Comments by "Philip Rayment" (@PJRayment) on "‘Grammar of condemnation’ built up to silence those who criticise status quo" video.

  1. It was Christianity, not the so-called Enlightenment, that made the West what it is. Take it, for example, from sociologist Rodney Stark: “Christianity created Western Civilization. Had the followers of Jesus remained an obscure Jewish sect, most of you would not have learned to read and the rest of you would be reading from hand copied scrolls. Without a theology committed to reason, progress, and moral equality, today the entire world would be about where non-European societies were in, say, 1800: A world with many astrologers and alchemists but no scientists. A world of despots, lacking universities, banks, factories, eyeglasses, chimneys, and pianos. A world where most infants do not live to the age of five and many women die in childbirth–a world truly living in 'dark ages.' " Or from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: "we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.” Or from historian Tom Holland: "...compacted into this very very small amount of writing [the apostle Paul's letters in the New Testament], was almost everything that explains the modern world..."
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