Wasn't Darwin English?

"and have been for over two hundred years now, the most important source of evil in the world."

Too true.

I like her longer-term horizon view. It's not as if Marx et al materialized (forgive the pun) out of thin air.

Europe de-Christianized as a result of America's two barbaric military invasions on the continent in the first half of 20th century. At the time of WW2 and certainly WW1 Europeans were devoutly Christian, probably more so than Americans, and they would still be were it not for the corrosive influence of American culture. ;)

No, America had to attack Europe because it had ceased to be Christian. The Marshall Plan in particular served to permanently neuter the continent by locking it into socialism.

oj: No. Europe had a 100 percent church attendance rate during WW1 and prolly WW2. The only difference between WW1 and gazillion earlier wars in Europe was that there were bigger guns.

German Lutherans killed Jews because Luther's classic "Of Jews and Their Lies" was read from the pulpits.

Socialism is Christian, capitalism is pagan.

Had America not sent troops in 1917, there would never have been real communism, Nazism, secularism, etc. Europe would still be heavily Christian, with colonial empires intact.

No, Bismarck had destroyed Christianity--that's the point of the welfare state. The Applied Darwinists had no trouble getting Germans to kill Jews because they'd accepted Reason.

Nope. Bismarck was a Christian, and he was supported by Christians. Welfarism is Christian charity. Germany was known as the most Christian nation in Europe, and this started to change only in the aftermath of the American invasion during WW1.

Bismarck was first and foremost a rationalist and a statist. Statism requires that all institutions that intervene between the state and individuals be destroyed, most of all religious. He succeeded and Hitler reaped the fruits.

In reality Europeans were more Christian than Americans as late as during WW1. Especially Germans. They would still be if Americans had stayed out.

You're confusing Church attendance with Christianity.

Christianity IS church attendance, and other forms of social control. America, with its disastrous political idealism and ungodly popular culture, tore the fabric of traditional European life, and caused the downfall of Christianity in Europe.

See, that was your confusion.

There is no confusion on my side. You just don't know much about Christianity or religion is general, as demonstrated by your numerous heterodox utterings in this blog.

Yet Europe is secular.

I just explained why Europe is secular. You should read my posts. ;)

Yet America is Judeo-Christian.

America is Judeo-Christian because America's traditional religious culture was not destroyed by brutal foreign invaders.

Judeo-Christian invaders....

Judeo-Christian or not, the American invaders were destroyers of traditional culture. American leaders hardly kept it a secret that they wanted to destroy traditional European culture.

Yes, the Judeo-Christian invader destroyed continental Europe.

I'm glad we finally see eye to eye!

If you guys would stop having delusions of grandeur, we wouldn't have to have gotten involved.

And they wonder why we left...............

Europe has been spiritually dead since at least 1700. Things began accelerating after Hegel.

Morko:

Was the French Revolution a step forward or backward for 'Christianity'?

Was Nietzsche correct in his assessment of a 'decadent' Europe?

If Germany had 'won' WWI, by which I mean a British retreat across the Channel and an early start on Vichy, would the victorious Germans have followed the Sermon on the Mount? Would the defeated French? Would the Holocaust have occurred anyway?

Why didn't Europe repent after WWI? Why couldn't Europe repent after WWII?

Vichy and the holocaust were WWII not WWI, Jim.

Everyone here keeps using the word "decadent". Would somebody please define this term? Also describe the metrics used to measure decadence.

Europe is decadent in that it chose the mere modus vivendi rather than Judeo-Christian truth:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1264/

Ok, I don't know what color the sky is on Morko's planet, but to characterize either world war as a rape of innocent Europe by the Americans is just nuts. We didn't even land significant numbers of troops until the fall of 1917; the great soul-killing bloodbaths at Ypres and the Somme and Verdun were already done by then. Here's a list of casualties by nationality from the Great War. Among them, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Great Britain lost nearly as many men (4.2 million) as we mobilized (4.7 million.) WWII in Europe is the same only more so. If Morko were a homocide detective he'd likely arrest the coroner.

How have the Europeans rejected J-C truth when nearly every Euro nation has a state supported religion (like the CofE in England, the Catholic Church in Ireland, Italy and Poland, or the Lutheran Church in Scandinavia)?

Compared with the US and its separation of church and state, Europeans are much closer to a theocracy.

That just makes deracination all the easier. Note that established churches, like the CofE, don't actually preach Judeo-Christianity anymore. The Archbishop of Canterbury came out against Creation this month.

joe:

But it was stopping them that destroyed Europeanism.

control:

Note that I said WWI quite clearly, and also said that Vichy would have started earlier (than it did). My question about the Holocaust stands - would there have been wholesale slaughter of Jews (and others) had Germany 'won' WWI?

Europe is a theocracy, but their God is man-made. WWI was the first large-scale worship service. When no blessing was given, they tried again 20 years later.

The sun in Morko's world is pale, with a tinge of green.

Jim, German war aims were different in WWI than in WWII. They did not plan to permanently occupy and dismember France, so no Vichy. They intended to annex Belgium and a few French departments on the border while extracting a heavy indemnity. As for the Jews, the Kaiser was not anti-Semitic, so no holocaust.

Mr. Judd, the Vatican has also come out against Creation, having long called evolution "more than a theory".

I believe a more subtle effect is happening here. Believers make rational "puchases" of religious "products and services" which meet their current emotional and psychic "needs and wants". This implies that the traditional state supported religions (e.g. the Church of England) are essentially no different than the old state run economies of the former Warsaw Pact - and just as lacking in choices and products to meet consumer needs. Perhaps this explains why western Europe (especially compared to the US) is spiritually moribund. Apparently Westminister and Chartres are as bad at meeting the needs of their "consumers" as the old GUM department store in Moscow. Like the former East Block, western Europe also has its religious equivalent of the black market - newly arrived religious movements like Mormonism and Islam or locally derived non-Abrahamic religions like neo-paganism and druidism.

Socialized religion (which is what state supported religion really is) is no more effective than socialized medicine or socialized anything. American fundamenalists who want something similar should pay heed and be thankful for that wall between church and state.

Jim:

Europe has been spiritually dead since at least 1700. Things began accelerating after Hegel.

Not true. If anything, Europe became more Christian after 1700, through numerous fundamentalist protestant movements.

Was the French Revolution a step forward or backward for 'Christianity'?

The French revolution was an attempt to destroy pagan order in Europe and replace it with secularized Christian morality. Its success was very limited, though with the help of Americans its ideas spread over Europe in 20th century.

Was Nietzsche correct in his assessment of a 'decadent' Europe?

Nietzsche said that Europe is decadent because it is so Christian. Until after WW2 Europe was very Christian, so Nietzsche was right, if we accept his definition of 'decadent'.

If Germany had 'won' WWI, by which I mean a British retreat across the Channel and an early start on Vichy, would the victorious Germans have followed the Sermon on the Mount? Would the defeated French? Would the Holocaust have occurred anyway?

Germans were not Nazis at the time of WW1, and they had no interest in occupying the whole of France or propping up puppet regimes. Also, there are other alternatives than de facto capitulation (which happened) and German victory (which you suggest as an alternative).

If the outcome of WW1 had been more positive for Germany, there would not have been Nazis or WW2. American invasion in 1917 tipped the balance in favor of the entente powers, which was disastrous for Europe.

Why would there have been a Holocaust if there had not been Nazis? Hundreds of thousands Jews served in the ranks of the Central Powers, and there was a lot less anti-Semitism in Germany than in e.g. the USA during WW1.

Why didn't Europe repent after WWI? Why couldn't Europe repent after WWII?

Why should Europe have "repented"? Europeans didn't repent after hundreds of earlier wars, why suddenly start?

Ok, I don't know what color the sky is on Morko's planet, but to characterize either world war as a rape of innocent Europe by the Americans is just nuts. We didn't even land significant numbers of troops until the fall of 1917...

Joe, American involvement tipped the balance in favor of the Entente Powers. Had Americans stayed out, German revanchism which gave birth to Nazism and WW2 would never have happened.

Because they started fighting wars over the wrong ends.

Nazism is just a logical end of Europe's secular rationalism. Holland today isn't terribly different as regards deciding that some lives are not worth being lived. And the continent is preparing for a repeat of the racial violence and extermination.

Nazism is not a logical end of anything, and it was neither secular nor rational. From the outset they promoted what they called positive Christianity and swore to fight materialism. Their militarism, anti-feminism, and anti-egalitarism were completely against the modern project.

Morko:

You say Europe became more Christian, not less, after 1700. How? The Protestant fundamentalist groups began popping up in the late 1500s, but they never really made a dramatic impact across the Continent. I have to ask, do you think Catholics are "Christian"?

Was Nietzsche's use of the word decadent a comment on Christianity as he perceived it in the 1860s and after, feeble and hypocritical, or a comment on European society in general? Remember, he started adult life as a theology student. Remember also his saying - "Christians are going to have to look a lot more redeemed, if I am going to believe in their redeemer".

Why would there have been a Holocaust without Nazis? Well, there were plenty of pogroms before the Nazis, and not all of them were in Russia. And you neglect the Prussian influence - Germany wanted 'estates', land, and materials in the East long before the Nazis.

And what exactly is a 'secularized' Christian morality? Especially when you say it was being imposed on a pagan culture - wasn't the French Revolution a strike against the Church, too?

Nazism is just Applied Darwinism. It's ultra-modern and ultra-rationalist. That's why it's making a comeback in places like Holland.

morko, you magnificently confused european! you seem to have this notion that American troops appeared in europe, deux ex machina, and wreaked havoc on a peaceful land. both of the wars europe lost, were well along before we even got involved.

also, our contribution to the great war was minimal and did not tip the balance signifigantly. so the greatest european of all would still have ascended to the throne.

just say "i hate america because it is so much better than europe" and quit beating around the bush.

Jim:

When I referred to Protestant fundamentalism in post-1700 Europe I meant influential revivalist movements like Pietism in Germany (18th century), Methodism in England (18th century), and Laestadianism in the Nordic countries (19th century); there are many others. I consider Catholics Christian.

As to Nietzsche, I suggest you read his On the Genealogy of Morals to find out about his views on Christianity and decadence. But in short he believed that Christianity with its emphasis on equality, tolerance, and submissiveness had made Europe decadent.

It makes no sense to say that because of past pogroms the Holocaust was inevitable. It's like saying that the Spanish Inquisition must necessarily come back.

By secularized Christianity I mean an attempt to create a Kingdom of God on Earth by, for example, destroying pagan superstructures like the class system. Catholicism is pagan to a considerable extent because it has incorporated numerous pagan beliefs in its doctrine.

oj:

You may say that Nazism is ultra-rationalist as many times you like, but it still doesn't make it so. Nazis prided themselves on not being rationalists or materialists, just like you do.

toe:

America's contribution tipped the balance in WW1 significantly enough to make it possible for the Entente Powers to make Germany agree to outrageous demands.

Also, I don't hate America, nor am I interested in proving that Europe is "better" than America, or vice versa. I have contributed to this discussion (sometimes with deliberately provocative assertions) mainly to shake oj and others off their complacency, that is, their belief that they can explain such complex phenomena as the de-Christianization of Europe by just referring to abstractions like "Anglo-American model" or "French model". There is a host of other factors to consider.

Nazis prided themselves on the rigorous application of racial theory, which is just Darwinism in action.

Americans pride themselves on their advanced science and technology. Does it make them materialists and rationalists? You can't just pick one thing of a whole and claim that it's the whole.

No, Americans pride themselves on tchnology. We hate science--it's creepy.

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/530