Development of morality since Christianity

[_Buffalo]

Like all forms of barbarism and cruelty, it has been vastly reduced. Along with war violence, rape, murder, child abuse, torture, etc.

How might one determine the objective definition of each of these terms? The dictionary will not be sufficient, because terms like "rape," "murder," and "child abuse" have specific definitions in law, which are not necessarily the same as the vernacular, which are not necessarily the same as the social sciences, and so on.

By any definition. All categories of violence are down. There was a brief bump in the 60s and 70s in America.

I'm not about to reproduce every chart and graph, but the source of this thread is a single book, obviously:



It's well researched. You might disagree with his conclusions, but I see no reason to disagree with the well-sourced facts he's gathered. You might be able to find some of this in Google books. He defines the terms of the research there. Again, I can't reproduce the entire book for you - not without losing my job!

[_maklelan]

The idea didn’t take hold until…. ______________ (fill in the blank)

"Take hold"? You speak so linearly and monolithically of so much of history that is divided into thousands of different diachronic and synchronic segments. How phenomenally ignorant.

You're so dismissive of things you clearly don't understand very well, and based on your previous attempts to pontificate about biblical scholarship and religion in general, I'm pretty sure it would be a tremendous waste of time to try to reason with you. In light of that, I'm going to let my comments stand for those who aren't as irrationally and dogmatically invested in your thesis and be content to know that no amount of logic or evidence could disturb your ideological catatonia anyway.

[_Darth J]

I notice a lot of vague, question-begging terms in these sweeping assertions about history. Like, what is the universal, objective understanding of "abuse of children" that is being employed?

Meaning that, for instance, in America there was no legal recourse for physically abused children until the 20th century.

You are still being the question. You have not provided an objective standard for what "physical abuse" is. And your assertion that physically abused children (whatever that means) had no legal recourse until the 20th century is simply wrong.

Now child abuse is unthinkable, let alone infanticide, to the point where even spanking is a crime in many developed countries.

And "spanking," which does not mean the same thing to everyone, is not a crime in many developed countries, depending on what "spanking" means.

Any form of physical punishment of children is illegal in Britain and several other European countries. [/quote]

You still have not provided an objective definition of what "spanking" is. It's probably not "any physical punishment."

Approval of spanking has steadily declined in the last 30 years, as has approval of spouse abuse (not that long ago most Americans thought that there might be a legitimate reason for a man to smack his wife).

Gee, that's funny, because in Italy it is illegal to spank your kids, but it is legally permissible to hit your wife.

These are brand new moral values. We came up with them collectively.

You are conflating law with morality. You are also conflating social constructs and popularity of an idea with morality.

[_Stormy Waters]

And the New Testament later has the resurrected Jesus telling Peter to stop restricting the Good News to just the Jews, but to accept all men. And according to the story, Jesus did in fact help this Canaanite woman, even though he was a Jew. And there is no grand unified theory on what the New Testament means, so there is no singular "Christian morality" as the OP presumes. So it doesn't really work to axiomatically say the founding documents of Christianity fail to condemn what we in the modern world would call racism, right?

Yes Jesus relented, but Jesus made it clear to the caanite woman that she was not considered equal to the children. Also while eventually the good news is commanded to be sent to all men, much like the lifting of the priesthood ban in 1978 the previous behavior was not repudiated.

[_Darth J]

How might one determine the objective definition of each of these terms? The dictionary will not be sufficient, because terms like "rape," "murder," and "child abuse" have specific definitions in law, which are not necessarily the same as the vernacular, which are not necessarily the same as the social sciences, and so on.

By any definition.

No, you don't get to do that. "Murder" does not just mean "killing someone" in law. Also, when you kill someone in self-defense, as a matter of law you have murdered that person. Self-defense does not make an act "not murder." Self-defense is an affirmative defense that justifies murder. The definition of murder in the dictionary and the definition of murder in a statute are going to be different. The legal elements of murder are also different in different jurisdictions.

"Murder" is also going to mean different things to different people.

What about non-forcible rape, where a person in a position of trust or authority coerces a victim into submitting to a rape? Is that violence? What is "rape," anyway?

In Utah, and pretty much every jurisdiction in the U.S., you are strictly liable for statutory rape if you have sex with a 14 year-old girl, even if the girl does in fact consent to sex. Is this "rape"? Is it a "violent" crime?

All categories of violence are down. There was a brief bump in the 60s and 70s in America.

Of course, we'd have to first determine some objective definitions of the various "categories" of violence to know that.

I'm not about to reproduce every chart and graph, but the source of this thread is a single book, obviously:



It's well researched. You might disagree with his conclusions, but I see no reason to disagree with the well-sourced facts he's gathered. You might be able to find some of this in Google books. He defines the terms of the research there. Again, I can't reproduce the entire book for you - not without losing my job!

I really don't give a crap about his charts and graphs. The issue is the validity of the assumptions underlying his charts and graphs. It's not simply a matter of disagreeing with the conclusions; it's disagreeing with the starting premises. And Pinker did not post the OP in this thread. You did.

[_Darth J]

And the New Testament later has the resurrected Jesus telling Peter to stop restricting the Good News to just the Jews, but to accept all men. And according to the story, Jesus did in fact help this Canaanite woman, even though he was a Jew. And there is no grand unified theory on what the New Testament means, so there is no singular "Christian morality" as the OP presumes. So it doesn't really work to axiomatically say the founding documents of Christianity fail to condemn what we in the modern world would call racism, right?

Yes Jesus relented, but Jesus made it clear to the caanite woman that she was not considered equal to the children. Also while eventually the good news is commandrd to be sent to all men, much like the lifting of the priesthood ban in 1978 the previous behavior was not repudiated.

The early Christian church is not even remotely analogous to the modern LDS Church. And according to the New Testament narrative, Jesus was supposed to do away with the old law. That would be the law that Israel alone is God's chosen people on the Earth. Jesus had not finished his mission on Earth when the episode with the Canaanite woman happened, remember?

[_Buffalo]

I really don't give a crap about his charts and graphs.

Clearly.

The issue is the validity of the assumptions underlying his charts and graphs. It's not simply a matter of disagreeing with the conclusions; it's disagreeing with the starting premises.

It's all defined in the book. I'd invite you to read chapter 7. Definitions of all these crimes are spelled out and referenced with thousands of sources. Again, I can't spend hours and hours reproducing the book for you here.

[_Buffalo]

The idea didn’t take hold until…. ______________ (fill in the blank)

"Take hold"? You speak so linearly and monolithically of so much of history that is divided into thousands of different diachronic and synchronic segments. How phenomenally ignorant.

You're so dismissive of things you clearly don't understand very well, and based on your previous attempts to pontificate about biblical scholarship and religion in general, I'm pretty sure it would be a tremendous waste of time to try to reason with you. In light of that, I'm going to let my comments stand for those who aren't as irrationally and dogmatically invested in your thesis and be content to know that no amount of logic or evidence could disturb your ideological catatonia anyway.

Your original response was a long series of "nuh uhs," devoid of counter argument. Are you sure you're content to let those comments stand?

[_Tobin]

Your original response was a long series of "nuh uhs," devoid of counter argument. Are you sure you're content to let those comments stand?

As usual, you completely missed his point. I think he believes watching paint dry is more informative and interesting than discussing things with you.

[_Blixa]

Seriously, Buffalo, you do need to read better and more widely in history. Both Stak and Mak point out the weaknesses of the simplistic binaries you rely on, and Aristotle Smith gives good examples that show how non-monolithic and even contradictory "Christianity" is as an actual historical product.

It should also be of interest to you to read postmodern theorists since one of the stronger threads in postmodern discussion is a critique of the Enlightenment humanism. You could begin with Foucault's Discipline and Punish which opens with a comparison between an "obviously barbaric" public torture and execution and the "obviously more humane" penal system of the Enlightenment. Although he draws out many strands from this initial analogy, one of his objects is to dispense with smug notions like "the world has never been a safer, more peaceful place."

You might also find the work of earlier cultural theorists like Benjamin and Adorno of interest, as well. For them, the Holocaust was in many ways the culmination of Enlightenment rationality.

I suspect Pinker has done you a disservice and suggested a very problematic, and ultimately ahistorical, narrative of history.