WHAT DID THE ROMANS EVER DO FOR US, II

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WHAT DID THE ROMANS EVER DO FOR US, II

November 6, 2003

Comments

Dean Esmay continues our discussion on the relative contributions of the religious and not-so-religious. His post is long and worth reading. A couple of excerpts to give you the flavor:

Of the other great mass-murderers of the 20th century, however, a disturbing number were atheists. This would include Pol Pot, Mengistu, Lenin, Trostky, Stalin, and of course Mao. Not to mention comparatively minor murdering thugs like Castro or Noriega. Between them, they murdered about 100 million people through prison camps, intentional starvation, death squads, and mass execution.

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We can point to all sorts of good things that religion has given to the world: democracy, the forgiveness of one’s vanquished enemies, abolition of slavery, child labor laws, the banning of torture, the civil rights movement, and quite a bit more. Even now, the faithful run most of our soup kitches, homeless shelters, battered spouse shelters. Throughout Africa, most health care is provided free by Christian missionaries.

As I note in his comments section, Christianity got going in roughly, what, 30 AD? Slavery existed in Christendom until at least 1865. I’m not sure when “democracy” became the norm in the West, since the definition is disputable (Do women have to have suffrage? racial minorities? The poor?). But, clearly, we can’t give credit for it to the Christians since the establishment of modern democracy is certainly no more than 250 years old, even by the most generous estimates. Ditto civil rights and all the rest.

Further, none of the things Dean attributes to “Christianity” can be credited to the Roman church in any case. None of them would have happended without the Reformation and the breakdown of the corrupt hierarchy of the Roman church.

And, to reiterate the point I’ve made on this topic from time to time, it’s as absurd to blame atheists for Stalin’s purges as it is to blame Christianity for Jonestown.

2 responses to “WHAT DID THE ROMANS EVER DO FOR US, II”

Pietro

November 6, 2003 at 11:35 am

James-

It’s been fun watching this discussion between two people that logically should agree at least in principle. I’m just wondering if the facts are being left behind in this flurry of posts.

1. First, you mention the idea that “Slavery existed in Christendom until at least 1865”. Hey, well, I have news for you. Slavery can be traced back at least to the Roman Empire, and if you consider the time of the Biblical Exodus a historical feature, thousands of years prior…. well before Christianity. Also slave trading in Africa wasn’t confined to Christians, but also involved secular European profiteers and Islamic missionaries since about the 15th century.
Most importantly, the Bible specifically lists slave traders with murderers, adulterers, perverts, and other evil people in I Timothy 1:10. The entire book of Philemon is devoted to Paul’s encouragement to Philemon to free Onesimus, an escaped slave. Slavery was a fact of life in ancient eras… but it certainly wasn’t a product of Christianity.
2. On Democracy: Lord Acton, in his History of Freedom, said it best: “Christianity introduced no new forms of government, but a new spirit, which totally transformed the old ones.” Tocqueville concluded: “Thus religious people are naturally strong just at the point where democratic peoples are weak. And that shows how important it is for people to keep their religion when they become equal.”; in other words, when democracy and religion are both strong, they coexist and are even complementary of each other. Christianity may not have originated democracy (which, by the way, is a product of Plato’s ancient Greece) but it certainly enhanced it for the better, such as in the formation of the United States.
3. Further, none of the things Dean attributes to “Christianity” can be credited to the Roman church in any case. None of them would have happended without the Reformation and the breakdown of the corrupt hierarchy of the Roman church.
That’s assuming that the Roman Catholic church is the true embodiment of Christianity. If nothing was wrong with the Catholic order of things, I’d scarce think it would need a reformation in the first place. Needless to say, corruption is a human problem…. God never said humans would never be prideful and power-hungry; even in a religious vacuum, the flesh can be overpowering.
3. Comparing Stalin to Jim Jones is comparing apples and oranges. Unlike Stalin, who forced Christians to cease all practice and appearance of religion against their will, Jim Jones didn’t convince anyone but his brainwashed believers to drink the koolaid – and without use of force. While it may be argued all atheists aren’t to blame for one’s actions, many of Stalin’s evils were explicitly directed so as to implement a forced atheistic society. That’s a tenet of Communism, a direct product of atheist and evolutionary thought.
James Joyner

November 6, 2003 at 11:42 am

Pietro,

1. Right. My point isn’t that Christianity is responsible for slavery; it isn’t. Just that abolition of slavery, while certainly influenced by a very modern rendition of Christian teaching, took place very late in the game for Christianity to get the lion’s share of the credit. The Enlightenment and other forces had to exist first.

2. Ditto. Sure, “democracy” goes back to ancient Greece, but suffrage and indeed citizenship itself was very, very narrowly held. But we had lots of Christian despots before democracy emerged. The Protestant Reformation was a huge part of that shift, as was the Enlightenment. But not Christianity per se.

3(1). That’s a respond to another part of Dean’s post.

3(2). Stalin wasn’t motivated by religion but by power. Jones was motivated by his perverse version of religion. But they were just men, not movements.

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