Both Hicks and Peterson have valid points. Hicks is right that Greco-Roman concepts had a greater influence on modern Western society than Judeo-Christian beliefs, as exemplified by the structure of Western government (tribunes vs. senators) and the nature of politics (I'd suggest checking out the political graffiti found in Pompei). However, Peterson is also right that Judeo-Christian beliefs are an essential soil for the Enlightenment. Let's look at medicine as an example. East Asian religions like Buddhism, Shintoism, and Taoism (which I'm more familiar with than faiths like Islam) attach sanctity to the body in life and death, resulting in one of the world's lowest rates of organ donation and autopsies. The East Asian faiths have grudgingly come to tolerate legally mandated autopsies, but they usually require organs to be returned to the body. Christianity places far more emphasis on the soul than the body, as Hicks admitted, which explains why the church has sanctioned autopsies and dissections since the early 1400s. Autopsies and dissections lead directly to more detailed anatomy and physiology and thus to better medical knowledge, so medicine developed during the Enlightenment within a permissive environment provided by Christianity. The same cannot be said of most other faiths. Religions and autopsy practices books.google.com/books?id=sROl6RwRucEC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=shintoism+taoism+autopsy+organ&source=bl&ots=lisf9hHyww&sig=o6akYxQlzZ7xkvd4aYC_zHAOXI0&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikifeZs9LeAhWOKHwKHfp2DSsQ6AEwCXoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=shintoism%20taoism%20autopsy%20organ&f=false History of autopsies and internat'l rates books.google.com/books?id=pSjTAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=shintoism+autopsy&source=bl&ots=rnNdd9hxrf&sig=6x6QobewOC39IXXybzKj4qxFu_M&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5_If1qtLeAhUoIDQIHdn2AWw4ChDoATABegQIBBAB#v=snippet&q=shintoism%20autopsy&f=false Japan's low autopsy rate www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jmj/62/3/62_240/_article/-char/en Christianity and autopsies books.google.com/books?id=KiGOSz9eGeUC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=autopsy++Christian&source=bl&ots=Omb6N5hbhJ&sig=TY-ULRd6IWBx99HxcfkKAzz0SWQ&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3mrKHttLeAhWKs1QKHeDQAYYQ6AEwEHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=autopsy%20%20Christian&f=false
@@briannxx A people (ethnic/religious group) as a nation, yes. But for the practical aspects, like political parties and public administration, we draw extensively on the Romans and Greeks.
A similar trend is apparent in finance. According to the Old Testament, Judaism appears to ban usury, i.e. the taking of interest, on the one hand - Psalm 15 and Ezekiel 18:14-17 - while allowing it execpt when loaning to the poor or other members of the Jewish community - Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35, and Deuteronomy 23:20. In their early days, both Christianity and Islam banned the taking of interest. Christianity continues over the contempt for interest-taking and the broad influence of money [1,2], as exmplified by Christ's attack on the moneychangers in the temple in John 2:13-16. Islam similarly prohibits interest-taking and disdains the broad influence of money [3]. The difference, however, is that Judaism and Christianity come to accept interest-taking in the 1200-1500s [4] while Islam still does not [5]. Interest-taking leads to moneylending, merchant banking, and credit [6], all of which facilitate the modern economy. [1] www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/is-it-wrong-to-charge-interest-on-a-loan/ [2] www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/BQA/k/77/Should-Christian-Charge-Collect-Interest-Usury.htm [3] www.islamic-finance.com/item5_f.htm [4] aeon.co/essays/how-did-usury-stop-being-a-sin-and-become-respectable-finance [5] www.islamic-awareness.org/history/usury [6] factmyth.com/the-birth-of-modern-banking/
@@censorshipbites7545 I really enjoyed your post. Good work. Another thing I'd like to point out to see if at the very least you'll bat it back at me, is that while from a philosophical perspective it may be valid to say that the Aristotelian influence may be more clearly seen in the enlightenment than any purely Christian one, that doesn't tell the whole story. Especially when philosophical training and knowledge would have been more the currency of the elite in society and religious exposure the purview of the common man. The question has to be asked, how did the explicitly held arcane knowledge of elites become the implicitly held moral assumptions of the unwashed masses during the enlightenment? Another question: Is philosophy the best vector for delivering morale arguments to the population?
@@tfunknationtown I fully concur. Christianity helped convey the knowledge of the elites to the masses, and the religion's message of personal faith helped circumvent authority/the Church (especially where married to the state) and promote individualism.
Torture is not at all condoned in the New Testament as a way of converting, never. Paul the Apostle comments concerning slavery - 1 Cor 7:21 NKJV 21 Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it. I understand not a condemnation, but an acknowledgement that freedom is the better state. Protestants realize we are all equally in sin needing salvation - We do not self loathe. - "Love your neighbor as yourself..." I love listening to Prof Hicks - I'm a great admirer - but he seems a bit weak in thorough knowledge of scripture. I did learn things here and hit the Like Button.
"The Romans were a little bit better at..." slavery and treatment of women. Not at all! Hicks tends to place blame on Medieval Christians, yet assumes the Greeks/Romans were not too bad; and assumes the Humanists just came up with their view of human worth, without any input from 1500 years of Christiandom teaching the value of human individuals. He's very selective and seriously undermines his argument.
Constantinople was entirely a Christian achievement up until its last conquering in 1452. THEN Western Europe took over. Trying to convince the Gauls and Celts that Christianity was a superior idea and philosophy took centuries. Christians didn’t start in Western Europe, they ended up there. Their accomplishments in the eastern part cannot be underscored. They contributed to the most advanced city in the world at the time. I think that puts Christianity on par with Greek tradition. Especially considering it was 1000 year accomplishment.
The greco-roman traditon gave us logic, reason and democratic government structures. But only the judeo-christian moral system gave us the notion of the sovereignty of the individual to master his own free will in the avoidance of tyranny. Yeah sure, it was meant with the point of serving god and doing his will, which is useless if you dont believe in god, but they planted the idea that Milton, Smith, Locke, Jefferson etc.... would later develop into the classical liberal traditon. The Greeks/Romans gave us democracy But the God of Abraham planted in us the notion of individual political Liberty.
I disagree. The tradition of codependence between ruler and ruled, thus that rulers are truly servants rather than masters of the people they rule, pervades Celtic, Germanic, and Nordic cultures as well as Greco-Roman cultures from long before any of those were Christianized. Look at Lycurgus in Sparta, Athens of course, the Roman Republic, and the various "moots" of the German tradition. The Dutch Act of Abrogation, 1581, even at the height of Absolute Monarchy, speaks to these traditions eloquently: "As it is apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects (without which he could be no prince), to govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his children or a shepherd his flock, and even at the hazard of life to defend and preserve them. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects are to consider him in no other view. And particularly when this is done deliberately, unauthorized by the states, they may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense." www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/dutch_independence_1581.html There is a weaker form of this in the Chinese concept of "Mandate of Heaven" - but it is definitely much weaker.
@@pietergeerkens6324 , the irony of your response is that you quote a dutch law based upon purely Christian Reformist ideas as some kind of evidence of Greco-Roman humanism as more dominant than Christianity. You do realize what was happening in 1581 in Northern Europe, right?
Before I finish this video I had to say that Inorder to be a Christian or inorder to claim something to be christian it must match the teachings of Jesus christ-yesuah-emanuell. If it dosnt match it is a false claim or a false perception. Torture in order to force an idea isn't christian on top of that it isn't biblical. Paul says we arnt suppose to chase after people inorder to convert. In fact our actions should be the only thing converting anyone or our ability to life a life for christ. Also torture is a pretty animalistic tendency that most people have in some way or another lowered them self too. To say it as a christian tenant is misleading and miss representing the tendency in us all to be less than human.
Hicks really let me down on his silly uninformed Judaeo Christian theology! Jews put so many restriction on slavery it wasn't worth owning one! As a Godless Lib would say "It's about the BOOK,...Stupid!" or as St. Paul in the good book did say. 6 "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel- 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! 10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:6-12 Attempting to conflate God’s spiritedly with science [or scientism] would be equivalent conflating Newtonian physics with advanced quantum mechanics & physics! Most living things on God’s green earth require two to tango! So it first takes God for the life part & real science to make life easy for us, but without morals it’s Okay to kill & steal “If it makes you feel good” and gets free stuff fools voting Democrat as LBJ informed us!
What happens to the body doesn't matter. LOL his bias on display. Just because they didn't believe the same things happened to the body as you do, doesn't mean they didn't value it. These are people who practically worshipped the finger bones of supposed saints and were told that their bodily labor was worship. This is precisely the opposite of acting like what happens to the body is unimportant.
7:11 The student here asks an intelligent question. The pilgrims came to America and laid the ground work of a solid constitutional system with God given rights. America lead the way using Christian values to form a government system based on individual rights. This is a key point about how we’ve developed so fast as a people in the last 200+ years as compared to the 1800 years before. Whether you are an atheist or not, a government system which feels obligated to grant all of its citizens “God-given” rights instead of, say, Democrat-given or man-given is why Christian values is extremely important to respect and preserve.
Good point. A caveat: If rights are "God-given," this is sufficient to establish them. Government, then, has no role in the matter. Which suggests the question: What, exactly, then _is_ government's role in this? Governments in post-Revolutionary America were established to protect the individual's God-given rights. We've lost sight of this basic fact, and governments today run amuck, as though they themselves possess such rights.
It's important to realize that the commandment against making graven images is specific to making these images for the purpose of worship. God himself would soon command the Israelites to sculpt angels for the cover of the Ark of the Covenant, so the commandment couldn't be just a blanket "make no art" commandment (although it's entirely possible that later rabbis expanded the commandment to be just so, to avoid even the possibility of breaking the commandment, just as the commandment, "You shall not boil a baby goat in its mother's milk," was expanded into a prohibition against consuming meat and dairy in the same meal). Non-Protestant Christians more blatantly defy the commandment with their veneration of statues and icons -- note the word "veneration", which they use precisely because it's not "worship" (i.e., "We don't *worship* statues and icons, we just *venerate* them). The arguments given to justify the making of these works of art for what appears to be precisely the function God forbade usually fall along the lines of, "In himself Christ united the spiritual and material worlds, making it permissible to depict the spiritual in material terms just as in himself he showed us God in human flesh."
Hicks has a great understanding of philosophy and I am a fan, but like most typical Intellectuals he focuses on the negatives in the history of Christianity and not on the positives. He shows his weakness in the knowledge of the New Testament. He ignores the good influences on the founders of science. For instance: the Baconian principle that the Bible is rational and logical therefore his creation must be rational and logical so we can come to rational and logical conclusions about the world we live in. This was a foundational principle in the birth of science in the 1600s. Many of the great founders of the sciences were Christians and defended the faith. For example; Sir Isaac Newton who's scientific works and methods are still thought to be among the greatest in history wrote more on theology than science, or Locke whom Hicks mentions so often was a defender of Christianity in his writings. The years that he says that the Christians had Europe under their control were stifled by those blocking personal knowledge of the New Testament's message for power and personal gain.
I would posit that elevation of people from slavery was helped on two fronts by: 1) The rise in collective and individual wealth. When you see other people of all kinds improving their economic status by being given opportunities, that is an argument for freedom. 2) The rise in collective and individual education and competence. When you see other people of all kinds developing knowledge and skills, that is an argument for freedom.
I don't see the difference. The Judeo-Christian philosophy provided the moral values for the development of the modern western civilization since the colonization of the western world by the pilgrims, who brought with them the principles of the enlightenment from the Hellenistic culture and the moral religious values to complement those principles
Slavery was't necessarily a bad thing because the alternative would be death for a lot of people who were taken captive in war. The Judeo-Christian influence was important regarding the idea that there was a law and law giver. That nature had laws was a discovery made by science, but that discovery first needed the idea of law -- which Christians already understood from their beliefs. Second, Christianity also emphasized the idea of truth. Yes, truth was also important in Greco-Roman culture, but so was sophistry or the masking of truth. The pursuit of the truth meant the demise of Christianity once science was consider the only legitimate source of the truth. The truth teller Christians found out they didn't necessarily have the truth.
The Catholic Faith is 'Incarnational'. It does not therefore break the second commandment, as it is only after God's revelation of Himself, in the flesh, that we have art representing that. This is a very important point for us Catholics and even more so when one considers that we are the Body of Christ, as St Paul points out in Corinthians. God instituted His body, at the Last Supper, and Catholics are born into that body by virtue of our Baptism. Ne Timeas.
Greco-Roman traditions build the system, judeo Christian is like the software behind the hardware. If you follow a judeo Christian life style the Greco-Roman system will work for you the best but you can use other "software" and get by but you might experience some glitches crashes and bumps. What Jordan Peterson seems to be saying that religion orients you in the best way for society your in. In a way you can make a chicken egg argument, you could say due to religious beliefs and practice of the people created a structure to best fit that social structure is due to the structure of being under the thumb of the British they have adapted Christian belief to create a structure using preexisting concepts to create a society that would value the individual over the "greater good" style of dark age Christianity used to keep the power with the church and royals. This is why you see government and religion parallels in most society, so in governments that focus on for the good of the state anything that focuses on the self is usually removed but tends to be replaced by belifs that focus on sacrificing your benefits for the future of the country hence why communism and fascism starts to take hold when individualistic valuing beliefs and replaced by the benefit of all model beliefs as its easier to give power to government that way and give permission for atrocities and blind faith to the state. It seems to me a government without a unified or similar belief structure doesn't work, therefore I would say they are both equal in terms of credit for the structure of Western civilization as without one the other doesn't work.
I note that historian Tom Holland also apparently emphasises the centrality of biblical concepts to the enlightenment project in a recent interview with Andrew Doyle of spiked
The conversation here about if the greek tradition or christianity contributed more to the rise of the enlightenment is broader and more vague than it needs to bee. There are some points made here but they miss the central point. The growth of knowledge is a mechanism made possible by the rejection of the idea that truth comes from authority, god or other source of authority and to replace that with conjecture and refutation. The free and open exchange of ideas and a tradition of criticism. Thats all you need for evolution of ideas. The evolution of memes is similar to the evolution of genes is that way, its made possible by variation and selection. So this can happen without both the christian and greek tradition. But earlier attempts at this has been short lived because in societies that allow criticism the power of the rulers can be undermined so they do not allow it.
Didnt Greco roman and hebrew culture have a head on collision.can we really dissasociate the amagamashion that came after. Like we differ in culture slightly from Britain. WesternEurope. Canada. Mostly on flavor profiles and lexicon.
Thank god he said it ! Read the Swerve, about a monk - bracciolini’s rediscovery of Lucretius and Epicurus. The seed of the renaissance , found and rediscovered Greco Roman learning. Stephen Greenblatt author
I think the underlying problem begins, when strongly reason- and fact-orientated persons with strong reliogious faith (like Jordan) try to establish an argumentation where both aspects have to fit in one way or the other- i can see how that has potential to create an internal conflict.
I’m not at all sure that Peterson has a strong religious faith, rather that he gives credence to the motivating power of myth. After all he deconstructs Christ as the ultimate alpha male
Tell me, how is it that Professor Hicks wrote "Explaining Postmodernism" is 2004, before RU-vid was even created in 2005, in envy of Professor Peterson's RU-vid channel he established in 2013, and the fame he has received since his 2016 criticism of Canada's Bill C-16. Indeed, he Hicks was a Jordan Peterson "wanta Be" why does he subscribe to such radically different ideas and pursue an entirely different field? Or is every academic on RU-vid trying to popularize their beliefs a Jordan Peterson "wanta Be"?
Greco roman. Judeo christian. The chosen and the cur under christ are one thing. The bible holds many valuable truths that most philosophy and modern psychology agree with. Like the perpetuation of feuds and the need to be the one to decided to end it.( be the bigger person so to speek). The complications between men when one sleeps with the others wife. Not listening to ever bad thing a person says about you because of how much you talk bad of other as well. The bible dosnt enforce it only shows you why people and situations respond and react the way they do. The bible isn't there to constrain you but show you the boundary lines.
