"Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilisation. To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."
— atheist philosopher Jurgen Habermas
Interesting. I wonder what convinced him of that.
6 comments:
I have no idea how he came to such a conclusion. The Bible condones slavery and places women below their husbands, so there goes liberty. The first commandment is "You shall have no other Gods before Me" which contradicts the idea of freedom of religion as a human right; prohibitions against blasphemy similarly go against free speech. And the ancient Greeks and Romans had democracy long before Christianity; the Israelites were theocrats/monarchists; and Jesus Himself said nothing about democracy.
First, the bible doesn't 'condone' slavery. It gives rules about how slaves and masters should interact, but doesn't actually encourage the having of slaves.
Second... it places women below husbands? This is such a disgustingly misunderstood concept. Sometimes I think people try to misunderstand the bible. The idea that Person A should submit to Person B does not make Person A less important than Person B. Nowhere does the bible say women are somehow inferior.
And yes Jesus didn't say anything about democracy. I don't even think democracy is the best governmental system. It's more the lesser of several evils. (Actually in theory a dictatorship would be ideal... if you could get a dictator who was corruption-proof... thing is, you probably can't. So we go with democracy which keeps the 'dictators' honest :P)
BUT back to my point, just because a person did not come up with the idea of democracy doesn't mean you can't use their teachings as inspiration or support for democracy.
Anyway chances are he had actually studied the bible more than you anyway :P
1. "Condone" doesn't mean the same thing as "encourage"; it basically means "not forbid" or "overlook". Given that the Bible, as you say, regulates slavery, rather than bans it, the statement "The Bible condones slavery" is correct.
2. If the husband is head of the household, and the wife must obey him, then, in a certain sense, she is "below" him.
The idea that Person A should submit to Person B does not make Person A less important than Person B. Nowhere does the bible say women are somehow inferior.
You seem to be conflating three different ideas: rank, importance, and, for want of a better term, betterness/worseness, which are not the same things. If Person A submits to Person B, then Person B is inferior in terms of rank, not necessarily importance or quality, like a private is inferior to a sergeant. I wasn't claiming that the Bible says that women are any worse/less important than their husbands, I was implying that women, being second to their husbands, have more constraint on their liberty. I should have been more clear.
And, yes, nowhere does the Bible come right out and say men are better/more important than women, but your God pretty obviously has a strong preference. Where are all the female prophets? And doesn't Genesis 2:18-20 kind of imply that women were an afterthought?
3. I agree with you that a benevolent dictator is better than democracy, but it's beside the point. The quote says Christianity is the foundation of Western democracy; it's not. Even if you can derive the idea of democracy from Christianity, that's not how it happened.
4. Anyway chances are he had actually studied the bible more than you anyway :P
If He was Who you think He was, then I hardly think He'd need to study the Bible. If he was who I think he was, then I half-agree, because he had no knowledge of the New Testament :P
YFNA
But you'll notice the bible does not attribute 'ranks'. While a woman might be instructed to submit to the man's ultimate decision, (within reason, as the bible instructs a person's first and foremost responsibility is to God - so if a husband instructed his wife to kill a person, or to do something fraudulent, or to steal, the bible would then advocate her NOT obeying the husband) he is also instructed to love her and to put her before himself. They are different, not inferior/superior.
I would suggest my marriage follows this outline, but it's not like my husband walks around making all the decisions without consulting me. In fact, a lot of decisions he says I can make up my mind. Many other times, when he's the one who has to make up his mind, he talks it over with me first. It's not like I don't get a say. If a husband behaved like that towards his wife, the bible would frown upon it as he is not loving or respecting his wife.
You might think Genesis implies woman was an after thought. Others might say a rough draft is always required before the final presentation :P Just because one comes after the other doesn't mean the second is less important. I think Genesis makes it pretty clear that men and women were made to complement each other. Perhaps God's intention in leaving Adam alone for a while at first was to highlight his need for a partner?
As for female prophets, dunno how many there were. There were definitely a few female judges (the 'judges' were basically Israel's rulers for a period in Old Testament history) and other women in the bible were praised as playing important parts in Israel's history (eg. Queen Esther - who basically saved all Israelites from a BC version of the holocaust; Rahab - a non-Israelite prostitute who helped some Israelite spies escape her city; Jael - who killed an enemy king, and to whom God specifically gave the honour of the victory as opposed to a male leader who was too scared to go into the battle on his own; Lydia is recorded as the first Christian convert in Europe; that's just a few). It's true the bible generally puts the role of spiritual leaders upon men. I don't see that as somehow making them more important. Personally, I'm glad I'm not landed with that kind of responsibility.
Oh and point 4... I was talking about the atheist who came up with the quote... not sure who you were talking about o.O
Ps. I just read quite a good book set just before, and during, the American Civil War. It's fiction, but good. It's written by a Christian author and it gives a good contrast between how the southerners construed the bible to support slavery and others (eg. northerners and negroes who could read) understood it to condemn slavery. It's called "A Candle in the Darkness" or something similar... not sure if you're male or female, but I get the impression you're a guy, and it's a bit of a chick book so you might not be interested.
Oh, I thought you were talking about Jesus... I should have noticed the lack of capitialisation. My mistake. I'm sure Habermas has studied the Bible more than me, but I still think he's wrong :P
The book you mention sounds interesting. I'm a guy, but I don't have any problem reading chick books.
YFNA
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