Rising Christian nationalism: a threat to us all

There is no such thing as "just an atheist" unless we are speaking about a vacuous moron. People have a set of ideas about the nature of reality that constitutes a worldview. And atheistic worldviews don't particularly have a better track record than religious worldviews.

I don't really accept the idea that allowing abortion, contraception, or homosexuality are some litmus test for being good, either. Someone mentioned in the thread that Christians were unwilling to accept the Roman practice of exposing infants. Their attitude to abortion is from the exact same roots, they did not consider a human being not yet born differernt from any other human being, in the same way they did not consider one not yet accepted as a family member to be not a real person yet. Modern people may disagree but to suggest that's some obviously immoral stance is facile.

I can understand someone claiming to be a christian, and have an affinity with catholicism, and even to attend a catholic church because it is the most suitable nearby church... but to say "I'm a catholic who ignores some of what the Pope says because I'm right and he's wrong" seems a bit nonsensical.

Surveys show huge numbers of Catholics support contraception.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/09/26/overwhelming-majority-of-american-catholics-want-church-to-change-stance-on-birth-control-new-poll-says/&ved=2ahUKEwi-lt61pPuPAxXCUUEAHbgiCtoQFnoECE4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1NFkpR4YFnqpSUmhuoxGm0

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/contraception_1.shtml%23:~:text%3DThe%2520Tablet%2520survey,the%2520teaching%2520should%2520be%2520revised.&ved=2ahUKEwixhKzPpPuPAxUAWEEAHbZ8CScQzsoNegQIDBAU&usg=AOvVaw1FGUzAqdTwIyoSBoKOF1uf

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/contraception-univision-poll-and-pope&ved=2ahUKEwjSt77ipPuPAxUiW0EAHXNJF4UQFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0ckRdqBXOevXflMGM78UQD

http://univision.data4.mx/resultados_catolicos/eng/ENG_catholic-survey.pdf

In your view, PraiseBe, are these surveys inaccurate? Or are the people replying not proper Catholics?

I agree, its more complicated than just Christianity! I was reading a really good book -Prisoners of Geography about the impact of Geography on wars/societies/geopolitics. It's really interesting, but because of the focus it is very much "everything is geography". That's not the author being misleading- he is clear that the angle he's writing from is the geographical one therefore all the focus is on that. Same with Tom Holland, the angle he is looking at is the impact of Christianity. So the book is that. The danger is if you only had that perspective and then extrapolated from that to draw wider conclusions about the state of the world/future. It's easy to, in a very logical way, go completely mad if you only have one angle.
There are also popular books written that explain how everything in history happened because of weather, or because of disease or because of rats. All "true".

In working out why societies did what they did when they did, it's useful to look at the background. In the UK and Europe, massive social-class shifting wars on the continent and in Asia in the late 1910s and again in the mid 1930s to mid 1940s. In Ireland brutal insurgency and counterinsurgency in our own streets and farmyards for a decade, followed by partition and a decade of dire poverty. The collective wish to establish a stable society was very strong. Nails that stuck out got hammered in. Which was horrible.

I don't think the stigma re illegitimacy was harder - plenty of mid-century English fiction has that lurking in the background. I think in a small country it was harder for people to move to a place where your history wasn't known without emigrating. But again - look at my links in the last post to see how the poor were treated in other countries. Also see how they treated the mentally ill.

My parents were economic migrants in the 1950s, and I grew up in lower middle class suburban England until my early teens (without any religious affiliation) and am always amazed at the attitudes and behaviors Irish people think are uniquely Irish - see the carry-on during the summer from people who were hit when they were at school. Yes, it was nasty, I remember it well, but not from Ireland.

The 1983 referendum was a disaster whatever way you cut it, but it was driven by a lay movement, not by 'the Church' (religious run hospitals never carried out abortions, but did know there were cases where non-viable pregnancies had to be ended for the health of the woman). Anyway, 40 years was long enough for me to have to argue that one.

Some Catholics do support contraception and divorce, probably the first more than the second. I take it you wouldn't see them as true Catholics?

How does that work you being pro contraception, pro divorce etc whilst also claiming to be Catholic? Genuinely interested as a Catholic woman myself.

It also seems odd to refer to Switzerland and the UK as 'secular' countries in that context, esp since we've been discussing how the UK was until recently a pretty religious country.

Religion has also been important to many Swiss and still is though it's declining.

Exactly, both are capable of great good and great evil...

Yes,to some extent the Pill was legal from 1963. But that's not the full story.

It had to be marketed as a 'cycle regulator' to circumvent the ban. In 1979 it became legal for official family planning for married couples only. It was only in 1992 that unmarried women were officially able to buy the Pill.

Compare that the UK, where unmarried women could officially access the Pill from 1967. Or other Catholic countries for that matter : Spain and Italy both legalised in 1978 and 1971 and the former was just emerging from Franco, as we've said.

I haven't got my info from RTE or the Irish Times. I am taking a project on the Magdalene Laundries for university history right now, a lot of my information comes from reading direct survivor testimony or concerns at the time. I appreciate the info on the Belfield generation but I don't think this has strongly influenced my perspective, though I accept I may be wrong.

To take one by one-

Yes, homosexuality and abortion were banned under laws inherited from the UK, but why did it take Ireland 24 years longer than the UK to decriminalise homosexuality and 51 years longer to decriminalise abortion? It seems to abdicate responsibility to just blame the UK. Reminds me of how other countries justify anti-gay laws - 'the UK did it'- despite having years of independence to change them.

The Eight Amendment which created near total abortion ban was passed in 1983, that was not inherited from the UK by any means, which had legalised for 16 years by them.

Fair enough that illegitimacy remained a concept for a long time for many others . But surely you accept that the stigma was much harsher in Ireland?

We've just been hearing about the forced contraception scandal in Greenland, which, considering Greenland's tiny population, is certainly close to genocidal.

It wasn't religious fanatics that did that. It was Danish social democrats, very much akin to the British Fabians who were also big eugenics enthusiasts.

Christopher Hitchens had an annoying habit of No True Scotsmaning any atheist or secular government/movement he disapproved of by claiming it was really religious, and conversely claiming that religious people in history who he admired must have been secretly atheist. Christopher was a clever man, but he could be extremely silly at times.

Also, treatment of native Americans and Aborigines in the 20th century - forced sterilisation of women, forced adoption of children, children forced into the care of the state - and also British children forced to migrate to Australia until the 1960s.

All policies that presumably were justified as being for the greater good, whether for utilitarian or religious reasons.

Magdalen laundries were invented in England and were not initially, or later exclusively, Catholic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_laundry, homosexual acts and abortion were illegal under legislation inherited from Westminster, illegitimacy remained a concept in most European legal systems until the late 20th C, barrier contraceptives could not be sold but the contraceptive pill was always legal. All of that was civil law. As was divorce- opposition to that, demonstrated in the first referendum, was mostly about property rights and inheritance, not religion.

The church was given the job of running what had been the workhouses, and, as in all countries, the very poor, and the children of the very poor, and very poor women had worse experiences than others. It has been fashionable in Ireland, particularly since the Belfield generation took over the media, to blame 'the Church' for everything bad, but look at how secular countries treated people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Children
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sweden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_case
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdingkinder
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Human_sterilization_in_Switzerland

'Belfield generation' my shorthand for the middle class aspirant Marxist misogynists who graduated from ca1970 on. Most of them got careers in academia or the public sector; they all got less sex than they wanted because of 'the Church' and every single one of them burned down the British Embassy. Or so they have told me. Not reliable sources of historical information.

Mistrust RTÉ and the IT.

Come, you must know the disturbing history I'm referring to....

I know Ireland is much, much better now, and it is not comparable to a dictatorship or genocide-committing state.

I apologise for the clumsy phrasing : what I meant was that Catholic sexual morality became incredibly oppressive in Ireland to an extent it did not in other countries)

The Magdalene Laundries, the forced adoptions, the church sexual abuse esp in industrial schools, the extreme control the church had over everyday society for most of the 20th century (homosexuality illegal until 1993, as was abortion ofc until a few years ago, divorce illegal until 1997, illegitimacy only legalised in 1987, contraception illegal until 1979 ...)

@MusettasWaltz Obviously 20th century Ireland is a very disturbing example of Catholicism getting out of hand in a way it hasn't in other Catholic countries, at least not to the same extent. Christianity did not prevent the rise of dictatorships and genocide in Germany, Italy, Spain etc . . . .

What on earth?

Ireland (95% Catholic until a few decades ago), a republic, which didn't become a dictatorship, or align itself with dictatorships, or commit any genocide, a democracy that has been transformed from abject poverty to well-educated wealth in its first century of existence is disturbing?

Thomas Sowell was referring to the 'Scotch-Irish' who were not originally from Ireland but from (mostly southern) Scotland and the Borders, who moved west first to Ulster (where some of their descendants remain) when the British wanted Protestant 'planters' to take over land seized from its original owners, and then a generation or two later to America. They produced several American presidents, and the hillbillies, and poor whites. J D Vance's ancestry, allegedly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans

When I read the Bible aloud a few years back there were plenty of 'yowsa, I didn't know the Bible said that' moments (not all of them in Ezekiel though he was a rich seam) but one of cursing psalms was the only thing where I voiced disagreement with every verse. The Proverbs were a bit repetitive and sexist, so I swapped 'man' and woman' throughout after about the first quarter which was good and thought provoking - example, post-swap:

Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous man,
from the wayward man with his seductive words,
17 who has left the partner of his youth
and ignored the covenant he made before God

The idea that there is one authentic black culture is racist, isn't it? Even if referring solely to people with African ancestry.

I'd add to this by saying that forcibly imposed religion & imposed atheism are both bad for populations. It's wrong to judge either by state-imposed versions.

The Wiki has some good links on the different branches' attitudes. I agree the Lama is not best placed to make a huge pronouncement.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_homosexuality

Silly comment to make. Buddhism has a variety of views on homosexuality, Thai, Chinese & Japanese Buddhism have a long history of accepting male-male relationships at least within certain boundaries.

Other branches are negative, seeing it as a sin.

The Dalai Lama himself has been ambivalent . He seems more willing to agree it's OK for non-Buddhists but I wouldn't peg him as gigantically homophobic.

Buddhism is certainly not flawless, but it's attitude to homosexuality is an odd one to compare negatively to Christianity. Some branches may be negative, but a
it doesn't say men should be stoned to death for gay sex as the OT does, nor does it contain unambiguously negative stuff like Paul or the more murky Sodom & Gomorrah. The fact it's less unified and more of a philosophy than a religion makes it harder to pin down on one position.

Silly comment to make. Buddhism has a variety of views on homosexuality, Thai, Chinese & Japanese Buddhism have a long history of accepting male-male relationships at least within certain boundaries.

Other branches are negative, seeing it as a sin.

The Dalai Lama himself has been ambivalent . He seems more willing to agree it's OK for non-Buddhists but I wouldn't peg him as gigantically homophobic.

Buddhism is certainly not flawless, but it's attitude to homosexuality is an odd one to compare negatively to Christianity. Some branches may be negative, but a
it doesn't say men should be stoned to death for gay sex as the OT does, nor does it contain unambiguously negative stuff like Paul or the more murky Sodom & Gomorrah. The fact it's less unified and more of a philosophy than a religion makes it harder to pin down on one position.

False equivalency -I think you have to differentiate between state-imposed communist atheism and just a not-very-religious country.

Communist leaders like Mao, Stalin, Che, Castro& Marx himself were all very homophobic. So ofc those countries are going to have had poor outcomes for gay people. That's a function of communism, not atheism.

Whereas take a mainly non-religious like Czechia. It's no coincidence it's one of the most tolerant of gay people in Eastern Europe.

The same goes for the Netherlands am Scandinavia- Denmark and Netherlands, to name two, were pioneers in adopting civil partnership laws, Iceland was the first country in the world to have an out gay PM etc

The atheist French Revolution also led France to become the first country to decriminalise gay sex,which made it a 19 th century safer haven for gay people long before other countries were more accepting. Arguably this parrly led to France becoming more progressive on gay rights fairly early among European countries in the later 20th century.

I'm not saying atheism is best or that countries with a state religion are always bad for gay people, clearly that's not true. But I don't think your argument on this particular point holds up.

I definitely agree somewhat...thunk the JKR trolls comparison is too harsh though.

I do get a bit fed up at the veneration of Tom Holland's book. He made good points but I do think some were a bit overstated. As we've said, Christianity definitely encourages better attitudes to slaves but it never forbids it. If Christianity is so intrinsically and unambiguously opposed to slavery, how come slavery was so widely permitted in Christendom until the early 19th century?

Similarly, democracy. Christianity is definitely more friendly to democracy than others but full democracy still only became widespread in Europe in the mid-20th century (think of places like France etc waiting until the 1940s to give women the vote).

I also think a lot of the effects of British Christianity are more characteristics of Britain rather than Christianity. This might sound a bit garbled - what I mean is that Christianity has had very different effects in different places. Attitudes to women in say, Mexico are different from attitudes in France. British colonialism, while brutal at times, was far far less so than French, German or Belgian. Yet these countries were all Christian. Obviously 20th century Ireland is a very disturbing example of Cathlocism getting out of hand in a way it hasn't in other Catholic countries, at least not to the same extent. Christianity did not prevent the rise of dictatorships and genocide in Germany, Italy, Spain etc in fact, in Spain for instance much of the Church cravenly kowtowed to Franco.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that Christianity has influenced all of Europe, and the very particular way Britain (or more specifically England) has developed isn't JUST applicable to Christianity, or even Protestant Christianity for that matter.

The only thing worse than accepting crimes like slavery is trying to justify it...

Augustine seemed to see slavery as something not good, but sort of inevitable. In the same way that in a perfect world we might not have the vast gaps between rich and poor/inequality. But it's accepted today because that's how the world is. Similar to how slavery was seen in the ancient world by the likes of Seneca.

Whereas the Atlantic slave trade was so extreme in scale and quite a new innovation for Europe. And there had been first hand accounts by then of Europeans taken into slavery by Barbary pirates and then ransomed. It seemed to become necessary at that point to justify it. Maybe there was some cognitive dissonance going on? So thats when you see arguments along the lines of:

• Christianity is uniquely a good thing. Therefore, the practice of slavery is providential because it's helping to spread Christianity/civilisation through West Africa and to the slaves themselves
• The Bible says Black people are inferior. Sons of Ham etc
• Not just the Bible but also science proves black people are inferior

People in the ancient world had slaves, but they didn't feel the need to justify slavery (except Aristotle/Plato). It just was. So there wasn't the same stigma attached. It just "was" for early Christians too. Whereas because the those involved in American chattel slavery needed a moral justification, you had a really toxic legacy of racism even after slavery had ended. The son of a freed slave could run for political office in Rome because there was no stigma. Not so the antebellum South. It actually made slavery worse. The flip side of this is, as already said, some Christians felt it went against the Christian faith and ultimately campaigned to end slavery. So that argument won in the end.

That's partly why I'm a bit wary of people trying to justify bad things/even "unchristian" things through a sort of Christian exceptionalism. That's maybe the wrong word. I think Christianity did have a positive impact on the evolution of UK democracy etc. But some in the political sphere are twisting that to justify a kind of Christian chauvinism. Or the idea that only "cultural Christians" can care about liberal democracy, human rights, "civilisation", the UK etc. I'm not expressing myself very well. But I know what I mean. It's the same thing as someone on the far left justifying sending death threats to JKR because "we are the good guys and she's the nasty hateful terf so it's OK to be hateful to her".