Comments by "John Woodrow" (@johnwoodrow8769) on "‘Significant cultural decline’ in the West" video.

I agree with everything Jennifer said, except the implied moral superiority of 'people of faith'. I've been hearing this nonsense the whole 70 years of my life. Church attendance is probably no different today than it was in the 1970's, yet societies values have changed dramatically. The 1950's was about the end of the dominance of 'christian values' in Australia society, and it wasn't exactly a period of great tolerance and compassion. Actually it was anything but.
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@ilguitaro If you want to play that silly game, I could name just as many, if not more, people (whole civilizations) killed in the name of "christianity'. Explain to me again just why the 'holy lands' were invaded by the Crusaders. No shortage of 'strong christian values' among the southern slave owners in the USA. Like me to go on, and on, and on ........
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@ilguitaro I suggest one day you travel to Oxford in England, and there you will find a marker on the location where the three protestant 'Oxford Martyrs' were burned alive at the stake. Their 'crime', not converting to the Catholicism of Queen Mary. Research why the historic practice exists of why white or black smoke emanates from the Conclave chimney when a new Pope is elected. I could go one and on .... these are the roots of your "christian values'.
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@ilguitaro Now you're just engaging in a pure 'strawman' tactics. If you want to delude yourself that 'christians' and 'christianity' is morally and socially superior today or through-out history, feel free to continue that delusion. Because that ALL it is. The reality has been intolerance, wars, power grabs, etc. Go tell a young unmarried woman or teenager who found herself pregnant in the 1950's, before the advent of oral contraception, how 'tolerant' and supportive your christian society was it those days. The reality was society was brim FULL of narrow minded religious bigots. I'm old enough to remember it clearly.
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@zeldaharris6876 On what basis do you make the silly statement "christianity is the foundation of our legal system"? All over the planet, regardless of the religion, the virtual same formalised rules of a civilised society exist. You really think 'thou shall not kill, steal, etc' is perfectly acceptable in a Buddhist or Hindu society? And yes, this WHOLE discussion is based on claims by 'christians' they are morally superior. Which by any honest and unbiased assessment of history, is pure BS.
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@Labor Shill No matter how you try and spin it, the 'crusaders' were nothing other than an invading foreign army, using religion to motivate the grunts, lead by people who went to foreign lands seeking adventure and fortunes. All they achieved was slaughtering an estimated 5 million people .... of cause 'in the name of god'.
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@ilguitaro More 'straw man' tactics on your part. A tip, strawman arguments are the tool of the intellectually weak. The topic is has society declined in recent years because of the declining number of practicing christions. It's my observation that church attendance had declined to current levels by the 1970's so this can't possibly be a factor in what has happened to society over say the last 20 years. If one objectively examines the role of the church in the state, society, and the institution itself, throughout history, it is a story of more horror than enlightenment.
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@Labor Shill Seems we're in agreement. A series of wars instigated by the Catholic church to invade foreign lands for power and wealth. Invasions that cost the lives of an estimated 5 million people. Perhaps you should read some history. Maybe start with what is called the 'siege of Jerusalem' where the crusaders massacred an estimated 70,000 inhabitants (Muslims and Jews) and pillaged the city. All done in 'the name of god'.
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@ilguitaro I see you've run completely out of ideas, and its you who have now resorted not only to strawman tactics and gaslighting, but insults. I'll give you this much, the basic writings of christianity are a useful collection of fables. Stories made up by men, selectively edited and in many cases significant changed over the years, in order to convey an idea to totally uneducated people. But certainly in no way superior to other good fables e.g Peter and The Wolf, The Tortoise and the Hare. P.S. and if you don't believe sections of your scriptures were selective edited to radically alter their meaning on the instructions of the church hierarchy in the days when they were all hand written by monks, then you really don't know much about the subject.
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@Labor Shill You clearly know NOTHING about the history. The Jews had occupied the place for literally thousands of years, than came the Muslims. Christianity was only ever a VERY small fringe group. It wasn't till 1099 that the Crusaders massacred the near entire population of Jerusalem (Jews and Muslims) and then started to take over their holy places to accommodate the influx of christians from other countries.
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@Labor Shill At its height in biblical time, there were no more than about 5000 christians. The idea that the "Holy Lands" were ever owned by this small fringe following of the guru called Jesus of Nazareth is laughable.
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@Labor Shill Why would I be interested in what happened in the 7th centaury, when the issue we are discussing happened hundreds of years prior. Go back 1000 BC and start from there.
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@Labor Shill Instead of pushing your wagon on some made up pretext, try reading the thread to figure what the context of the statement was. The context is the demise of christianity in the West a significant reason for the Wests decline in recent years. I say it's not, the demise occurred some some 40+ years ago (the time of the hippy generation), and the very notion it was the moral backbone of civilization at any time in history is more spin than substance. Paul, the originator of the religion now known as christianity was only ever able to sell it to the pagans because he promised everyone would go to heaven, where they believed one could only get to heaven by dying in combat. Even the disciples thought Paul was a fraud, and other than a very brief meeting with Peter and James, the others refused to have anything to do with him.
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@Sly News Good point. Paedophilia among priests, perpetrated upon the most venerable in society, young people entrusted to their care, and the church covering up these abuses for decades ...... it's a wonder people are even game to stick their head up and claim the moral high ground because someone is 'religious'.
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