Fjordman on the impact of Christianity

Here (from June 19) is an interesting discussion at Gates of Vienna of the "slave morality" element in Christianity and post-Christian Western culture. Essayist Fjordman identifies both the love of feeling persecuted and feelings of cultural guilt, which are now threatening to cripple Western societies, as being rooted in Christian or Judeo-Christian ethics; he notes that our guilt feelings may now be worse than when Christianity was thriving, however, because we no longer have Christ to wash away the sins for which we feel guilty.

The critical comment by "Mike" (Michael W. Perry) following the essay is particularly significant . . . . CONTINUE

Paganism: "Spengler" out to lunch

Spengler-of-the-Asia-Times has been arguing, following Franz Rosenzweig, that "pagan society everywhere always is 'totalitarian' in character, and that Islam is a form of paganism masquerading as revealed religion." While Spengler as always provides much food for thought, his characterization of paganism, in particular of Greek paganism, is a travesty. I will focus here on what he says about individuality under paganism, ignoring his other dubious claim that paganism is a "culture of death" (which would probably have surprised the life-affirming pagan Greeks, for example—or, farther afield, the Taoist Chinese) . . . . CONTINUE

Israel as a crypto-Christian society

I have been ill lately, which is why posting has been even more irregular than usual . . . . with any luck, normal irregularity will now resume.

Paul Eidelberg asks (June 18) why Israelis have tolerated the recent succession of increasingly bad governments. He proposes that in part it is because they are mostly "Jewish humanists", by which I think that he means heirs to the modern Western Christian-based tradition who happen to be Jewish. The combination of "humanism" with Jewish moral seriousness (Eidelberg may also be implying) has unfortunate results.

Jewish humanists are really Christians without the Christian [God]. They practice with a vengeance what Christians preach: "love your enemies," "turn the other cheek," "do not resist evil." One may even say that contemporary Israel is the only Christian nation on earth! When it comes to loving one's enemies, turning the other cheek, and not resisting evil, present-day Israel has no equal in the annals of human history.

Ayatollah Khomeini on patriotism

"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah; for patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

—Ayatollah Khomeini, Qom, 1980 (according to blogger Aryamehr and many other sources; h/t American Thinker).

Robert Ingersoll on non-retaliation

A few days ago I came across the interesting-looking site infidels.org, which has online the complete works of the 19th-century American agnostic, Robert Ingersoll. Ingersoll undertakes a morally serious (though perhaps not sufficiently profound) effort to discredit Christianity as unique revelation, or indeed, as far as large parts of both Old and New Testaments are concerned, as any revelation at all. As part of this project, in part I of "The Ingersoll–Black debate", Ingersoll presents an illuminating collection of positions taken on the question of nonretaliation for evil by different religions and philosophers. Here is a summary: . . . . CONTINUE

Caroline Glick on the call for a UK boycott of Israel

(Update 06/04: Melanie Phillips points out that the University and College Union is far from the only British association pushing for a boycott of Israel. In recent weeks, journalists, doctors and architects have also launched such attempts, and the public sector union Unison is poised to begin its own boycott of Israeli goods and services.)

Here is Caroline Glick:

Wednesday's decision by Britain's University and College Union to call for a boycott of Israeli universities and colleges was not only hypocritical. It was suicidal.

. . . . By calling for a boycott of Israeli universities, Britain's academic establishment is turning its back not only on Israel, but on Britain. When Britain's professoriate rejects Israel's right to exist as a Jewish, democratic nation-state and glorifies Palestinian society which supports global jihad and the destruction of Western civilization, it is rejecting the British state.

They are embracing a culture founded on a rejection of the culture and traditions that have formed Britain since the Magna Carta was issued in 1215. For the past 800 years, Britain has stood for individual liberty and freedom of inquiry - at least for the British themselves. In universities like Oxford and Cambridge, it was this humanist spirit and the justified national and cultural pride it nurtured which facilitated Britain's rise to international power. By boycotting Israel, which itself embodies these British ideals, the British are abrogating their own traditions of openness. Consequently, they are destroying themselves.

—From Real Clear Politics.

The Hellenic moment in ancient Christianity (2)

Together, the primitive and monastic phases of Christianity can be defined to cover virtually the whole lifespan of the Western Roman Empire; the first monastic community of St. Pachomius in 320, for example, was founded within a few years of the legalization of Christianity. Wedged between these two periods, however, and to some extent overlapping with them, was a "Hellenic" (or Hellenic conversion) phase, dated by Peter Brown at 300–363 A.D. During this period, Christianity seemed to become reconciled with the pre-existing Greco-Roman civilization, and absorbed aspects of that civilization. The resulting changes that Christianity went through continued to have an effect on the religion later on as well. To a great extent, though, Christianity (especially in the West) soon renounced those Hellenic influences, so that "Hellenic Christianity" has quite a different flavour from the familiar traditional kind—for example, in its willingness to appeal to unaided human reason . . . . CONTINUE