to those truths compared to the alternatives and especially modern progressive norms the differece is stark and conflicting.
That conflict is being played out in the culture wars we see where these norm differences come into contact.
Nah, it's just evidence for an strongly anti-modernist strain of Christianity.
What is a modernist strain of Christianity. You are not even a Christian. How can you know what Christianity is fullstop.
An extreme claim! LOL! It is a literal fact that "laws" and "social norms" are not the same things.
I never said they were the same thing. I said laws are often based off social norms. How did SSM come about. It happened because society had changed and were more open to SSM.
Its a self evident fact that you could not legalise homosexuality within a pro Christian norm lol. The society has to evolve to change to then accept that change in law. They go hand in hand.
I mean even speeding laws have a moral basis. Why is speeding wrong. Because it causes accidents. Why are accidents wrong. Because they can harm and kill people. Is that not a moral basis.
Not sure what that means.
Have you not heard the famous quote "the personal is political which was part of 2nd wave feminism and set the stage for bringing the political into the private sphere.
The famous slogan is
"the personal is political," popularized by feminist Carol Hanisch in a 1969 essay. The phrase argues that personal experiences, particularly those of women, are not just private matters but are often rooted in systemic political issues and power structures, such as gender inequality. It served as a rallying cry for second-wave feminism to challenge the idea that public and private life were separate.
Now after decades of such ideologies as Critical theories which build on this politics has moved into every part of our lives. The State is the Father, Mother, Priest, Therapist, Educator and Moral arbitor over everyone.
Now the
"the personal is political," this has brought in belief and morality because this is a part of personal. Its all intertwined. So now State policies and laws are not seperated from religion, belief and morals. Thats why we had PC and Woke and all the other radical moralising ideologies like Extinction Rebellions and BLM ect ect ect. Thats why people are fighting in the streets of politics and religion.
You need to do some research. I know you are knowledgable on physics but please don't pretend your a psychologist and sociologist as well.
I suggest you learn more of the early history of your relgion then. In the early decades what we now call Christianity (sometimes called in these contexts the "Jesus movement" or "The Way") was a sect of Judaism. Importantly for my point in inclusion is that Judaism is from outside western culture.
I have studied extensively the early churh. Yes Christianity came from basically a Jewish sect and there were a number. But the important destinction is that it became the only sect or even religion as far as Islam that opened up to non natives or sect members.
When it opened to the Gentiles it opened to western civilisation. Because this is what the Gentiles became, the Western civilisation that was the only civilisation that brought Christianity from that Jewish sect to all nations.
But this makes it even more relevant. Because a a belief from outside the west became the west. Making it even more universal which was the whole point. Its a plus not a negative that this supports its truth.
I am not kidding and do you really need to ask? (I know you know.)
Surely this is your personal opinion and a belief. If Christ is truely the saviour of all humankind then surely this is the greatest thing. Your begging the question that what you believe is the greatest good.
OK so if everything came from the Greeks and Romans what exactly is the good of Christianity in the west. Why did we change history based on Christ in BC and AD. What about universities and hospitals and science itself which was first initiated by Christian scientists trying to discover Gods creation.
It didn't and no one said it did. Certainly not me. What I said is that the things from ancient western culture that *I* find most valuable or important are most certainly not Christian -- democracy, mathematics, the early stages of science, as is the case for the best things of the Enlightenment.
I think its an assumption that these things did not actually come from Christian values. Like democracy was used in the early church that the congregation was to affirm the leaders and the leaders were servants to the people. Or that all are equal in Christ as the basis for equality and human rights.
Remembering that apart from this in the GrecoRoman pagan world there was no such rights. I think you underestimate Christianity and the bibles influence.
In fact the bible is the foundational book for all western literature and canons. It was literally the only book and all other books on truth stem from this. The bible to the west is not just truth but the pre-requisite for truth. I don't any other phenomena has had as much impact on the west as Christianity and the bible.
Anyway it does not matter. Its a fact its a prominent belief and moral code in western nations and one of the options we can use to base society on. As opposed to Islam or Woke or HUmanism or Feminism or any other ideology.
Finally the Romans were quite tolerant of other religions, but the did expect everyone to make the appropriate supplications to the civic and imperial cult. Jews (including Christians) being by then monotheists refused to do so and this cause some trouble.
Which is another way of saying they were intolerant of the Jews and Christians in the end.
Roman philosophers wrote on sexual morality and family without any input from Christianity. This is reality, not some "bias view".
Wrote about what moral basis for sex and family. Which set of morals were they referring to. Was it Venus. Or was this just some personal opinion of a philosopher.
If Roman beliefs about gods are puralistic then it will inherently have to accommodate paga ideas around sex ie sex outside marriage and between any consenting adults. Men could have more than one wife ect as this was a status symbol for me who were the greater sex.
"neither slave nor free" was about salvation through the death of Jesus -- anyone could be saved. It didn't change actual social status of anyone, slave, woman, or Jew.
Actually it means exactly what it says. This verse includes 'neither Jew or Gentile'. It was that all were equal in Christ when it came to salvation. The free were no more better than the slave or the Jew to the Gentile. The Jews were regarded as special to Judaism and the frre were seen as higher status than the slaves. But all were the same in Christ.
But this was not the case for the Romans who went by status and class.
You're going to ask Mr. Morrison for that. Perhaps it was ironic "best"ness given that in the same song he sings of wanting to kill his own mother.
Well the west also brought psychodelic drugs. Maybe thats why he thought the west was the best lol.
We're going to need a part Ic as I have other things to do...
Fair enough
So win-win
