An odd thing I discovered by accident about our Christian nation · 4:46pm Nov 14th, 2015
I was using Google n-grams to try to find out whether English speakers substituted the word "European" for "Christian" in the recent past, and this was what I found instead:
This shows that American publications had a sudden increase in the use of the word "Christian" around 1730. This was the First Great Awakening, a revival of emotional and rigorous Christianity, which according to the graph tapered off to nothing by the time of the American Revolution. That graph is drawn with a smoothing of 5, meaning each point is averaged with 5 neighboring point on each side before plotting. The number of uses of the word "Christian" in American texts in Google's database in 1781 is actually zero. The year that the United States first became a nation was the only year in history that it didn't print the word "Christian" once in a book. (Note these numbers are percentages, not totals.)
Then, immediately after the revolution, the use of the word "Christian" shot up to revival levels, and has declined very slowly since, always staying over 3 times as high as it was during the revolutionary period. This pattern does not appear in the British English data, which has a gentle decline to 1781 followed by a gradual increase.
(I don't know how Google separates British English from American English during a time period when they were, as far as I know, the same. There must be many British authors in the American set, and American authors in the British set, so the true difference between them is even sharper.)
This suggests that the American revolution was [EDIT] appropriated immediately afterward by Christians.[/EDIT]
Which is why the Constitution made the Bible the sole source of legal authority in the US, outlawed all religions except Christianity, and encouraged the prosecution of journalists or anyone else who sought to question either. That's ultimately why Americans quickly rejected the Constitution and returned to the previous regime, just like the Egyptians did. And today we are still part of the Empire On Which The Sun Never Sets.
Yes, that's sarcasm.
Sorry, I'm not buying it. If this is a serious argument it's poorly-reasoned, and if it's a troll it is very poorly-timed.
There's always this of course.
EDIT:- Also, the correlation between the incidence of a word in print and it's importance in society might be strongish today, but in the eighteenth century, not so much I think, since the printed word was much more the province of a privileged subgroup.
3542078
Generally agreed. This is a bit like arguing that only one thing can be happening in a society at any given time, and thus that all social movements within a society are actually the same movement. Not even facets of the same movement—the argument here seems to be more that anything Americans did in the post-revolutionary period was necessarily a recontextualization of the revolution. Feels a bit like how conspiracy theories get formed—all data must arise from a single deterministic process.
It's because politics. Political speeches and commentary and books lead to the use of the word Christian.
Let me be more specific about why I think this is a poorly-reasoned argument. You are attempting to:
1) Equate two movements that differ very widely in time, place, antecedents and outcomes...
2) ...through an analysis of one variable...
3) ...that may not be reflective of whatever it is you're trying to measure (religious extremism? Bad outcomes related to religion? What?)...
4)...and which may not be all that accurately reported.
This reminds me of nothing so much as William Shockley's arguments about IQ and race. No, I don't think you're a bigot or in any way a bad person. I do think that like Shockley you are a very intelligent academic who is misusing his intelligence and academic knowledge to advance a weak, flawed argument because for you, on an emotional level, it makes some sense of a chaotic and unhappy world.
Finally, although you are attempting to address religious history, I have to question even your basic knowledge of the subject because of...
...this. This is like me saying "the oftener you throw those dice, Bad Horse, the sooner they'll come up snake eyes." After you'd gotten through screaming and cursing and jumping up and down on my ribcage, you would recommend to me a good basic text on Statistics because I obviously didn't know what the hell I was talking about.
Puritans didn't call themselves Puritans because they thought they were morally purer than others (though of course many did)* but because they wanted to purify the Church of England of residual Catholic ritual and doctrine. As such it was a movement both dogmatic (though primarily in reaction to a previous dogma) and specific to England. The First Great Awakening had no such narrow political goals but emphasized instead subjective spiritual experience and personal knowledge of God. Its followers could not have been less dogmatic or more ecumenical. Compared to the Puritans they were more like the Puritans' contemporaries, the Separatists, who were not Puritans, as any Puritan would loudly and emphatically tell you (settlement groups that we Americans refer to as "Puritans" in fact contained large numbers of Separatists--even as far back as those turkey-and-pumpkin-pie-eating Plymouth Pilgrims, whose commemorative feast is coming up here in the States).
I realize that you, like all of us, are enraged and horrified by the attack on France. I applaud your desire to try to make sense of it through analysis of objective data. But your analysis is so flawed, your data so jejune, and your conclusion so flip and provocative that it comes off more like a rant by Bill Maher
You're better than that
*Though did you know that they liked their beer, wore bright colors, thought (married) sex was perfectly unsinful and considered virginity overrated?
I think that it is an interesting data point, and I do think that the Christians in the United States did try and claim the revolution for themselves. That being said, I don't think it was really "hijacked" by it so much as incorporated into religious mythology in later decades. It wasn't just usage of Christian that cratered in 1781 as well; God and Providence both fell to extremely low levels in American English that year as well.
But I think it is fair to say that the US was founded at a hole in time when rationalism and the ideals of the Enlightenment were at high tide - it explains a lot of the oddities of the United States when compared to other countries. The idea that the government does not have absolute authority to do whatever it wants, the idea that there is some power that the government simply does not have, the idea of branches of the government pushing back against each other, ect. were all pretty unusual ideas. The sort of unmitigated freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, ect. that were encoded in the Constitution early on were products of the Enlightenment and the rational secularism of the time.
Many of the ideals of the Enlightenment were rebuked by the Second Great Awakening which started somewhat after the Constitution was written.
3542078 Thank you
3542403
You're welcome, but I'm not sure what you're thanking me for. I should perhaps tell you that I am not religious at all. I just thought the argument has a bunch of holes, and was rather ill-timed besides.
But, straying somewhat off-topic, I am not anti-religious and I think the current strain of they're-all-equally-bad atheism is intellectually dishonest and unhelpful against extremism.
3542381
A long time ago I heard it said that there are in fact two Americas, the America of the pilgrim fathers and the America of the enlightenment. Further, that the history of the U.S. is essentially the record of the tension and conflict between these two Americas.
Now perhaps the above statement generalises, but I have long found it a usefull frame in which to view the U.S.
Given that we are (in part) speaking of the revolutionary war, I should, in the interests of self-disclosure, reveal that I'm British, read into that what you will.
3542443
That sounds like a rewriting of history based on post-1960's tensions between American conservatives and American liberals.
The deeply religious Yankees of New England hated slavery with a resoluteness that would have made Voltaire proud. Meanwhile stout scions of the Enlightenment like Jefferson kept slaves all their lives.
People who come up with simple, glib historical analogies are usually selling something. It might be something you actually want to buy, but be aware that you are, in fact, being sold something.
3542418 And so I thank you.
I don't mind people not liking religion (specifically Christianity; I am a Christian myself), but at least be fair about it.
Comparing Christianity to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Obviously, Bad Horse has never met any of them, if he is willing to compare the two as equals.
This sort of...atheist pseudosophistication is, quite frankly, infuriating, and is something I expect from the likes of that "Freedom From Religion" hack.
Note: When I say atheist in this sense, I do mean antireligious, not strictly atheist in the textbook definition of the term. Sorry if I offended.
3542251 It was sloppy of me to use the word "Puritan". The person I most associate with the First Great Awakening is Jonathan Edwards, and I associate him with puritanism. My impression of the event is that strict morality was high on its list of concerns. That's not the same as being Puritan, but it is related. (And, yes, I used the term "Puritan" for Separatists, because... that's what we do in America, not having many Cromwellians. I'm not sure whether it would be more or less confusing to use your terms.)
As to my post being "ill-timed", I'd be very interested in the reasoning by which a terrorist attack by Muslims in Paris makes it a bad time to question the Christianity of America.
3542078 You're right that the American revolution wasn't hijacked in that the laws didn't become more Christian, and the people involved didn't change. Though I must ask: What else could have happened? Probably over 99% of the population was Christian. Nobody was going to bother writing laws saying that people had to be Christian. Everybody was Christian except the slaves. What they argued about was which type of Christian to be.
What seems to have happened is that immediately after the war, Christian sects became politically active, fighting with each other over how much freedom of Christianity the US would have. The Congregationalists had had a good thing going in New England before the war; the states supported them, and everyone was required to pay taxes to support Congregationalist ministers. They wanted to keep it that way after the war. The Baptists wanted very much not to have to pay taxes to the Congregationalists, and were crucial in creating the First Amendment, and elicited the letter from Jefferson with the words "separation between church & state".
But the Revolution was hijacked culturally by Christians, in that today Christian churches teach that the Revolution was entirely Christian. I've been in many Christian churches, and all of the Protestant ones made that claim. Take, for instance, this quote from a chapter read at a book club I attended last week:
And I found this deceptive text today on the Library of Congress' website:
This appears to be false. The revolution and Christianity were nearly mutually exclusive; people interested in one were not much interested in the other. The 2nd Awakening was, says Wikipedia, largely Methodist and Baptist. According to the Barratt's Chapel Museum website, John Wesley sent 8 Methodist ministers to America before the Revolutionary War. 6 of them returned to England when the war began. Francis Asbury, the most important one, was undecided which side he wanted to win the war, according to his journal entry of April 5 1783.
3542089 That's not the 2nd Great Awakening that I'm pointing out in that graph. Check the biographies of the people listed as prominent members of it. Most of them weren't even born when the Revolutionary War began. The sudden return to currency of the word "Christian" was complete by 1790. The 2nd Great Awakening had hardly begun by 1800, and would be more centrally located in the years 1810-1830.
3542453
The second worst terrorist attack in American history was committed by a Christian white-supremacist militiaman.
The KKK was an American protestant Christian terrorist organization which hated Yankees, Jews, Catholics, and brown people.
The Southern Baptists justified slavery by claiming that dark skin was the mark of Cain - that their skin was stained black by the sins of their ancestors.
There are lots of Christian groups, both past and present, who are analogous to the Muslim Brotherhood. Heck, 57% of Republicans today want to make Christianity the national religion of the United States.
Are all Christians in this category? No, no more than all Muslims are members of the Muslim Brotherhood. But they exist and are fairly numerous.
3542381
I think that's a curious thing to say, and I am curious as to why you say it.
For myself, I think no "claiming" is necessary: the American Revolution, while not an explicitly Christian undertaking, was undertaken mostly by Christians. This was because theAmericans of the time were, like the English they rebelled against, overwhelmingly Christian. The great migrations that would change this lay in the future, and the future hadn't happened yet, Mr. McFly.
So by and large it was Christians who wrote the Declaration of Independence, manned the Continental Army, and wrote, amended and adopted the Constitution. Not because Christianity is such a uniquely enlightened creed (I do not think it is) but because Christians were the ones who were pretty much the only ones around to, as Woody Allen put it in his Brief yet Helpful Guide to Civil Disobedience, "show up and do the revolting."
If you wanted to argue, as some right-wingers do, that the American Revolution turned out as well as it did because of Christianity, I think you'd have a pretty hard case to make. But if you wanted to argue that Christians and Christianity had nothing to do with it then you'd have no case at all
3542517
I call shenanigans.
The casualty count in the last 50 years isn't even close. You can equate the two in ideology and extremism, but in terms of size, threat and sheer number of people killed, the two are nowhere near.
And if you want to count all ideologies, not just religious ones, then the purges, gulags and enforced famines of an explicitly atheist state, the Soviet Union, dwarfs them both together.
(Will TD drag in the Albigensian Crusade, folks? Get your bets in early!...)
You are engaging in exactly the sort of passive-aggressive blame-shifting that right-wingers engage in whenever there's a school shooting. They fetishize guns and can't possibly believe something bad could come of owning one. So they resolve the cognitive dissonance by saying things like "But look at how many people cars kill! Look at how many people get stabbed!"
I don't know what it is that you fetishize but a personal dislike of Christianity seems a safe bet. I don't know how you ended up that way--crazy-ass snake-handling parents, nasty little goyim picking on you in school-- but I'm sorry for it and you didn't deserve it. You seem to be an otherwise bright and likable person. But when another religion kills a bunch of people in Europe, and you take that opportunity to say how much you hate the Presbyterians down the street, I'm calling you on it.
3542517 1) McVeigh claimed agnosticism before his death, and his actions back that claim up; nowhere in the New Testament does it say anything about killing people for revenge.
2) The KKK can claim Christianity all they want; nowhere in the New Testament is there taught hatred for a man because of his race.
3) The Southern Baptists can talk all they want; Cain's Mark prevented him from harm by reflecting any wound given him by a man back onto his attacker (whether or not this is literal is a matter of some debate).
Besides that, I think you mean the belief several Baptists have that points to the part of Genesis where Ham mocked a drunk and naked Noah, who then cursed him to be the servant of his brothers.
Never heard of the "Black people have Cain's Mark" thing before.
And I live down South (not Baptist, but I know the culture).
And, once again, even if that was true (a big if, imho), nowhere does it say in the New Testament that it is okay to enslave people, regardless of color. In fact...
"New Testament writers’ position on the negative status of slavery was clear on various points: (a) they repudiated slave trading; (b) they affirmed the full human dignity and equal spiritual status of slaves; (c) they encouraged slaves to acquire their freedom whenever possible (1 Corinthians 7:20–22); (d) their revolutionary Christian affirmations, if taken seriously, would help tear apart the fabric of the institution of slavery, which is what took full effect several centuries later — in the eventual eradication of slavery in Europe; and (e) in Revelation 18:11–13, doomed Babylon (the world of God-opposers) stands condemned because she had treated humans as “cargo,” having trafficked in “slaves [literally ‘bodies’] and human lives” (verse 13, NASB). This repudiation of treating humans as cargo assumes the doctrine of the image of God in all human beings." (http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201104/201104_108_NT_slavery.cfm)
4) Luckily for us, the Constitution prevents the instatement of any religion as an official Government religion. However, once again, I encourage you to find an putline of beliefs for these analogous groups, and find out how many of those beliefs gel with what is in the New Testament.
The Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS are not the exception to Islam; they are the rule. Moderate Muslims (which are the majority, but a rapidly-shrinking one, unfortunately) are the exception.
Christians have one rule, given by the Christ Himself, and that is to Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.
Islam has Shari'ia Law, which oppresses everyone but Muslims.
Also note that while you made some distinctions abour "Christian" groups and beliefs, Bad Horse did not. And looking at the paper, Christianity has quite a few edges on Islam, anyway.
3542516
There is nothing to question. The United States is not and never has been a "Christian Nation." On that you and I are in violent agreement.
However, that wasn't what I was addressing and we both know it. What I was addressing was not the start of your post, but the end:
My point is that while there may never be a particularly good time to compare the competing Christian sects of postrevolution America to the Moslem Brotherhood (for fuck's sake!), doing it right after a bunch of Moslem extremists slaughter hundreds of concertgoers, diners and sports fans is a particularly bad one.
You seem to have thought better of it. I'm glad.
3542516
Horse, had you ever thought that your experience of Christianity might not be the whole of it?
It is certainly not mine. Nowhere in my childhood was any explicit link made between Christianity and America, the Revolution or the Consitution, and I was raised by devout Catholics and lifelong Republicans fifty years ago in a much more explicitly Christian society. Nor did I encounter it from my Protestant friends in California or when we moved to Southeast Texas.
I am not trying to deny the things you mention or your experience of them. But if my experience does not nullify yours, yours does not nullify mine.
I think I see what's going on here, though: you are about ten years younger than me, so you don't remember a time before Progressivism and Religion divorced, which happened in the 1970's with the rise of the Religious Right.
You never knew a world in which mainstream Protestant churches, as well as many small evangelical ones, advocated for progressive causes--as in fact many still do. You are entirely a creature of a culture which which has produced the Christianist conservatism which formed your experience, as well as Progressives who find offensive the idea that a Christian could ever have agreed with them.
For people allegedly uninterested in the Revolution, a great many Christians seem to have fought and died in it. I suppose they could have just been pawns of their Secularist masters. But then they also took a great interest in the even bigger revolution that came after, which involved creating a secular democratic government that would recognize complete freedom of religious conscience.
3542453
- Maryland's poorly-named Toleration Act of 1649 prescribed the death penalty for the denial of the Trinity.
- Boston once had a law banishing Quakers on pain of death. 10% of the Quakers who arrived at Boston in 1656-1661 were executed. The rest were beaten, imprisoned, had their belongings burned, and/or were sent away, usually back to England. After the Revolution, only Christians could hold office in Massachusetts, and Catholics were required to renounce the authority of the Pope. Non-Congregationalists in Massachusetts were required to pay taxes to the Congregationalist Church until sometime in the 19th century.
- Catholics were not allowed to practice their religion in Quebec until 1774. When George Washington sent Benedict Arnold to Canada in 1775, he gave him instructions to tolerate Catholicism. This toleration for Catholicism was one of the reasons Arnold gave for defecting to the British side. The Continental Congress, attempting to get Quebec to join their rebellion, said they would leave the Catholic problem up to that province to decide, "provided, however, that all other denominations of Christians be equally entitled to hold offices and enjoy civil privileges and the free exercise of their religion and be totally exempt from the payment of any tythes or taxes for the support of any religion." No freedom was suggested for non-Christians.
- The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 says, "That there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this Province, in preference to another; and that no Protestant inhabitant of this Colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right, merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons, professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably under the government, as hereby established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit or trust, or being a member of either branch of the Legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others their fellow subjects."
- The Delaware Constitution of 1776 says that all state officials must take this oath: "I, ____, do profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."
- In 1779, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill in the Virginia legislature stating that citizens could not be imprisoned on the basis of their religion, and could not be forced to pay for the churches of a state religion. It was defeated.
- Patrick Henry introduced a bill in 1784 in the Virginia legislature requiring all citizens to pay taxes to hire teachers to give state-sponsored Christian instruction. The bill did not pass.
- Jews and non-Christian theists were not allowed to vote or hold office in Pennsylvania until 1790. Atheists and deists (including Thomas Jefferson) were not allowed to reside in the state at all until then.
- Jews lost the right to vote and the right to give testimony in court in New York in 1737, but regained these rights before the Revolution. After the revolution, foreign-born citizens in New York State were required to take an anti-Catholic oath. Catholics were barred from public office until 1806.
- In 1727, it was still illegal to house or feed Jews in Connecticut. Jews were not allowed to vote or hold office in Connecticut until 1818. In 1843, there was an attempt to amend the Connecticut Constitution to allow Jewish synagogues to be built in Connecticut, but it was defeated.
- In South Carolina it was illegal for non-Protestants to hold office starting in 1759.
- In 1838 Mormons were barred from Missouri and at least 17 Mormons there were killed by mobs. More killings followed in Illinois. The Mormons eventually gave up trying to find any U.S. state that would allow them to live there and moved out to the territories.
What did the Muslim Brotherhood do in Egypt that compares with all that?
There was not a steady decline of religious persecution. Some state laws were more liberal in the 17th century, but were made less tolerant in the first half of the 18th. States had to be forced, slowly, over generations, to respect the US Constitution's first amendment. There might not be religious freedom in America today if the Revolution hadn't happened during the freakish, less-Godly years from 1770 to 1785. Possibly we needed a relaxing of religion to have a Revolution.
3542660 a) Once again...Find in the New Testament Bible where it says that to do these things is ok.
b) In answer to your question...nothing. They got kicked out of power before they could really get started.
3542660
In England they were burning witches and boiling counterfeiters in oil. It was the Seventeenth Fucking Century!
(Wait...should I capitalize "Fucking" in that context? Where's my fucking Chicago Manual of Style?)
3542660
Um...Horse? This is old news.
Not these particular items. They are new to me, and I'll take your word for them. Of course I agree that they are very bad and completely at odds with the ideals of the Revolution.
But your point, which I assumes is "See? The Constitution didn't make America perfect!" is the old news here. Why?
Because there was this thing. It was called slavery. It existed until it was wiped out in a huge and bloody war (that many people still say had nothing to do with Abolition).
People could be bought and sold like animals, fed and housed like animals, whipped like animals, and killed like animals. There were still problems with the concept of rights in America. And they dwarfed any of your examples.
A discussion about religion... and I'm not involved in it? I like this. This is good.
For what it's worth, I'm not sure the anti-Catholics back in the day didn't have a point. It's not obvious that loyalty to the Pope is compatible with loyalty to the Constitution. It could be argued either way. And if you think that the two really are incompatible, then it only makes sense to at least bar Catholics from holding office, if not from voting altogether.
3542660
Here, see for yourself. From those Neocon shills* over at the New York Times:
It is as if George Washington had persecuted Jews and Quakers, nullified the Supreme Court, imprisoned his political opponents en masse and broken up the presses.
But Washington didn't do any of those things despite it being the Eighteenth Century. The Moslem Brotherhood did them despite it being the Twentieth.
(Cue some Libertarian raving about the Whiskey Rebellion...)
*Yes, that's sarcasm too.
3542078 I refer you to my long comment above to show that full rights of citizenship were given only to Protestant Christians in all of the colonies both before and after the Revolution. I'm not aware of any state in which atheism was legal, or in which Jews were allowed to hold state office. Catholics in some cases could hold office if they agreed to obey the state before the Pope (which seems like a reasonable requirement to me).
3542569 The appropriating of the revolution by Christians is in their claims, made every day in America, not just that the founders were Christian, but that Christianity was the basis for the Constitution, that the founders were especially religious people, and that America needs to return to their strict religious faith.
3542630
Ah yes, the no true Scotsman fallacy. Hate to break this to you, but what the Bible says is pretty much entirely irrelevant to what Christians actually do in many cases. The Crusades were seen as holy, for instance, despite the Bible not justifying the idea of "holy war". There is prosperity theology, which is very popular on the far right and believes that God blesses Christians with wealth (which is not only absurd, but pretty much goes against Jesus's teachings).
Christians are defined by being members of organizations who self-identify as Christian groups, who believe in God and Jesus as the savior, ect.
1) Timothy McVeigh was undoubtedly heavily affiliated with the Christian Militia movement; he attended meetings, shared much of their rhetoric, and embraced similar white-supremacist ideology. Whether or not he said he was still affiliated with them at the end of his life, he was certainly so for a long period of time during the planning of the Oklahoma City Bombing, and a number of causes associated with the militia movement were associated with his own actions. Indeed, the bombing was in revenge for Waco, and the Waco whackdoodles were a crazy Christian sect themselves.
2) By this logic, suicide bombers aren't true Muslims.
3) Again, you're claiming no true Scotsman. These folks undoubtedly thought of themselves as Christians, and used the Bible to justify their beliefs and actions.
4) Doesn't matter whether or not your belief aligns with their beliefs; they are Christians, they believe that Jesus is the lord and savior, they go to church, ect.
I do understand that many Christians don't like the idea of Christian terrorists, but they exist. Christians have engaged in holy war on numerous occaisions (including against each other). There are people who want the Jews to rebuild the third temple because that will bring about Armageddon. These are real people, who go to real Churches, and read the Bible.
The fact that they are utterly nuts doesn't change the fact that they're Christians.
There are people who claim that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism because the Islamic terrorists interpret their religion differently. They are members of different sects or schools of thought within the religion, but they are undoubtedly Muslims, just as the Southern Baptists were (and are) undoubtedly Christians.
3542606
The only reason that Muslims win in recent times in the US is because of 9/11; otherwise, their death toll is quite low. In most years, more people are killed by Christian terrorists than Muslim terrorists in the US - it was why the FBI stopped publicizing their annual terrorism report under Bush, because it was embarassing to note that terrorism by Muslims was almost nonexistent in the US at that time (also, somewhat embarssing that the most successful terrorists in the US were probably the ecoterrorists, who killed no one but committed broad-scale property damage).
If you count all of American history if the Muslims wouldn't even come out ahead even WITH 9/11; lynchings claimed 4,743 lives on their own.
Globally, yes, Muslims beat out Christians in recent years. On the other hand, in the Central African Republic, Christians engaged in massive, broad-scale ethnic cleansing of Muslims in just the last few years (~600,000 displaced). You don't really hear about it because no one actually cares about what happens in Africa.
The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda would be another example of a very nasty group of Christians.
The thing is, it isn't that Christians are inherently nice (or inherently bad); it is that Christianity and modern ideas about humanism often go hand in hand. In places where they don't (Africa), bad stuff still happens.
It also depends on when you draw the line; if you draw the line at the last 50 years, that's after the bad guy Christians pretty much lost their battle in the West. If you say "in the last century", the Christians win out in terms of kill count thanks to Nazi Germany (well, amongst the religious, anyway; the Communists beat everyone. Thanks Mao and Stalin! Not to mention the Khemer Rouge, who do hold the distinction of killing the highest fraction of their population).
My mom is a liberal Catholic. Or was; I think she's irreligious now. I'm not sure if my dad ever was very religious.
I don't hate Christianity or Christians. I think, like all religions, that it is false, because I'm an irreligious atheist, but that doesn't mean I bear any particular animus towards Christians or Christianity in particular.
If I did bear any particular animus towards Christianity in specific, it would be because here in the US, the primary religion trying to exert its dominance over the law and other people is Christianity; Islam is an extreme minority religion which is broadly hated and has no real power here.
But I bear no particular animus towards, say, President Obama, or Pope Benedict (though I think that the Catholic Church needs to move into the 21st century on birth control and abortion). I don't think that Christians are in any way intrinsically evil, and I never said that they were. I don't hate the Congregationalists down the street; they have a rather vibrant rainbow flag flying over their church's sign, and have for a while.
My problem primarily lies in the idea that Islam is unique in terms of nasty religious folks; I think that's a very dangerous idea. The reality is that there are plenty of nasty religous folks in Europe and the US, but they're a minority here, and they are unable to really act out because we have strong central governments which don't tolerate that nonsense, as well as because even poor people in the US are much better than the world average, and thus have more to lose if they rebel.
The US government causes damage to these groups on a near-constant basis via infiltration and various other tactics which are largely unavailable to fight foreign groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The last time a Christian sect tried to stand up against the US government we put them under siege and 80 people died.
But I remember after 9/11 there were people advocating for nuking Mecca in revenge for 9/11. All you have to do is look at sites like Breitbart.com to see that there are plenty of absolutely vile people here in the US. I went there earlier today and found a screed by one person suggesting that the US expel all Muslims. Many Christian militia members fantasize about the fall of the US government and taking control afterwards.
Savagery continues to exist here, we just suppress it effectively. But that doesn't mean that there isn't an undercurrent of Christian extremism here, it is just unable to manifest itself. I don't want us to forget in fighting against Islamic extremism that we need to keep our boot on the throat of our local equivalents as well.
I'm not trying to say that the disorganized white-supremacist Christian terrorist groups in the US are comparable to ISIS. But there are people who wish that they were.
(Note to our European friends--don't take this too seriously. Bad Horse and I are just engaging in the great American tradition of having a knock-down drag-out political argument over Thanksgiving dinner. It's a little early and the dinner is virtual, but that doesn't diminish the warmth of our seasonal feelings
)
3542768
I'm sorry the Christians you know are, as it seems, mostly ahistorical bigots. But assuming those are the only, the majority of or the predomimant sort of Christians in America is itself ahistorical and bigoted.
I seem to have had better luck with Christians. So I'll thank you not to talk about my Christian friends that way, as none of them are ahistorical bigots. I doubt I could keep one as a friend if they were.
Likewise I'll thank you not to talk about my siblings that way--even the left-wingers, who are churchgoing Catholics unlike my very conservative self.
And I'll kindly thank you not to talk about my eighty-year-old parents that way. They are deeply knowledgeable of history and believe devoutly in a God Who expects them to respect people of all faiths as they'd respect people of their own, and Who,as they personally believe, would not damn a soul for the way he or she prayed.* And went to Mass every Sunday unless they were sick.
(And please don't say that made them hypocrites. Or my dad's dad-sense will tingle and he will come all the way up to Pennsylvania to punch you in the nose for insulting my mom, and I don't wanna have Christmas in the County Jail),
Anyway. Whatever. Eat your mashed potatoes, they're getting cold.
You...you want that other drumstick?
* IN WHICH I WOULD NEVER BE SO UNENLIGHTENED AS TO BELIEVE
3542842
Oh, well, we'll just leave out 9/11 then. It's clearly bad data--right? Anyway BUSH SUPPRESSED THE TRUTH!!1!!
Kermit Christ, why do I bother?
Also: you're attempting to blame Christianity for racism? Really?
Two things: one, racism, like sexism, flourishes even in places where there is no Christianity, and lynchings and other extrajudicial killings with it; two, to blame Christianity for postwar lynch laws is to ignore the work that vast numbers of Christians denominations and individual Christians did who worked against slavery. If you're going to blame those Christian sects that supported slavery and lynching--as well you should, and I heartily agree--you also need to credit those who worked against both.
Or you would if you were interested in an objective assessment of 19th-century American Christianity. But instead you're simply rationalizing your bigotry with a selected reading of history--exactly like a Southern apologist does And yet you seem to be well-educated. Oh well--so are many of them. So was Shockley, for that matter.
Speaking of racism--your rational materialistic self seemed to be a pretty big fan of eugenics, as I recall. Have you updated your plans for intellectually purifying the species through selective breeding?
3542960
Everything BH and TD say about Christians, you take as if they're talking about every single Christian. The obvious interpretation, and one that has yet to be contradicted in their posts, is that some Christians have done bad things, just as some Muslims have done bad things, and just like some Atheists have done bad things. It's like you're going way out of your way to be offended.
3542995
No, he's not.
Hey There
Not too sure how welcome another voice is, but I've always wanted to be part of some intellectual(?) internet debate and this seems like a good place to start.
I seek to gain understanding and, if I can, to give it. No offence ever intended
This idea seems to be at the heart of discussions when a religiously connected tragedy occurs. Though I don't understand how one could both be the majority and the exception to the rule. But one doesn't need to examine it too deeply, the number of individuals committing terrible acts is several orders of magnitude lower than the number belonging to any religion of discussion.
And as these acts do occur by people claiming variable religions it seems to me that understanding would be gained more by looking at these individuals than at what large nebulous group they say they belong to.
That's not to say there is no larger issue here, but the majority of Christians are very similar to the majority of Muslims, and the extremists of both are alike as well. If there is a problem it is because people either refuse to or are unable to reason things out. If a person believes something because it is written in an old book or because their parents/culture told them it was true, and they refuse to examine and test it, we will likely not ever be rid of people who do terrible things because of what they believe.
3542995
You seem to be arguing about things I'm not arguing for.
You also seem to be upset.
I'm not trying to attack you or upset you.
Er, what? I never said anything about the last thing.
Here's the problem:
#1 attack in the US: 9/11, 2996 dead.
#2 attack in the US: Oklahoma City, 168
#3 attack in the US: Wall Street Bombing (1920), 38 dead
These attacks are outliers from the usual success level of terrorist activities in this country. In fact, according to Wikipedia's list of death toll by terrorist attacks, Oklahoma City alone accounted for more deaths in a single incident than every other attack had in US history up to that point. 9/11 then upped the ante. But both were extreme outliers in terms of success of single terrorist attacks in this country.
Most terrorism in the US has been, at least historically, pretty small scale, and having a hugely successful incident requires a lot of luck. The bombing at the boston marathon killed only 6 people, for instance - so did the 1993 WTC bombing. A lot of terrorist incidents get headed off before they ever happen.
Had we caught the 9/11 people before it happened, people would barely even remember it - they would be laughing about how stupid terrorists were for believing they could pull something off like that. It required a lot of things to go right. In short - they got lucky. Indeed, most such terrorist plots fail.
Consider the FBI's 2002-2005 terrorism report:
So, let's see:
Successful attacks:
Eco-terrorists: 22
International terrorists: 1
White supremacists: 1
Unsuccessful attacks:
White supremacists: 8
Anarchist: 1
Anti-muslim: 1
Islamist group: 1
International terrorists: 3
Note that the FBI prevented a whopping zero eco-terrorist attacks, meaning that the Earth Liberation Front is apparently better at running terrorist operations in the United States than Al Qaeda.
In the old testament, Israel basically founded on the idea that the land was totally theirs, and they were totally right to murder everyone who was there beforehand because God said it belonged to them. This has caused some problems when applied to the present day.
ISIS uses Islam as a justification for raping and enslaving women.
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that many Christians used their religion to justify racism and slavery, because they totally did.
I was not suggesting that Christianity is the root of all evil. Tons of bad things have happened outside of the context of Christendom.
I am saying that Christianity has had such things in it the same as every other group.
The interplay between religion and these things is often two-way; religion is used to justify them, and then in turn these things become justified because the religion said so.
A number of Islamic/majority muslim countries have declared war on ISIS or are otherwise acting in opposition to it. This includes Iraq (two of the three parts of it, anyway), Syria (all six parts of it), Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE.
Does that change the fact that ISIS is a bunch of Islamic terrorists?
Of course not.
Same deal.
There were Christian groups who were avid abolitionists, and there were Christian groups who believed that keeping slaves was God's work. In fact, the reason that the Southern Baptist Conference exists in the first place is because they broke away from the Northern Baptists over slavery in 1845.
Just because not all Christians subscribed to the same doctrine does not change the fact that there were some Christians who totally did these things.
Sure. They did. Just as many Muslims oppose Al Qaeda/ISIS/(insert crazed Islamist group here).
I think widespread government-sponsored genetic engineering in the future is much more likely to be a plausible solution to such issues than attempts at preventing people from having children, especially given that we don't really know the genetic basis of intelligence, merely that it is highly heritable.
I don't think that it is something which is likely to be implemented within the next fifty years.
I do think that once it becomes possible to do this sort of thing, it is going to be very difficult to stop - everyone wants healthy, intellectually capable children who are free from disease and live long, happy lives free from depression and mental illness as much as possible. That doesn't mean that they love other children any less, but I think most people would believe that the choice to have a disabled child over a healthy child would be incredibly morally reprehensible. I think that someday it will be viewed in that way, and at that point, it will largely become inevitable, as it will be a moral imperative, much as how even nowadays we view people choosing not to grant their children modern medical treatment reprehensible.
Plus if they don't make it broadly available to the population, you're going to end up with a huge problem in terms of the class divide. Rich people already have tons of advantages, allowing them to pick out all the best genes as well on top of that while the rest of the population cannot will give them even more of an edge.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that the reason a lot of pro-contraception/abortion folks back in the day were eugenicists was because it isn't much of a leap from "people having children before they're ready/when they don't have the means to support them/when they don't want more of them is bad for them, their children, and society" to "people having children who are born defective or deficient in some way is bad for them, their children, and society". There are a lot of people today who would selectively abort a child who was going to be born with a severe medical disorder on the basis that it is better in the end for them never to exist at all.
3543137
Why would the people in charge of eugenics not want to widen the class divide? I can't imagine but that eugenics technology will inevitably be restricted to the ruling classes. And anyway, aristocracy is a more stable form of government than democracy.
As for Islam, can you do me the favor of refuting this propaganda? My mind has been polluted by it and other sources like it:
3543174
From my own standpoint, the idea behind eugenics is to make "all men are created equal" into a fact rather than an ideal; today, we claim all people are created equal, but that's an utter farce. Someone born with down syndrome, no arms, and no legs is not "born equal" to someone who is born healthy and without severe medical problems. Intelligence is highly heritable (IQ has a heritability of something like .75, possibly higher), and IQ has an effect on everything from college graduation rate and lifetime earnings to criminality and likelihood of developing mental disorders. Some people are born with genes to become pro-athletes. If you aren't born with tall genes, your odds of becoming a basketball player are slim. The list goes on.
From the point of view of most eugenicists, having an underclass at all is bad; they don't want there to BE an underclass. They want EVERYONE to be the aristocracy, and to be able to compete equally, and everyone to truly earn their station, rather than merely hitting the genetic/parental lottery and getting lucky.
On the downside, then you have people like the Germans who think that the proper solution is to kill 15 million people and throw them in ovens.
WRT: The video:
He isn't lying or wrong about the numbers, FYI. That being said, you'll notice he's being somewhat deceptive in using different statements for different countries - he's citing % for honor killings, Sharia law, support for Hamas, support for suicide bombings, ect. Support for Hamas is somewhat problematic as it is to some extent a political issue (tl; dr; people hate Israel, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend). Moreover, the Sharia law thing isn't quite as cut-and-dried as it sounds, as a substantial number of Muslims believe there are multiple valid interpretations of sharia law, which makes "sharia law" a kind of... vague statement sometimes because they don't always mean the same things by it. That being said, it is mostly fairly bad.
If you're curious, here's a chart of support for Sharia law being the law of the land by country from Pew:
pewforum.org/files/2013/04/gsi2-chp1-3.png
You'll notice that it is actually pretty popular outside of Europe, central Asia, and Lebanon.
For reference, not all of these people believe it should apply to everyone:
pewforum.org/files/2013/04/gsi2-chp1-5.png
As you can see, a substantial number of people who think that sharia law should be the law of the land say that it should only apply to Muslims.
If you're curious, the full report can be found here.
For reference, somewhere in the realm of 22-28% of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal word of god; another 28% believe it has multiple interpretations, and about as many more think that it is inspired but not actually the word of god and shouldn't be taken literally at all.
About 19% of people in the US consider it to be the "work of the devil to destroy or question religious beliefs", so one could argue that about 19% of Americans are "radicalized" in that sense, as a point of reference.
3543231
Thank you for the perspective.
I enjoy hierarchy myself, so I'm not too fussed about there being an underclass. I can see how a materialist would be, though.
Any particular websites you could recommend me to learn more about the eugenicist point of view?
Regarding Shapiro, I did notice the thing with using different questions for different countries. It gave me the impression that he was probably picking out the highest stat for each country that he could plausibly use to claim the respondents were radicalized.
Also, I'm pretty sure that if I were Muslim, I would support Sharia law, and blog every day about how it was demanded by human nature and that anyone honest and consistent could understand it through pure human reason, setting aside revelation, etc. At any rate I don't think religions can be judged morally prior to being judged for their truth value. So to me, it's no argument against Islam to just shout "Sharia Law!"
3543174
3543231
FYI, one problem with these polls is something known as "social desirability bias" - basically, people expressing things that they don't actually believe to express political or other affiliation, to say what they THINK society wants them to say rather than what they actually believe, to say something out of fear of persecution (this is probably particularly problematic in some of the more radically Islamic countries), ect.
This might make these numbers less reliable than they might be otherwise, and may cause underreporting (or overreporting) of support for sharia law.
For instance, if you ask Americans when the Earth was created, 35% of them will say it was created within the last 10,000 years, but in the same survey, 69% would correctly state that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago - meaning that at least 4% of people said both that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago AND that the Earth was created within the last 10,000 years. Worse still, 78% of people will say "Layers of rock containing fossils cover the earth's surface and date back hundreds of millions of years", meaning that at least a third of the people who said that the earth was less than 10,000 years old ALSO said that the surface of the Earth was hundreds of millions of years old.
You'll also find about twice as many Americans on the phone who say they attend church on a weekly basis as who actually bother showing up on a weekly basis.
3543231
Everyone stealth edits around here... it's so confusing @_@
That sounds about right, but from my experience those kinds of polls are usually conducted by people who don't understand how to word the questions. Personally I would say that the Bible is literally the Word of God, and that it admits of multiple valid interpretations, and that sometimes it shouldn't be taken literally (in the normal sense of the word "literally").
This sounds like another horribly worded question, to my ears. Of course destroying religious belief is the work of the Devil. Questions, however, can often make religious belief stronger for the stress. And at any rate questioning is something every believer has to go through, even for someone as innocent and saintly as Therese of Lisieux.
3543287
>social desirability bias
I will remember this. I will memorize it. Yes. I would totally be one of the people who says I go to church every week but doesn't. That's how I will remember it
3543279
Not really. I mean, most people who are willing to publicly say they're pro-eugenics are virulent racists or just don't care about what other people think because no one else wants to be associated with the Nazis and a lot of other bad things that eugenicists did back in the day.
Consequently, a lot of the public eugenicists are kind of creepy, especially the ones who are eager to implement programs today without really understanding what they're advocating for.
3543348
What does LessWrong think about eugenics? (sorry for the badgering, it's the vodka)
3543348
There are, however, quite a few philosophers willing to make the case for liberal (positive) eugenics: Agar, Buchanan, Glover, Green, Savulescu, etc.
3543231
It would be nice to qualify that statement, e.g., 'Germans' => 'Nazis', or at least 'think' => 'thought'.
3543174 Recall that there were protests in Pakistan when Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. The Pakistanis weren't angry because their government was apparently sheltering Bin Laden. They were angry at the Americans for killing him.
s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110506&t=2&i=405403228&w=644&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=
Most Pakistanis are in favor of killing random Americans. And they're supposed to be our allies.
3542633
Because it's better to let people hate them in peace rather than consider possible parallels with our own history?
3542659
That sounds true.
3542675
I was writing about the 18th century. Not far off from the 17th century.
...
I love all you guys.
3543351 Eugenics is for pussies. Real LessWrongers are social Darwinists.
Or it simply means we were a fledgeling nation trying to command a war, and was focused on publishing what was necessary to establish it's newfound sovereignty. The prior years were spent fighting. Publishing in general is going to heavily collapse, save for the papers needed to facilitate the war efforts.
I'd call this a VERY weak argument.
3545364 The figures are percentages, not totals.