Development of morality since Christianity

[_Darth J]

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

Clearly.

I don't give a crap about his charts and graphs on the same basis for not giving a crap about charts and graphs like this:

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.

I do not need to read a single page of that book to know that he cannot come up with universal definitions of crimes and extrapolate data based on that. That's because law is not constant in one jurisdiction over time, let alone across multiple jurisdictions. (I'm referring to law because you said "crimes.")

Was "malice aforethought" an element in his definition of murder? That was the mens rea for murder in Utah a hundred years ago, but it isn't anymore. But yet it is still an element of murder in some jurisdictions (i.e., states). So if we are trying to come up with some universal definition of murder in the United States (or the world, or whatever) and extrapolate a base rate for murder on that, then guess what? If you include malice aforethought, than there hasn't been any murder in Utah for decades! Hooray! It must be because of our secularist post-Enlightenment morality that is independent of religion!

But if we don't include malice aforethought, then you know what happens? There was no murder in Utah in the 19th century, and murder rates have gone thought the roof since! Oh, no!

[_Buffalo]

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.

He'd have more credibility if he'd made an initial attempt.

[_Buffalo]

I don't give a crap about his charts and graphs on the same basis for not giving a crap about charts and graphs like this:

Obviously all Harvard professors are chart fudgers on the level of FAIR. Great point.

I do not need to read a single page of that book to know that he cannot come up with universal definitions of crimes and extrapolate data based on that. That's because law is not constant in one jurisdiction over time, let alone across multiple jurisdictions. (I'm referring to law because you said "crimes.")

Was "malice aforethought" an element in his definition of murder? That was the mens rea for murder in Utah a hundred years ago, but it isn't anymore. But yet it is still an element of murder in some jurisdictions (i.e., states). So if we are trying to come up with some universal definition of murder in the United States (or the world, or whatever) and extrapolate a base rate for murder on that, then guess what? If you include malice aforethought, than there hasn't been any murder in Utah for decades! Hooray! It must be because of our secularist post-Enlightenment morality that is independent of religion!

But if we don't include malice aforethought, then you know what happens? There was no murder in Utah in the 19th century, and murder rates have gone thought the roof since! Oh, no!

This is highly irrelevant. All categories of violent crime are down, from first degree murder to mild bullying.

Again, definitions used by researchers are given in detail in chapter 7.

I do not need to read a single page

Clearly. You already know everything. Why read?

[_Buffalo]

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?

Jesus himself said that he would not do away with Old Testament law.

[_Stormy Waters]

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?

You were providing examples in the Bible where people were treated equally, but in the instance of the Caanite woman she was not treated as an equal.
I think it's comparable to the LDS priesthood ban in the sense that this action was never condemmed as wrong just as the LDS church has never condemmed the priesthood ban as wrong. That someone was treated as a lesser not because of their works, but because of their birth.
I cannot speak to the claims of the OP, but I think here we have a biblical example of someone being treated unequally and where said action is portrayed as just.

[_Buffalo]

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.

None of them seriously engaged my argument, and all of them seem to be ignorant of basic historical facts about violence. Not surprising.

The holocaust was a direct result of anti-enlightenment backlash, the sort of conservative "blood and soil" rhetoric of critics of the enlightenment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_soil

The holocaust itself, however, was hardly an unusual event. Genocide has been common to humans for thousands of years. Only in the last 50 years have genocides begun to be less common and less deadly.

It's a fact that the world has never been safer or less violent. I'm surprised anyone would bother to dispute it, given even a moment's thought about it.

[_Darth J]

I don't give a crap about his charts and graphs on the same basis for not giving a crap about charts and graphs like this:

Obviously all Harvard professors are chart fudgers on the level of FAIR. Great point.

That is simply an appeal to authority.

I do not need to read a single page of that book to know that he cannot come up with universal definitions of crimes and extrapolate data based on that. That's because law is not constant in one jurisdiction over time, let alone across multiple jurisdictions. (I'm referring to law because you said "crimes.")

Was "malice aforethought" an element in his definition of murder? That was the mens rea for murder in Utah a hundred years ago, but it isn't anymore. But yet it is still an element of murder in some jurisdictions (i.e., states). So if we are trying to come up with some universal definition of murder in the United States (or the world, or whatever) and extrapolate a base rate for murder on that, then guess what? If you include malice aforethought, than there hasn't been any murder in Utah for decades! Hooray! It must be because of our secularist post-Enlightenment morality that is independent of religion!

But if we don't include malice aforethought, then you know what happens? There was no murder in Utah in the 19th century, and murder rates have gone thought the roof since! Oh, no!

This is highly irrelevant. All categories of violent crime are down, from first degree murder to mild bullying.

You cannot determine the rate of anything until you define the thing you are measuring and establish your definition as objectively valid.

First degree murder does not mean the same thing in all jurisdictions. In Utah, the rate of first degree murder has gone to zero during the last 30 years, because there is no longer a statute that defines a crime as "first degree murder."

And what is "mild bullying"?

And by the way, what about non-violent crimes? Also, since all this lowered crime rate is because of our improved post-Enlightenment morality that is separate from religion, tell me how they distinguished between malum prohibitum and malum in se crimes.

Is statutory rape a violent crime? Is it malum prohibitum or malum in se?

Again, definitions used by researchers are given in detail in chapter 7.

Okay. Start by telling me how they defined "murder."

I do not need to read a single page

Clearly. You already know everything. Why read?

That's a Simon Belmont level comeback. It's not a matter of either I accept sweeping inaccuracies about history based on vague, question-begging terminology, or I am a devout anti-intellectual. I am already aware that there were in fact legal remedies for child abuse prior to the 20th century. I'm also aware that many Christians in the United States supported abolition, and later the civil rights movement, specifically because of their interpretations of the Bible. You need to get a couple of facts right before you get any mileage out of your OP.

[_Darth J]

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?

Jesus himself said that he would not do away with Old Testament law.

Yep, that's what Matthew 5:17 means. And that's why, to this very day, devout Christians all over the world take animals to Levite priests to make sacrifices, and why all male Christians are circumcised. Or possibly he did away with the Law of Moses---inter alia, that only the Israelites are God's chosen people---by fulfilling it.

You were providing examples in the Bible where people were treated equally, but in the instance of the Caanite woman she was not treated as an equal.

Yeah, I know. And according to the Christian canon, that issue was mooted by Peter's vision in Acts.

I think it's comparable to the LDS priesthood ban in the sense that this action was never condemmed as wrong just as the LDS church has never condemmed the priesthood ban as wrong. That someone was treated as a lesser not because of their works, but because of their birth.

You appear to be reading the Bible like a Mormon. Not all Christians need a neat and tidy faith-promoting narrative where no institutional mistakes were made and no false doctrines were taught as revelations. A believing Christian can accept Jesus being a product of his time, including Jewish ethnocentrism. A believing Latter-day Saint, by contrast, cannot reconcile "the Church is true" with "the Church falsely taught for 150 years or so that God commanded that black men couldn't have the priesthood." A biblical Christian is not married to the institutional infallibility that a Latter-day Saint is.

I cannot speak to the claims of the OP, but I think here we have a biblical example of someone being treated unequally and where said action is portrayed as just.

You're inferring that, assuming this episode is a true story, Jesus actually believed that the Canaanites were inferior. It is also possible that he was being Socratic to test her faith, which he did to people on other occasions. E.g.,

John 6

5 When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”
6 He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.

[_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.

None of them seriously engaged my argument, and all of them seem to be ignorant of basic historical facts about violence. Not surprising.

The holocaust was a direct result of anti-enlightenment backlash, the sort of conservative "blood and soil" rhetoric of critics of the enlightenment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_soil

The holocaust itself, however, was hardly an unusual event. Genocide has been common to humans for thousands of years. Only in the last 50 years have genocides begun to be less common and less deadly.

It's a fact that the world has never been safer or less violent. I'm surprised anyone would bother to dispute it, given even a moment's thought about it.

Buffalo, I'm trying to show you that you don't know a great deal about the intellectual history of "the Enlightenment." If I thought that the Holocaust was clearly a "direct result" of an anti-Enlightenment backlash and someone told me there was an entire tradition of respected critical theorists and cultural historians who saw it quite differently, I would want to know about their arguments. I would not respond with a sentence and a link to Wikipedia.

What can I tell you? Stak, Mak and Smith gave you intelligent responses. Darth clearly DOES know a great deal about "violence" and "crime" as historically constituted categories. That you can't comprehend this makes me think that you see disagreement as "ignorance."

Here's a tip: Whenever you think an idea or argument is so "obvious" that arguing about it isn't worth a "moment's thought," you are revealing your ideological blind spots. It should be a warning sign for any careful or serious thinker, but it is an especially dangerous position for anyone interested in defending the Enlightenment project of Critique.

[_Darth J]

Trying to refer to my opinion in terms of mopologetic silliness seems ironic, since you're the one defending dodgy religious texts here, not me.

Accuracy about the historical role that Christianity has played in Western thought does not equate to claiming that the New Testament is a true story.