The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Praising Christianity.....or trying to.

Praising Christianity.....or trying to.
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, December 24 2011, 19:10:39 (UTC)
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This is the last half of an article purporting that Christianity is more important to our culture than we think...

These days, there is a lot of talk about religion - Christianity in particular - and its role in public life. Whether it is protesting Nativities, the debate over “In God We Trust” as our country’s motto or the controversy surrounding the public faith of Tim Tebow, a national discussion is taking place on what the present and future role of Christianity in America should be.

...this "discussion" was not prompted by atheists...it was forced upon us by evangelical Christians alarmed that we were doing so well without their Jesus...what this preacher is calling a "dialogue" I remember more as a harangue...a shouting at people in parking lots and malls and theatres that "JESUS LOVES YOU...you ASSHOLE"!!! No atheist or anyone of good and decent morals began this "conversation"...in fact talking about Jesus was the LAST thing any of us were interested in...and we were just fine with that...it was the Jesus-people who weren't happy about it...and so they began crying that WE were attacking THEM, when all we were doing was ignoring them.


The consensus among the secular elites seems to be that it is a bit like smoking: It is harmful, but if you must do it, do it in the designated areas only.

...Okay, very cute. How about, "it's more like a private belief, so how about keeping it to yourself"? That reflects our attitude much better....no one is saying Christianity kills you (though a good case can be made), we're just saying you should keep it to yourself and stop intruding it on everything we do.

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford scientist and atheist provocateur, calls Christianity a “mental virus” that should be eradicated.

....a Church that damns people seems to me to be the provocateur...Dawkins is a teacher.

The professor should be more careful in what he wishes for. Like many others, he grossly underestimates the degree to which his own moral and intellectual sensibilities have been informed by the Judeo-Christian worldview.

..."informed" isn't the right word...Christianity has intruded itself on our every sleeping and waking moment..it enters a child's head at two and his arse at four...it butts into what we read, what we watch, what sex positons we choose, what women do with their bodies, what paintings are aceptable, what speech, whether we can say "damn" or "bloody", what we eat, what we do at work, how we treat a king or president...after having entered every orifice, by force, it now tells us it is "indispensible to our way of life"...if that were true it would not have need an Inquisition, or iron bars or the gibbet or the stake to get its message across.

"It’s a Wonderful Life" is a fitting metaphor for a nation absent Christian belief. Jesus Christ said that his followers were to be like “salt”; that is, a people whose presence is felt for the good that they do.

....what about all the non-Christians who do good? It seems good people do good...whether they ever heard of Jesus or any religion.


As a man or woman’s evil nature is gentled and restrained by the grace of God, there is a corresponding outward transformation of society. The data bears this out.

...evil natures are also forgiven by God...over and over.

According to the research of The Barna Group, Christians are the most charitable segment of the population by a substantial margin. Hence, any society that is liberally sprinkled with them has a greater concern for the poor, sick, orphaned and widowed - “the least of these,” as Jesus called them. (This is precisely what Nietzsche, and Hitler after him, hated about Christianity.)

...I'd have to know more about the Barna Group before I buy any of this...these people are famous for lying, and for setting up their own "groups" to do questionable research.

...you could also say that research shows that Casino owners regularly give away more money than any other business...of course they keep a lot more than they pay out...and if they didn;t pay out they'd soon find no money coming in...the Church is the same way...on the claim that they do charitable works the Church receives a tax-free ride the rest of us must pay for, and to maintain that status they have to give some of it away...it's the price of doing business, nothing more.

But Christian influence goes well beyond benevolence: Our laws, art, literature and institutions find meaning in a rich Christian heritage.

...that didn't happen of its own accord. The Church stole so much money from peasants it raised to be fearful and ignorant that they became among the greatest patrons of arts and architecture...they also stifled creativity by ONLY funding religious themes....the heavy influence of Christianity came about because the Church KILLED the competition.


In his new book "Civilization: The West and the Rest," Harvard historian Niall Ferguson argues that the decline of the West can, in part, be attributed to the decline of a robust Christian presence in Western culture. Ferguson’s point is largely an economic one, but the inference that Christianity has served to strengthen the fabric of life in the West as we have known it is unmistakable. T.S. Eliot made a similar observation: “If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes.”

...the whole of our CHRISTIAN culture goes, and that would be a good thing. I can train a child to be "good" and obedient by regular beatings and fear-mongering, or by bribes and treats...I may make an obedient slave, a cringing peasant or a ditzy citizen, but at the price of destroying Reason and humanity. There are short-cuts one can take, and the Church provides one of the best...but that's been our problem...we have people with a light veneer of decency, but scratch the surface only a little and the Christian beast leaps out.

That is just another way of saying that the difference between a nation with meaningful Christian influence and a nation without it is the difference between Bedford Falls and Pottersville.

...fuck you. There are and have been lots of nations without Jesus...and you may ask where they went to...well, Jesus-people attacked and destroyed them. Take tha war against Iraq brought to that innocent people by Christians...there's a Pottersville for you!

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Larry Alex Taunton.

...yes, and they are just that...opinions.



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