So what, people weren’t monogamous before the conception of Judaism (I assume we’re not going to give Christianity any credit because, if you adhere to Christianity and the Bible, we’ll take note that people did indeed have spouses)? I don’t quite see how you can make such a wide claim without any evidentiary support to back yourself up. History and biology negate your claims.
Historically speaking, the Romans practiced monogamy before the Jews or Christians did. It was a legal rather than religious matter, and their customs were of course different from those practiced today, yet essentially they were quite positively monogamous. The concept of marriage, therefore, predates Judeo-Christian influence. I’m unsure as to its origins, I’m not an expert on the subject, but that much I can tell you. If it interests anybody I am going to the library tomorrow and can do a little side research, but I don’t really feel that’s necessary.
Biologically speaking, monogamy is present in many different lifeforms, not just humans. In terms of social monogamy, only three percent of mammals adhere to it, but a whopping ninety percent of birds are monogamous. Having said that, sexual monogamy, regardless of your wishful thinking, is not something inherent in the human nature, but we are led to think that marriage (assume for the sake of argument that marriage is synonymous with monogamy) somehow by sanctity purges a person of their desire to fuck other people. This, of course, is falsified by the fact that people cheat on their spouses. As such, I don’t see any reason to view it as virtuous except out of fear that an invisible man in the sky will strike me down with lightning if I insert my penis into the wrong female specimen (or heaven forbid a male specimen). If virtue is based on fear, and this is a point I will reiterate later, is it really virtue, or merely a means to escape wrath? These questions are unanswered by the religious and are very fundamental and basic.
Back to biology. The point I was trying to make is that monogamy is not a result of any divine guidance, as if humans are too stupid or feral to collaborate in such a way on their own, but it is something that we find all throughout nature, therefore it is inevitable that one day nature and nurture would meet upon the foundation of civilization, or rather, culture, and our nature is in a way infused into that nurture. Why do I think this? I will refer you to the concept of Attachment Theory: This is usually attributed to children and their parents, but the theory also applies to adult romantic entanglements and goes to great lengths to explain as to why human beings share that emotional connection to “that one special person,” if you will.
Europe owes its dependence to a series of bloody campaigns promoting a savage, archaic form of Christianity? Well, that changes everything now doesn’t it?
For all that I think Europe and the rest of the Christian world was worth saving. Note the sarcasm.
We thrive and others suffer because of our strict join-us-or-die attitude that has reverberated throughout society from time to time.
Arguably, it wasn’t until Dr. King was assassinated and made into a martyr (because apparently martyrdom is equivalent to sainthood; whether it’s dead Jews on a cross or a dead “nigger” in a casket, our society loves it. The one thing separating our reverence for martyrs from the Islamofascists’ reverence is because the latter bases their respect on how many infidels get killed in the process) that any real breakthrough was made in terms of civil rights in the US. And it wasn’t so much racism that they were protesting against; arguably many blacks in the US were just as racially bigoted toward whites as the inverse was toward them. They were protesting against segregation, and lobbying for equal rights/protection of the law.
Also, to equate Dr. King’s nonviolence strategy with Christian morality is somewhat overreaching. Of course King and a good chunk of his followers were Christian, but the purpose of the nonviolence strategy was dependent upon the most easily achieved means of social change. King’s and his followers believed that violence would only infuriate the white majority more and further alienate themselves from their goals, which is contrasted sharply with the actions and motives of other black leaders, such as Malcolm X and the rest of the Black Muslim crowd.
Moreover, people always seem to forget that Dr. King allied himself during this time with like-minded secularists such as A. Philip Randolph, an atheist and a socialist who actually helped organize the March on Washington, and other members of the communist party who at that time also focused their efforts on desegregation. They [the atheists/communists/secularists] didn’t have Christian morality to base their intentions on, did they? But they went along with the same means because they knew it was what would work.
Like that Heretic Agnostic fellow stated, Islam is in fact a sloppy derivative of the Judeo-Christian line of thinking, and as such should not be fully excluded from that great religious triad. In my eyes, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all three different sects of a much more potent imminent threat to reason, rationality, and logic, and it is through sheer luck that they spend so much time quarreling amongst one another rather than unite into one congealed mass of irrational thought and attack the secularists who have worked so hard to rework society for the better through enlightenment. Having said that, I know it sounds harsh, and my aim is not to be deliberately provocative, merely to explain the connections that the Big Three have with one another. The term “luck” should also be looked at with a grain of salt, as the fact that they quarrel with one another creates a great deal of strain with all parties involved regardless.
Is Islam more violent and oppressive than Christianity? Most definitely. Is it a threat? Again, most definitely. But if you look at it through it’s roots, the more violent and oppressive aspects of Islam are not entirely absent in Christianity, which likes to defend its little nasty embarrassing tenets with wishy-washy “Love thy Neighbor” drivel, which is quite hypocritically contradicted at various times throughout the length of the Bible. That’s the point I want to make. Just because it’s not as guilty as Islam, doesn’t mean that it is steer clear of criticism, either.
I’ll end this rant on a high note so you don’t take it as a personal attack. I want you to know I’m not singling you out or anything, Geoff, I merely respect your intellect enough to challenge it, and as such I respect my own enough to defend it. Here is where I agree with you. As much as I do honestly wish that the brilliance of my Founding Fathers and all their statutes on religious freedom could bring us all together holding hands and shitting butterflies and cinnamon buns on a multi-colored, multi-ethnic field, history and the amalgamation and incorporation of so many different opposing ideas into our society has led to a great deal of violence, hatred, and bigotry. I’m not saying that religious freedom is a bad thing. I’m all for it; it’s a person’s intellectual right to think how their mind has decided it will. The problem is not a product of the freedom, it’s a product of what is being exercised itself. Religion, overall, is too dogmatic to bow down to any who oppose it, and when various scriptures and holy books are essentially incompatible with one another, problems arise. So I agree with you there. I agree that I wouldn’t in a million years wish for society to be consumed by the plague of Islam. But the implementation of Christianity as Top Dog is not going to help us either in the long run. The very fact that people feel that certain aspects of Christianity (ones that are very clearly written in scripture) oppress them exists means that in the end, where theocracy exists, oppression exists.
I apologize for the overall shoddy articulation of this response. It’s three AM where I live and I’m very tired. I’ll try and re-articulate myself better later if you have any questions on anything I’ve said, or if you need clarification.
