Christianity has failed to...

coberst

Christianity has failed to…


I claim that the Christian religion has failed to teach empathy; one of the most important moral concepts we have.

There are various definitions of empathy given by various individuals but almost all of them point to the same meaning. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs of another person. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to “walk in the shoes of another”, i.e. to acquire an emotional resonance with another.

In his classic work about modern art, “Abstraction and Empathy”, Wilhelm Worringer provides us with a theory of empathy derived from Theodor Lipps that can be usefully applied to objects of art as well as all objects including persons.

“The presupposition of the act of empathy is the general apperceptive activity. Every sensuous object, in so far as it exists for me, is always the product of two components, that which is sensuously given and of my apperceptive activity.”

Apperception—the process of understanding something perceived in terms of previous experience.

What does in so far as it exists for me mean. I would say that something exists for me when I comprehend that something. Comprehension is a hierarchical concept and can be usefully considered as in the shape of a pyramid. At the base of the comprehension pyramid is awareness that is followed by consciousness. We are aware of many things but we are conscious of much less. Consciousness is awareness plus our focused attention.

Continuing with the pyramid analogy, knowing follows consciousness and understanding is at the pinnacle of the pyramid. We know less than we are conscious of and we understand less than we know. Understanding is about meaning whereas knowing is about knowledge. To move from knowing something to a point when that something is meaningful to me, i.e. understood by me, is a big step for man and a giant step for mankind.

My very best friend is meaningful to me and my very worst enemy must, for security reasons, also be meaningful to me. The American failures in Vietnam and Iraq are greatly the result of the fact that our government and our citizens never understood these ‘foreigners’. We failed at the very important relationship—we did not empathesize with the people and thus failed to understand our enemy. It is quite possible that if we had understood them we would never have gone to war with them.

If we had empathy with Germany in the 1930s would we have stopped Hitler before he forced us into war?

If we had empathy with Germany before August 1914 would we have prevented WWI?

Do you agree that we understand our best friend and that we must also understand our worst enemy?

Design_Dude

Christianity's core doctrine is Love, and true love leads to empathy.

coberst

Religion speaks constantly about love. What actions does one take in order to love someone? I claim that empathy is a necessary step toward loving someone. Religion has a problem with intellection; religion wants to focus on emotion. Reason is necessary for empathy; if so, it is necessary for love and thus religion fails when reason fails. Therein lay the paradox of religion.

experiMental

no single doctrine can overpower human nature.

LaVidaLoca

idea that love and compassion are somehow core concepts of Christianity is largely a modern retrospective invention.

As is the idea that the word 'Christianity' somehow indicates a set of beleifs that we can all point to and agree upon. There is a huge difference between say, a US-style fundamentalist Christian, and a left-wing Liberation Theologist in Latin America. Both use the same book to justify hugely disparate beleifs.

As any disinterested observer can see, the Bible is not really much of a book on morals and how to live. It's a cobbled-together hodge-podge of folk myths, archetypes and oral history that you can pretty much read whatever you want into.

Feel like picketing a gay funeral? There's probably a passage in the Bible that'll provide justification. Feel like helping the sick and the downtrodden?
Theres probably a passage in there about that too. Its a very vague, allusive and poetic book.

One thing is certain: It wasn't until humanists started making serious inroads in Christianity's dominance that we began to think of it a compassionate religion - i.e. after it had to adjust itself to more compassionate public opinion in the modern age.

Even in recent times in this country, it wasn't until after the horrendous abuse scandals that rocked the Church, and it's appaling handling of them, that they suddenly started getting groovy and playing guitars to try and win us back.

Seloth

Dont blame the religion,blame the people running it at the time .

Design_Dude

true

LaVidaLoca

Well thats a nice idea of course. But it's not like we have anything else to go on.

Have you ever read (or tried to read) the Bible?

It's not exactly a coherent book about anything.

So when people say they know what Christianity essentially is, I wonder where they get their idea of Christianity from. The Bible is hardly a manifesto of anything as, say, The Communist Manifesto would be. I could read that and Das Kapital and have a fair idea of what Communism is supposed to be about, (regardless of what Stalin or Mao later made of it)

Same cant be said for the Bible. Its a facinating book from a historical perspective, but it doesnt really contain a coherent message.

FionnMatthew

Except that the Gospels sort of do have a coherent message, and even if, like me, you don't believe in any sort of God, there is still, among a large amount of circumstantial prophesying, a coherent second order ethical position to be extracted from Christ's teachings - one that is principled around a certain harmony with other human beings. This ethical principle is so common as to have sprung up unrelated in different parts of the world, and it happens to be one of the most central ethical doctrines of Christianity so called, as opposed to any one of the Christian religions.

And if the word "Christ" in "Christianity" is to mean anything, it is this it should mean, the same way that "Socratic" means something only by virtue of questionable sources.

And this is a criterion by which one could differentiate the so-called Christians from the Christians proper, because it is quite possible to be a believer in the Christian God, and not be a Christian, ie. not adhere to Christian ethics, and it is equally possible to not believe in any God at all, and yet still hold that there is something naively elegant about Christ's ethical philosophy, something worth adhering to.

And, I might add that it is so utterly boring having to read material recycled from the God Delusion. As someone with a degree in philosophy, on a philosophy forum, you really shouldn't be so lazy.

FionnMatthew

PS. I can't believe I'm posting on another one of Coberst's threads.

LaVidaLoca

And you shouldnt be so lazy as to assume I get my opinions from the "God Delusion." I have never read the book. Though I have read the Bible. (Been left with nothing but Mr Gideon for company on many an overseas trip) If we have a discussion about anything at all, of course our ideas are going to be contain elements of other people's thinking. I dont flatter myself that any of the positions Ive arrived at over the years are entirely unique to me. Seems to me far lazier (and rather childish) to dismiss an arguement on the basis, that *shock* somebody else might have come to the same conclusions in another book.

I agree that there are certain ideas that are popularly associated with "Christianity" for example, the idea of loving one's neighbour. But of course as you well know, Christianity in practice has often been associated with acts of quite the opposite kind.

So who are we to listen to as to what Christianity's ethical positions are? Thomas Aquinas? Ted Haggard? Ignatious Loyola?

Well it seems to me, that the best source would be the Bible itself, not it's many and varied interpreters: As one of the few Christian beliefs we could agree on is that this book is the Word of God. Unless of course you're an Anglican in which case it's mainly about tea and biscuits. ('Recycled' from Dylan Moran)

Ok well lets start from there. Among the poetry and fables there are a few direct moral exhortations, as well as other things which are contrary to them. It is hardly a philosopical or ethical work in the modern sense, Im sure you would agree.

If you accuse me of laziness, lets see some riguor on your part then. What are these Christian ethics of what you speak? I dont think we can say there are some people who are 'true' Christians and others who are not, unless we have some idea what the ethical tenets of Christianity actually are. As Jesus never wrote a coherent, tightly-argued book about ethics, all we have to go on are a handful of sayings, filtered through the writings of hundreds of other people.

How can we possibly imagine that we know what the "Real Jesus" (if he existed) thought?

Joe1919

The bible has many authors and to some extent is a patched together book of selected authors and this may account for some of its incoherence.
The bible interestingly, played a large part in the standardisation of English literature when it was translated into English and standardised after the Reformation as it was often the only English book available that people read. Like it or hate it, the bible has played is a big part in the formation of our language, culture and values.

FionnMatthew

The idea that criticizing the Bible, as a somewhat disparate collection of various ritualistic and messianic writings, undermines Christianity as such, is a position that really doesn't merit dismissal. It almost dismisses itself.

I agree that there are certain ideas that are popularly associated with "Christianity" for example, the idea of loving one's neighbour. But of course as you well know, Christianity in practice has often been associated with acts of quite the opposite kind.

No. That's organized religion under the banner of Christianity. It makes little sense to talk of Christianity as if it were some homogeneous body. Strictly speaking the only thing that links all groups labeled "Christian" is the prominent position afforded the person, and/or the sayings of Christ.

So who are we to listen to as to what Christianity's ethical positions are? Thomas Aquinas? Ted Haggard? Ignatious Loyola?

Christ?

Well it seems to me, that the best source would be the Bible itself, not it's many and varied interpreters:

Well, not really. The largest part of the Bible, the Old Testament, deals only ever obliquely with Christ, through the messianic material, and that only if you accept the messianic mythology, which I don't, and which a rigorous reader looking for Christ in the book shouldn't.

The New Testament is the first juncture at which Christ is discussed. Particularly the Gospels, but also the Acts, and the Letters, which purportedly deal with the aftermath of the messianic event.

As one of the few Christian beliefs we could agree on is that this book is the Word of God.

We don't agree on that. Since there are non-theistic Christians, that would certainly be a contentious belief within the set of all Christianity.

Among the poetry and fables there are a few direct moral exhortations, as well as other things which are contrary to them. It is hardly a philosopical or ethical work in the modern sense, Im sure you would agree.

Neither are any of Nietzsche's works after the Birth of Tragedy, and yet there's still an interpretive mandate for extracting general trends in his thought.
The same could be said for Plato, as compared to Aristotle.

If you accuse me of laziness, lets see some riguor on your part then. What are these Christian ethics of what you speak?

Generally speaking, there is but one, elegantly simple, ethical imperative in Christ's sayings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity#Christianity
While the exact words occur only once in the extant texts, most of Christ's teachings, incl. his fables, his acts, his sayings, cohere with this new, second-order ethic, which isn't so much an arbitrary edict from God, but largely theologically neutral advice on how to behave morally.

Mostly, his characterization of God typically responds to this ethic, so that in marked contrast with the punishing God of the Old Testament, Christ's God is all about forgiveness, and rewarding moral living, rather than punishing disobedience. This new characterization of God is arguably the reason the philosophy was so popular in the first place.

So we have the doctrine whereby actually moral activity, (rather than mere obedient activity) is rewarded ultimately in a divine cosmology.

That's very significant. The entire cosmology is reoriented so that specifically moral living is intrinsic to it - God, the cosmos, becomes moral - rather than the picture of the cosmos as some hierarchical system, with a "boss" figure whose rules must be kept at great penalty, all of humanity becomes a family, with God as the role of loving father, who teaches and looks after his children, and whose discipline is for a greater moral good. You see something very like this in Confucianism, where the morality learned in the filial/familial relationship is seen as a microcosm of civil morality, is seen as being intrinsic to the wider shape and nature of the world.

Now, even if you don't endorse the religious material in that, which I don't and neither do you, the core of this cosmology is a moral code, an ethic of reciprocity. And it's possible to see all of the religious claims in it as being the cosmological justification for it - the attempt to paint this elegant and valuable ethic as something important and necessary, as something fundamental to the world itself, and deserving of adherence. Christ's religious teachings are an attempt to universalize his ethic, to convey, in a language that was understood in his contemporary world, the importance of moral living.

I dont think we can say there are some people who are 'true' Christians and others who are not, unless we have some idea what the ethical tenets of Christianity actually are.

Well, I would say that we can differentiate. That's why Ted Haggard isn't a Christian, even if he calls himself one, the same way I wouldn't be a Sartrean, even if I called myself one, if I thought that it was honest to pretend I wasn't responsible for my own actions.

As Jesus never wrote a coherent, tightly-argued book about ethics, all we have to go on are a handful of sayings, filtered through the writings of hundreds of other people.

How can we possibly imagine that we know what the "Real Jesus" (if he existed) thought?

The same could be said for Socrates, or for any of the presocratics. It's a good question, worthy of research, but not one that particularly undermines Christian ethical philosophy.

There are suspicions that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare's corpus. But it still makes sense to say "shakespearean".

Similarly, it still makes sense to call the general ethical philosophy that comes out of the Gospels "Christian", even if it may actually be possible that the person named Christ never existed.

It's possible, therefore, to be a Christian in the same way that it is possible to be a Heraclitean, or a Parmenidean.

LaVidaLoca

Strictly speaking the only thing that links all groups labeled "Christian" is the prominent position afforded the person, and/or the sayings of Christ.

OK, so we agree on that. So you suggest we go to Christ himself for info. Sounds good. And where do you suggest we go for that? Is there another book about him that Im not aware of? One that isnt written at 4th hand by various different people and lumped in with a bunch of Bronze age myths?

Well OK, we can take that as read , we're stuck with the Bible as being our only source. First thing we're going to have to do is ignore the fact that the vast majority of Christian followers consider the whole Bible as the basis for their belief, and narrow it down to the bits that deal with Christ only.

And herein we'll find The Ethic of Reciprocity you pointed to. I'm not arguing that we couldnt point to some basic ideas, and say, these ideas are 'Christian." and to a certain extent know what each other meant. We all know, about loving one's neighbour, turning the other cheek, judge not and so on.

However, where I get off the boat, is when Christians take these ideas, which are really very elementary moral ideas, starting points if you will, that any human being could arrive at whether he'd read the Bible or not, and say that they are somehow essentially Christian. We see these ideas in almost all religious and or ethical systems, from the Greeks to the Vedas, to tribal societies. I take issue with the idea that it would somehow never have occured to me to love my neighbour if I had never been aquianted with Christianity.

The only ideas that areuniquely associated with Christianity, however, are the ones I (and you) dont agree with: silly notions about vicarious redemption through the death of a guy you've never met, peculiar ideas about afterlifes and trinities, rather twisted attitudes to sexuality, and so on. I neednt go on lest you accuse me of plagiarising Richard Dawkins.

Secondly, though I would like to seperate Christ's teaching from Christians as you would, I know that it would be about as intellectually honest to do so as it would be to talk about Communism without mentioning the Gulag, Pol Pot or the Cultural Revolution.

Would you be a 'Communist' if you said you wanted mankind to life a happy life, free of unfair inequality , alienation and exploitation? No. That desire is very widespread in decent human beings. You'd be a communist if you said the way to acheive that was through a dictatorship of the proletariat, centralised state planning of the economy, etc etc . Same with Christianity: It states a pretty elementary morality that almost anyone can agree with, (albeit one that if followed to the letter would be immoral - there are many situations in which it would be gravely immoral to 'turn the other cheek' for example) but inseperable from it in practice, is a pretty loopy bunch of ideas, which are supposedly the unquestionable word of God, that have led to centuries of cruelty , misery, ignorance and so on. (I wont bore you with the Liberal humanist rollcall).

So I dont think it is possible to isolate Christianity in "laboratory conditions" as you attempt to do. In the abscence of this we have to judge it on the basis of the type of behaviour and attitudes it generates, which in my view are largely negative (like those of the other beleif system, Communism, that I mentioned above) and in practice, actually the polar opposite of the ideas that are commonly associated with it. When the ideas themselves are so bland as to be elementary, they cant rise above the actions associated with the beleif system as a whole.

In other words: If smoebody told you that the United States as a nation was selflessly interested in promoting democracy and freedom throughout the world, and always has been, You'd probably snort into your Guinness. But *naive voice* "it's right there, written in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. And the President says he beleives in it."

This doesnt mean that the powerful men who run the place actually care about it. If you want to get anything done in this world you make appeals to these most basic and universal of ideas. Its the McDonalds of ethics. Make something so bland its universally appealing, and then claim you have the guidebook that tells you how to acheive it.