Christians are better people?

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Better than a properly devised, understood, applied and lived moral code derived from rational thinking, common sense and respect for your fellow man?

 

It's intersting to see people slightly straying off topic - I don't see where abortion came from - but it's prompted me to ask a question.

If someone opposes something on religious grounds and somebody promotes the same thing from a 'rational thinking and common sense' stand... which argument will people be most likely to believe/support? Why?

 

Saint nominations were a political matter. Just about every emperor had to be sainted like they were deified before.

The Crusades were not about converting, but regaining the lost lands. The idea behind sword-tip conversions during the Crusades was to give some chance to those who were about to get killed. If they stopped being the enemy, they wouldn't need to be fought and killed. Sort of. Both sides did that for such were the times. Religion was so important and certain concepts taken to such extremes that someone of a different religion was indeed a potential enemy. However, please not that difference in religion was followed by a great difference in culture, political views and everything - not like nowadays when you have people from lots of different religions working together.

The idea behind sins forgiven for Crusading rested on the assumption that Christianity was endangered and defending it was a noble cause. That assumption wasn't unbased. The Byzantine Empire had already got crippled at Manzikert and was being pushed back. The Seljuks and the Mongols weren't exactly coming to Europe in peace. Old Arabs from Spain paled in comparison.

What was bad about the Crusades was the endless slaughters and broken oaths, and lots of unnecessary violence driven by hate. Still, each era in history has its own realia and middle ages can't be judged against present criteria reliably.

 

The Crusades were bad in their entirety. Reconquering the holy land? Uh, yeah, that's a real good reason to kill people.

Wait, no it isn't.

 

Religion does not make you a good or bad person. You do.

 

This thread is so darn squishy!

Religion and rationality claim to describe the same reality, so they shouldn't be in contradiction. Where they are in contradiction - just as in contradiction of two "rational" claims - clearly one of the parties (possibly both) misunderstands the facts at hand.

Let me slosh along and see if I have this right.

The problem with Christians is that...

- they don't follow their moral code

(since the church is full of sinners)

- they do follow their moral code

(since the church opposes abortion, homosexuality, etc.)

- they are too easily forgiving

(since repentant rapists and murderers are allowed to be Christian)

- they are too judgemental

(since the church doesn't tolerate my pet sins)

- they get too involved in politics

(Crusades, religious right, inquisitions, you name it)

- they don't get involved enough in politics

(the church tolerated slavery for much too long)

- they try to force their morality on society

(Christian education, public campaigns, lawmaking, etc.)

- they don't try to force their morality on society

(they don't adopt enough would-be aborted kids to train them up as li'l Christians)

- they don't follow Christ's teachings

(doesn't "love your neighbor" really mean "tolerate your neighbor"?)

- and worst of all, they DO follow Christ's teachings

(belief in hell, duty to witness to others, etc.)


So clearly, in response to the original question, the only way that a Christian could be judged morally better than a non-Christian would be if the Christian adopted all the non-Christian moral positions and dropped the moral aspects the non-Christian disagreed with. But better. So the only truly moral Christian is a hypocrite!

Well, it's a fortunate thing that the church is full of hypocrites...

 

Hypocritical? As an entity, yes. As individuals, no. Any group that has enough people in it is going to contradict itself at times because of the variety of people within the group. Once again, the arguments stand or fall depending on the level of generalisation applied.

 

Picture yorself as the owner of a business. You have two applicants for a position. The only difference you can find between them is one is a Christian that attends church every Sunday (a day that your business doesn't operate) and the other is agnostic. Who do you hire?

 

The one who is best qualified for the job.....

If there are no differences in proper tangible qualifications and I have to resort to frivolous qualities (for such a job) like religion, I would probably go down the list of other "tabooed" discriminatory reasons such as sex, looks, disabilities, marital status etc before I would even remember to think of religion as a deciding factor.

 

@Abomination

I cannot answer the question because Christian is such a vague term. It can mean anything from a familial or cultural background to a personal choice. To some, the number of Christians is very small because it includes their denomination only.

However, I think I get the point. Essentially, I would hire the Christian. Although, I might be somewhat biased against the more fundamentalist churches because I generally do not get along well with their members.

EDIT:
@Harbourboy

I think that, among the frivilous choices, religion probably would mattter to me a lot more than the things you listed. It may just be the way I am as a person or it may cultural. Probably both. Either way, relgion tops the list.

[ September 14, 2004, 23:26: Message edited by: Gavin de Valge ]

 

Being a Christian is really not about religion; it is about the acceptance of Jesus Christ - and believing that He is who He claimed He was. If one does this, he/she will become "a better person." Whether or not that makes one "better" than his neighbor is a separate issue.

Those various authorities which you cite, HS, would have committed the same crimes, regardless of if they were Christians, Hindus, Muslims or any other label one cares to apply. There will always be those who exploit the truly good things in this world for their own gain.

 

The world’s too big and complex for a human mind. Likewise is the concept of morality. The very idea may be sound, but with very little exception there’s no human being capable of understanding what he’s saying when he talks about morality. Chandos has brought up the only point where I can see someone actually living up to his ideals.

Technically, from an anthropological point of view, morality and ethic codes have evolved in tribes to separate them from the others, to form a community based on shared rites and taboos, on certain Does and Don’ts, on something that fills a complex, enigmatic world with purpose and meaning.

But mostly, it was necessary to separate “Them” from “Us”. We are “The True Human Beings”, We know how to appease the rain gods by slaying a deer at the beginning of the rainy season – They don’t. We know why the sun hid its face last month – it’s because the sun was ashamed of Them.

See? Because we cannot understand what is going on in the world and because of the damn unpredictability of future we know of no other way than creating the illusion of understanding. Of course: we understand God. Well, not his motives, obviously, but we know what He has planned for us; we know what is expected from us. Only today did I read about the Pope stating that homosexual marriage is not what God had in mind for us. Again: see? It makes perfect sense that we know how to fulfill God’s will, because if we didn’t, then We would be just like Them, and then where would we be? It gets even better: if we already know how to behave we’re able to start from there and find evidence and arguments sustaining Our views and debunking Theirs. Fancy that!

In a nutshell, morality is a human invention. The more of life it tries to cover, the more likely it is to be out of reach for us simple beings. Christians, Muslims or even Snookists may live up to simple things like “Don’t desire your neighbors wife” or “Thou shall not steal”. But turning the other cheek or filling “Don’t think lowly of dim-witted punks” with life is out of scale in almost all cases. “Love” is a big idea, I have yet to come across a Christian who really understands and lives this concept.

 

Going to philosophy eh?

So much is obvious. No man has, does, or will know the truth behind everything. Everything from good to evil, right to wrong, from morals to ethics, is a matter of a point of view. And because it's a matter of a *point of view* it can never cover the whole of it. A human mind cannot comprehend even a fraction of all that is. To simply understand the full scientific viewpoint of all things, one would have to know everything about everything and be able to process all that information about each single quark at the same time.

But that much is obvious. When I speak to another person and mention a red car, I don't get stuck explaining my full life just to ensure that he understands as much of what I mean by a red car, emotionally and rationally, as possible. I'm satisfied with the fact that he knows the shallow, basic idea of what I'm talking about. Otherwise all communication would be impossible as nobody would be sure of anything.

We must make do with the little means available to us. We must take a viewpoint, or an opinion, and base our lives on it. For otherwise we'd drift in nothingness.

Since views of good and evil and all are relative in the end, I realise it would make a discussion like this rather complicated (is it good to save a life that will end up killing another? is it bad to kill a life to save another? is it evil to behave rudely and violently, making someone strong enough to survive?). Still, it is, for now, a generally accepted idea that traits such as kindness, loyalty, respect for all life and understanding for different things is "good". So the question is, are christians more likely to have these traits than other non-christian people?

To that, I say yes. Even with christian zealots counted in, I think it more probable that a random christian person is on average "better" than a random other person. Or to be more accurrate, the christian "person" is no different in themselves, but the laws and rules and ideals that they follow do make them better in the end.

 

No, sorry, that's not the question. In my first post I tried to describe that Christianity - just like the Islam or Buddhism or ... - merely defines the boundaries of who is with Us and who belongs to Them. Respectively, within each community the traits you mentioned are valued. Each Christian father is kind to his children, each Muslim wife is loyal to her husband etc.

The question is rather: Are Christians more likely to apply these traits to groups/societies/tribes/people that do not belong to them than other Non-christian people are. Do you still say yes to this question?

 

There are people who go to Church but treat matters lightly. And I've known great people who were agnostics or theists, or deists or otherwise not associated with a specific church Christian or not. All is not gold that glitters.

In a world like ancient Rome in the times of early Christians, it would be a good thing to stick together and hire a Christian. In today's world, it would feel somehow un-Christian to me to hire someone just because he's Christian.

However, if I knew the person and knew he really were a good Christian, it would give him the edge, if I didn't know the other person and couldn't take his behaviour into consideration. Still, if I knew the non-Christian one and knew his morals and devotion to good and kindness to be solid, I would probably hire him rather than a random Christian faithful of whom I know he goes to church. Going to church every Sunday just doesn't make anyone a saint. I'm the best example to that.

 

I most definitely do. I'm a part of nothing. I follow many of the same ideals christians do, but I myself am one of those "christians in name only". It's a custom in Finland to belong to the church even though you're not a believer. But that's not the type of christian I'm talking about. I'm talking about the type that willingly admit they actually are in faith. And I as well as my non-believing friends certainly receive better treatment from them than others on average. Even if the treatment isn't exactly the same as with other christians (as it never can be, with any group), I wouldn't say it's worse.

As I said, it's a matter of a point of view. I haven't seen much of the world and I've very little experience with other religions. But from what I have experienced here in Finland, christians are better people than others. Though I do admit your forming of the question does change the view on the subject.

 

You see the problem I have is asking this question only of Christians. It seems to me, based on what Foradasthar is saying, is that not anyone with a strong religious faith tends to treat him well - just those that are of Christian denomination. Have you ever met someone who was Jewish and deeply religious, and how did they treat you? How about Muslim? Hindi? Buddhist? My thinking is that someone who is a believer in a supreme being - whether you call him Jesus, God, Allah, whatever, and truly lives his life by the basic moral code (explained below) then you may be a better person than the average person. Or maybe not. But to say this only applies to Chirstians is nonsense.

I have to make some explanation of my phrase "basic moral code". Yes, if you want to get philisophical, there may be no actual "basic moral code" as it is all subjective and based on one's personal opinions and point of view - Foradasthar touches upon this a few posts up. However, there are certain things that are accepted in nearly all societies. Theft is considered to be universally wrong. There may be no consensus as how an offender should be punished, but it's generally accepted that you don't take something that doesn't belong to you. Beyond actions, certain traits are always looked upon favorably - such as kindness - while other traits are looked upon unfavorably - such as cowardice. While I agree that there is no way such a basic moral code could ever be outlined and applied to every possible situation, I think it is short sighted not to admit that there are some things that are accepted as "good" and "not good" by 99% of the world's population.

 

Theft is usually wrong because of the practical problems it causes. There are cultures that allegedly deem it ok to "take" what they need, instead of earning it. I can't name any for being blamed for racism though. And I don't know enough of those groups to actually believe in all of it myself. Still, forbidding stealing is simply practical. It's not an act of goodness alone.

And as I said on numerous occasions there, our opinions are based on our point of view. As I also said, I do not have experience with too many different religious people. I don't think I know of a single jew in all of Finland. So when I talk about the goodness of christians vs others, I mean others as in people who with 95% certainty don't believe in much anything, and if they do then they don't bother to tell it.

Finland is not like the US. There really aren't that many religions here. Christian lutheric and catholic are the only known ones. And then there are those practiced by the immigrants, which none of us really know anything about. And even catholic religion is a clear minority here. Basically just something that's tought to us in schools. Although some 80-90% of the population is probably lutheric christian on paper, in reality not that many of them are actual believers who say they believe in god openly, pray and perhaps even go to church every now and then.

I never said my opinion covered all the viewpoins. I never said only christians of all different religions treat me well. They're the only ones who've had the opportunity to.

I believe any religion with similar codes and morals would have the same effect on people, of course. But someone who believes in nothing, or in a religion that acts against the morals apparent in christianity, is more likely to be a less good person (especially in the latter case).

 

No offense intended Foradasthar. You were just the most convenient example as you posted immediately before me, so your comments were the most fresh in my mind. I didn't know that Finland was so religiously non-diverse (is that even a word?). The point I was trying to make is we should be comparing religious vs. non-religious (which of course would include Christians) instead of Chirstians vs. non-Christians because the latter is a rather elitist point of view. I wasn't trying to single you out - although I can see why you thought I might have been.

@ dmc - I was generalizing again. But you do bring up some good points in regards to theft. The kindness one is a bit of a stretch, as I don't know anyone personally who regularly talks to the street corner whore, but I know lots of people who cheat on their taxes and get free cable and movie programming. I guess the rationalization is that cheating on your taxes and stealing cable is more or less a victimless crime. The government will still be fine if they get $100 less in tax money from you, and the cable companies will still be wealthy without your $50 per month. However, going down to Mr. Wilson's corner store, smashing the window out and taking all the money from the cash register is clearly hurting someone.

Personally, I don't do either of those things, which is probably why I didn't even think of them. I get my taxes done by an accountant - so I assume he's being honest in the deductions he takes - although I can't be sure. As far as cable is concerned - I get DirecTV - long live the NFL Sunday Ticket! - and I don't think anyone has figured out a way to steal satellite TV yet.