Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind?


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Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind?

Flyer from debate sponsor:

Dinesh D'Souza has debated several "New Atheists" over the years, including Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michael Shermer. What makes his coming debate with Andrew Bernstein different?

Dr. Bernstein's critique of Christianity and of religion in general is grounded not in skepticism or intuitionism or "sociobiology" or the like—but in Ayn Rand's observation-based philosophy of Objectivism.

That difference makes this debate one of the most important intellectual events of our age. The future will be determined largely by the outcome of the conflict between religion (primarily Christianity) and Objectivism. And, in that conflict, this debate will be the intellectual shot heard 'round the world.

Don't miss this historic event. Purchase your auditorium tickets or Livestream access via the links below. And, whether you'll be attending live or over the Internet, join the event on our Facebook page by clicking "Going."

When: February 8, 2013, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM CST

Where: Hogg Auditorium, University of Texas–Austin

Auditorium Tickets: General Admission $30.00, Students $8.00

Livestream Access: $5.00

Tickets or Livestream Access

The really big cultural challenge begun with Atlas Shrugged continues.

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The provocative topic irresistibly begs a one word answer.

I would wonder, is Christianity good or bad for the individual?

Raised a Christian I would say on balance it is good. Only because the central imperative, "Love one another as yourselves" - as meaning equally, not more-- is a challenge intellectual and moral which causes us to judge ourselves, and others, and reach a balance of equality from our own judgment.

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Unfortunately, the advocacy of individual reason often devolves into self-serving rationalization for one's needs and wants, irrespective of how it impacts others. There is nothing in the "advocacy of reason" which *necessarily* points to having a greater *intelligence* which takes into account the second or third order effects of one's choices. Shoving an old lady out of my way in order get first in line might serve my immediate needs, and would be entirely justified by my rational accounting of the situation at hand, but the blowback from such behavior would not be slight against "reason" as such, but rather "lack of intelligence"

I often think the Objectivist advocacy of reason, and the associatied hand-wringing about all that is wrong about the world and people, is rather an indication of the lack of intelligence in the world, and the fact that intelligence is not evenly distributed.

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To get back on topic, an argument can be made that many of the so called "irrational" injuctions of religions are simply time-tested truths which have been handed down from more intelligent folk, who realized the ignorant masses could not be trusted to derive the truth of such propositions on their own. Think of history and time as laboratories which determine which choices and actions have survival value. If some intelligent and enterprising individuals realized through their own experience that eating raw pork often ended in death, how would they communicate such an observation to their less experienced brethren? Could the reasonably expect their brethren to understand the cause and effect involved in not properly cooking meat? Or would it simply be easier to say, "Hey, God doesn't like this, so don't fucking do it"

One must always make allowances for the less intelligent. Reason be damned.

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Carol, thanks for that interesting insight.

That people put their goodness in an invisible cosmic person and realm tokens their goodness. That they love God tokens their goodness. It is better to awaken to this self-standing world, to this only life, to the full worth of one’s rational mind, to the rock goodness of human being. One’s mind is one’s self, and the attack of religion on the rational mind is an attack on the self. Moreover, it is not only goodness of themselves that people have projected into religion. Projected there too is hatred of this earth and the human being. Then too, religion is a means for ruling others.

Earthly moral rules—the one you mentioned together with others—do not suffice for religion. It is more than that (as in the First Commandment). The more is important to the believer and important to get corrected. That correction along Rand's lines gives fuller individual life, and to the extent that correction spreads in the world, it gives mankind better prospect for civilization, including advance of science and technology and the capital that makes them possible.

Stephen

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By and large, organized religion (as opposed to private or family spirituality) has been a bad deal for mankind. Once the spiritual impulse is hardened and fashioned into Doctrine and Dogma the stage is set for the addition of Politics and that is a deadly mix. The doings in the Middle East are proof positive of what I say.

Organized religion, by and large, has lead to alienation, tyranny, inhumanity, war and death.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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By and large, organized religion (as opposed to private or family spirituality) has been a bad deal for mankind. Once the spiritual impulse is hardened and fashioned into Doctrine and Dogma the stage is set for the addition of Politics and that is a deadly mix. The doings in the Middle East are proof positive of what I say.

Organized religion, by and large, has lead to alienation, tyranny, inhumanity, war and death.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Exacerbated by mankind's tolerance of an added element: forced association. If limited to free association, then at the very least, we've only ourselves to blame for that which we freely associate with.

When religion ... and politics ... is limited by the principles of free association, then no such thing as tyranny, inhumanity and war. The enabling characteristic to bring about those is the element of forced association.

Example: a gang rape is a pure democracy. The majority votes. Someone is raped. That is forced association. It is also pure democracy. Take away the element of forced association -- that is, the tolerance for forced association, and the balance of the state not tolerating forced association will rush to protect the minority in that instance of pure democracy.

It isn't religion by itself, and it isn't democracy by itself and it isn't politics(the art and science of getting what we want from others)that leads to inhumanity. It is the addition of another element: forced association.

My theory is that it is our tolerance (and sometimes embrace) of forced association that is at the root of the ills you describe, and that goes well beyond religion. One skin, one driver. On what basis, one skin, other drivers?

Individuals freely form societies all the time, and freely leave those societies as well. The difference between a group of folks voluntarily joining and forming a commune in Vermont and advocating those same principles on a national basis based on the ethics of gang rape/pure democracy is the difference between socialism and national socialism. The latter demands forced association, the ethics of a gang rape. We are--were-- a nation of free societies, plural, forming one nation, singular. United We Stand...not United It Stands. America has been indoctrinated into a stupor, ignoring that distinction key to freedom. The reason? Some fringe group of zealots latest really good ideas, freedom be damned.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here it is.

Michael, maybe you can start a new thread. I'm curious what people think of this.

ndp

Isaac Newton was an Arianist (he denied the Trinity). We was a Deist, yes, but he was no Christian.

So the pro-christian arguer starts off with a falsehood. If he was any kind of a scholar he would have or should have known of Newton's religious leanings.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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BC,

In Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths on Science and Religion, edited by R. Numbers, there is a chapter on Newton. The author argues that Newton was an Arian Christian. I doubt a Deist would spend his time writing a commentary on The Book of Revelation.

-Neil Parille

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A few comments on Bernstein:

1. He didn't seem to know much about the Big Bang theory. I don't know much either, but I gather that on some interpretations time/space begin with it.

2. He repeated the myth about Hypatia, although didn't give it the full Carl Sagan treatment. I'm not sure why the death of a Platonist mathematician would be such a big deal for an Objectivist.

3. Does anyone know if there is any evidence that the church "suppressed" Greek science and mathematics? I mean, did these books just not get copied or were there churchmen who said, "Greek math is bad"? And is he talking about the western or the eastern church? It must have taken some "Greek science" to build Hagia Sophia.

4. He claimed that the Nazis thought that logic was "a Jewish tool." Von Mises brought to the attention of many of us that there were Nazis who believed in polylogism. But seriously, how many Nazis taught that Modus Ponens is Jewish and thus invalid? Certainly many if not most Nazis believed their views on race were scientifically justified. And they were big fans of Nietzsche (much more than Kant), but somehow that doesn't bother Objectivists.

5. He mentioned Mother Theresa "comforting the sick." But I gather she and her sisters provided medical care to them. What's so bad about that? I agree that we shouldn't be lectured about he how great she was and how evil we are for not being like her, but I don't see anything wrong with devoting one's life to the poor and sick.

6. Is anyone other than a few Objectivists persuaded by the idea that "existence exists" and the Objectivist axioms preclude theism? Bernstein was on much more solid ground when he argued that the evidence was contrary to belief in god, the supernatural, an afterlife, etc.

-Neil Parille

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Neil,

I'll probably get around to listening to this thing. It doesn't seem to be a great investment of a couple of hours of my life, though. It's not because the topic isn't important, but the subtext seems to be some kind of duel between organized keepers of the flame than an actual identification and examination of the flame.

In other words, is organized Christianity full of crap (because, incidentally, Christianity is), or is organized Objectivism--especially ARI--full of crap (because, incidentally, Objectivism is)?

I'm only going on the impression I got from the promotion of the event (especially on Facebook) and the comments I've read, so my view might be off.

But it's hard to get enthusiastic for that subtext.

I saw a documentary by Dinesh D'Souza called Obama's America: Unmaking the American Dream. Kat and I saw it in the theater. It did surprisingly well on the movie circuit. I believe one of the reasons is the hero's journey formula he used along with an intriguing concept.

Michael

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In his mention of Hypatia, Bernstein refernces Morris Kilne. That reference is to Kilne's 1964 book Mathematics in Western Culture, which contains an unsourced claim that Hypatia was killed because she refused to abandon her pagan religion. Hypatia was killed for political, not religious reasons. She certainly wasn't killed because she wrote on math.

Here is D.B. Hart's discussion of Hypatia: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/06/the-perniciously-persistent-myths-of-hypatia-and-the-great-library

Intellectual history is not Objectivism's strong suit. Ghate, in his debate with Humer, repeated the myth that people at the time of Columbus thought the world was flat. And don't get me started on Leonard Peikoff . . . .

-Neil Parille

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Reason tells us there is no Supreme Being.

Faith that there is.

Therefore faith is basically story telling myth and allegory.

What's to debate except the value of faith?

Value is in the head of the valuer. A lot of values--maybe most--cannot be objectified.

Billions of believers value their religion.

There is therefore no intellectual conflict between faith and reason, Objectivism and Christianity, with one coming out on top by virtue of facts and reason. There is a real conflict between Christianity and Islam with the latter having the present advantage for it is nastier than the former is today. The great historical advantage to Christianity is it helped stop the spread of Islam into Europe by force. That was good for mankind. If you don't think so consider the economic, political and moral backwaters that characterize Muslim states today. Unless the contrary is proved, that's the beginning and end of the "debate." Objectivism cannot vitiate either of these two religions, but a country can stop another country from doing bad. It was the Turks that were defeated at the gates of Vienna, not Islam as such, and they were stopped by a Polish king leading the greatest cavalry charge in history. The U.S. is basically a Christian nation with a secular overlay that by and large manages to keep religion out of politics, but the Muslims aren't fooled; they're against both the Christian and secular and will continue to bitch-slap this country, and Europe, until certain countries of theirs get "civilized with a Craig." Terrorism is mostly state sponsored and sanctioned.

To debate faith is to give to faith--sanction--a pretense of reason.

--Brant

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I just started listening and I had to stop.

Bernstein is insinuating that Christianity caused violence in the past--as if the societies where Christianity was not present were peaceful. Good Lord! Violent non-Christian societies in the past don't count. But this insinuation cuts even worse: the places where Christianity was used as a tool to stop violence or keep the peace for long stretches of time, this doesn't count either.

This is only an insinuation, not a statement, but it is a subtext I find troubling--that is, if I want to take this debate seriously.

That's what I was thinking as I listened. Then I thought OK, maybe I'm being biased. So I'll listen some more.


Then he came out with the following comment in illustrating how Rand had defined "a fact-base rational standard of value," I didn't look forward to gritting my teeth in frustration for 2 hours, so I stopped:

Plants, for example, must dig their roots into the soil to gain the chemical nutrients their lives require.


In this one statement, Bernstein has illustrated everything I believe is wrong in the fundy approach. A plant comes from a seed, goddamit! A seen can't dig roots into anything because it doesn't have any!

The entire mentality, the entire mindset here, is from the perspective of an adult--whether plant or human. And this adult is treated as if it were the entire organism over its entire lifespan, so much so that a plant has to put its roots somewhere instead of growing them from a seed.

This is more than a nitpick about an unfortunate way of saying something. This adult-only approach permeates the entire debate on the Objectivist fundy side. I know. I've been reading this stuff for years.

And this is my biggest problem. How can I take anything derived from such a view of the nature of life as logically sound? These folks misidentify what life is, then judge everything about life. How can you judge correctly something you identify incorrectly? The fact is, you can't.

To be fair, they get part of it right, the adult part. That's why I say Rand has scope problems, not totally wrong problems. But the fundies always pretend like this is the whole shebang and do it with swagger.

Let's look at Rand's words to be totally fair. Bernstein is merely going through the examples Rand gave. So what did she actually say?

Here is a quote from "The Objectivist Ethics" in TOS:

A plant has no choice of action; the goals it pursues are automatic and innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water, sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions. There are alternatives in the conditions it encounters in its physical background—such as heat or frost, drought or flood—and there are certain actions which it is able to perform to combat adverse conditions, such as the ability of some plants to grow and crawl from under a rock to reach the sunlight. But whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant's function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.


Notice that Rand did not make Bernstein's error here. If there can be any criticism of her, one could say she was guilty of sin by omission. In my view, she actually was guilty of this elsewhere, but not here. In context, there was no need for her to mention the seed form versus the adult form of a plant.

I have to look deeper into this issue for accurate corroboration, but I believe Rand's adult-only perspective as the human nature premise she based her ethics on started out small and grew over time. In the beginning it was only omission because of relevance, but over time it became an outright blatant omission. Even so, I don't think she ever made such an inverted statement like Bernstein did in his opening remarks.

Bernstein's comment--and the fact that it was so offhand, so taken-for-granted--shows just how far this attitude grew and spread to her insider circle.

I want to continue listening to the debate, but man, it's tough...

I have no doubt Dinesh is going to have his own things like this. I've seen him talk before.

So, from my perspective, this debate is between two people who both have faulty premises.

I don't see the value.

Brrrrr... After the creepy-crawlies pass, let's if I get interested enough to pick it up again. If I do, I will comment further. If not, I won't.

Michael

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2. He repeated the myth about Hypatia, although didn't give it the full Carl Sagan treatment. I'm not sure why the death of a Platonist mathematician would be such a big deal for an Objectivist.

There's so little original source material on Hypatia that almost anything you say could be dismissed as myth.

3. Does anyone know if there is any evidence that the church "suppressed" Greek science and mathematics? I mean, did these books just not get copied or were there churchmen who said, "Greek math is bad"? And is he talking about the western or the eastern church? It must have taken some "Greek science" to build Hagia Sophia.

Justinian closed the academies, that ought to count for something.

6. Is anyone other than a few Objectivists persuaded by the idea that "existence exists" and the Objectivist axioms preclude theism? Bernstein was on much more solid ground when he argued that the evidence was contrary to belief in god, the supernatural, an afterlife, etc.

It's primacy of existence vs. primacy of consciousness that's the axiomatic path to rejecting theism. I didn't think Bernstein's presentation was going to convince anyone who was hearing about these concepts for the first time, and it wasn't even called for by the debate topic.

Isaac Newton was an Arianist (he denied the Trinity). We was a Deist, yes, but he was no Christian.

Arians didn't exactly deny the trinity, they just had a different conception of it. All they said was that Jesus wasn't co-eternal with the God the Father, instead he was created in time. By itself that doesn't even mean that Jesus, once created, was lesser than the Father from that point forward. There were many variations, and no writings from Arius survive so we don't even know for sure which variation he subscribed to.

Newton was certainly a Christian, a Theist not a Deist.

Bernstein is insinuating that Christianity caused violence in the past--as if the societies where Christianity was not present were peaceful. Good Lord!

I made a related criticism of him here:

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24732&p=305105

What's surprising to me is how weak Dinesh's counterattacks were. He didn't score the point you're making (not that I recall, anyway), which is a strong and obvious rebuttal.

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ND,

But if the only evidence concerning the death of Hypatia: (1) does not claim that she was killed because of her religion; and (2) was not killed because of her scientific beliefs; then the most reasonable explanation is that her death didn't have anything to do with these. Socrates was upset that a Christian mob would do what it did, so if it had something to do with religion/astrolabs or who knows what then I assume he would report it.

-Neil Parille

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Dennis,

I don't know what Dinesh has been involved in lately. Near the end of last year, I read in the news that he got himself involved in some extra-curricular poontang and the brothers and sisters at the Christian college he was running were not in a forgiving mood. You could say they were in a state of divine graack.

:smile:

I happen to like that dude. I know that's not a popular thing to say in our subculture, but I think he's an American original made in India.

Michael

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But if the only evidence concerning the death of Hypatia: (1) does not claim that she was killed because of her religion; and (2) was not killed because of her scientific beliefs; then the most reasonable explanation is that her death didn't have anything to do with these. Socrates was upset that a Christian mob would do what it did, so if it had something to do with religion/astrolabs or who knows what then I assume he would report it.

I have to disagree with you here. It’s a matter of interpretation, and neither side can make a totally convincing case, particularly on point 1 (the only contemporary source definitely says nothing about point 2, it's not even implied). Would a male Christian teacher of philosophy, also an advisor/confidant to the temporal ruler, been singled out? Actually, come to think of it, the Arian George of Cappodocia was killed about 50 years earlier in a comparable way, but no, that was a quite different situation, and it's clear that pagans were at least involved (it was during Julian's reign). Alexandria must have been a rough town back then, huh?

I happen to like that dude. I know that's not a popular thing to say in our subculture, but I think he's an American original made in India.

Why do you say that? I first heard of him because Second Renaissance Books carried Illiberal Education. When I met him (circa 1993) we had a great conversation. He's just full of shit on certain topics, I wrote quite a bit about it on OO and linked it above, so I'm not going to repeat it all here.
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Dennis,

I don't know what Dinesh has been involved in lately. Near the end of last year, I read in the news that he got himself involved in some extra-curricular poontang and the brothers and sisters at the Christian college he was running were not in a forgiving mood. You could say they were in a state of divine graack.

:smile:

I happen to like that dude. I know that's not a popular thing to say in our subculture, but I think he's an American original made in India.

Michael

And his main virtue is that he is NOT Deepac Choprah.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Why do you say that?

Dennis,

Because my impression is that his inside is roughly equal to his outside. Maybe I'm using a "sense of wonder" filter. I detect a "sense of wonder" in the way he approaches a subject and I resonate with that.

I don't believe he lies to people in order to manipulate them. I think he honestly believes what he says. While I may not agree with some of the things he says, I don't feel I have to keep looking to see what his angle is. He says it up front.

Given that, he tends to look at things from an out-of-the box perspective. Agree or disagree, he prompts you to think.

Also, I believe he truly believes in free speech. So I don't feel like he is always trying to shut up his critics by dirty tricks, gotcha games, intimidation and peer pressure, etc.. He challenges them to think. I resonate with that attitude, too. Especially because his ideas--right or wrong--generally piss off a lot of people who, I believe, have hidden agendas. He seems to have a radar for the hot button. And he does it with grace, not bullying.

I don't believe he would be a person who would excommunicate anyone because they changed their minds on an issue.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that is my impression from the limited contact I have had of his works, lectures, and public image.

Michael

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I saw something I thought was interesting.

If you go to YouTube to watch the video of the debate, you will see that this thing already has 5771 views, 88 likes and not one dislike.

I have no doubt some of this is skewed by that weird form of Objectivist "activism" we constantly see where they think that manipulating voting results is an honest form public relations. But some of these numbers probably came from Dinesh's side, too.

I do know that some of those video views came from The Objectivist Standard's social media promotion, which I believe they did correctly and competently. So there is hope that one day fundies will let Rand sell Rand and put that in their promotions rather than rely on anonymous voting skewers. (Incidentally, Rand does an excellent job of selling Rand. Someone should spread the word in our subculture.)

But here is the part I found most interesting. In the comments on YouTube, you don't see anyone being swayed by the debate. At least I didn't. All I saw on my own skim-through were partisans of one side or another arguing their respective talking points and claiming victory.

I'll let this fact speak for itself, but the organizers might want to think about this the next time around, depending on what they wish to accomplish.

Michael

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