You know what worries me more than anything else in the West these days?

[GennGreymane]

It wasn't just involved, it has been the central piece of our way of life.

Every pillar of our civilisation has had Christianity at it's core and is the main reason that the west prospered.

uhhuh... based on what exactly? We grew over time by breaking traditions, which included those of Christianity.

[Jinpachi]

Please wait until I've left for grad school so I get sealed off on the California side of the wall.

No need to wait, ill buy your plane ticket. Have fun when that fault line decides to perforate the state.

[Moralgy]

You do realise that most of the western way of life for the past 1500 years has been because of Christianity right?

Lefty PC brigade want to rewrite history to suit there agenda but there is nothing they can do about reality and the written record of it.

The past 200-300 years were not the best for anyone but white Christians in the western world. How dare the Lefty PC brigade want to break down those traditions. Sure Christianity was a part of society for those years, but do you really want to say it was the main cause of it given we had slavery, lynchings, witch burning, and so on and so on? If you want to say Christianity was the main reason society was calm for some years, then I would also say it was the main cause society was shit to nearly any non-white christian demographic for many more in response.

We once had a point in time when people treated others with respect, dignity, and were polite in public. The issue was it was only afforded to white Christians for quite a while, in America at least, and now that the "Lefty PC brigade" has tried to expand those very conservative ideals, things I was taught growing up, to other demographics, suddenly those ideals have become being "Politically correct". Like we get literal Jim Crow type laws targeting LGBT people these days from conservative Christians because it is too "PC" to not be a dick to LGBT people, apparently.

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But I know what he/she means... A group which has been a scapegoat since the dawn of civilization. I'm not surprised to see its mention on these forums either.

<snip>

Oh I thought they were going for them damn liburals not Jews.

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It wasn't just involved, it has been the central piece of our way of life.

Every pillar of our civilisation has had Christianity at it's core and is the main reason that the west prospered.

So all the shitty things have had it at it's core as well? Like things I just mentioned? Interesting.

[Krille]

Christianity gave us hospitals and universities. But they also restricted the same services. They held people from actually progressing forward. Education was said to only be about God and the bible. After breaking those "rules" we started focusing on actual science and came up with machinery which eventually made the West into what it is today. While christianity was the foundation of many modern entities it had to be broken down for us to move forward.

The reason you think the West was united/isn't united now is really because of the internet. Just 2 decades ago we knew very little about other nations in the world, we knew their flags, we might have travelled there sometime. But we never knew as much as we can do now, and i believe it's making us question each other more. I don't see it as a bad thing, i don't think any country should be free from questioning. I read some email that Clinton had gotten from one of her colleagues, saying they're "losing western europe". I think that's true, we always looked up to America, the land of freedom. Now it's nothing more than a meme. So that's another unity gone, i sincerely believe western europeans don't look up to the US like they used to. And it's showing.

[GennGreymane]

Christianity gave us hospitals and universities.

Not at all. Those have existed in some form for centuries before it.

[Daymanmb]

However, as Voltaire and many others have pointed out, religion has been a very useful tool for social cohesion quite apart from its metaphysical insanities

There is as much divide in religion as ever. I dont know how you can assert this.

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Christianity gave us hospitals and universities.

Okay, thanks. Time to move on already..

Trusting, possible fictional recounts of possible fictional people, who fasted in the desert and in the mountains and who, most likely, were hallucinating on the DMT their bodys were producing while in a near death state, is an antiquated notion that has served mostly to unite people in the name of a particular God, against another united peoples with their own version of the same God. Talking snake? Burning bush? Come on...

[Krille]

Not at all. Those have existed in some form for centuries before it.

Perhaps, but the all mighty pope decided who got to create a university, at least here in Scandinavia as the one i'm going to was created in 1400s (oldest we got) and had to get permission from the Vatican to create it. And it was only about the bible and God the first years.

[GennGreymane]

Perhaps, but the all mighty pope decided who got to create a university, at least here in Scandinavia as the one i'm going to was created in 1400s (oldest we got) and had to get permission from the Vatican to create it. And it was only about the bible and God the first years.

Isnt it great that we dont need permission from the pope to build important things?

[Krille]

Isnt it great that we dont need permission from the pope to build important things?

It's great. But that's not how it was 600 years ago. It's very possible they would've created a university without the Vatican but the history is what it is.

"As with most medieval universities, Uppsala University initially grew out of an ecclesiastical center. The archbishopric of Uppsala had been one of the most important sees in Sweden proper since Christianity first spread to this region in the ninth century. Uppsala had also long been a hub for regional trade, and had contained settlements dating back into the deep Middle Ages. As was also the case with most medieval universities, Uppsala had initially been chartered through a papal bull. Uppsala's bull, which granted the university its corporate rights, was issued by Pope Sixtus IV in 1477, and established a number of provisions."

[mvaliz]

My belief is that the west suffers from a form of delusion called "Self-Only Interest" that makes people believe they're individually superior to everybody else and that they're somehow self-responsible for being who they are - and when they screw something up or get something wrong they'll instead either lie about it or blame somebody else out of protecting their ego in the name of the same self-only interest.

In short, nobody wants to work together because everybody blames everybody else instead of taking responsibility and doing something themselves - and this is ironically ESPECIALLY true more of those who actually say/claim they are personally responsible and love to talk about "bootstraps" - they tend to be the first to blame everybody else other than themselves.

[Daymanmb]

My belief is that the west suffers from a form of delusion called "Self-Only Interest" that makes people believe they're individually superior to everybody else and that they're somehow self-responsible for being who they are - and when they screw something up or get something wrong they'll instead either lie about it or blame somebody else out of protecting their ego in the name of the same self-only interest.

In short, nobody wants to work together because everybody blames everybody else instead of taking responsibility and doing something themselves.

No argument there. I would add that we are also very apathetic to the suffering in the world that enables our relative comfortable lifestyle. Its hard to empathize without exposure to it.

[May90]

It wasn't just involved, it has been the central piece of our way of life.

Every pillar of our civilisation has had Christianity at it's core and is the main reason that the west prospered.

The west prospered because of Christianity? Nope... At the times when Christianity was especially enforced, things like Inquisition or Crusades happened. The West truly prospered exactly when religious zealotry gave its way to pragmatic philosophy and sciences - something that, sadly, hasn't happened in many Middle Eastern regions yet.

You are right that Christianity was at the core of our civilization. You are wrong in the implication that the core hasn't evolved over time significantly, actually moving away from conservative Christian values. So it didn't last as the core; nor was it the first core - the Western civilization historically started around 2,500 years ago, in Ancient Greece, hundreds years before Christianity existed.

Oh I thought they were going for them damn liburals not Jews.

Different posters - different evils!

[Daymanmb]

In short, nobody wants to work together because everybody blames everybody.

Divide and conquer. This is the strategy. Everything is polarized to extremes.

We're too strong when we are united. When we're distracted by transgendered bathrooms and killing animals to save a human, its easier to pass corporate friendly bills.

[Krille]

No argument there. I would add that we are also very apathetic to the suffering in the world that enables our relative comfortable lifestyle. Its hard to empathize without exposure to it.

Not to mention that nobody wants to hear about the shit that's happening all over the world. Previous generations didn't have this exposure to worldwide news. I think we're just becoming numb to bad news. And it might seem like we don't give a shit anymore.

[mvaliz]

Divide and conquer. This is a strategy. Everything is polarized to extremes.

Calling it "a strategy" makes it sound like a conspiracy theory. I don't believe it is (and they're not allowed on here, if that is what it was meant to be), I just believe it's us living in a culture that tells us to fight our neighbors to somehow make us "stronger" instead of "two heads are better than one". We have corporations who read garbage like Atlas Shrugged and thus have workers blaming bosses for taking from them and their hard work, and conversely we also have the bosses blaming workers for taking from his/her hard work.

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We're too strong when we are united. When we're distracted by transgendered bathrooms and killing animals to save a human, its easier to pass corporate friendly bills.

That's also the effect of people "looking for reasons to be angry." combined with instant social media. All it takes is 5 paranoid delusional people in their mothers basements to spam-spread blogs about random people giving random opnions onto facebooks, breitbarts, forums and other media, and suddently everybody goes insane over somebody's individual blog post thinking it's some kind of epidemic.

[Daymanmb]

Not to mention that nobody wants to hear about the shit that's happening all over the world. Previous generations didn't have this exposure to worldwide news. I think we're just becoming numb to bad news. And it might seem like we don't give a shit anymore.

We're disorganized. We dont know who to trust. Weve become wholly disenfranchised by the obvious corruption in politics. And we're being pulled in so many different directions that it becomes almost impossible not to lose focus.

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Calling it "a strategy" makes it sound like a conspiracy theory.

How easy it is to discredit the obvious.

History tells of factual stories where governments have assisted in the over-throwing of other sovereign, democratically voted governments in the name of corporate interests. Why then, is it hard to conceive that we're being manipulated at home for similar interests?

[Spiral Mage]

Like, when the Republicans tried to sneakily tell the Iranians I think or whatever, that they wanted Trump to negotiate for prisoner releases, so could it wait until after the election? And the Iranian dude was like: "Your country has two parties scheming against each other when the lives of their people are at stake? What is wrong with the U.S.?" It's like .. yeeeep, that about says it.

[Krille]

We're disorganized. We dont know who to trust. Weve become wholly disenfranchised by the obvious corruption in politics. And we're being pulled in so many different directions that it becomes almost impossible not to lose focus.

The obvious flaws of democracy? When anyone can become extremely powerful, they'll go lengths to secure that power. Be it lying to the public or appearing public but at the same time taking "the real decisions" behind closed doors.

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Like, when the Republicans tried to sneakily tell the Iranians I think or whatever, that they wanted Trump to negotiate for prisoner releases, so could it wait until after the election? And the Iranian dude was like: "Your country has two parties scheming against each other when the lives of their people are at stake? What is wrong with the U.S.?" It's like .. yeeeep, that about says it.

People are dying all over the world because of western politics and corporate greed. It's been happening for forever. We know it, but we don't give a shit because they're not us, right.

[Daymanmb]

The obvious flaws of democracy?

The obvious flaws of letting money buy power and a bigger say.

[Krille]

The obvious flaws of letting money buy power and a bigger say.

The fact that people lie their fucking socks off to come to power and then sit and vote whatever pays the best is a flaw in democracy. Lobbyism will never go away, because money > integrity/pride/morals.