Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Chinese

Donatello

Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Chinese

Author: Tom O'Gorman
Date: 3rd March 2011

In the West we are doing our best to destroy our Christian heritage but in China, Chinese intellectuals are coming around to the view that it is precisely this heritage that has made the West so successful.

Former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Dominic Lawson, in a review in the Sunday Times of Niall Ferguson's new book, ‘Civilisation: The West and the Rest’, carries a quote from a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in which he tries to account for the success of the West, to date.

He said: “One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.

“We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.

“Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.

“But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is 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.”

Note the source. It isn't from a religious leader, or some religious think-tank. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is an instrument of the Chinese Communist government which spends a not inconsiderable amount of time and money persecuting Christians and is officially atheistic.

If this is the conclusion it has come to, maybe Europe needs to reconsider whether it mightn't be an idea to encourage rather than eradicate Christianity.

Incidentally, just to drive home the point, Lawson also refers to this data point in Ferguson's book: Wenzhou, the Chinese city which is rated as the most entrepreneurial in the country, is also home to 1,400 churches.

Lawson refers to a quote in the book from a prominent Wenzhou business leader, a Mr Hanping Zhang, who argues that “an absence of trust had been one of the main factors holding China back; but he feels he can trust his fellow Christians because he knows that they will be honest in their dealings with him”.

It has long been accepted that Christianity is one of the core elements of Western civilisation; it is too little understood that it is also one of the secrets of the stunning success of that civilisation.

Blikes

Makes sense i suppose.

jimmycrackcorm

It would be more accurate to say that the lack of chrisitanity that has made the west more successful. Even the middle east with all it's oil riches hase been severely constrained by the stricter religious bounds of Islam.

What do the Chinese say about the Japanese who have been extraordinarliy successful without Christianity.???

Chuck Stone

Donatello wrote: »

“We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.

“Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.

“But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful"

Who exactly is we?

Donatello

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Who exactly is we?

It's in the article:

''The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is an instrument of the Chinese Communist government which spends a not inconsiderable amount of time and money persecuting Christians and is officially atheistic.''

That is the 'we' the member of the above academy would appear to be speaking from.

virmilitaris

Donatello wrote: »

“But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is 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.”

Eh .. a few points.

I'm an atheist but you do realise that when he says 'Christian' he almost certainly means Protestantism not Catholicism ? In every Asian country I've ever visited they see Catholicism and Christianity (evangelists etc) as completely different. Much more so then we do in the West. In Korea for example they have different words for priests, pastors, Catholic churches, Protestant churches etc. Most Christians (evangelists etc) I've met in Asia see Catholicism as almost, not quite, as bad as Buddhism or Shamanism.

Secondly, the 'we' in your article is a quote from one member of the Chinese academy of social sciences. This is not an official statement by the academy, it is the opinion of one guy. Maybe even this guy (whom I have every respect for, don't think otherwise) -> http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Fan-Yafeng,-a-Christian,-is-arrested,-he-signed-Charter-08-20106.html

Lastly, the opinion in that article is nonsense.

From well before the beginning of Christianity right up until the 1500's China (or it's predecessors) was the worlds greatest, most advanced and most powerful civilization for huge stretches of that time. Catholic (Christian) Europe was uncivilized and barbaric in comparison to China from the fall of the Roman Empire until the emergence of powers like the British Empire. The enlightenment (and to a lesser extent the reformation against the Catholic Church) is what really got Europe going again, back to the ideas of the ancient Greeks and the Romans.

That is why Europeans/Africans/Americans are known as barbarians in several Asian languages. We are literally called 'barbarians' or 'outsiders' because of our historical uncivilised position in relation to China et al. In the Korean language for example, China means 'Centre of the world' 중국 and Chinese are 'Centre of the world people' 중국 사람.

Anywhere outside China, Korea or Japan is usually just called 'outside country(s)' 외국 and regardless of if you are from America or Europe or Africa you are commonly called a 'outside country person' 외국인. It's not that they don't have words for America, Canada, Ireland or England etc today or even in the past, they do (and did). It's that historically they had no respect for those countries because they were uncivilised and that has continued through the language into the present day.

How for example can you explain South America or Africa ? Hugely Catholic (Christian) yet where is their success ?

How can you explain the lack of success in Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire until quite recently ?
How can you explain the success of China for thousands of years without it ?
How can you explain the success of Japan ?

How can you explain the ridiculously high crime rates in majority Christian countries with their "Christian moral foundation" and the incredibly low crime rates in Christianity-less Japan ? (for example)

PDN

China's history is intriguing. It's great size certainly made it a power to be reckoned with - yet at other times it proved to be extraordinarily fragile and capable of being toppled by invaders ( eg the Mongols).

I think there is a very strong historical case for arguing that China's traditional religions held it back in a way that would not have occurred under a different system of thought of ethics.

One of the benefits of Christianity (and Judaism and Islam) is that they see God as having created an ordered universe, and one that is progressing towards a goal. This encourages people to look for orderly explanations for things that happen, thereby discovering natural laws and processes, and to a belief that knowledge and wealth will increase. Some other religions are much more geared to just learning to accept things the way they are, or, as in animism, to attribute natural phenomena to the inscrutable actions of gods.

So, for example, China discovered many technological techniques much earlier than the west (gunpowder, paper, printing) much earlier than the West. But they never applied the kind of logic underlying the scientific method. So they failed to transfer these technologies into other fields. Which is why it was the West that took these technologies and developed machine guns, or books printed using moveable type.

One example of how China's religion held it back can be seen in the great treasure ships that were sent out in the 15th Century - sailing to America and quite possibly even to Australia. There was a huge fire in Beijing that destroyed parts of the Forbidden City - so they decided the gods were angry and banned any more such exploration.

Another factor in economic/scientific/technological development is slavery. Societies that can rely on large pools of cheap or free labour have little incentive to develop the kind of labour-saving technologies that fuel development. They can prosper for a while so long as they can keep expanding militarily and so loot other places and capture slaves - but ultimately such societies collapse. It is fashionable today to lambast Christianity for its record on slavery, but that is largely because we hate hypocrisy - and Christianity's very foundation exposes slavery to be completely hypocritical. But, viewed objectively, societies strongly influenced by Christianity have generally abolished slavery much more readily than those of other religions (and certainly more so than those societies which have been anti-religion). And that in no way lessens the shame of those periods where professing Christians have practiced slavery.

But, and this is a huge 'but', it would be very wrong to say that Christianity per se is responsible for economic, social and technological development. What does appear more accurate is that plurality and diversity encourages such development. Where one religion or ideology dominates society (be that Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestantism, Buddhism, Islam or Communist sponsored atheism) then creative thinking is stifled. The kind of tolerance where people of different religions and of none mingle shoulder to shoulder is where people really start thinking for themselves and, given human nature, that leads both to greater research, greater development, greater wealth, and greater crime rates than other kinds of societies. It's called freedom.

And, taking a long view of history, such societies generally came into being first in Europe and North America. They tended to develop first in countries where most people paid lip service to notions such as all men being created equal by God, and where many different denominations co-existed side by side and so religious hierarchies could not control people's thinking. Generally (and I am aware there are a few exceptions) such secular tolerance developed in the West in countries with long Christian histories - and other regions of the world adopted these value systems (along with democracy and a whole host of western virtues and sins) under the influence or even coercion of the West.

But it is certainly not so simple as saying that Christianity is the reason for the West's success. It is a factor, but other factors should not be ignored. For example, the Industrial revolution in the UK owed as much to geography (coal deposits easily transported over short distances via convenientl situated rivers and canals) and demography (improved agricultural techniques causing large numbers to move to cities just at the time when cheap labour was required in factories).

virmilitaris

PDN wrote: »

China's history is intriguing. It's great size certainly made it a power to be reckoned with - yet at other times it proved to be extraordinarily fragile and capable of being toppled by invaders ( eg the Mongols).

Indeed. And the Japanese would very likely have taken control of manchuria and other parts of China in the 16th century if it hadn't been for the extraordinary leadership of the Korean Admiral Lee Sun-sin in stopping the Japanese invasions of Korea / China.

I think there is a very strong historical case for arguing that China's traditional religions held it back in a way that would not have occurred under a different system of thought of ethics.

Are you referring to Confucianism or the animalistic beliefs or both ?

One of the benefits of Christianity (and Judaism and Islam) is that they see God as having created an ordered universe, and one that is progressing towards a goal. This encourages people to look for orderly explanations for things that happen,

How so ? You have Christians on this very forum that deny evolution and the age of the Earth. Wasn't it a widely held belief until relatively recently in Europe that earthquakes were caused by God ? Indeed some Christians still hold to that belief.

So, for example, China discovered many technological techniques much earlier than the west (gunpowder, paper, printing). But they never applied the kind of logic underlying the scientific method.

That would be the Hellenistic influence would it not ?

Which is why it was the West that took these technologies and developed machine guns, or books printed using moveable type.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing

The earliest form of printing was woodblock printing, with existing examples from China dating to before 220 AD[1] and Egypt to the 4th century. Later developments in printing include the movable type, first developed by Bi Sheng in China,[2] and the printing press, a more efficient printing process developed by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century.

There was a huge fire in Beijing that destroyed parts of the Forbidden City - so they decided the gods were angry and banned any more such exploration.

Come on now, you know I can find examples of Christians doing similar during the middle ages.

Another factor in economic/scientific/technological development is slavery.

+1 Without a doubt probably the major factor.

But, viewed objectively, societies strongly influenced by Christianity have generally abolished slavery much more readily than those of other religions (and certainly more so than those societies which have been anti-religion).

6th century BC Cyrus the Great abolishes slavery in Persia.
3rd century BC Ashoka abolishes slave trade and encourages people to treat slaves well but does not abolish slavery itself in the Maurya Empire, covering the majority of India, which was under his rule.
AD 9 In China, Emperor Wang Mang usurps the throne, abolishes slave trading (although not slavery), and institutes radical land reform

Toyotomi Hideyoshi abolished slavery in Japan in the 16th century.

etc.

But, and this is a huge 'but', it would be very wrong to say that Christianity per se is responsible for economic, social and technological development. What does appear more accurate is that plurality and diversity encourages such development.

Agreed.

Generally (and I am aware there are a few exceptions) such secular tolerance developed in the West in countries with long Christian histories - and other regions of the world adopted these value systems (along with democracy and a whole host of western virtues and sins) under the influence or even coercion of the West.

I would agree that the Protestant reformation played a part in this but I don't agree that it's anything inherent to Christianity itself.

By the way would you agree that the original article is most likely talking about protestant Christianity and not Catholicism ? Is it the same in China as in Korea regarding the deep separation of the two religions ?

robindch

Some Chinese Guy wrote:

“But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is 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.”

The spokesman from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences -- was he reading from a statement produced by Glenn Beck or some Tea Partier -- is correct, but only up to a point.

Yes, christianity certainly was one of the social forces which helped to motivate European civilization beyond others. Unfortunately, it managed this by providing a useful rationale that rulers could use to justify land and resource-grabs, under the pretense that they were carrying out the Great Commission, ridding the world of the religiously impure, regaining christianity's past glories and so on. China, India and the Americas never really had crusading religions of their own, so they never really needed to develop the kind of militaries, and the related advances in technologies, economics, production etc that Europe unfortunately did. Which is not to say that religion was solely responsible for driving these developments, but it was a powerful social force which was used shamelessly, time and time again.

Desmond Tutu's comment is worth bearing in mind:

Desmon Tutu wrote:

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

PDN wrote: »

The kind of tolerance where people of different religions and of none mingle shoulder to shoulder is where people really start thinking for themselves and, given human nature, that leads both to greater research, greater development, greater wealth, and greater crime rates than other kinds of societies. It's called freedom.

It's not called freedom, it's called secularism. Freedom is what results from secularism

PDN

virmilitaris wrote: »

Are you referring to Confucianism or the animalistic beliefs or both ?

Chinese religious beliefs in general. The Chinese appear to have a knack for fusing different religious beliefs together (as, I suppose, do many other people). The practice of pure Confucianism, without the addition of anything else, has, as far as I understand it, been comparatively rare in Chinese history.

How so ? You have Christians on this very forum that deny evolution and the age of the Earth. Wasn't it a widely held belief until relatively recently in Europe that earthquakes were caused by God ? Indeed some Christians still hold to that belief.

If you want to understand history it makes little sense to try to assess a culture or a religion by its extremist and minority elements.

That would be the Hellenistic influence would it not ?

Partly, but the Hellenistic influence could just as easily have spread eastwards to China as northwards to Germany or England. Interestingly. it failed to develop where we would most expect it to do so (Greece and Asia Minor). Hellenic influence could only develop and bear fruit in a cultural worldview that was receptive to it.

The earliest form of printing was woodblock printing, with existing examples from China dating to before 220 AD[1] and Egypt to the 4th century. Later developments in printing include the movable type, first developed by Bi Sheng in China,[2] and the printing press, a more efficient printing process developed by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century.

And if you had read a few line further in your own link you would have read that all printing today (including that in China) is based on Gutenberg's discoveries. And that one of the prime factors in developing and popularising Gutenberg's new technology was the printing of the Bible. Christianity meant that in Europe there was the necessary demand for printed material (mainly Bibles at first) along with a mindset determined enough to develop an affordable technology to meet that demand.

China's culture, that viewed the great mass of the population as little more than agricultural labour, rather than as men created in God's image who needed to read the Word of God, meant that developing cheap printing was never a priority. Why bother when the few literate people around could easily employ cheap scribes to copy their books for them?

Come on now, you know I can find examples of Christians doing similar during the middle ages.

Yes, you could quite easily, but you and I both know they didn't have the same impact as the Chinese decision in this case. Why? Because Europe was not one monolithic Empire - and because the religious diversity and pluralism that occurs within Christianity meant that when one organisation clamped down on an idea then it would just pop up somewhere else. Also, most of the major developments in Europe were innovation that came from the grassroots - not from an elite as in China.

So, for example, Copernicus (a clergyman) developed theories about the solar system. Galileo, based on his beliefs about God creating an orderly universe, developed these further. The Vatican tried to sit on Galileo - so his manuscripts popped up in post-reformation Holland where the Vatican couldn't do a thing to stop them being published.

6th century BC Cyrus the Great abolishes slavery in Persia.
3rd century BC Ashoka abolishes slave trade and encourages people to treat slaves well but does not abolish slavery itself in the Maurya Empire, covering the majority of India, which was under his rule.
AD 9 In China, Emperor Wang Mang usurps the throne, abolishes slave trading (although not slavery), and institutes radical land reform

Toyotomi Hideyoshi abolished slavery in Japan in the 16th century.

etc.

Yes, I did say that there were exceptions, just as there were exceptional circumstances where slavery persisted in some forms in Europe.

However, from the end of the Roman Empire until the colonial era, slavery was not a major part of the economic system in most, if not all, countries where Christianity was the largest religion.

The colonial era is shameful in that those who claimed to be Christian should have known better. But, in numerical terms, more Africans were enslaved by other Africans than by Europeans. And in Latin America, even the horrors of slavery perpetuated by the conquistadors (in the face of excommunication by the Catholic Church) was very small-scale compared to the mass slavery practiced by native Americans prior to their arrival.

The fact remains that slavery was, on average, abolished earlier in countries that were most influenced by Christianity, and other countries often only did so as they were pressurised to do so by Westerners, or as they adopted Western cultural practices. Not forgetting, of course, that in the last hundred years slavery has been most extensively practiced by the same regimes that have most enthusiastically rejected and even banned religion.

I would agree that the Protestant reformation played a part in this but I don't agree that it's anything inherent to Christianity itself.

Of course not, the critics of Christianity never do. We've had debates in this forum before where atheists have loudly asserted that the kind of values which, historically, developed in western Europe and North America "could just as easily have developed somewhere else".

To be honest, I'm not much interested in what people imagine could have happened. I'm much more interested in history - or what did happen.

The impetus for much of the Renaissance, for the Reformation, the development of cheap printed books etc. was a religious impetus - and it came from Christianity. It didn't happen in those places where Christianity was unknown or ignored. If people choose, by faith, to believe that is just a massive coincidence then far be it from me to pop their balloon.

By the way would you agree that the original article is most likely talking about protestant Christianity and not Catholicism ? Is it the same in China as in Korea regarding the deep separation of the two religions ?

In China it's a bit more complicated because you have the TSPM (Government-run churches), a State-controlled Catholic Church - and then two much larger groups - the underground Catholics who answer to the Vatican, and the underground unregistered 'house churches' (a bit of a misnomer since some of them are far too large to fit in a house unless it were several times the size of Buckingham Palace).

Given the context of the quote it was probably about the diversity of different churches.

This, for me, is not a Protestant/Catholic thing. It is much more a Christianity/Christendom thing. Christendom is where religion rules the cultural roost and it appears to be equally damaging whether the dominant religion is Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican or Calvinist. The kind of innovation and creativity we are talking about here occurs best in as secular a society as possible where Christianity thrives on its own merits in the market-place of ideas, not where it is suppressed nor where it is propped up by legal protections or unfair tax breaks etc.

AhSureTisGrand

Which of the following justifies belief in God?

a. Evidence that God exists

b. Evidence that the belief has positive effects

PDN

robindch wrote: »

Desmond Tutu's comment is worth bearing in mind:It's not called freedom, it's called secularism. Freedom is what results from secularism

Yes, I love that quote by Tutu.

But no, secularism is what results from freedom (not vice versa). Some of those societies that have most claimed to be secular have also been the least free.

PDN

AhSureTisGrand wrote: »

Which of the following justifies belief in God?

a. Evidence that God exists

b. Evidence that the belief has positive effects

I think you should read the OP again. It is not about whether God exists or not. It is about the results of practicing Christianity.

AhSureTisGrand

PDN wrote: »

I think you should read the OP again. It is not about whether God exists or not. It is about the results of practicing Christianity.

I was addressing the OP's point that Europe should turn again to Christianity. I think one should only look to Christianity if one concludes that it is true, and not turn to it because of perceived benefits

CerebralCortex

PDN wrote: »

Yes, I love that quote by Tutu.

But no, secularism is what results from freedom (not vice versa). Some of those societies that have most claimed to be secular have also been the least free.

For example?

Zombrex

Ancient Greece is the reason for the success of the West.

People praise Christianity simply because Christian Europe rediscovered the Greek philosophies in which lead to the Renaissance and eventually the Enlightenment. These movements were originated by Christians and promoted under a Christian framework, but the ideas behind them originate in Ancient Greece.

You can see how little effect the actual ideas of Christianity had on liberty and advancement in Europe by studying the period before the Renaissance. Many have criticized the idea that these times were the "Dark ages" but there is little doubt that they were significantly more oppressive and limited than the periods that came afterwards. This is Europe under Christianity alone. Things changed when Christianity was merged with Greek philosophy.

And this process of merging Christianity with Ancient Greek philosophy causes major clashes of ideas, most of the ideas that finally emerged in modern Western society were from the Greek side not the Christian side. Christianity says little if anything about the specifics of democracy, civil rights, ethical philosophy, scientific philosophy beyond vague parables and mild pleasantries about being a good person, idea that had been discussed in far greater detail centuries before Jesus.

Both the renaissance and the enlightenment are characterized by the rediscovery of Greek concepts and ideas. These are the defining aspects of both movements (leading to name Renaissance in the first place, a society reborn) While notions of pleasing/understanding God could have certainly motivated people to embrace Greek ideas, it is difficult to see these ideas originating organically from Christianity alone.

I should point out before anyone dismisses this as atheist bashing on Christianity, Greece was not an atheist society, it was full of complex supernatural beliefs and philosophies based around what we would consider pseudo-science.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

But no, secularism is what results from freedom (not vice versa). Some of those societies that have most claimed to be secular have also been the least free.

You appreciate I hope that claiming to be secular and actually being secular are not the same thing?

Do you have examples of a truly secular society that was not free?

Fanny Cradock

I think you would probably have to first define what "truly secular" and "free" means.

Keylem

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

What do the Chinese say about the Japanese who have been extraordinarliy successful without Christianity.???

Japan has also one of the highest suicide rates in the world!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

You appreciate I hope that claiming to be secular and actually being secular are not the same thing?

Do you have examples of a truly secular society that was not free?

I don't have an example of a truly secular society that was anything. I don't think any society has ever been totaly secular.

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I think you would probably have to first define what "truly free" and "secular" means.

Secular would be a government that recognizes both freedom of religion and freedom from religion (to use the America notion), and has a government that does not enact any law promoting any particular religion or religious practice over any other.

Freedom would mean the right to vote, run for election, own property, right to pursue work, right to education, right to liberty, right to protection against violence, right to privacy, right to freedom of association (which covers right to join an organized religious group)

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

I don't have an example of a truly secular society that was anything. I don't think any society has ever been totaly secular.

You don't think America is a truly secular government?

Donatello

Wicknight wrote: »

You don't think America is a truly secular government?

Mr Obama seems to think it is:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation

Some people have good reason to disagree with Osama. I mean Obama. :::
http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/search/label/Christian%20Nation

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

You don't think America is a truly secular government?

I don't think it is a truly secular society. It's government is, for the most part, secular.

And, historically speaking, it had to fight to be free before it could be secular. The US is an example of how a broad coalition of those who shared common religious values gained freedom, and then instituted a secular concept of separation of church and state.

Keylem

Keylem wrote: »

Japan has also one of the highest suicide rates in the world!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan

Not as high as, say, Lithuania (31.5 per 100,000 (2009) vs. Japan's 24.4 per 100,000 (2007)), and Lithuania is 79% Roman Catholic (2005). So, as you can see, figures like these, taken in isolation, don't really say much.

Zombrex

Donatello wrote: »

Mr Obama seems to think it is:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation

Some people have good reason to disagree with Osama. I mean Obama. :::
http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/search/label/Christian%20Nation

America isn't a Christian nation. The people who wrote the constitution said so themselves, both in the constitution and in other correspondence.

I appreciate that a lot of Americans are not happy about that, but until they figure out a way to change the constitution it ain't going to change as the laws in America are bound by the constitution.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

I don't think it is a truly secular society. It's government is, for the most part, secular.

Is that not the same thing? What would you consider the difference between a secular society and a society with a secular government?

PDN wrote: »

And, historically speaking, it had to fight to be free before it could be secular.

Well that is being some what pedantic. The notions of secularism were present long before the revolutionary war. They obviously had to have a self governed state to enact their constitution, but the notions of secularism did not follow on after this.

Zombrex

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Not as high as, say, Lithuania (31.5 per 100,000 (2009) vs. Japan's 24.4 per 100,000 (2007)), and Lithuania is 79% Roman Catholic (2005). So, as you can see, figures like these, taken in isolation, don't really say much.

Clearly being Catholic makes you want to kill yourself :P

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Ancient Greece is the reason for the success of the West.

People praise Christianity simply because Christian Europe rediscovered the Greek philosophies in which lead to the Renaissance and eventually the Enlightenment. These movements were originated by Christians and promoted under a Christian framework, but the ideas behind them originate in Ancient Greece.

You can see how little effect the actual ideas of Christianity had on liberty and advancement in Europe by studying the period before the Renaissance. Many have criticized the idea that these times were the "Dark ages" but there is little doubt that they were significantly more oppressive and limited than the periods that came afterwards. This is Europe under Christianity alone. Things changed when Christianity was merged with Greek philosophy.

And this process of merging Christianity with Ancient Greek philosophy causes major clashes of ideas, most of the ideas that finally emerged in modern Western society were from the Greek side not the Christian side. Christianity says little if anything about the specifics of democracy, civil rights, ethical philosophy, scientific philosophy beyond vague parables and mild pleasantries about being a good person, idea that had been discussed in far greater detail centuries before Jesus.

Both the renaissance and the enlightenment are characterized by the rediscovery of Greek concepts and ideas. These are the defining aspects of both movements (leading to name Renaissance in the first place, a society reborn) While notions of pleasing/understanding God could have certainly motivated people to embrace Greek ideas, it is difficult to see these ideas originating organically from Christianity alone.

Yes, but that simply begs the question as to why Greek thinking was embraced, and advanced upon, by the West. Why did it come to fruition in Europe (particularly Northern Europe) and not in Asia Minor? Why not in Greece itself? Why did Greek ideas and methodology produce such impressive results in New York and not in Beijing?

I should point out before anyone dismisses this as atheist bashing on Christianity, Greece was not an atheist society, it was full of complex supernatural beliefs and philosophies based around what we would consider pseudo-science.

Presumably, while you are being so fair-minded, you will also attribute slavery in Europe and North America to Greek influence rather than blaming it on Christianity? Or is it a case of everything bad in the West being the fault of Christianity and everything good being because of the Greeks?

Chuck Stone

So some Chinese academic says that Chritianity made the west.

Big deal - it's a pretty meaningless statement. He can't possibly prove he is correct.

Weber has already hypothesized on the Protestant work ethic as a factor in capitalism but rejected the notion that it was the sole reason even if it did play a part (which is debatable).

Anyway, it's not as if Chrisianity is an observable phenomenen. It just a bunch of stories about supernatural beings.

Keylem

Wicknight wrote: »

Clearly being Catholic makes you want to kill yourself :P

Or perhaps it was the 21 percent non-catholics that were killing themselves! :P

caoty

Donatello wrote: »

Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Chinese

Author: Tom O'Gorman
Date: 3rd March 2011

In the West we are doing our best to destroy our Christian heritage but in China, Chinese intellectuals are coming around to the view that it is precisely this heritage that has made the West so successful.

Former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Dominic Lawson, in a review in the Sunday Times of Niall Ferguson's new book, ‘Civilisation: The West and the Rest’, carries a quote from a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in which he tries to account for the success of the West, to date.

He said: “One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.

“We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.

“Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.

“But in the past twenty years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is 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.”

Note the source. It isn't from a religious leader, or some religious think-tank. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is an instrument of the Chinese Communist government which spends a not inconsiderable amount of time and money persecuting Christians and is officially atheistic.

If this is the conclusion it has come to, maybe Europe needs to reconsider whether it mightn't be an idea to encourage rather than eradicate Christianity.

Incidentally, just to drive home the point, Lawson also refers to this data point in Ferguson's book: Wenzhou, the Chinese city which is rated as the most entrepreneurial in the country, is also home to 1,400 churches.

Lawson refers to a quote in the book from a prominent Wenzhou business leader, a Mr Hanping Zhang, who argues that “an absence of trust had been one of the main factors holding China back; but he feels he can trust his fellow Christians because he knows that they will be honest in their dealings with him”.

It has long been accepted that Christianity is one of the core elements of Western civilisation; it is too little understood that it is also one of the secrets of the stunning success of that civilisation.

Utter nonsense

Donatello

Keylem wrote: »

Or perhaps it was the 21 percent non-catholics that were killing themselves! :P

The fact of the matter is this: faithful Catholic countries have a lower suicide rate than Protestant countries.

Catholic teaching is that suicide is a mortal sin (murder of self), so if done with sufficient reflection and full consent, you will be damned.

Protestantism, on the other hand, includes such perverse doctrines as 'once saved, always saved', so basically, you can do whatever you like and your salvation will not be jeopardised. So they say.

virmilitaris

Donatello wrote: »

The fact of the matter is this: faithful Catholic countries have a lower suicide rate than Protestant countries.

False.

List of Countries by highest suicide rate.

1. Lithuania. 80% Catholic. 31.5 suicides per 100,000 people.
2. South Korea. 10% Catholic (or 50%, it's close ) 31.0 suicides per 100,000 people.
3. Kazakhstan. Mostly Orthodox Christian.
....
etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Yes, but that simply begs the question as to why Greek thinking was embraced, and advanced upon, by the West. Why did it come to fruition in Europe (particularly Northern Europe) and not in Asia Minor? Why not in Greece itself? Why did Greek ideas and methodology produce such impressive results in New York and not in Beijing?

Of course, and any such answer is probably going to be complex. Heck historians can't even decide why the Renaissance started in Florence as opposed to anywhere else in Italy, or even Italy itself.

PDN wrote: »

Presumably, while you are being so fair-minded, you will also attribute slavery in Europe and North America to Greek influence rather than blaming it on Christianity?

Sure.

Aristotle went into detail in Politics about a justification for what he called natural slavery.

Justification for slavery in Christian history extends little beyond statements of fact that God regulated it and the absence of any objection to it. The Bible is hardly an in depth thesis supporting the ethics of a slave based society.

The Bible ultimately had little substantial influence, positive or negative, on political theory, ethical theory, scientific theory etc beyond the most basic superficial level.

That is not to say Christians didn't have influence they obviously did, but their ideas are largely expansions on the most basis of foundations, as if someone took all of book one of Politics down to "Slavery is not bad if there is natural cause for it" and then someone else expanded up on this. No doubt you would end up with an ethical justification for slavery but it is difficult to say that this justification was anything but superficially inspired by the acceptance of the truth of the original statement. The Bible's instructions are just this, statements of facts not justifications or explanations.

This is most evident if you aren't a Christian and thus don't accept the authority of the Bible. There is nothing to shape or form or provoke an ethical position. You can't read the Bible and say "Well I don't believe in God but I accept the logic behind their justification for slavery in Israeli society" because such a thing doesn't exist. There is nothing but appeal to authority. This is nothing but statements that this is what God wants.

This isn't particularly surprising. The Old Testament is largely a historical book, not a discussion of the ethics of God. The New Testament is a collection of parables and statements of facts that were supposed to prepare people for the impending apocalypse, not fleshed out ideas to form the basis of deep philosophical theories.

I remember when I was younger always being amazed when you looked up the actual Biblical references for the concepts Christians seem to hold as hugely significant. In my naivety I expected to find pages of discussion or detail in the Bible, in reality you would be lucky if you found more than a few lines. :pac:

Zombrex

Donatello wrote: »

You misunderstood. Note I used the term 'faithful'. Lapsed Catholic countries are as suicidal as any non-Catholic countries.

Out of interest how do you accurately determine what is or isn't a lapsed Catholic country?

Or are you simply using a circular definition, that any Catholic country with a high suicide rate must be lapsed Catholic because Catholics don't kill themselves?

Donatello

The figures you provided vindicate my claim:

103 Honduras 0.0 0.0 0.0 1978
104 Saint Kitts and Nevis 0.0 0.0 0.0 1995
105 Antigua and Barbuda 0.0 0.0 0.0 1995
106 Haiti 0.0 0.0 0.0 2003


Honduras and Haiti are both Catholic countries. Not sure about the other two, but you can see they have extremely low suicide rates.

The countries you mentioned include one recovering from atheistic communist oppression where the faith was crushed and shattered, so it cannot be meaningfully described as Catholic. In fact, South Korea is not Catholic either. Kazakhstan is not Catholic either...

I you look down the list, vibrant Catholic or Orthodox countries have low suicide rates. High rates are found in non-Catholic Japan and in communist or formerly communist countries, and in highly secularised countries like France.

Fanny Cradock

Donatello wrote: »

The fact of the matter is this: faithful Catholic countries have a lower suicide rate than Protestant countries.

Catholic teaching is that suicide is a mortal sin (murder of self), so if done with sufficient reflection and full consent, you will be damned.

Protestantism, on the other hand, includes such perverse doctrines as 'once saved, always saved', so basically, you can do whatever you like and your salvation will not be jeopardised. So they say.

I've had enough of this anti-Protestant thing. Stop it.

Zombrex

Donatello wrote: »

The figures you provided vindicate my claim:

103 Honduras 0.0 0.0 0.0 1978
104 Saint Kitts and Nevis 0.0 0.0 0.0 1995
105 Antigua and Barbuda 0.0 0.0 0.0 1995
106 Haiti 0.0 0.0 0.0 2003


Honduras and Haiti are both Catholic countries. Not sure about the other two, but you can see they have extremely low suicide rates.

The countries you mentioned are recovering from atheistic communism oppression where the faith was crushed and shattered, so they cannot be meaningfully described as Catholic.

Those countries have "zero" suicides because they have no method to record or assess in an accurate fashion suicide rates.

Anyway you are slightly missing the point. No one is saying Catholicism causes suicides. They are pointing out the flaw in equating correlation with causation. You weren't expected to try and counter the claim :rolleyes:

Donatello

Wicknight wrote: »

Those countries have "zero" suicides because they have no method to record or assess in an accurate fashion suicide rates.

Anyway you are slightly missing the point. No one is saying Catholicism causes suicides. They are pointing out the flaw in equating correlation with causation. You weren't expected to try and counter the claim :rolleyes:

See the revised comments in my post above this one.

Fanny Cradock

Can we please keep this on track. There was an interesting discussion between Wicknight, PDN and that guy who really likes talking about South Korea.

A_Border_Bandit

All empires fall, be it the Roman, British or Aztec. The reason for this is that they get too big, the Emperor's get selfish and the vast sizes of the territories make it too difficult to maintain and protect. It leaves it vulnerable to attack and less able to protect from disasters such as famine.

The reason why The Chinese Empire didn't fall and the country remains the same today as it did a thousand years ago is because they knew their limits. There were debates as to why the Europeans dominated the globe during the middle ages and not the Chinese, and it comes down to the Europeans wanting new territories and the Chinese not.

The Chinese were interested in keeping what they had, securing allies and tribute from possible enemies and wanted all other nations to acknowledge the power of the Chinese Emperor.

China's motives were not conquest but expanding influence and knowledge of its culture. China had been richer and more cosmopolitan than any country in Europe for thousands of years. Already in the 1400's China and India represented more than half of the world's GDP together. A paragon of fair trade practices with conflicts internal rather than international. Then, like now, China supported stability over change domestically and abroad.
...
Zheng He's China wanted global prominence and respect matching its superiority. His mission: a charm offensive without historical precedent. He was the face of expansionist friendly China.
...
China was ahead of the world in most areas of development. He's fleet was larger than anything the world had known, with expeditions of up to 317 ships and around 28,000 men aboard — experts calculate 20,000 of them were military men. Crews with interpreters of many languages, astrologers, astronomers, doctors, pharmacists, entertainers, diplomatic and protocol experts to coordinate official receptions with dignitaries in the more than 35 countries visited.
...
The intent of the voyages was to create a showcase of the splendor and strength of the Ming dynasty not trade, conquer or as a crusade to promote China's religions.
...
"These were friendly diplomatic activities. During the overall course of the seven voyages to the Western Ocean, Zheng He did not occupy a single piece of land, establish any fortress or seize any wealth from other countries. In the commercial and trade activities, he adopted the practice of giving more than he received, and thus he was welcomed and lauded by the people of the various countries along his routes," stated Xu Zu-yuan
...
A goal was to bring foreign VIPs to China's imperial court. It was a Noah's ark gathering of top diplomats to introduce them to its sphere of influence. It was not hard to convince key foreign figures to accompany Zheng He in an all-expense-paid trip to China's to meet the emperor.
...
The largest vessels were 444 feet long and 160 wide. By contrast, Columbus' biggest was only 85 feet. Ships were loaded with crates gold, silver, Chinese silk and porcelain cups, vases and dishes as gifts. They were among many other technological advances never seen in the world.

robindch

A_Border_Bandit wrote: »

Zheng He's China [...]

Sounds like an extract from Gavin Menzies somewhat unreliable book "1421: The Year China Discovered the World":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1421:_The_Year_China_Discovered_the_World#Criticism_of_1421

A_Border_Bandit

robindch wrote: »

Sounds like an extract from Gavin Menzies somewhat unreliable book "1421: The Year China Discovered the World":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1421:_The_Year_China_Discovered_the_World#Criticism_of_1421

Gavin Menzies claimed that Zheng He reached America 70 years before Columbus did and that theory has been rubbished by most historians. That is not what I was saying at all.

I was merely letting people know that Zheng He is a highly celebrated Chinese historical figure, his armada existed and his voyages happened. Plus that the reason the Chinese didn't attempt to conquer the world is because they were happy with what they had.

Google Zheng He yourselves and read about him
http://www.google.ie/search?rlz=1C1CHKQ_enIE426IE426&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=zheng+he



In the Confucian world order, merchants were considered to be among the lowliest members of society. Merchants and other middlemen were seen as parasites. Whereas in Europe, capitalism and greed by monarchs powered the search for new lands and peoples to own which is what the member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is hinting at in the original post:

“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.”

caoty

robindch wrote: »

Sounds like an extract from Gavin Menzies somewhat unreliable book "1421: The Year China Discovered the World":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1421:_The_Year_China_Discovered_the_World#Criticism_of_1421

You are setting up a straw argument here.

virmilitaris

PDN wrote: »

If you want to understand history it makes little sense to try to assess a culture or a religion by its extremist and minority elements.

I'm not. But let's talk before Darwin. Back then almost everyone was a creationist. Most Christians fought tooth and nail for years against the theory of evolution. That was not a minority. The ones who continued to fight became the minority.

Partly, but the Hellenistic influence could just as easily have spread eastwards to China as northwards to Germany or England.

Not really considering the political landscape of the time. It was much more likely to spread West than East.

And if you had read a few line further in your own link you would have read that all printing today (including that in China) is based on Gutenberg's discoveries.

Yes ? I don't see your point. The world's oldest extant movable metal print book was printed 80 years before Gutenberg.

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=22954&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jikji

And that one of the prime factors in developing and popularising Gutenberg's new technology was the printing of the Bible. Christianity meant that in Europe there was the necessary demand for printed material (mainly Bibles at first) along with a mindset determined enough to develop an affordable technology to meet that demand.

There was a quite similar demand in Asia for Buddhist texts. Please see the above links.

China's culture, that viewed the great mass of the population as little more than agricultural labour, rather than as men created in God's image who needed to read the Word of God, meant that developing cheap printing was never a priority.

I do not accept for a second that the leaders of Europe saw the proletariat classes as anything of the kind. There was a larger and more independent middle class in Europe than in China which caused more demand for bibles.

Why bother when the few literate people around could easily employ cheap scribes to copy their books for them?

Indeed, but they did bother, to an extent.

Yes, you could quite easily, but you and I both know they didn't have the same impact as the Chinese decision in this case.

Yes but I don't see that as a claim for 'superiority' if we must give it a word. China was united and Europe was broken.

The Vatican tried to sit on Galileo - so his manuscripts popped up in post-reformation Holland where the Vatican couldn't do a thing to stop them being published.

Which is why I maintain that without the break from Rome (reformation or otherwise) Europe would never have gotten close to the power it was.

However, from the end of the Roman Empire until the colonial era, slavery was not a major part of the economic system in most, if not all, countries where Christianity was the largest religion.

Yes but it wasn't in other countries without Christianity either. I don't see any correlation between countries dropping slavery and Christianity.

Fanny Cradock

BTW, if your post has disappeared it is because you ignored the warning I gave in post 41. This thread is not about suicide rates and whatever correlates people want to read into them.

Blikes

Blikes wrote: »

Makes sense i suppose.

I feel stupid i only wrote 4 words when everyone else wrote an essay :P

Still makes sense to me

Lanaier

Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Chinese

Eh...one academic does not a nation make.

If it was some American would the title be: "Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Americans"?

No.

johnmcdnl

Donatello wrote: »

“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.”

I'd have though capitalism was against Christian values... wouldn't jesus really have been a communist or something more similar to communism where everyone gets the same rather than some people getting extremely rich at the expense of others...

Fanny Cradock

I don't think Jesus was much interested in political ideas. This was much to the the disappointment of the Jews who understood the messiah as essentially a person who was to be sent from God to rebuild and re-establishing Israel.