Is a great zeal for kid-touching also a natural result of belief in God?

Isn’t it amazing how all of civilization learned and developed and made scientific discoveries before the New Atheists came along in the past 15 years to tell all us religious folk how anti-learning we are?

Amen! A love for Christ always produces a passion for truth. It is sad, however, that so many of these institutions have abandoned their godly roots. “Ichabod” would be a more fitting motto for a great many of them now.

The first school in NewYork was started by protestants, for the sole purpose of enabling children to read the Bible. This was fought over by a catholic priest because public money was being used to promote a (“competing view of”) religion. So it was a catholic priest that “had the Bible thrown out” of public schools. I am still protesting.    P.S. SkiFree Champion: a great zeal for kid-touching is more likely a result of unbiblical forced celibacy. God created us male & female, and instructed us to multiply. Do You think God only wants the unbelievers to multiply?

Theophile:
Matthew 19:10-12 (New International Version, ©2011)

10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Kristine, I like how You cherry pick, or were You just programed? didn’t You read 19:1-9 to pick up the exact context of this discourse? it was about “What therefor God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,” in other words..Marriage is final till death. Anyway the part You quote “and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” still doesn’t cover SkiFree Champion’s “great zeal for kid-touching” group, now does it?

I feel strongly, that Catholic education is so very important and agree with the hope of this piece. Yet this topic needs more research into the history of higher education. So many of these institutions began because religions had the money to do it. They wanted more religious folk, and wealthy parents agreed to send a kid for religious grooming. It wasn’t necessarily the quest for scientific truth. I think it became that way when certain ages of society blossomed (industrial, etc), but the original intent was probably a little less romantic (however STILL very beneficial to society).

To Theophile’s first post:

“So it was a catholic priest that ‘had the Bible thrown out’ of public schools.”

-> apparently an instance or even multiple instances of clerics doing such things is a counterexample to 2 thousands years of catholic learning (the early church fathers, st albert the great, st thomas aquinas, not to mention all of the technological and artistic innovations of the middle ages and the renaissance, all funded by catholic patrons and often directly by the pope). i often wondered what some people think when they see all of this art, technology, philosophy, etc - in a society “dominated” by the supposedly anti-learning catholic church, how were these things even possible? i encourage you to read up on more of the history, and ask yourself whether or not such instances are not the norm and actually go against the norm.

To Theophile’s second post:

-> i’m not sure what u are getting at. the context of matthew 19 seems pretty clear to me. Jesus is talking about marriage, but in answering the apostles basically says that marriage is not for everyone. i think what Kristine was trying to accomplish by quoting matthew 19 was to disprove your claim of “unbiblical forced celibacy.” she wasn’t even addressing the issue of sex abuse and hence probably wasn’t even trying to “cover SkiFree Champion’s” claim. anyways, it isn’t forced celibacy because men are not conscripted into the priesthood. they join it in free response to God’s call.

Theophile and SkiFree both desperately need the kind of basic schooling and learned thought that Catholics began and that Protestants continued, let’s just leave it at that.

Exactly.  Happy Holy Week, Jennifer.  XOXOXO

Thank you, Bernard.

Emily, you are wrong. Scientific and technology investigation have always been done in the churches, and in all the early American schools, both Protestant and Catholic. Early students at Harvard learned “natural philosophy” or physics. If you read Newton’s Principia, you will find a citation of a Harvard astronomer for some of his astronomical data.

It’s a well known argument among historians and philosophers of science that the rise of modern science in the medieval period is intimately connected with Christian ways of thinking (beliefs about God as the author of nature) and practices (monastic life and cathedral building). Not saying there aren’t disagreements about this point of view, but it’s a well known point of view.

Some books for background:

http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Science-Christian-Scientific-Revolution/dp/1596981555/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1303226882&sr=8-9

http://www.amazon.com/Abacus-Cross-Story-Brought-Science/dp/0465009506/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1303226472&sr=8-2

Here’s a good book for general background on science in the middle ages:

http://www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Western-Science-Philosophical-Institutional/dp/0226482057/ref=pd_sim_b_20

I bring to your attention, the following link: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/White/
It is a long reading, from a Professor of History at Cornell University, first published in 1898, that describes the progress of science before and after the rise of Christianity and, later, Protestant sects.
Also this link from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University, which describes the history of Harvard University. What is interesting in my humble point of view is that although it was established by Puritans, it was taken over by Unitarians (the “Liberals” of the 17th century) who changed it’s mission to a secular education. Teachers embraced the Deist and Agnostic philosophy (then, as now, it was dangerous to come out as an Atheist), and the University became one of the most renowned Colleges in Western Civilization.
Your comments on the two articles will be welcome.

Hi Adrienne,

I addressed the White link on another thread here, but probably not in the depth you were looking for.  My take, not to repeat myself too much, is that it’s not without merit, but also a polemic that emerges out of a number of issues more pertinent to his time than ours. It leaves out a great deal of information. Also, I don’t think your point/links really is at variance with what Jennifer is saying.  A lot of schools might be considered “secular” in terms of what they taught—although a better term is probably “humanist”, with it accompanying adjectives, “Christian” or “secular”.  Early Jesuit schools took all comers (of course, this was more an issue of class diversity at the time of their inception rather than religious diversity).

Hi, Elizabeth,
I wanted to point out that the schools/colleges were not very humanist until the Enlightenment. Many intellectuals in that era rejected the Christian bible and the policies of the Pope, and started to question whether believing in God was important in the realms of ethics and philosophy. Many put the issue aside and became Deists so they could pursue humanist endeavors. Others joined Unitarian churches, which is much more tolerant of diversity than Catholics. And yes, the author was polemic and gave many examples that need to be addressed by Christian apologists. That was his point.

I would argue that Scholasticism is not without its proto-humanist elements—after all, humanism arises out of the the works of the Scholastics.  And humanism is already being applied in schools and universities prior to the Enlightenment—it’s the cornerstone of the kind of education received by, for example, Shakespeare.  I tend to agree that Enlightenment thinkers challenge Christianity—but not so much in terms of papal authority, which for many (not all) of them is a matter of indifference after the Reformation.  Furthermore on that point, the schools you are talking about-Cornell, etc..—had no truck with Catholicism anyway, Catholicism being a (hated) minority religion in America, of course, at the turn of the century.  The Deists did, of course, reject, say, Calvinisim, or Protestantism in general—but it’s important to remember that Protestants had already, en masse, rejected “the policies of the Pope.  in fact, this rejection sowed the seeds of literalism against which people like the Deists reacted.  Finally, I think it’s worth noting that the shift of American universities away from being schools of Divinity towards the secular institutions we know today had more to do with changing social mores than with a drive towards free expression.  In the mid-1800’s, you could count on your hand the number of people in America who held advanced degrees, and universities were solely training for a few select professions—including ministry. As this changes, so too does the emphasis on religious instruction.

@Elizabeth K: The article is about Christianity being or not being anti-learning. Might I remind you that the colleges with all those lofty biblical and Christian quotations decorating their halls were started at a time when anyone who did not declare their Christianity or would dare question Christianity faced ostracism and even torture and death? You won’t find any one in Saudi Arabia openly debate Islam. And I have no respect for any mission statement that cites “...Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.” There are other sources of learning that are based on humanist philosophy.

Adrienne—which universities do you mean, exactly? Which universities tortured and killed non-believers?  I’m not arguing that there weren’t any—I’m simply saying that you’re painting with a rather large brush, and I’d be surprised to find out that American Universities turned over non-believers for torture and murder.  To whom would they turn them over, exactly?  Also, I know what the article is about—I don’t equate “learning” with “tolerance for all views”—do you?  They are, simply, two different concepts.  It’s perfectly possible that one could learn a whole lot in a Saudi Arabian university while at the same time being forbidden to debate Islam.  You’re changing the terms of debate and arguing against a straw man—or at least a point that no one here has asserted.  Also, you consistently oppose humanism and Christianity—but it’s simply a fact that humanism grows directly our of Christianity.  Some of the very first humanists were Popes.  Perhaps you mean secular humanism?  But that, too, grows out of Christian humanism.  I think perhaps you misunderstand the mission statement you’ve quoted—though it’s certainly fine not to respect it, I suppose.  Are you saying that knowledge gained while this mission statement was in force is somehow faulty?  Could we possibly jettison the knowledge contributed to our culture by those who believe it?  We’d have some mighty big gaps in our understanding of the world! Finally. I’m not clear on what you mean by “other sources of learning.”  The quotation claims that Christ is the foundation of knowledge; humanism claimed the same thing when it was developed.  Secular humanism doesn’t claim anything as the source of knowledge—in fact, the problem with doing away with the transcendental signifier is that all knowledge becomes relative and, therefore, we become incapable of making truth claims.

Hey Brain, I did not say Universities killed non-believers, I’m saying the society in which they were built tended to do so. Before Unitarians took over and focused on learning for its own sake, Christian schools (including Catholic schools) were not so tolerant of non-believers. Harvard University was established in 1636; the Salem witch trials occurred in 1692. Here is a more recent complaint: http://hoydenabouttown.com/20100608.7604/catholic-scripture-kids-would-miss-out-on-ethics/
And if you think there were no humanist before Christianity, then you are misapplying the term. Have you heard of the Hippocratic Oath? http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html Would you say this mission statement is not humanist?
Here is another link (back to the early Greeks and Romans again): http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/humanism/79214
Christianity may have embraced some of these ideas in practice, but did not invent them. Like I said, I attended a Jesuit University, and they did not force me to attend church. (It was a requirement to take a couple of courses in Christian theology and I gained a better understanding.) The knowledge gained is not at all faulty. Of course you can get a good education in Saudi Arabia, if you can get a mail family member to drive you to school,  but you better pray to Allah along with everyone else. It is our good fortune to live in a post-Enlightenment era and in a country that still separates church and state.
Obviously, I don’t tolerate all views, and I don’t pursue knowledge to “get closer to God/Jesus”. I reject the view that Christianity is the source of humanist ethics. Can you paste a link that supports that view?

Sorry for the typo: A male member of a woman has to drive her to school because they don’t allow women to drive. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300366_pf.html

Hey Knees—First, let’s dispense with the blog.  It really has nothing to do with the subject at hand, and I can’t believe you meant me to take it seriously.  So I won’t.  (If you really want to talk about it, we can, but it literally has only this thinnest thread connecting it to this discussion). 
Second, your first point—what’s your point?  A) It’s bizarre to connect Harvard to the Salem Witch Trials, period.  I can’t imagine what you’re on about with that one.  B) More importantly—so?  How does the fact a small section of the nation engaged in the witch trials=no learning at Harvard at the same time?  You’re still conflating your terms and creating straw men.  How exactly do you define the term “learning”?
Third, I am, in fact, using the correct definition of humanism.  You should look it up.  Yes, the ancient Greeks will be listed as predecessors to humanism, but they were not humanists in the sense the world understands humanism.  You, of course, are free in this postmodern relativistic world to make up definitions for words if you like, but it does make it awfully hard to communicate.  I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but the claim that humanism is rooted in Christianity is hardly controversial. 
Fourth, since you like Wikipedia, here’s a good discussion of Christian humanism:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_humanism.  You’ll note that I’m offering you a source that teases out the difference between “plain Humanism” (their words) and “Christian Humanism”, which should be read as good faith on my part.  Purely from the standpoint of scholarship, however, I would personally argue (and so would many others) that it is a distinction without meaning until the 1700’s—in other words, there IS no other “plain humanism” until them, so the term “Christian humanism” gets invented in retrospect, to distinguish one from the other after the fact.  It should be clear even from this source, however, that it was Christian thinkers (and yes, sometimes they drew from the Greeks, but nor hardly always) who were the major contributors to the development of humanism as you know and enjoy it.

Here’s a good, brief but solid, discussion of Thomas More and the development of humanism from the University of Wisconsin:  http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/283/283 session02.HTM

Here’s a good Wikipedia discussion of the development from Scholasticism to Humanism (note that they, too conflate Renaissance Humanism with Christianity)

This is fairly lame, but I think perhaps it addresses one of your confusions—which is that you seem to be imagining humanism as being able to somehow develop alongside of, or apart from Christianity.  Now, it is true that it was involved by reformers both from without and within the RCC, and was used to challenge Catholic teaching—but by Christians.  in fact, humanism is central to the emergence of Christian Protestantism.  So n easy one is http://www.all-about-renaissance-faires.com/renaissance_info/renaissance_and_humanism.htm

Elizabeth K:
1. Will you please make up your mind as to whether we are discussing ethics or learning? All I wanted to point out is that it was unlikely that the goal of Harvard was humanist before the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers began to question the belief in god and the doctrines of the church. Salem was not far from Harvard and it was still hanging witches—not a friendly time for atheists or agnostics.
2. Specifying “Christian Humanism” over regular Humanism makes your argument circular. The article calls it “a philosophical union between Christian and humanist principles.” Also written in the Wikipedia article you chose,
<quote>Christian humanism may have begun as early as the 2nd century, with the writings of St. Justin Martyr, an early theologian-apologist of the early Christian Church. While far from radical, Justin suggested a value in the achievements of Classical culture in his Apology[2] Influential letters by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa confirmed the commitment to using pre-Christian knowledge, particularly as it touched the material world and not metaphysical beliefs.</quote>
The humanist aspects of Christian Humanism are from pre-Christian knowledge.
If you look at the “plain Humanism article in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism#Ancient_Greece
<quote Sixth-century BCE pre-Socratic Greek philosophers Thales of Miletus and Xenophanes of Colophon were the first to attempt to explain the world in terms of human reason rather than myth and tradition, thus can be said to be the first Greek humanists.</quote>
It also mentions at the end of that paragraph: <quote>In the 3rd century BCE, Epicurus became known for his concise phrasing of the problem of evil, lack of belief in the afterlife, and human-centered approaches to achieving eudaimonia. He was also the first Greek philosopher to admit women to his school as a rule.</quote>
So a pre-Christian was the first to formally address the problem of evil, which is the big problem I have with Christianity.
It also names a number of Asian philosophers who have humanist views before Christianity. So yes, humanism was and is able along and apart from Christianity.
Finally, this is getting too ridiculous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUbjpwyesk0

LOL, I think you’re right—that’s video is a perfect description. Thanks for posting it! I thought we were talking about learning on this thread, and ethics elsewhere, but that’s probably part of the confusion, too. Let’s just agree that we interpret the origins and meaning of humanism differently—I think you see the use of the pre-Christians as evidence that humanism is separate from Christianity, but I don’t see it that way. I think Harvard’s emphasis on rhetoric, grammar and logic means, defacto, they’re offering a humanist education from the beginning—I think you’re saying that for you, humanism values reason over faith and only after the Enlightenment can true humanism develop. Again, I think we’re using different definitions for the same term.  I think your use of the term is much broader than mine—I could argue, for example that Genesis is humanist, in that it promotes the dignity of humans against the similar renderings of the story by its pagan neighbors, wherein humans are slaves and playthings of the gods.  But to me, that’s an ahistorical use of the term.  We could probably go on forever. Well, I could. :)
Maybe we should leave Christianity and the problem of evil for an upcoming combox—I’m sure it will arise sooner or later!:)

um, “that video”.

The Old Testament was not the first book ever written. I like the Epic of Gilgamesh for old books.
I don’t know if you would like the comedy team that made the video—they have a lot of atheist humor that may offend.

Actually, that’s what I meant—the Old Testament version of the events recounted in both books could be considered more humanist than its predecessors that tell of the same events—including Gilgamesh (the oldest book period, as far as we know, right?)  Which doesn’t mean that Gilgamesh isn’t awesome, which it is.  I don’t know if I’d like them or not either; I’ll have to check them out.  I thought the video you posted was pretty funny if that’s any indication.

I especially like this quote from Gilgamesh:
Gilgamesh quotes (showing 1-2 of 2)
“Until the end comes, enjoy your life, spend it in happiness, not despair. Savor your food, make each of your days a delight, bathe and anoint yourself, wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean, let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand, and give your wife pleasure in your embrace. That is the best way for a man to live.”
— Gilgamesh—-Show me a more humanist philosophy.
I’m glad you like the video and it made my point: This is where our conversation was going and I thought I’d cut it short for the other readers of this thread. Also, sarcasm does not come across well in plain text.
It’s up to you whether you want to see more Mitchell & Webb. Your frontal cortex is obviously bigger than your amygdala (http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Liberal+Conservative+Your+brains+different+study+finds/4580174/story.html) and if you are offended by their anti-church sketches, they have more neutral ones.