One of my pet ideas is that one can hardly overestimate the hidden influences Christian ideas still have in our Western societies, even among people who call themselves atheists and rarely miss an occasion to rail against Xtians.
One prime example is "Social Justice".
It is natural for individuals, groups and communities to fight for their own interests, and it is natural that people within communities help each other because they all consider themselves members of a larger 'we'.
But it is quite unnatural to help people, and fight for their interests, with whom one has nothing in common. It is almost as if a kind of parasite had taken control of the brain of the helpers, so that the 'altruist' is a puppet for the benefit of another person, group or community (parasites like this are quite common in nature!).
Why should, say, a white citizen in London in 1830 fight for the abolition of slavery? The answer these altruists would give is, of course, "justice" and they treat this concept as something self-evident, which, of course, it is not. No idea (outside logic and mathematics) is self-evident, and if we look at other cultures in history, we'll see that they did not have anything like our notion of justice.
The reason is quite simple: what we call 'social justice' is a specific Christian idea, maybe even the most powerful idea of this religion. Its core is that the meek, the weak and the oppressed are more dear to God than the strong and the powerful (because God Himself became the ultimate victim).
"So the last shall be first, and the first last..." (Matthew 20:16).
Nowhere else can we find this strange idea that victimhood is intrinsically noble.
It is rational that oppressed and weak people would happily embrace this revolutionary idea, as they did in Ancient Rome, but why should someone from the ranks of those in power buy into it and mentally identify with the weak and the oppressed?
If you look at it from the outside (my favorite point of view), it is quite absurd, but it's nevertheless common in christian societies, even (or especially !) after they have left behind organized Christianity and become secular. The quest for "social justice" has become their sort of salvation - but they remain totally unaware of this mental christian parasite in the their brains.
In one sentence: Social Justice Humanism is the continuation of Christianity by other means.
6
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16 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Christians were not the first to think and advocate along these lines, nor does the subsequent behavior of thoroughly and explicitly Christian kingdoms evoke these ideas.
I’m not sure whether the OP is an instance of the now-familiar and tiresome Christian claim that ‘You atheists secretly believe in God even if you deny it….’ or a criticism of social justice because it is allegedly connected to Christianity, along the lines of ‘master morality versus slave morality’ critique.
Jim-Steitz
Level 4
June 13, 2022
0
In nature, Inter-species altruism certainly occurs, and critters know nothing of any god or religion. Humans exhibit it more because of our intellect and culture, but the behavior seems to be independent of any particular religion and those without religion tend to be more broadly compassionate than those who are religious.
Reignmond
Level 7
June 13, 2022
2
@Matias The literature is loaded with examples. The most obvious is people who help wild animals, as I have done on several occasions. Or Dolphins saving other animals or retrieving articles drop in the water. Or a gorilla that protected a child from others of its own kind. Dogs saving cats from house fires. The list is long, I suggest starting with your own web search. Many of the best papers are restricted to through research portals, but if you don't have such access you can get a hist of the paper from the "summary" that is often displayed. Darwin was doubtful of inter-species altruism, but current research shows it is one of a number of associated Social Behaviors that are slightly promoted through evolution.
I will always believe that a mature mind, open to considering many factors of any situation, can not only determine what is right and wrong, but can also understand that an act in one scenario can be wrong while right in another scenario. Murder versus self defense. Religion is completely unnecessary in a human using their intellect. Religion will always be only an interference to the functioning of a mind that has allowed itself to get too close.
Switchcraft
Level 7
June 12, 2022
2
This seems to me to be crediting religion, and in particular, christianity, with influenceing social interaction in a good way....toward bettering human nature....if I right.....how fucked up is that????
HankSherman
Level 8
June 12, 2022
1
That’s what the most recent science is saying.
@creative51
I think lying is saying something you know to be false. I’m as capable as anyone of being mistaken or ill-informed, but I’m saying what I believe to be true.
Tell me which mainstream cognitive scientists you keep up with, and I’ll try to broaden my scope. Or evolutionary psychologists, or any other scientist in a related field.
@skado On the contrary I repeatedly find that science shows exactly the opposite. I do not know where you get your science from, but if it comes only from apologist sources then it is likely to be biased and most probably pseudo-science. In fact another bit of science showing exactly the oposite turned up only today. [news.berkeley.edu]
@skado the more science reveals, the more contradiction of religion becomes fact.
@Switchcraft
Depends on how one views religion. If religion is viewed as religion presents itself, allowing religion to define itself, then yes. But if we turn that job over to science, then no. I trust science’s definition of religion more than I trust religion’s definition of religion.
@Fernapple Well, not "exactly the opposite".
The article you posted states; "While the study examined the link between religion, compassion and generosity, it did not directly examine the reasons for why highly religious people are less compelled by compassion to help others. However, researchers hypothesize that deeply religious people may be more strongly guided by a sense of moral obligation than their more non-religious counterparts."
From this it would seem that the less religious subjects were motivated more by an emotional response to suffering whereas the religious participants were motivated more by a sense of moral obligation, which is interesting. . . .
This makes no sense to me. Christians, at least many of the ones in the U.S., make excuses and attempt to justify slavery, have had a history of discrimination against blacks, gays, women, and minorities, have a history of being against equality for blacks, gays, women, and minorities, have a history of being pro-gun and helping create a culture of almost daily mass shootings in the U.S., and a history of censorship and banning of media.
Christians are altruistic and in favor of justice but ONLY their very narrow view of justice and only toward those they deem are deserving. They oppress the weak. They didn't rally support for refugees coming into this country. They supported locking them in cages like animals. Christians care only about their own selfish interests and not the greater good.
Charles1971
Level 7
June 12, 2022
5
Those are the ones that make the news. But have you made or read a scientifically conducted survey of a large sample of Christian opinions on those matters? and compared those opinions to a control group?
@skado Well, the ones that "made the news" are also the ones that have tried over and over to push back equality for women and minorities. What matters to me and likely to many others are the results of these people actions. Look at who they elect for congress, for governor, and for president.
@Charles1971
If it is their political influence that concerns you, why not identify them by their political affiliation? Christians are nowhere near as monolithic in their political leanings as say Democrats or Republicans are.
@skado Fair enough. According to Pew Research the majority of evangelical christians are Republicans. Also, most white Americans who attend church voted for Trump according to Pew Research.
@Charles1971
You understand "Christians" are not defined by evangelicanism or by church attendance, right? Many in my family were non-proselytizing Baptist Democrats who rarely set foot in a church, as were many of the folks I grew up around. The Baptist church I grew up in (and abandoned at 14) taught that what made a person a Christian was what was in their heart, not what they displayed publicly. The whites and blacks that I knew in my church days thought of Christianity as just being a good person instead of being a criminal. I realize that was a previous millennium, but I still know lots of good-hearted Christians who don't wear their religion on their sleeve, so to speak, and would likely never even respond to a Pew survey.
Skado's science seems to come only from religious biased pseudo-science. Try this which turned up only today instead. [news.berkeley.edu]
@skado you may need to provide a fuller explanation to make you point. The demographic here has moved on from reading and considering any Christian "literature". Not out of ignorance, but out of despair for finding validity.
@Switchcraft
Nothing I am saying here comes from any "Christian literature" or from any science influenced by religious sentiments, as some of my detractors claim.
There are numerous branches of science that study religious behavior from a purely scientific perspective, without religious bias. Anthropology, Sociology, Cognitive Science, Evolutionary Psychology, etc.
The sad irony of the atheist/agnostic demographic is that they have fallen prey to the very same dysfunction they so despise in religious people. They have become so superstitious about religious language that they are unwilling to even look at the most recent science being done in this area.
I am not promoting a Christian agenda (I host a group here called Dharma Cafe [agnostic.com] which is about Eastern religious philosophies). And I am not promoting supernaturalism (I host another group here called Religious Naturalism [agnostic.com] which is about religious practices that do not depend on supernatural explanations). On other websites that lean in the Christian fundamentalist direction, I make non-theistic arguments for their consideration. They call me an atheist, and the people here call me a Christian! It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
The Dawkins science of the 1960s was a stage we needed to go through, but is no longer the cutting edge of science. Twenty first century science recognizes the vital role religions played and still play in counterbalancing certain instinctual behaviors to accommodate social cohesion in complex modern agriculture-based societies. It's not that science endorses the propositional claims religions make about literal deities or the origin of the universe, etc. but that religion plays a social role that is not being adequately served by any other institution, and is still necessary for the functioning of stable societies.
If this demographic truly wanted to find the validity of religion, they could easily investigate modern science beyond what they learned in high school, but that would mean giving up their attachment to the definition of religion that religionists have provided for them, and opening themselves to the science they claim to love, but know little about. If it is not out of ignorance that they do this, then it is out of willful ignorance.
The next challenge that predictably comes up is "Show me the proof!" But there is no smoking gun proof for understanding complex subjects. It requires first, a willingness to move from one's comfortable resting place. And secondly the genuine curiosity to propel oneself through months or years of study in order to understand the many moving parts and their relationship to each other. I can recommend starting with studying evolution. That's where I started. Then Evolutionary Psychology, then symbolism and art.
Your example of slavery is not a particularly good one as it is only recently that Christians have been anti slavery.
You may have parasite in your brain but I definitely do not. I was never indoctrinated .
Moravian
Level 8
June 12, 2022
2
Every human has “brain parasites” from the culture they live in.
@Matias Possibly the European enlightenment was a major factor in this and our own David Hume was a leading figure in helping to diminish the control religion had over people. I live in a secular country and although I have several church going friends most of them are just paying lip service to Christianity.
@Matias So ?. It took them a long time to decide that slavery was bad then. The bible is quite ambiguous on the keeping of slaves but for 1800 years devout Christians were ok with it . Of course the reformation and the enlightenment had a huge bearing on social attitudes and David Hume was a major figure in the enlightenment.
Granted, there was from the beginning a strong altruistic theme in Christianity, and that that helped to influence, and inspire, the western cultures which followed it, to begin developing ideas like social justice, socialism and the idea of a larger "we". But Christianity was not alone in that, you can find the same philosophy in many systems including Buddhism and Stoic philosophy, and those ideals were only realized to any degree in the west, quite recently, following the industrial revolution, which created for a while spare wealth and education, beyond what the ruling classes could use for self indulgence. Who knows if those other cultures, would not have done the same, given the same economic opportunities at the same stage of cultural development.
But more than that, a thought system's flagship idea alone is never all there is to it, and even the best intentions can lead to terrible unforeseen consequences, look at Marxism which was intended, as perhaps, an even more altruistic ideal than Christianity, but which as we all know, often had truly horrible consequences. And the peculiar weakness and corruptibility of Christianity was also built into its basic ideals from the beginning too. As you ask. "why should someone from the ranks of those in power buy into it and mentally identify with the weak and the oppressed?" And the answer is, because they saw from the very beginning, Christianities in built proneness to favour and foster corruption.
The reason being, that the ideals of altruism claimed to be at the heart of Christianity, are, as everyone instinctively knows, impossible in practice to realize. Which means that everyone is bound to fail, even the saints probably failed in reality, in living to that level of perfection, whatever apocryphal myths about them may say. Which means that the other great theme of Christianity, that of total and cheap forgiveness was a very inherent part of the system from the beginning. It had to be, because without it nobody would have adopted it.
Which had two effects. First it excused the rich and powerful anything they may do, however corrupt and harmful. The only real crime, being an unwillingness to pay the price of forgiveness, whether in cash or penance. Creating thereby a culture which held no one responsible for anything, and which honoured corruption, especially among the rich and powerful, who could more easily buy forgiveness, not simply with cash, but also with time, commitment and display, all of which are much more readily available to the rich and powerful than to the poor. Thus the twin crimes against the poor and weak, the catholic oppression of those unable to easily buy forgiveness by those controlling the market in it, and the Calvinist view that weakness and poverty were the result and proof sin, were there from the start, as well as the failed attempt at altruism.
And no doubt that, willing acceptance of corruption and dishonesty often helped the Christian west to overcome other societies where they were not understood, many of the cultures easily overcome by the west were politically naive, while it tended to be the older, also corrupt, cultures, such as those of the far and middle east, who largely but not entirely survived unscathed, the eras of western expansion.
Which is why in the modern world, the idea of social justice, which today has far better ideals and far better understandings of human nature, economics and psychology to support it. Does not any longer gain anything from the Christian prop, and would be much better served, supported by those modern thought systems alone.
Fernapple
Level 9
June 12, 2022
6
Well if you want to give Christianity credit, give it to the only place it is due:
For taking everything that came before it in human history and taking credit for it.
(And also claiming that there is only one god and worship on sunday....But I assume those are out of context here))
Now of course, I have just "railed" against it
twill
Level 7
June 12, 2022
1
Christianity has justified many of its atrocities with lies, and you are trying to justify Christianity. Here is one example:
The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue
What is the Thanksgiving myth?
The myth is that friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, sit down to dinner with them and then disappear. They hand off America to white people so they can create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit. That’s the story—it’s about Native people conceding to colonialism. It’s bloodless and in many ways an extension of the ideology of Manifest Destiny.
What are the most poignant inaccuracies in this story?
One is that history doesn’t begin for Native people until Europeans arrive. People had been in the Americas for least 12,000 years and according to some Native traditions, since the beginning of time. And having history start with the English is a way of dismissing all that. The second is that the arrival of the Mayflower is some kind of first-contact episode. It’s not. Wampanoags had a century of contact with Europeans–it was bloody and it involved slave raiding by Europeans. At least two and maybe more Wampanoags, when the Pilgrims arrived, spoke English, had already been to Europe and back and knew the very organizers of the Pilgrims’ venture.
Most poignantly, using a shared dinner as a symbol for colonialism really has it backward. No question about it, Wampanoag leader Ousamequin reached out to the English at Plymouth and wanted an alliance with them. But it’s not because he was innately friendly. It’s because his people have been decimated by an epidemic disease, and Ousamequin sees the English as an opportunity to fend off his tribal rebels. That’s not the stuff of Thanksgiving pageants. The Thanksgiving myth doesn’t address the deterioration of this relationship culminating in one of the most horrific colonial Indian wars on record, King Philip’s War, and also doesn’t address Wampanoag survival and adaptation over the centuries, which is why they’re still here, despite the odds.
There's this tendency to see the English as the devils in all of this. I don't think there's any question they’re in the wrong, but it doesn't let them off the hook to say that native people wouldn't take it anymore. And regardless of that, I think the evidence shows that native people had reached their limit and recognize that if they didn't rise up immediately, they were going to become landless subordinates to English authority.
This is about as contrary to the Thanksgiving myth that one can get. That's the story we should be teaching our kids. They should be learning about why native people reached that point, rather than this nonsense that native people willingly handed off their country to the invaders. It does damage to how our native countrymen and women feel as part of this country, it makes white Americans a lot less reflective about where their privilege comes from, and it makes us a lot less critical as a country when it comes to interrogating the rationales that leaders will marshal to act aggressively against foreign others. If we're taught to cut through colonial rhetoric we'll be better positioned to cut through modern colonial and imperial rhetoric.
Full Article: [smithsonianmag.com]
Another reason why Republicans do not want history taught.
nogod4me
Level 8
June 12, 2022
4
"If we're taught to cut through colonial rhetoric we'll be better positioned to cut through modern colonial and imperial rhetoric."
Absolutely. Trace the lies to their source
Ridiculous.
Christianity has been the driving force behind social injustice far more than any thing resembling rational thought.
Burning witches was social justice?
Justifying slavery was social justice?
Claiming that the North American continent was intended for white men all along, so genocide of millions of people to "cleanse the earth", was blessed by manifest destiny was social justice?
Laws against integration and miscegenation were all based in white christian bias and racism. Social justice?
BufftonBeotch
Level 8
June 12, 2022
5
Bingo. The OP forgets all the other parts of Christianity that prescribe violence and hatred of others. The social justice was plagiarized from pre-existing philosophy, and given no special status among all the other crap. And, we can all see how Christians have had zero notion of social justice over the millennia. What a bullshit proposition.
Horsefeathers! Could you base your Extremely Dubious conclusions on any More false assumptions? Doubt it!
AnneWimsey
Level 9
June 12, 2022
3
Another load of crap. First you define "natural" and "unnatural" in what appears to be your personal opinion instead of any real justifications. Then you go off making ridiculous assumptions based on your personal opinion. A white person in London should care about the abolition of slavery in 1830 for the same reason a white person in London today might want to fight against Russia invading the Ukraine, the ability to empathize with the suffering of other human beings. It has nothing to do with "justice", it has to do with the simple ability to not be a narcissistic asshole.
The reason is quite simple: what we call 'social justice' is a specific Christian idea, maybe even the most powerful idea of this religion.
The ability to empathize is not Christian, it's human.
In one sentence: Social Justice Humanism is the continuation of Christianity by other means.
And one day you might be able to make a cogent argument for that, but you sure haven't done so yet.
redbai
Level 8
June 12, 2022
5
Jane Goodall in an interview was talking about interactions within a group. I can not remember the specifics but in it she talked about a find of a leg bone that excited her and showed that the members of the group had a social structure and cared about each other. The bone showed a fracture that had healed. This meant that the rest of the group cared for and helped this individual get better. I am pretty sure the group she was talking about did not show any evidence of christianity. Yes I know this is the larger "we"
In many christian societies this did not happen in fact those within the society who were different were ignored or treated badly.
I think it is important to remember that the ones fighting for slavery were also happily going to church on a Sunday and calling themselves good god fearing christians.
Young children well before being indoctrinated by any religion will show compassion and help others regardless of which group they belong to.
From memory the bible contains more phrases about not liking those that are different than telling everyone to like and support everyone.
Back in college I studied psychology I never remember the names of the theorists but some of their words stick and one that stuck talked about a state of mind where the person acts out of what is right and what is best for everyone rather than just a self or my little group. This had a fairly profound effect on 17year old me. I started thinking along the lines of I don't matter but what I do matters. (please note I had always been a bit of a social justice warrior) I had very little indoctrination in chrisitanity and gave up on it quite early. I have broken up fights between a person much stronger and larger than me and a smaller weaker person I have stood up for someone I hated because that person was being accused of something they did not do.
I think it is an interesting issue to look at but far from conclusive.
Budgie
Level 8
June 12, 2022
3
That was Margaret Mead not Jane Goodall.
Otherwise accurate.
It's also an error to say that young children will help each other. They have to be trained to do that, or show gratitude for something, because they are not naturally social.
Yep. Scapegoating is a common theme in many mythologies, but Christianity was the first, last, and only mythology in which the scapegoat (Christ) was considered innocent. Like it or not, Christianity remains the most highly evolved moral system produced by humans, whether we acknowledge it or not. It is the source of many of the unconscious assumptions that hold modern secular societies together. Scandinavian countries have a deep Lutheran foundation.
skado
Level 9
June 12, 2022
2
Hmm. Seems like it is devolving in America
"Morals" (whatever they are) without action are meaningless anyway. Just blather
"Christianity remains the most highly evolved moral system produced by humans"
Completely wrong, both in practice and in theory. How in heck do you come up with this shit?
What religions are less moral than Christianity and how did you make your assessment? (And do truthfulness and validity have no bearing on morality?)
Humans are innately social. I believe there are genetic foundations for a variety of (sometimes conflicting) social impulses, including altruism and cooperation, tribalism and xenophobia. Organized altruism - social justice - can have less than selfless results such as expanding influence by forming alliances, absorbing populations, or undermining competing power structures.
nicestuff
Level 7
June 12, 2022
2
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