How We Forget

atheism, atheist, d'souza, christianity, christian, slavery, freedom, infanticide, religion,
I've heard of Dinesh D'Souza before, but this is the first time I've ever read anything by him, and I have to say, not impressed. I'm not impressed by the atheist bashing, and I'm not impressed by the amazing history fails.

(The article itself is fairly long, so I'm going to indulge in some ". . ." for brevity's sake.)

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he called the proposition “self-evident.” . . . This idea of the preciousness and equal worth of every human being is largely rooted in Christianity.

Since when? Many Christian sects today do not consider all human beings to be inherently equal. What about Christian homophobia? Would Mr. D'Souza claim that gaybashing fundies recognize the inherent equality of all human beings? What about complementarians? Would Mr. D'Souza claim that people who think wives should obey and be subservient to their husbands consider all human beings equal? Clearly not.

Those examples are just two modern examples of inequality in Christian thought. What about 50 years ago when many Christians believed that whites and blacks should not be allowed to intermarry because blacks were unequal to whites? What about 200 years ago when Christians believed that slavery was acceptable for the same reason?

. . .

In ancient Greece and Rome , individual human life had no particular value in and of itself. The Spartans left weak children to die on the hillside. Infanticide was common, as it is common even today in many parts of the world. Fathers who wanted sons had few qualms about drowning their newborn daughters. Human beings were routinely bludgeoned to death or mauled by wild animals in the Roman gladiatorial arena. Many of the great classical thinkers saw nothing wrong with these practices. Christianity, on the other hand, contributed to their demise by fostering moral outrage at the mistreatment of innocent human life.

Really? Do I really need to mention the Crusades? All 9 of them? There's always the Spanish Inquisition if the Crusades aren't enough.

. . .

Christianity did not immediately and directly contest patriarchy, but it helped to elevate the status of women in society. The Christian prohibition of adultery, a sin it viewed as equally serious for men and women, and rules concerning divorce that (unlike in Judaism and Islam) treated men and women equally, helped to improve the social status of women.

First of all, when did Christianity as a whole ever directly contest patriarchy? In most Christian sects, women are not allowed to lead congregations or achieve positions of power. In many Christian sects today, women are regarded as little more than fetal containers for the next generation of worshippers.

Secondly, the "Christian" prohibition of adultery? Is Mr. D'Souza forgetting what part of the bible the ten commandments are found in? That would be the Jewish prohibition of adultery.

. . .

Mr. D'Souza's defense against Christianity's support of slavery is downright laughable.

But Christianity, from its very beginning, discouraged the enslavement of fellow Christians. We read in one of Paul's letters that Paul himself interceded with a master named Philemon on behalf of his runaway slave, and encouraged Philemon to think of his slave as a brother instead. Confronted with the question of how a slave can also be a brother, Christians began to regard slavery as indefensible. As a result, slavery withered throughout medieval Christendom and was eventually replaced by serfdom.

You know what the difference is between slavery and serfdom? Very little.

Serfdom is the socio-economic status of unfree peasants under feudalism, and specifically relates to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe. Serfdom was the enforced labour of serfs on the fields of landowners, in return for protection and the right to work on their leased fields

Bragging that Christianity replaced slavery with serfdom is like bragging that you quit heroin by taking meth.

. . .

The end of the article includes this amazing warning about the decline of civilization at the hands of atheists, completely without facts.

Let me conclude with a warning first issued by one of Western civilization's greatest atheists, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The ideas that define Western civilization, Nietzsche said, are based on Christianity. Because some of these ideas seem to have taken on a life of their own, we might have the illusion that we can abandon Christianity while retaining them. This illusion, Nietzsche warns us, is just that. Remove Christianity and the ideas fall too.

because atheists don't have morals, or value civilization. we're all crazy anarchic nihilists, just waiting for the chance to blow it all to kingdom . . .um, well, nowhere, I guess.

Consider the example of Europe , where secularization has been occurring for well over a century. For a while it seemed that secularization would have no effect on European morality or social institutions. Yet increasingly today there is evidence of the decline of the nuclear family. Overall birthrates have plummeted, while rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births are up.

And how is that bad, exactly? care to give my some facts and figures on how that is affecting people in Europe? basically, Mr. D'Souza is arguing that divorce and low birthrates are bad because they are. Bad, that is. No studies, no facts, no figures, just a bald assertion.

Nietzsche also warned that, with the decline of Christianity, new and opposing ideas would arise. We see these today in demands for the radical redefinition of the family, the revival of eugenic theories, and even arguments for infanticide.
In sum, the eradication of Christianity—and of organized religion in general—would also mean the gradual extinction of the principles of human dignity. Consider human equality. Why do we hold to it? The Christian idea of equality in God's eyes is undeniably largely responsible. The attempt to ground respect for equality on a purely secular basis ignores the vital contribution by Christianity to its spread. It is folly to believe that it could survive without the continuing aid of religious belief.

if you're going to tell me that atheism causes eugenics and infanticide, at least give me a link. i have no idea what the fuck Mr. D'Souza is talking about, and no proof that Mr. D'Souza does, either.

and i do enjoy the idea that atheists are not capable of maintaining freedom. because we don't benefit from it or anything. apparently, we're not just anarchic nihilists, we're slavers, too!

If we cherish what is distinctive about Western civilization, then—whatever our religious convictions—we should respect rather than denigrate its Christian roots.

and keep the atheists from killing the babies, apparently.