Chap wrote:Yup. None of the major cultures outside Christendom have ever had any educational institutions for the young, any charitable institutions for the helpless and sick - or indeed any government, for that matter. Till the missionaries came, they just milled around biting and scratching each other.
Chap , I find it very difficult to imagine a mind set so narrow as to seriously imagine such limitations out side of christendom. Obviously you do not see Japan that way. I do not see Japan that way.
I believe all cultures have positive wisdom and posive human relationships which contribute to the Kingdom of God.
I do not believe that Christianity is a pill that transforms people into angels. I do not believe that Chrisendom is the Kingdom of heaven. Christendom is a collection of cultural good and ill. It is the past and full of a surplus of straw.
Buffalo, I have some reservation about wrapping thousands of years history into a simple comparison. In general I do not share your perception. It would be closer to my concern to consider which culture developed secular humanism. I probably ask that because I do not see humanism as something outside of my faith. Because I find it such a natural part of myself I easily see it as connected to Christianity.
For the majority of the time from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance Western Europe was an armpit of ignorance, superstition, plague, and tyranny.
It wasn't until the influence of the Moorish invaders and their tradition for medicine, math, universities, libraries and such sparked the Renaissance that the influence of the western world started to grow for the improvement of the condition of mankind.
For about 1000 years the western christian culture was more of an impediment than a help.
It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener at war.
Some of us, on the other hand, actually prefer a religion that includes some type of correlation with reality. ~Bill Hamblin
SteelHead wrote:For the majority of the time from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance Western Europe was an armpit of ignorance, superstition, plague, and tyranny.
It wasn't until the influence of the Moorish invaders and their tradition for medicine, math, universities, libraries and such sparked the Renaissance that the influence of the western world started to grow for the improvement of the condition of mankind.
For about 1000 years the western christian culture was more of an impediment than a help.
Aristotle Smith wrote:You are addressing a different issue. The issue is not that people are claiming to follow a true religion.
Wrong--I am not addressing the issue of whether people claim to follow a true religion. I am addressing your mischaracterization of this epistemological tomfoolery as primarily a Mormon problem. Here is how I summarized it in my previous post: “In other words, this isn't just a Mormon way of framing the question; it's basic human nature.”
Tell you what, Mr. Spock, why not put me back on ignore if you don’t intend on reading my posts before replying to them?
SteelHead wrote:For the majority of the time from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance Western Europe was an armpit of ignorance, superstition, plague, and tyranny.
It wasn't until the influence of the Moorish invaders and their tradition for medicine, math, universities, libraries and such sparked the Renaissance that the influence of the western world started to grow for the improvement of the condition of mankind.
For about 1000 years the western christian culture was more of an impediment than a help.
He has spoken as a man. Popes can have a day off. (if, and only if they don't cut off the hot line)
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
