Christianity seems to be unsuitable for Western Civilization.

I'm saying this as a Christian, now. Someone who is dismayed at the way wealthy white Americans have co-opted Jesus' passionately anti-capitalist, peaceful, merciful ministry, and turned it into a "what's-in-it-for-me?-let's-all-get-rich-and-go-to-Heaven" screed.

Rugged individualists, intractible moralizers, and death-cult crazies really have no place in Christianity.

Look at the cultures of the tribes and nations of the Middle East, where Christianity and its forbear Judaism originated; these cultures learned how to thrive in a place where natural resources are scarce. Food, water, shelter and so on are competed for fiercely. Despite a struggle for these simple items necessary for survival, a struggle that can inspire generations-long blood-feuds, nearly every culture in the region also advocates sharing what you have with others. However much, or more importantly, however little you may have. The obligation to offer hospitality, whether to friend or enemy, is sacred. When someone approaches you with an open right hand, you serve them food, water, coffee, tea, and offer them a safe place to sleep for the night. You have a divine requirement to ensure your guest's safety and comfort. If you read anything at all about ME cultures, you will know that, far from resenting such obligations, most people are proud to honor them and take joy in seeing their guests fed and rested.

Now, like it or not, Western culture, especially American culture, is built around the ideal of "amass as much as you can, take whatever you are able to away from someone else, and guard it fiercely, killing anyone, if you have to, who tries to take it away from you". Churches are not humble upper rooms anymore, but gargantuan glass-and-steel palaces. The preacher is not a humble man wearing simple homespun, and preaching forgiveness and tolerance; but a blue-pompadoured, pink-suit-wearing-Mercedes-driving charlatan who bellows hate, hate, hate from his pulpit, and pours money into the election campaigns of people who promise to legislate that hatred in any way possible.

Christianity has lost its way in the West as a faith, and has instead been put to use as a political tool. The very same was true in fourth-century Rome, when Constantine made Christianity the official faith of the empire. It was all downhill from there.

The West's wealth-centered culture is no place for Christianity.

and be done with it.

http://www.dmwright.com/html/ferengi.htm

I coudn't become a Christian for a very simple reason. I didn't believe it. Why?

Western Culture taught me that the old testament was the only 'reality.' Even when viewed as metaphor, the new testament screamed out to me "Fantasy."

Growing up, I was surrounded by "christians" at home and school, they were perpetrators of many old-testament acts when viewed in metaphor.

I don't mean any offense to any real Christians here, this is my personal experience only.

in the same culture. Either one or the other is going to have to give way. Right now, and for much of our recorded history, capitalism has coopted Christianity and turned it into lipservice and oppression instead of justice and tolerance.

The shame of Christianity is that its leaders embrace this destruction of the core values.

The proof that this has occurred is that socialism had to be invented.

say anything in defense of capitalism, but Christianity can exist in any culture. Including those where it has been brutally suppressed. It just goes underground.

with courage, and a little creativity, in a desperate situation, that is where an individual could do the most good.

Think of it as something like the Underground Railroad. Did they, or did they not, accomplish a lot of good, albeit illegally? The more opprressive the situation, the more good even the smallest help does.

...and it goes underground.

Religion is very strong like that. Like it or not we religious types are here to stay. And that includes all religions, and all viewpoints considered to be heretical or otherwise.

I, as a Christian, think that it is somewhat more succesful than others. Maybe because it started off being oppressed and having to exist underground. On the other hand, paganism is making a huge comeback.

(based on emulating the life of Christ and following the core of his ethical teachings) was never a good choice for a "state" religion, much less a materialist, authoritarian one.

This is big part of the reason why Christianity has taken on the face that it has... and why it is being deliberately transformed into something even further from the essential Christian message (and way of life).

But what else could be expected?

Men sooner or later corrupt everything that they touch. All it takes is for good men to be non-vigilant -- or to hesitate.

Men can take anything and use it for corrupt purposes. That doesn't necessarily corrupt the thing they use.

As President, Bush has abused his Constitutional duties for corrupt purposes. That does not make the Constitution a corrupt document. It just means we are too lazy as a country to hold him responsible.

Just because men use Christianity for corrupt and evil purposes does not make it corrupt.

what I say.

Men corrupt a thing in practise. It can take a great deal more to corrupt the thing itself, at least to the point of it being irredeemably corrupted (again, in practise).

Yet it is that "in practise" which most effects one's world.

It sounds so anachronistic when people today still say "men" instead of just calling all of humanity "people".

However, maybe the word "men" is MORE appropriate in this particular case, since it is literally mostly males in this totalitarian regime and in RW "Christianity" that are bringing such murderous ruin to this world.

So...never mind...

It's men that are the problem!

man: A human regardless of sex or age; a person.
men: Plural of man.

I sometimes use "mankind" or "people" or "persons" or "one" or some other form. I tend to shy anyway from "humanity" because there is little enough of the "humane" to be found. When I am thinking about it, I like to mix up my usages a little bit, but generally I use the words somewhat interchangeably. (And based, maybe, on what sounds best to me at the moment. -- But, truly, once I pick up a word I am inclined to overuse it.)

The concept of worrying about how others will take the usage of particular (and all) words (much less what they will make of what those words are actually saying) strikes me as having the potential to become an infinite do-loop.

"Men" is a common and proper (if perhaps outdated) usage and I find it terse and descriptive. And yes, I realize that some would find (and would make) the usage of such a word "sexist" (or whatever). But people will think what they like and I try not to worry about it. And it is true that "men" can taken to mean males only. However, when I use it in this way I try to make the context clear (successfully or not). Perhaps such usages do place something of a burden on the reader who must identify a particular and proper meaning (from among the several or the many). But I am only some crank posting on the internet and anyone reading anything that I write must (and should) be aware of the context -- and should have minimal expectations.

And yes, if it matters, I am male.

And I have no problem with being called an anachronism.

Having grown up in a very conservative church that doesn't ordain women ON PURPOSE, I've heard the word "men" used in a generic sense just for spite and to purposely exclude others. It's like a reflexive reaction that my antenna goes up from just seeing or hearing it used at all instead of "people". In the same vein, I know that there are many wonderful "old school" folks around who speak in the way that they have been taught to be grammatically correct. I'm old enough to have been taught that way, too, but I just use the alternative.

In the face of the crises facing our country and our world, it is nitpicking and a non-issue, and we have too many important things to do and too much in common to get bogged down with grammar. Sorry to put my fellow DUers on the defensive when we have actual battles to fight - together!

To get back to the subject at hand, I've posted below...

A set of laws was given for a state and a "church". Jesus wasn't the enforcer, what he started was outside of that government, and the mechanisms for enforcing order in the church were minimal. You rebuke the spreader of heresy, and if worse comes to worse, kick him out for a while.

Enforcing order *outside* the church, or if the church was the entirety of the population, would be impossible. There's no legal system established by Christ or the apostles. There's no recourse except forgiveness; if one church member murders another, there's no affirmative law issued by Jesus. Presumably the OT law would apply if Christ had a state government, but there's no one authorized to enforce it.

It could never be honestly chosen as the state religion. Such a state would be perfect, in theory, but people being what they are, it would become anarchy. Moreover, people outside the perfect state would have no problem waltzing in and taking it over.

Religion imparts moral values. As such governments are always going to want religion about as it encourages good behaviour.

However, governments do not have a very good track record of good moral behaviour, and as such they tend to try and corrupt religion for their own purposes. I think there is a lot to be said for treating politics with contempt.

But that's the whole point, isn't it?

It's a shame that we are such a shallow, self centered, selfish materialistic culture.

The message of Christ stands in contrast. And that is a good thing.

A. (Gandhi) "I think it would be a good idea"!


:bounce:

Christianity has been the dominant western religion for the past (slmost) 2,000 years. While some other religions are older, none have dominated like christianity has.

So... "for everything there is a season" - all things change, rise and fall. As you point out, much of christianity has been corrupted. It WILL change, and it WILL fall... perhaps what we are seeing is part of the fall. We won't know, though - only time and history will tell.

Christianity has been the most effective movement ever for controlling people, resources and behavior - it's been way more effective than government and laws. But a secular government of law is still a very young experiment so it too will change and develop.

I wish we could see into the future to have a better idea of just what it is we're seeing right now.

as soon as you leave, they are free to murder you and steal your goods. What a crock!

but I have been exposed to the thought that caring for your guests as you would care for yourself was a characteristic of the hunter gatherers as well. I'm not academic enough to judge this thought as accurate or inaccurate, however, the author (Will Durant) stated this was also a characteristic of relatively modern-day tribal societies that had been studied, and he gave references for further study.

It's not an idea limited to any particular religion is my point. It's a human thing: "care for others".

So is accumulating goods for the use of yourself and your families. Lot's of things are 'human', and they all occur, even the good ones, in capitalist America, as well as more oppressive societies.

... what we are seeing now is its last struggling gasp. It's dying and it knows it... and so it fights even harder and becomes even meaner and aggressive. Oh sure... It won't die out completely... it will go underground and become cult-like.

Eventually, if we here in the US fail to live as we pray or to live up to the Christian ideals we profess, then this Spirit that could be called the Christ spirit will migrate west again, this time to China, which will become "the cradle of Christianity." He qualified that by saying, not "Christianity" by that name, but the reality of the term, the spirit of the term: that "every man will live for his fellow man." This spirit will eventually thrive in China, under whatever name they decide to call it.

:eyes:

:shrug:

And it is significant that Christianity is growing fastest in Africa. Indeed on a train from Tilbury to Fenchuch Street a couple of years ago I got talking with a couple of Nigerians who could not understand why Britain, the country whose missionaries brought them Christianity was so irreligous compared to their homeland.

Now it might frighten people here to say this, but just maybe it is the west that has grown decadent and corrupt. And maybe the Church has been a little too afraid to speak out against this for fear of losing its congregation?

Heavy thoughts I know, but there ya go. Don't let anyone tell you that Christianity is easy.

that our society presents more challenges than most others in being faithful people.

Bishop Tutu recently said that religion is neutral - it can be used for ill or for good. It's what we do with it that makes it good or bad.

As for human nature, my religious background (the part that I haven't discarded) has taught me that people are made in the image of God, but are a complicated mix of good and evil. And although we're capable of making choices, we tend to choose actions and attitudes that are self-serving. And we're fooling ourselves if we think that once we become "born again" or just because we are very "Christlike" at times, we're not still selfishly inclined.

Western style capitalism presents challenges to following Jesus because it thrives on our selfish inclinations and Adam Smith's benevolent "invisible hand" is used to rationalize rampant materialism.

Unfettered, laissez-faire, unregulated capitalism is basically an invitation for unprecedented greed, crime, and financial abuse of the most vulnerable in society. All you have to do is look at the bankruptcy bill, and even the SS scam that the RW is trying to sell to the American public by appealing to their desires for "doing what I want to with my own money" and "getting a better return on my dollar."

ANOTHER problem with Western Civilization (at least in the US) is our out-of-control "rugged individualism". We've lost so much of our sense of community and this administration encourages people to be even more provincial than we already are. We're not the United States - we're the Red States and the Blue States. And our answer to the bibliccal question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" is answered with an ever louder, resounding "NO!!!".

Sadly, more and more "churches" are appealing to people's basest instincts and abandoning the true teachings of Jesus. People can join up without giving up any of their materialistic selfishness. And these are the types of churches that have compromised themselves into a symbiotic relationship with right-wing politics. They seem to have no idea that they violate so blatently Jesus' teaching that "You cannot serve both God and Mammon (money)."

AND to the general public, these RW churches give Jesus and the rest of Christianity a very bad name...