Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia had more in common with Greece and Rome than Churchill's England or Roosevelt's America.

People hate religion because it defines unapologetically what is right and wrong. They would rather live in a world where the state dictates the shape of banana they are allowed to eat and suppresses freedom of speech in the name of fairness.

This is enlightenment. This is utopia. This is bigotry. This is selfishness. This is heaven on earth.

Not so much a psychological disorder as dishonesty, either to the readers or even the self. It is related to the culture war, and as with all wars truth is the first casualty. Many thinkers have commented that the history of the West has been shaped by an active tension between the sacred and the secular, between Judeo/Christian theology and Greco/Roman rationalism. The West has benefitted by both of these traditions, and America specifically has been able to synthesize the best of both.

Culture warriors on both sides though would prefer to see the ultimate victory of one over the other. Fredricksen would deny or marginalize Judeo/Christianity, while others like Randall would deny or marginalize the influence of Greece and Rome. The West as we know it (more specifically America) cannot persevere without the continued influence of both.

Well stated, Robert.

If you were one of the (very small in number) elite, Greek and Roman culture was a wonderful thing. Otherwise, you lived in a society that did not value your life one bit. Given the complete lack of basic sanitation, life in a "state of nature" would have been much better than the life lived by the vast majority of the population of pagan Greece and Rome crowded into urban stink holes.

The feudal period of Western History was well-known for its sanitation and concern with the well-being of the ordinary person. (sarcasm intended) The rights of man really didn't matter in the West until the 16th century CE.

In Tsarist Russia into the mid 19th century, if a noble killed the serf of another feudal lord, that feudal lord got to kill one of the first lord's serfs. And this was a society where the ruler considered himself the most Christian ruler in the world, and was the head of the largest church in Orthodox Christendom.

Peter - Not a psychological disorder, a spiritual disorder. They hate religion because they've chosen sides, and religion is on the other side.

Hey, I'm not denying the influence of Greece, I'm decrying it! But I do appreciate being numbered among the "culture warriors". Thanks.

Do a thought experiment. Remove all the "greek" influence and then remove all the influence of those who believe in "doing unto others as thou wouldst have them do unto you."

What would change America more?

And bart, Judaism is very sanitary. (Judeo-Christian, get it?)

Bart--

No one was able to get a handle on sanitation until soap was invented. At least in medieval times, women were not forced to have abortions, and they didn't then face the risk of death from the almost inevitable infection, nor was tossing unwanted babies on the local garbage heap tolerated.

Robert - The best of Greece and Rome were appropriated into the Judeo-Christian tradition. Even as early as 400 BC, Greek thought was influencing the wisdom books of the Bible (e.g. Wisdom, Proverbs, Sirach). St Paul preached in Athens of the unity of Greek and Christian thought; Aquinas synthesized Aristotelian and Christian ideas. The better parts of Roman law were preserved in Christian legal thought.

Thus, your effort to portray your Christian opponents as promoting this division (and, oddly, to attribute such an opposition to Randall, who stated no such thing) lacks historical and logical foundations; there has never been a logical contradiction between the two, except in certain elements like the Greco-Roman support for slavery, and historically they were complements rather than opponents, which is why the Romans and Greeks adopted Christianity.

In reality it is the anti-religionists who seek to divide the two streams, so that they can claim a culture of their own to set against Judeo-Christian culture.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

The major difference between Christianity and Greek thought was their concept of God (or gods) -- something Europe wants to deny altogether.

When Europe mints a coin that states, "In Zeus we trust", then I'll know they are serious.

Of course what this article (and most posters) glosses over is that there isn't a "Christian" history/philosophy/tradition/etc. The Orthodox & Latin worldviews were and are very, very different. Heck, the West thought the Orthodox world WAS Greek civilization...

PJ, as Randall said he was decrying Greek influence, not denying it, so I think that he is putting the Judeo/Christian tradition at odds with the Greek. Randall, you can correct me if I am wrong.

And Randall, to answer your question I would have to say that since America is a democracy and Greece invented democracy that removing the Greek influence would leave a very different America.

Randall, you also decry the Enlightenment, which is an outgrowth of the rediscovery of the Greek tradition of intellectual and scientific inquiry and marked the tension between the sacred and the secular traditions. The Enlightenment gave us the French Revolution but also the American Revolution. I find it odd that religious Americans continue to savage the Enlightenment while valuing our modern form of government that benefitted directly from it. PJ, I see this opposition by modern Christians to a recognition of the Enlightenment's positive legacy as part of the tension between the true traditions. As you say, the two traditions are not in conflict - except for those times when they are.

Jerusalem and Athens.

I was composing my message while Randall made his second post and so didn't see it. Nothing in his first post decried Greece or Rome.

Aside from the parts of Greco-Roman heritage that were incorporated into the Christian tradition, there's nothing left of it. So it's hard to say there's a continuing Greco-Roman cultural tradition if you discount the Christian tradition.

But we get to the real issue when we reach the French Enlightenment. It gave us the Reign of Terror, the first fascist dictatorship in Napoleon, the first world war, legitimated Leftism as a philosophy of hate-filled nihilism, and its most lasting legacy, hatred of God and religion and moral and spiritual goodness. It's absurd to place the French Enlightenment in a tradition with Greece and Rome. What do they have in common?

The "Enlightenment" that gave us the American Revolution was a Christian enlightenment that was almost diametrically opposed to the French Enlightenment. Again, they had nothing in common.

I only "decry" Rome in the same way St. Paul decried Rome:

"I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise and the unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them." (Romans 1:14-19)

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Well, I guess aqueducts are pretty nifty. But other than that, nothing!! Oh, except some excellent paved roads, I guess. . . .

Well, bravo to Robert for not undertaking the dubious task of unscrambling the eggs.

A book I have mentioned before, John Boswell's 'Kindness of Strangers,' which is about the restricted subject of what to do with foundlings, is a pretty good primer on how intertwined pagan and 'judeo-christian' customs were, even before there was a 'christ.'

But sometimes, the religious posters here seem not to live on the same planet with the rest of us. pj, for example,so bemused with one Reign of Terror, as if it were the first or that Christians never thought of that.

What was Savonarola's Florence but a Reign of Terror, and how different were the ends of Savonarola and Robespierre?

pj
I wouldn't agree with you that Christianity incorporated all that Greece had to offer. The ongoing legacy of Greece wasn't just the content of that learning and philosophy that was produced by them during the Classical age, but it is the ongoing application of logic and analysis to questions of knowledge as later incorporated in the scientific method, independeltly of theological inquiry. Yes, Christianity has incorporated the results of scientific inquiry on many occasions, but has also resisted these results on many others, as during the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions. Hence the tension. Christians say that there is no conflict between the world of reason and the world of faith, but conflicts persist.

Your argument seems to say that once Christianity incorporated this philosophical tradition, that the tradition somehow became an exclusive aspect of Christianity. It didn't, it lives on as an independent tradition. Western scientific rationalism is not built upn Christianity, nor is it dependent upon it.

The American Enlightenment was not an exclusively Christian product, it was a synthesis of Judeo/Christian ethical values and Greek inspired free inquiry and tradition of democratic self-government. The American accomplishment was finding a proper relationship between religious faith and secular self-interest in the organization of society and government.

Robert - The scientific method was a Judeo-Christian creation. The Church didn't resist Copernicus, it aided him, he was a devout Catholic, church canon, and taught at a religious college. It wasn't Darwinian scientific "results" that the Church opposed but the atheistical metaphysics that Darwinians have often endorsed and associated with their science even though they have no foundation in scientific "results."

There are no conflicts between faith and reason, but there are conflicts between faith and cant masquerading as reason.

A variety of science historians have traced the dependence of scientific methods on Judaic ideas of an ordered, God-created world in which natural occurrences are not arbitrary, as pagan societies believed; and of Judeo-Christian notion that we have an obligation to try to understand God's handiwork. The instruction to "test everything" is part of Christian faith.

Is this claim that science is the continuation of Greco-Roman culture your only argument for the persistence of a Greco-Roman cultural tradition?

I agree with your last paragraph, except the notion that Greece was especially devoted to free inquiry - remember, Socrates was poisoned - and was a unique source of democratic traditions - there was a long tradition of European democratic experiments that they relied on, and 1 Samuel 8 was probably more influential than Solon in the attitudes of the American founders.

Harry:

Savanarola called upon men to focus on things greater than the self--Robespierre called upon men to focus on only themselves. The Founding is Savanarolistic.

pj,

The scientific method began with Aristotle.
The Founding Fathers were cognizant of using Classical models, hence the Classical architecture, the Society of the Cincinnati and so on. The writings of the Founding Fathers make constant reference to the Roman Republic and, of all places, Sparta.

Sure, it had some Christian influence, but the Classical influence should not be discounted.

Robert:

Interesting enough, even the Romans knew they needed Jerusalem:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1365/

Dan,

Infant mortality rates before the 20th century were like 95%. They didn't need abortions to keep the population down.

Randall,

You might want to consider what happened in Counter-Reformation Spain if you did not have the 'Odour of Sanctity' from having never bathed.

Bathing got you killed by the Inquisition.

It is also precisely the poor sanitation prevalent in Christian Europe that caused the excesses of the Black Death and the occasional pogrom against Jews. The Talmud requires the regular incineration of garbage, so every Jewish community provided for regular sanitation. The rats, which carried the Black Death, fed off garbage. No garbage, no rats. The Christian communities, most notably in Strasbourg and along the Rhine, noticed that Jews were far less likely to get the Black Death than they were. So, they reached the conclusion that the Jews must be causing it, and they reacted accordingly. The notion that one should burn garbage never occured to them.

>Infant mortality rates before the 20th century were like 95%.

Of all the posts ever made on this blog, that has got to be without a doubt the one most lacking in numerical plausibility, historical perspective, and plain old common sense. Most impressive...

High but not that high. Pre-industrial infant mortality in Europe is commonly thought to have been 20-30%, infant mortality defined as death before age 1. For example : http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/GlobalHistory/Global%20History-5.pdf, Table 1 page 19, is in line with what I've read elsewhere. Can we also keep in mind that it's 2005 not 1648. It's been a while since last I set foot in a church, but I do remember using the restroom, so I believe Christianity has reconciled itself to the idea of sanitation.

bart - I've agreed that Greco-Roman thought and experience influenced the founders (i.e., the failure of Athens re-affirmed their desire to check individual power and restrain democracy).

It's a reach to associate Aristotle with the scientific method: see, e.g., http://www.uww.edu/Lettsc/core/STS/mirrored_docs/method.htm. He didn't believe in experimentation, and you don't have science without experiment.

Joe: Bart always expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Bart--

95% ??????

Needed or not, there was a high incidence of forced abortions in ancient Rome. Men didn't like their womenfolk to be pregnant. In fact, the higher you were in the male power structure, the less likely you were to think of women as worthy of anything but contempt.

Harry:

So enthralled are we by this erudite discussion on antiquity that your neat little analogy almost slipped right by us. Care to tell us more about Savonarola's "Reign of terror"? Who exactly did he kill?

David - great!

Simply put, medieval art is noteworthy inter alia for the absence of children. The reason for this is quite simple, they used to die even in the wealthiest of families, and the parents realized that it was folly to grow too attached to them.

David,

The necessary result of Christianity without the leavening of the Greco-Roman tradition is the Spanish Inquisition.

Bart:

Gee, would you also say that the necessary result of the Greco-Roman tradition without the leavening of Christianity is Masada?

Actually, medieval art is noteworthy for its absence of women as well. They knew that if you got too attached, they'd break your heart every time.

medieval art is notable for its absence of craftsmanship. once the rennaisance got rolling there was plenty of craft, women, and children :)

Peter,

That whole 'Virgin Mary' thing escaped your notice. Ever seen the Memling Flemish primitives in Brugge? How about Holbein? Or Durer?

I would say that whenever one allows any religion to become to much of a force in huamn existence, whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, secularism, Communism, Nazism, etc that it inevitably turns to justifying the butchery of the 'Other', and to a fixation on butchering the 'heretics' in its midst. World history is replete with such examples, and the differences between Cardinal Torquemada and Enver Hoxha, the Tibetan Lamaist rulers and the Ayatollah Khomeini are more about diet and coiffure than anything. And I don't think if we let the Lubavitcher Rebbe run a country that he'd be any better.

Nope. Did that whole Madonna and child thing escape yours?

The sixteenth century was not the Middle Ages.

No difference between Torquemada and Hoxha? How positively Harryesque of you. Do body counts mean anything to you moderns?

"medieval art is notable for its absence of craftsmanship."

I dunno. Some of the illuminated manuscripts produced by midieval monasteries are quite beautiful, especially if you get past the notion that they were even attempting realistic, representational art. Also, modern science still hasn't figured out how to reproduce the quality and variety of stained glass colors from the middle ages.

The "dark ages" cliche is as much a product of Protestant propaganda as it is of actual history.

Jews.

Peter,

If Torquemada had 20th century technology and management skills, would the result have been different? I hardly think so.

Madonna and Child is far more a product of the Renaissance than the Dark Ages, when the Marian cult first started. How many portraits of children are there from the middle ages, other than the Christ Child, keeping in mind that there are plenty of portraits of famous and rich women of the period?

Harry, the Inquisition butchered more than its share of Muslims and eventually Protestants too.

Bart:

I don't think so.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this site is savouring all the creative explanations you moderns give for pre-Enlightenment history. One of my favourites is that for eighteen hundred years Christians were consistently and singlemindedly hellbent on destroying European Jewry, but simply lacked the technical wherewithall to do it. (Couldn't find them? Forgot their knives when they did?) Sort of like a genocidal gang that couldn't shoot straight.

It's a complex and disturbing story, but you will have to do better than Torquemada was lacking in the arts of slaughter.

ted: middle age art is ok, and better than most of what is produced now, but compared to the rennaisance (or helenic greece) it is definitely lacking. once you let them off the hook regarding realism, pretty much anything goes :)

England and Spain did a pretty good job of eliminating Jews.

Besides, the original question was not about killing Jews but about Reigns of Terror.

I certainly could have mentioned the Spanish Inquisition, but we've had that before; or even the Netherlands Inquisition (which was a whole lot more murderous), which we haven't had before. But the choice was wide. I considered using Muenster but decided on Florence for no particular reason except that it's a Christian atrocity that I haven't flung in your faces before.

The supply is endless.