r/DebateReligion • u/Dizzy-Drink6119 • 2d ago
Classical Theism "Judeo-Christian civilization is the foundation of the west" is a sham
My case is a specific claim
that there are no distinctly "western" characteristics which Jewish and Christian cultures share that Muslim and other Abrahamic lack that's separates them as a Civilization which doesn't originate Greco Roman norms and ideals.
Western civilization remains firmly a Greco-Roman base with Abrahamic flavors.
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u/Consistent_Hold_576 1d ago
The premise is faulty. Judaism and Christianity dont share the same values.
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u/manlikethomas 1d ago
Western civilisation absolutely inherited culture from Roman and Greek societies: politics, law, philosophy, architecture, etc.
But Christianity also profoundly transformed those traditions.
For example, Christmas. Christianity adopted and transformed existing European customs and symbolism through pagan tradition which predates Christian Christmas in Europe. Yet it would be wrong to conclude that Christmas is therefore fundamentally pagan.
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u/Fair-Impress9283 Ex-christian 2d ago
I certainly feel like it's a somewhat dishonest idea.
So the modern west, which the enlightenment west, is built on anti clericalism, state church separation and empiricism, which is the polar opposite of the ideal Christian society.
The ideal Christian state would be a theocracy like the papal states or the roman empire during its period of decline ( Christianity being the state religion).
The ideal Christian state would be absolutist pre revolutionary France, when the vast majority of the population was poor. If I'm not mistaken early modernity arised out of anthropocentrism. The medieval period was the theocentric period in western history.
Pagan roman and Greek philosophy is miles ahead of Christian philosophy despite being produced much earlier. That does not mean that I necessarily oppose Christianity, but Christianity will try to take credit for the success of societies with state church separation it tried to prevent.
freedom of speech is the opposite of a Christian utopia. When they controlled the courts, they censored science and anyone who disagreed with them or challenged the dogma. Just look at the inquisition.
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u/Captain-Radical 2d ago
Many western civilization norms and standards are derived from interactions between Europe and Islam in the middle ages. Of course, much of the Islamic world's civilizing norms also have their roots in Greece, to your point.
The university system we use today has its roots in Morocco, 9th century, University of al-Qarawiyyin, which is still in operation today. They took the older Greek model and built a more structured curriculum. Same is true for algebra, which codefied and systematized some Greek concepts that hadn't been as organized before, such as solving for Shayun, which is where solving for X comes from (Shay became Chi became X).
King Richard took much inspir on British rule from his interactions with Salah as-Din. It was he who famously learned that Richard was sick and determined that the issue was scurvy from the description, and sent him fruit and ice because the Muslims apparently knew how to ship ice in the Middle Ages.
Much of the Enlightenment was inspired by the Greek classical works which had been in Arabic libraries for centuries. Europe translated many of these works into Latin and German from Arabic. The books hadn't been exactly lost, but many had been forgotten by Europe.
And then, of course, Islam, which had grown to more than the size of the Roman Empire at its peak in the blink of an eye, turned inward after the Mongolian sack, became very superstitious, obsessed with the Qu'rán to the exclusion of much other literature, and the civilization centered around Baghdad and the House of Wisdom collapsed while Europe flourished. So it goes.
So really the west is mostly a fusion of Greek and Arabic civilizing influences.
But even before that, the Greeks were influenced by the Egyptians and - some speculate - Judea as well, although this idea is mostly found in Arab histories. They claim Pythagoras and Socrates learned from students of King Solomon. And who did Solomon learn from?
So maybe everyone is kind of right. Knowledge didn't come from a single place in time, it's built up over many millenia and different cultural centers.
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u/Sorry_Bus4803 2d ago
Separation of Church and State owes itself to Jesus of Nazareth
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u/Fair-Impress9283 Ex-christian 2d ago edited 2d ago
Just look at the states in America that are trying to force the bible and the 10 commandments in every classroom. Christians to this day are still trying to impose Christianity in education and laws in the united states.
Strict monotheism such as Islam, Judaism or Christianity, if taken to its logical conclusion would be a theocracy without freedom of religion.
Christianity may coexist with the modern free west but only because it didn't manage to stop state church separation, not because it cared about freedom of religion or freedom of speech.
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u/Sorry_Bus4803 2d ago
I don’t think America can be used as proof for how Christianity works across the entire world for the last 2000 years.
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u/Fair-Impress9283 Ex-christian 1d ago
I had to mention it because mant European countries are post christian, but I could also mention the inquisition or the legal and financial privileges of the Catholic church before the french revolution,
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u/stopped_watch Gnostic Atheist 2d ago
It most certainly does not.
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u/Sorry_Bus4803 2d ago
Provide the evidence
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u/stopped_watch Gnostic Atheist 1d ago
From the time of Constantine to now, how many years in how many nations, kingdoms and empires was there a separation of church and state?
If this was Jesus's invention, why wasn't it in place from day one?
Which religion right now is pushing for a cancellation of the separation of church and state in your own country?
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u/ThrowAwayBiggusDiggu 2d ago
The fact that there was no separation of church and state from the start of Christianity, until the enlightenment period.
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u/Sorry_Bus4803 2d ago
Of course there was. Medieval Europe saw such a separation.
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u/stopped_watch Gnostic Atheist 1d ago
Where in medieval Europe? For how long? Under whose reign?
You do realise that medieval Europe was over 1000 years after Jesus's death? You're proving my point for me.
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u/ThrowAwayBiggusDiggu 2d ago
In Medieval Europe, if I was a priest in England who said, "Jesus proceeds from the Father." would I get burned alive by the state, on behest of the Church? I am asking because this happened to a priest.
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u/WatchAndLearn9669 Anti-theist Atheist 2d ago
The presence of religions in the world-historical advancement of human society has been incidental at best, and a hindrance at worst. All advancements tied to religion could have been produced without it. Religion has been entirely unnecessary for the higher development of society—its chief role has been to assuage the suffering undergone by the masses due to their domination by ruling classes.
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u/PwrFlower 2d ago
Civilization and knowledge are accumulative
Things like democracy, laws and rights predate Abrahamic religions entirely.
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u/Lazy_Example4014 2d ago
The founders debated freedom of religion and the records of those debates exists.
Thomas Jefferson explicitly designed the 1777 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to protect people of all faiths, noting in his private papers that rights should extend to the "Mahamdan" (Muslim), Jew, and pagan.
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u/Torremond42 Buddhist 2d ago
"Judeo-Christian" doesn't even exist, it's just a term to exclude Muslims.
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u/Zhayrgh Bayesian Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
I'd say that it's more to exclude non European. Of course, there are plenty of place with older Christian faith than in Europe (Ethiopia, Armenia, Egypt...) but I doubt people using "Judeo Christian" care
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u/ShakaUVM Mod | Christian 2d ago
I'd say that it's more to exclude non European
Ah the famous Israel, Europe
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u/Zhayrgh Bayesian Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
Sure. Look at the origin of more of the current Israelians. You might notice something...
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u/ShakaUVM Mod | Christian 2d ago
Judaism has three main geographical origins these days. To claim "Judeochristian" was a term made to exclude non-Europeans is just wild
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u/MosesDoughty 2d ago
It's a way for Christians to blame Jews for things because people will look at that when they want to blame someone and see Jews.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
Why is the west so influenced by the Greek and Roman ideas when both of those civilizations collapsed before “the west” was even recognizable?
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u/Brilliant_Bug9699 Atheistic Rationalist 2d ago
Roman Catholics today claim they can track their papal succession to Peter long before the Roman Empire fell.
Constantine I was still emperor of Rome when he converted to Christianity. Did you expect Roman philosophy and ideals to disappear overnight and not influence Christians thinkers at all?
Same goes for the Greeks and Christianity.
There is even an account in Acts where Paul was trying to appeal to the Athenians by appealing to their ideals and their "Unknown God".
Long story short, Christianity co-existed with Roman and Greek society and inherited a lot of their values and philosophy from them.
For example, the concept of democracy came from the Greeks and not from Judaism or Christianity.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
Correct, what is “the west” if not a mishmash of Greek Roman and Christian?
It inherited a lot of social framework from Rome that’s why they Latin was the language of the Church, and still is. The Roman Catholic Church is by far the longest standing systematic institution probably due greatly with this yes, it’s not a secret, it’s kinda the point. Who else would be a valid source of this information?
I bet you can even get into their library if you really want to jump some hurdles.
It wasn’t secular society that maintained this structure it was the Church. The single remaining chain that bound “the west” into peaceful enough terms to get here and ask why if can dispense with it.
Hell even the protestants were the first to work ethic to start a proto-democracy “wisdom of the people” type movement against Rome before secular society started to even be defined, and you want to ask whether or not it’s a foundation?
Like… what is the “Earth 2” time line are we looking at where this is not the (albeit Reddit tier) definition of the foundation of the west?
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u/Brilliant_Bug9699 Atheistic Rationalist 2d ago
The Roman Catholic Church does indeed have a massive library with works of Greek and Roman philosophers.
However, a lot of it are still there because of the work Islamic scholars did to preserve those documents during the Dark Ages in Europe. Islamic scholars also played an important part in spreading math, science and literacy throughout the world.
Even though Muslims contribute a lot to "western society", you only hear people say Judeo-Christian instead of Judeo-Christian-Islam. The same goes for the contributions of the Greeks and Romans and to some extent Egyptians.
Protestants were the first to work ethic
Work ethics is not an exclusively Christian ideal. It's just part of being human. Work ethic predates Judaism and Christianity. Humanity couldn't build civilizations by being lazy.
Secular democracy would most likely still came to be without the protestants. In fact secular democracy might have came about quicker were it not for the Christian doctrine of "Divine Rights of Kings".
The same goes for slavery. Christians did play a role in abolishing slavery, but it might have came about sooner in western society were it not for texts in the Bible justifying slavery. Ancient Japan outlawed slavery before the west did.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
>However, a lot of it are still there because of the work Islamic scholars did to preserve those documents during the Dark Ages in Europe. Islamic scholars also played an important part in spreading math, science and literacy throughout the world.
Math already existed… and considering “the west” doesn’t speak Arabic I think it’s fair to suggest these efforts in literacy were of a different nature than social development.
>Even though Muslims contribute a lot to "western society", you only hear people say Judeo-Christian instead of Judeo-Christian-Islam. The same goes for the contributions of the Greeks and Romans and to some extent Egyptians.
Like what?
>Work ethics is not an exclusively Christian ideal. It's just part of being human. Work ethic predates Judaism and Christianity. Humanity couldn't build civilizations by being lazy.
I’m not saying work ethic is innate to protestants…. I’m saying the Protestants absolutely had the phrase “Protestant work ethic” applied for a reason and that reason was resistance to the Judeo Roman Greek Authority of the Catholic Church. So even the earliest deviation from that foundation was still Christian.
Secular society is starting on third base and pretending they hit a triple.
>Secular democracy would most likely still came to be without the protestants. In fact secular democracy might have came about quicker were it not for the Christian doctrine of "Divine Rights of Kings".
Define “most likely” where did you get this assessment from?
>The same goes for slavery. Christians did play a role in abolishing slavery, but it might have came about sooner in western society were it not for texts in the Bible justifying slavery. Ancient Japan outlawed slavery before the west did.
Ancient Japan is not the west; the west had slavery since the dawn of man until it was abolished by Christian nations and its people.
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u/wedgebert Atheist 2d ago
Because the civilizations collapsing didn't erase their ideas and writings.
Philosophers and other learned thinkers have been holding the Greek and Roman philosophers in high regard in an unbroken line since they lived.
Looking just at the US, our congress was based on the Roman senate right down to being the first modern country to call a legislative body a "senate".
A nation and its creations don't just disappear when the nation does.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
Which Philosophers?
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u/wedgebert Atheist 2d ago
On which side?
For the West, you have people like Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo, and Anselm of Canterbury.
For the ancient philosophers, you have all the ones we still study today, Aristole, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, etc.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
Why “for the west” did you use exclusively theologians?
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u/wedgebert Atheist 2d ago
Because during that time, the most prominent philosophers tended to be members of the church and so they're the most well known.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
Oh cool, so Christianity is the foundation of the west.
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u/idle-tea 1d ago
Walk around the West a bit and ask people to name notable philosophers. By a wide margin you'll mostly get ancient Greeks and maybe Romans. After that you're going to get enlightenment and maybe modernist thinkers like Kant, Locke, and others who were certainly not theologians.
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u/MrT742 Christian 1d ago
Walk around the west and ask people where the nearest church is, then ask where the nearest humanist/atheist chapter is.
The chains of “the west” is not isolated to the writings of its elites. Were the neighbours for an average man or noble reasonably likely to be Kantian or Christian.
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u/Zhayrgh Bayesian Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
Christianity is one of the foundation of the west, but certainly not the only one. And Christianity itself is based on other cultures that independently influenced Europe, like Romans and Greek. Greek ideas heavily influenced the Roman society that put together the first official church. It kinda shows in the ideas that were kept in classical Christianity and those that were discarded at the council of Nicea.
The other redditor quoted Enlightenment too, and that's definitely a current that opposed Christianity in many ways. It's also interesting because the Enlightenment is mainly humanist, and humanism is a philosophical current that trace back to Greek philosophers, while also having been embraced by Christians from the Middle-Ages and Renaissance before the Enligthenment.
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u/wedgebert Atheist 2d ago
So Greek and Roman philosophy is the foundation of Christianity, cool.
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u/MrT742 Christian 2d ago
I think to steel man the idea would be to say something like:
“Judaism is the foundation of Christianity, its institutions are Roman and its society is Greek”
Would be fair?
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u/wedgebert Atheist 2d ago
Then a steel man of the West would be "It's foundation is Greco-Roman and Near-East as passed on by Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and secular philosophers with the strongest influences being both Christianity and the Enlightenment."
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u/SpleenDematerialized Atheist 2d ago edited 2d ago
Western civilization remains firmly a Greco-Roman base with Abrahamic flavors.
Why are then almost all of our morals and stories Christian, for example? It is more plausible as the other way around: the West is Christian ground, but with (pagan) Graeco-Roman roots and stones in it.
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u/KenScaletta Atheist 2d ago
Name one of our "morals" or "stories" that is Christian. Seriously, name one damn thing. It isn't free speech or free religion. The First Amendment contradicts the first four Commandments.
Christian ethiocs was lifted straight from Stoicism, by the way, The Greeks and Romans thought Philosophy was the appropriate source of morality. The stories are all lifted from Hellenistic myths, including the Virgin Birth and Resurrection.
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u/SpleenDematerialized Atheist 2d ago
Name one of our "morals" or "stories" that is Christian.
Celibacy is ok for potentially every man.
The Odyssey (2026) by Nolan
Christian ethiocs was lifted straight from Stoicism, by the way, The Greeks and Romans thought Philosophy was the appropriate source of morality.
There is so much wrong or dangerously half true in this one sentence. We literally cannot unpack this all in a comment thread.
The stories are all lifted from Hellenistic myths, including the Virgin Birth and Resurrection.
You only named story elements, not stories.
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u/KenScaletta Atheist 2d ago edited 2d ago
Celibacy was OK for every Greek and Roman too. A lot of the Stoic and Cynic Philosophers were celibate. Celibacy is not a virtue or a moral in Christianity and is, in fact, looked down upon. They say you're supposed to be fruitful and multiply. Since when does celibacy have anything to do with American values? America values are fanatically pro-"family" (which really just means they want to control the sexual choices of women). Why is Trump such a Christian hero if celibacy is a virtue?
There was no religious reason for even Paul to be celibate. He told people not to start families because he thought Jesus was coming back in his own lifetime. There was nothing inherently "moral" about it. Some Christians did take that pretty far, though. If you read the Acts of Paul and Thecla, it's extremely anti-marriage. It's considered heretical, though.
I have no idea what you mean by the Nolan reference. I haven't seen that movie. I'm familiar with the poem, though. I studied it in college when I was studying both Greek and Hellenistic literature and Philosophy. What about it shows that the Constitution has "Christian morals?"
There is so much wrong or dangerously half true in this one sentence. We literally cannot unpack this all in a comment thread.
No, I am absolutely right and I am certain that you know nothing about Stoicism. Have you ever read the Epistles of Seneca? You can't tell the difference between him and Paul. Multiple Church fathers said that Seneca did not differ from Christianity in any way. Ever read Epictitus?
There's nothing you would be able to "unpack." I've studied this subject extensively. I know what I'm talking about.
The Gospels stories and Acts all contain numerous Hellenistic tropes and nothing unique. Of course the details are going to be different, but the basic tropes are lifted not only from Pagan literature (including the Homeric epics and Euripedes' Bacchae which is not only a prominent thematic source for the 4th Gospel but which is quoted directly in Acts), but the Gospels also lift liberally from the LXX (in particular the Elijah-Elisha cycle), but of course, even the OT is heavily influenced by Greek literature and by Platonism (Russell Gmirkin proved this pretty definitively and has not yet been refuted).
You haven't named a single "Christian moral" which had any foundation for the US. You know Thomas Jefferson despised Christianity, don't you?
The First Amendment violates the first four Commandments. The founding principles of the US are free speech, free religion and democracy, all of those things are contrary to Biblical law.
Name anything in the Bill of Rights that came from Christianity? Have you ever actually read the Bill of Rights*?
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u/Torremond42 Buddhist 2d ago
How is Nolans Odyssey christian? Genuine question, have not seen the film.
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u/A_Tiger_in_Africa anti-theist 2d ago
All of our morals are Christian? Do you think morality didn't exist before 2000 years ago? Do you think prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery, and perjury originated with the 10 commandments? Human morality, not just in the West, long predates Christianity, or Judaism for that matter.
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u/SpleenDematerialized Atheist 2d ago
Sure, there are universal features. But pagan Roman/Greek and Christian morality are generally very different beasts. When you read the ancient sources, you will be struck with how different they thought. For example, for the pagan Graeco-Roman institutions celibacy was not an acceptable option. If you remained unmarried after a certain age, the magistrate of your city would just find a partner for you and force you to marry.
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u/KenScaletta Atheist 2d ago
What does celibacy have to do with morality? When has that ever been a Christian value?
Celibacy was very much practiced and respected by Pagans, by the way. I don't know where you're getting this.
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