I wish I could believe you! It would be so simple but reality is that Orthodox Christianity is anything BUT the source of democracy and freedom! The Roman Catholic Church has opposed freedom and critical thinking for centuries. Likewise Fundamentalist Christianity is even less tolerant of alternate viewpoints. and critiques of perceived …
I wish I could believe you! It would be so simple but reality is that Orthodox Christianity is anything BUT the source of democracy and freedom! The Roman Catholic Church has opposed freedom and critical thinking for centuries. Likewise Fundamentalist Christianity is even less tolerant of alternate viewpoints. and critiques of perceived irrational “beliefs”. Their recalcitrant views of gays and other “heresies” brook no opposition to their wholesale condemnation of something which is clearly no whimsical “choice” but considered a spiritual path in many other religious traditions for example! Instead of trying to understand the spiritual underpinning of such things, their unrelenting condemnation of what is found thruout Nature which is the true manifestation of Creators Will, shows the direct opposite!
There's a lot one could get into here, but it still remains a fact that modern mass democracy, combined with the related rights of freedom of speech and conscience, are very substantially the product of Christian influence. It's all to do with the idea of equality, which many people don't realise came from the Bible rather than Enlightenment thinking or pagan philosophy. When people use the idea of equality to attack Christian thinking, e.g. in relation to minority rights, they often fail to realise that they are actually using a Christian argument. In fact, we wouldn't even be having these kind of debates but for the influence of the Christian faith over many centuries. In emphasising the essential value of every individual human, Christianity encourages us to think that everyone should have the same rights and freedoms. Whereas in many other cultures (outside the traditional Christian sphere, I mean) this kind of thinking would be considered absurd. I strongly recommend The Book That Made Your World (by an Indian intellectual) for more investigation of these issues, including a very useful contrast with Indian theology and practice. Also, The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener.
I wish I could believe you! It would be so simple but reality is that Orthodox Christianity is anything BUT the source of democracy and freedom! The Roman Catholic Church has opposed freedom and critical thinking for centuries. Likewise Fundamentalist Christianity is even less tolerant of alternate viewpoints. and critiques of perceived irrational “beliefs”. Their recalcitrant views of gays and other “heresies” brook no opposition to their wholesale condemnation of something which is clearly no whimsical “choice” but considered a spiritual path in many other religious traditions for example! Instead of trying to understand the spiritual underpinning of such things, their unrelenting condemnation of what is found thruout Nature which is the true manifestation of Creators Will, shows the direct opposite!
There's a lot one could get into here, but it still remains a fact that modern mass democracy, combined with the related rights of freedom of speech and conscience, are very substantially the product of Christian influence. It's all to do with the idea of equality, which many people don't realise came from the Bible rather than Enlightenment thinking or pagan philosophy. When people use the idea of equality to attack Christian thinking, e.g. in relation to minority rights, they often fail to realise that they are actually using a Christian argument. In fact, we wouldn't even be having these kind of debates but for the influence of the Christian faith over many centuries. In emphasising the essential value of every individual human, Christianity encourages us to think that everyone should have the same rights and freedoms. Whereas in many other cultures (outside the traditional Christian sphere, I mean) this kind of thinking would be considered absurd. I strongly recommend The Book That Made Your World (by an Indian intellectual) for more investigation of these issues, including a very useful contrast with Indian theology and practice. Also, The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener.