I’m not sure what this has to do with anything? Are you saying the stating an observation and a very legitimate argument that the judeo Christian faith is at its core one of the basis of how western civilization developed is me saying using the Bible is how a government should be ran? That’s not what I’m saying at all.
All I am saying is that religion has always been used for a purpose. It is not innocent nor slways good. The core values can be distorted and become morally wrong. From the Romans, to the Spaniards using it to “conquer” the new world, to shaping laws allegedly based on it, it is a weapon. It should be examined and questioned, not praised as a foundation.
Caesar to Caesar and all that jazz.
Here in Taiwan we have the pro unification and mafia fronts sheltered in Matsu and other deities temples. Economic power and social reach under temple guise
Isn’t it fun to see how ultra progressive and original those logical, intelligent, anti-God atheists are with the whole church/state separation idea by always repeating “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
very accurate observation.
even the devil believes in God.
The Roman Empire is no longer a going concern. But there’s always some rent-seeking bastard demanding ever more of your tax money while trying to evade accountability.
Jesus didn’t care because it was just money. He had bigger fish to fry. Atheists don’t have bigger fish to fry, and money is in fact important.
People these days who tell you to render unto Caesar are either Christians or Caesar wannabes. Maybe both. No other possibility that I can see. So if they’re not Christians…
…or even if they are…
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Even Christ loathed the temple merchants. Those were the targets of his greatest ire, aside from trees that gave no fruit. There is a lesson in there.
You mean he didn’t like merchants? Don’t understand your reference/lesson.
Jesus didn’t like the merchants conducting business in the house of his Father (the temple). They could do it elsewhere, just not there. That’s the simple analysis, imho.
Temple merchants = people making business in teh house of worship.
Exactly what you said. These people were selling offerings and profiting from faith. Hence the justified anger. He warned us.
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Is it a crutch and a hammer? Or a hammer and sickle?
The goddess of Reason didn’t do so well for the French Revolution.
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JP would resolve your argument by simply pointing out that organised religion and political zeal (eg., communism) are both predicated on the same thing: ideology.
Religious faith is qualitatively different from religiosity - it looks inwards (things you should do about your own self) rather than outwards (things that should be done about others).
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If you gaze into your navel long enough, your navel begins to gaze into you.
communism is appealing: just let the state take care of you, nothing to worry about
It’s no surprise to see 覺青 generation in Taiwan worshiping Carl Marx, because they’re particularly vulnerable to such a dangerous ideology.
It’s not being praised or advocated by me or anyone as far as I can tell. I’m simply making statement of observation that most historians far more educated in the matter would agree with.
It’s like me saying that the judeo christian faith is one of the major reasons why the west advanced so much more in science vs the East in the old world. And the reasoning behind it is because most scientist in the west were christians who believed truth can be discovered and known and understanding the natural world is a way of understanding the handy work of the creator in their minds.
Maybe youre caught up with the judeo christian faith, lets do islam. I’m a pretty hard critic of Islam but even I would be ignorant to ignore that Islam and the spread of it was a major factor in exchanges in culture and more importantly knowledge, and Islam was extremely important paving the way to modern science from the Islamic golden age of science.
But these things seemed to be forgotten and omitted in todays world of scientism where people seem to believe science and religion are mutually exclusive.
And I think we need to acknowledge that religions are very different from each other, and a blanket statement of religion is not doing the question any service. For example a religion that believes that man are created in the image of God and believes that god himself died for man might place more value in human life and develop into places where people believe in alienatable human rights vs another religion where their god and gods are impersonal and they are pawns might not do so?
Another point is, if you read Nietzsche, Marx, and dostoevsky (who I believed predicted the deaths of millions as a result of the removal of the judeo christian faith, although it’s been a while since I brushed up on them and they have a lot of info to digest) all grappled with the effects of the rise if Atheism. In fact, we don’t have to point to theories, we know from history…look at lenin, Stalin etc. Why do we act like nothing bad ever happened to Atheist states and the removal of religion is somehow the cure to make the world a better place. It’s simply not true from history, atheism caused just as much fucked up things as religions.
I think it’s not a far stretch to say the most brutal totalitarian states in modern history are atheist states.
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Like who, and what statement?
That “judeo-christian” trope is convenient now, but it was much less so throughout the bulk of Christianity’s history when Jews were actively persecuted in myriad ways.
Most everyone in the West have been Christians. Guess what, good luck not being one for the bulk of Christian history. The “truth” would have been made abundantly clear to you, and if you intended to have any position of responsibility, you could kiss that idea goodbye. As we have become more enlightened and science has spread, more and more people have recognized that religion is not required in any sphere, and non-Christian and non-theist scientists have performed science without any issue.
Over the majority of its reign, Christianity has brooked no opposition. It doesn’t get to take all the credit for advances of Western civilization. Who can say what the West would have done without it? Western civilization gets the credit (and the blame). Christianity was part and parcel of the whole, but just a system of ideas propagated and developed over time by Western and Mediterranean people in the end (unless you can prove otherwise 
)
They shouldn’t, and not to say that the contributions of religious people to science should be ignored either. But be clear about the context.
Maybe, but what kind of people would tend to embody humanist ideas in a religion and find them preferable and worth sustaining over time?
People take this small sample of communism, which was officially atheist, and run with it. But how was the history of Christian regimes over a much longer period of time? Beautiful and spotless? Things are different and more brutal in the modern age, no doubt, but religion doesn’t come away unscathed in this age either. Some thinkers have said that atheism may lead to discord, as you note. Many others have said that morality and humanism have no ultimate connection with religion. As Europe has become more secular, is there a clean line of increasing discord? Some countries are highly secular now. They don’t seem to be disintegrating. The US was deliberately founded as a secular government; how has that worked out? Atheism isn’t a “cure”, but nor is religion. Whether religion is necessary is the question.
I try to digest different opinions. I am guilty, as are some others on this Forum , of poking fun at Religion, as I don’t believe. This article on the changes in Society (even from a Liberal source 
), was interesting. I feel that jesting so much about a “belief” , may be unfair, even when I see inconsistencies in justification. Ours is not to reason why, I feel maybe I should be more understanding of Believers maybe…and the far Left …wait …no…
A significant trend going on throughout the Catholic Church nowadays is that the only growth in church attendance (quite distinct in terms of relative size) is coming at traditional latin masses, with demand in particular from the millennials, young married couples, and the pre-VCII crowd. Full pews are de rigueur for TLM, with even the ladies wearing the traditional head veils.
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Nope , I can’t resist 
Proving atheists are just literalists who treat genesis as their science textbook? Unimpressed.
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Happy for you to make fun of my views. I accept it.
I apologize for any hurtful feelings. I’ll pray a rosary for u, how bout that.
(Just no coffee for the whole entire world that’s been damaged by “Christian regimes” as reparations)
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