Hans Blaster
On August Recess
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Can confirm.If you mean "were never indoctrinated into a set of religious beliefs"....
I'd be one. Yes, we're annoying to other atheists as well.
Can confirm.
You're welcome to contribute your thoughts on if and how Christianity influenced English Common Law.
I think the point that was being proposed (I just checked back) was that a marriage is a commitment that 'should be captured by a public covenant or contract where the community witnesses the vow'.This is a common argument. If you'll note from my previous posts, I was willing to concede your relationship as perfect. The reason for the questions that followed was to ask, "OK, for the purposes of this conversation your relationship is fine. But do all relationships last?" I believe you've conceded that not all relationships last, and further that when they end, it causes harm. So, we're starting from that point.
I'd say that in some parts of the world, especially the middle east, some laws would most definitely be theocratic. With some exceptions (drinking restrictions on a Sunday for example) that wouldn't be the case in the UK.OK. It's a fair question, so I'm willing to entertain it. But I've never really thought about it before. It doesn't matter to me if Christianity has a unique morality. Maybe that's the conclusion it's coming to - that it doesn't matter to either of us.
As we discuss this, and my thoughts become clearer, maybe the only 2 points I could make have already been made: 1) That the English Common Law was influenced by people who were Christians, 2) that the English Common Law is different than pre-colonial law in other cultures (e.g. India and Arabia).
Yes, it's quite a balancing act.Maybe how they are different doesn't matter to you, as you'll argue that they simply had different arbitrary starting points and (for all "reasonable" cultures) they are converging on a utilitarian ideal. If so, I would disagree. I would say they are simply changing with the whims of the times, always have, and always will. People want to be free to do whatever they want to do, so they push for that. Eventually, when they realize that being totally free means other people feel no obligation to help them, and everything collapses about them, they sheepishly agree to some constraints. And then set about pushing to be totally free again.
Well, in one sense that's trivially correct. But in another, having the son of a deity isn't.But, to answer your question, I would begin with this. What makes Christianity unique is Christ.
I was thinking of something more substantial than one religion might stone you to death and another might behead you.If you want to take it further than that, I'll have to think about it. My first thought would be: If Christian morality is unique, it would be unique in what it chooses to distinguish as moral and immoral as a total set. Think Venn diagrams again. Christians may share with Hindus in calling thing A immoral. And they may share with Muslims in calling thing B immoral. But as a total set, only Christians call things A, B, C, etc. immoral. Further, they are unique in that only they punish thing A with aa, thing B with bb, etc.
Some religions are OK with it. Some are not. Some adherents of any given religion are OK with it and some are not. In my lifetime it's actually changed from 'some are OK with it' to 'most are OK with it'.On a different issue, it's easy to note that Christians lobby for marriage between any man and woman who desire a sexual relationship, and your morality does not lobby for that.
Yes, one can find pagan influences on Christians. And I'm sure in many cases Christians are blind to the creep of practices Christ does not approve of. However, I see that as a human trait, not a specifically Christian one. So, the same is true of Christian influences upon the world.I'm sure it did, and I'm certain someone has elaborated it better than I could. I find it interesting how pagan moral beliefs influenced the law....the act of dueling was a pagan practice later adopted by Christians as nowhere in the Bible does Jesus claim that whenever the doubt of guilt is unclear between two men does god declare who is guilty by combat.
It seems rather obvious that it's an extension of the nature of violence as power in any type of struggle or conflict. Yet Christians let it happen, legally, well into the 1800s.
I understand your objection.I think the point that was being proposed (I just checked back) was that a marriage is a commitment that 'should be captured by a public covenant or contract where the community witnesses the vow'.
Hey, if that's what someone wants to do, with an engagement and a buck and hen party and a limo ride in the wedding dress to a church wedding with friends and aunties and distant cousins all invited to the reception with a giant 5 tiered cake...then go for it. Or, do it in a foreign registry office a few days after agreeing to get married and your wife can ring her mum up later and say 'You'll never guess what I did today'.
All options are available. But I reject that it should be just one of them.
Yes, one can find pagan influences on Christians. And I'm sure in many cases Christians are blind to the creep of practices Christ does not approve of. However, I see that as a human trait, not a specifically Christian one. So, the same is true of Christian influences upon the world.
In my version of marriage, the community is offering something to the couple. If the couple wants to opt out of marriage, so be it. But that means they also opt out of what the community offers to them. Agree?
What exactly is the community offering that would differ between your version of marriage and mine?In my version of marriage, the community is offering something to the couple. If the couple wants to opt out of marriage, so be it. But that means they also opt out of what the community offers to them. Agree?
I happen to be part of one of the largest "religious groups" in the US -- ex-Catholics. The "religous route" is mostly more popular because there are so many candidates for this path. (Plus it comes with a handy guide for making atheists.)Lol sorry Hans, it took awhile for me to see it. There's no teacher for atheism, so we can get here through different routes. I think the previously religious route is far more common...
I hear these rumors of "community", but I never saw any reason to be closer to any people because they gathered for worship in the same place as me for an hour each week.and it creates a sense of self or community which some have a hard time letting go of or feel a desire to fill.
As for the type I am...it can easily spiral into a lack of self understanding and sort of nihilistic hedonism...I think I just got lucky enough in that respect to eventually conclude I need not justify my sense of self nor desire the sense of community I never really had. Fish don't have to explain why they're swimming after all. There's almost no advantages to this....I don't recommend it to anyone....and despite the difficulties of separation from an indoctrinated religion....it looks like a better deal to me.
Where were you for the other 167 hours? Seems more like a failure on your part rather than the community.... I never saw any reason to be closer to any people because they gathered for worship in the same place as me for an hour each week.
?It seems rather obvious that it's an extension of the nature of violence as power in any type of struggle or conflict. Yet Christians let it happen, legally, well into the 1800s.
I'm sorry....what does this hypothetical community offer the hypothetical married couple?
I was expecting some quid pro quo - an answer to my question before we launch into what a community might be able to provide marriages. Whether or not you are getting anything from your community now, do you accept that you can't expect help from the community unless you also accept the attendant responsibilities? You might get help nonetheless, but you can't expect it.What exactly is the community offering that would differ between your version of marriage and mine?
Your last statement is a powerful statement that I share. I do believe in God and it isn't just because someone told me He exists, but because I've have a personal relationship with Him.In the video below Peter Singer equates morality/ethics with mathematics, which is a concept that I'd never considered before. Most people probably agree that mathematics is objective. It's true independent of our opinions about it. And I can see how it could be argued that morality is exactly the same. In math the understanding that 1+1=2 doesn't instantaneously lead to an understanding of Pi, because although the latter is equally true, coming to understand that it's true is a complicated process. Perhaps the same is true with morality. As with mathematics, morality may be objectively true, but understanding why it's true may be just as complicated as understanding why Pi is true. You don't instantly go from understanding that math exists, to understanding trigonometry, and you don't instantly go from understanding that morality exists, to understanding that slavery is immoral.
Thus there may be an objective morality, but as with math we're still in the process of understanding it, and the fact that we may disagree about what's moral doesn't by necessity mean that morality is subjective. It just means that we don't have a sufficient understanding of morality so as to understand why things are moral, and so instead, morality without God looks subjective, when it really isn't.
And in my opinion, having some God attempting to dictate to me what is and isn't moral will never be as gratifying as actually understanding why things are immoral without a need for that God.
Not at church. They were the best 167 hours of the week.Where were you for the other 167 hours?
Failure to do what? Be interested in the random people that went to the same church? Why would I have any common cause with them? It was no failure. I had no interest in any "community". I have no idea if anyone else did either, but I didn't care.Seems more like a failure on your part rather than the community.
I'm not interested in your quotation from some guy who lived before my people became western.Some people are just unteachable at times, inflated with hubris. Augustine of Hippo was just so as he reports in his autobiography, "Confessions, Book III".
Chapter 12. The Excellent Answer of the Bishop When Referred to by His Mother as to the Conversion of Her Son.… You granted her [Monica] then another answer, by a priest of Yours, a certain bishop, reared in Your Church and well versed in Your books. He, when this woman had entreated that he would vouchsafe to have some talk with me, refute my errors, unteach me evil things, and teach me good (for this he was in the habit of doing when he found people fitted to receive it), refused, very prudently, as I afterwards came to see. For he answered that I was still unteachable, being inflated with the novelty of that heresy, and that I had already perplexed various inexperienced persons with vexatious questions, as she had informed him. But leave him alone for a time, says he, only pray God for him; he will of himself, by reading, discover what that error is, and how great its impiety.
I was expecting some quid pro quo - an answer to my question before we launch into what a community might be able to provide marriages. Whether or not you are getting anything from your community now, do you accept that you can't expect help from the community unless you also accept the attendant responsibilities? You might get help nonetheless, but you can't expect it.
I've already listed a few things. You didn't notice? I mentioned education and counseling.
Another common thing communities offer is property protection,
i.e. that you and your spouse hold property jointly (trust me, probate is not a fun alternative). There are others, but I'll stop there for now.
You could get all those things privately, but at a cost, and not everyone can pay. You could prepare your own legal document for joint property, but if you're married it's just part of the law - an automatic thing.
You could seek private education/counseling for marriage if you felt you needed it, but churches often offer such things for free. And so on.
I haven't forgotten that for the purposes of this conversation, we're assuming you don't need any help. What I've noticed is that despite that stipulation to our conversation, your replies tend toward circling the wagons to keep what you think Christians are trying to take. Not once have you suggested that someone with a good relationship, rather than retreating into their castle, should offer to support those community organizations that help people with marriage problems. It seems to me that's what a mature person would do.
Just like you, I have a good marriage. But I also have experience with family members in crisis. I'm not going to share those details. Instead, I'll suggest a movie from 2021 called 'Mass', starring Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason IsaacsaZDF hPlimpton. It's the most true-to-life movie I've ever seen about what it's like for families in crisis. If you watch it, pay attention to the marriage relationships and how they compare between the couple who had community support and the one that didn't. Though the role of the church is only in the background, pay attention to that as well. My experiences with where churches spend their time and money aligns more with what is shown in the movie than the vindictive, grasping Pharisaical attitudes typically discussed here.
?
Chapter XIXDueling Is Punished With The Severest PenaltiesThe abominable practice of dueling, introduced by the contrivance of the devil, that by the cruel death of the body he may bring about also the destruction of the soul, should be utterly eradicated from the Christian world.THE COUNCIL OF TRENTSession XXV, December,1563.
So you should get formally married in a way that 'should be captured by a public covenant or contract where the community witnesses the vow'. because it's cheaper? And I'm really not sure that you might be ready for marriage if you need counseling or education. If you really needed it then I'd suggest that friends and family would be better suited to give it.I was expecting some quid pro quo - an answer to my question before we launch into what a community might be able to provide marriages. Whether or not you are getting anything from your community now, do you accept that you can't expect help from the community unless you also accept the attendant responsibilities? You might get help nonetheless, but you can't expect it.
I've already listed a few things. You didn't notice? I mentioned education and counseling. Another common thing communities offer is property protection, i.e. that you and your spouse hold property jointly (trust me, probate is not a fun alternative). There are others, but I'll stop there for now. You could get all those things privately, but at a cost, and not everyone can pay. You could prepare your own legal document for joint property, but if you're married it's just part of the law - an automatic thing. You could seek private education/counseling for marriage if you felt you needed it, but churches often offer such things for free. And so on.
Your hostility toward Christianity is noted and, as already noted, renders you unteachable.Not at church. They were the best 167 hours of the week.
Failure to do what? Be interested in the random people that went to the same church? Why would I have any common cause with them? It was no failure. I had no interest in any "community". I have no idea if anyone else did either, but I didn't care.
I'm not interested in your quotation from some guy who lived before my people became western.
Nice words wherever one finds them. Dueling was eventually illegal in the secular world.Nice words on paper.
Who actually outlawed dueling and enforced it?
At the Council of Trent, the church led the banning of duels, The secular body politic usually takes longer to come to the same truth. And they did.To be clear, after the decree....they were still dueling in Trent. Italy itself would print multiple manuscripts on the subject regarding everything from rules to technique. These are all Christians of their time.
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