Who can help me understand the War on Christianity?

[Ladewig]

In any case, I always thought that the "War on Christianity" dealt more with conservative Christians feeling their "rights" were being tread upon when Christian symbols were removed from locations they had no place being or when non-Christian symbols were added.

Fnord started his War against Christianity thread in order to cite the church shootings in Colorado, so apparently the war is more than simply removing inappropriate symbols from the public square.

 

[QBinBee]

[...] In any case, I always thought that the "War on Christianity" dealt more with conservative Christians feeling their "rights" were being tread upon when Christian symbols were removed from locations they had no place being or when non-Christian symbols were added.

e.g. Prayer in schools, manger scenes in government buildings, people saying "happy holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" in order to include Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus , etc...

See, I was under this same impression.

 

[Cactus Wren]

I apologize for not being of the target posing of this thread (since I don't believe there is a "War on Christianity.") But I do find it fascinating that some people actually believe this way. Maybe it is because christianity is really a war on every other way of thinking since many if not most sects claim to be the one true religion and all others must be converted for the world to be a happy place. Most people however, do not want to think of themself as the aggressor and find it more appealing to think of themselves as the victim, hence the reversal of turning it into the war on christanity rather than christanity's war on everything else.

Have you read L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall? The hero, Martin Padway, an American historian working in Rome, is catapulted from the mid-20th century to sometime in the sixth. At one point, he gets into a religious debate:

"Well, you haven't seen anything," said the man. "{Rome} hasn't been the same since the Goths came." He lowered his voice conspiratorially: "Mark my words, it won't be like this always, either!"

"You don't like the Goths?"

"No! Not with the persecution we have to put up with!"

"Persecution?" Padway raised his eyebrows.

"Religious persecution. We won't stand for it forever."

"I thought the Goths let everybody worship as they pleased."

"That's just it! We Orthodox are forced to stand around and watch Arians and Monophysites and Nestorians and Jews going about their business unmolested, as if they owned the country. If that isn't persecution, I'd like to know what is!"

"You mean that you're persecuted because the heretics and such are not?"

"Certainly, isn't that obvious? We won't stand -- What's your religion, by the way?"

 

[normdoering]

It's a really a war on stupidity

(...I don't believe there is a "War on Christianity.") But I do find it fascinating that some people actually believe this way. Maybe it is because christianity is really a war on every other way of thinking ...

The war metaphor is certainly hyperbole. It's not a war; it's an argument that is inevitable because we have so many very different views about how this world works.

I do spend a lot of time on my blog "attacking" religious ideas that I find incredibly bogus:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/

It's a really a war on stupidity.

But I sure ain't shooting anybody.

 

[hammegk]

The schism may just reflect the usual liberal(contractual)/conservative(beehive) views.

Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, practices, institutions, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible.

In my research I have found that there are two common ways that cultures suppress and regulate selfishness, two visions of what society is and how it ought to work. I'll call them the contractual approach and the beehive approach.

The contractual approach takes the individual as the fundamental unit of value. The fundamental problem of social life is that individuals often hurt each other, and so we create implicit social contracts and explicit laws to foster a fair, free, and safe society in which individuals can pursue their interests and develop themselves and their relationships as they choose.

Morality is about happiness and suffering (as Harris says, and as John Stuart Mill said before him), and so contractualists are endlessly trying to fine-tune laws, reinvent institutions, and extend new rights as circumstances change in order to maximize happiness and minimize suffering. To build a contractual morality, all you need are the two individualizing foundations: harm/care, and fairness/reciprocity. The other three foundations, and any religion that builds on them, run afoul of the prime directive: let people make their own choices, as long as they harm nobody else.

The beehive approach, in contrast, takes the group and its territory as fundamental sources of value. Individual bees are born and die by the thousands, but the hive lives for a long time, and each individual has a role to play in fostering its success.The two fundamental problems of social life are attacks from outside and subversion from within. Either one can lead to the death of the hive, so all must pull together, do their duty, and be willing to make sacrifices for the group. Bees don't have to learn how to behave in this way but human children do, and this is why cultural conservatives are so heavily focused on what happens in schools, families, and the media.

Above from http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html