So, Genetically Modified Skeptic had a new video about how "American Christianity is racist on purpose", and I kind of want to discuss a lot of themes in this. I'll probably split them over multiple articles, but in this one, I wanna discuss a theme that the Christians discussed in it, which is the origins of morality, and how they claim ownership over "western culture" and claim that atheists use their moral framework. I have mixed views on this topic.
First of all, morality and culture are evolutionary, not revolutionary. A lot of early moralities are based on religious morality like Christianity. However, that doesn't mean that such ideas need to be explicitly Christian. If anything, I'd argue the Christianness kinda ruins it. Like, the key example used was basically...the Christian duty to charity that gave rise to social safety nets. I dont deny that much of the modern approach to safety nets has origins in Christianity. if anything, I've discussed this AT LENGTH, and it's kind of a huge issue I have with these systems. You see, modern safety nets were designed with two contradictory sentiments in mind: the christian duty to charity, but also the christian duty to work. Safety nets are a form of state forced charity, which, quite frankly, modern evangelical christians dont even accept as legitimate (too much "big government"). They believe in charity, but not state enforced charity. If anything, they place a higher emphasis on free will, morality, and on economics, work ethic, whereas due to secularism I went in the opposite direction, rejecting the work ethic and adopting a more universalist idea of safety nets. if anything, the evolution of my philosophical tradition comes from the likes of Thomas Paine, who saw society as a "system of pulleys" through which the weight of economic misery could be removed. So for me, it's not even charity, if anything I'm anti "charity". I dont like the idea of imposing a moral quandry on individuals and guilting them to "do the good thing" when instead I can just solve the problem so as to not impose such a moral quandry on people anyway, this solving the problem.
With that said, you can kind of see how there's an entirely different set of principles being utilized in my secular approach, whereas the "christian" approach introduces a lot of weird BS into things that make things more complicated. I fully recognize that Christian morality is a hot mess of contradictions and also introduces a lot of moral dilemmas (read: trolley problems) on people in an attempt to force people to be good. but because I dont care about any of that, and just wanna solve problems while imposing as few moral obligations on the populace in the first place, I just have the state....solve the problem. The Christian approach is literally dysfunctional. But morality isn't about good living for christians, it's about obeying god, with regular debates about how much "good works" should play a role in going to heaven.
I admit, a lot of modern secular morality may have originally come from older, more religious frameworks. Even if these frameworks are primarily secular, a lot of Christians like to claim ownership of them. They act like the founding fathers were all Christians who based their views on the Bible (meanwhile, to invoke Thomas Paine again, he was quite frankly as critical of Christianity as I am). When they talk "western culture", they talk "Christian culture." And...based on what I wrote the other day when looking at the culture MAGA is trying to defend, it ends up just being religion and work ethic. But that's a topic for the NEXT discussion on this topic. The fact is, western culture has some ups and has its downs. If anything, Christians seem to be trying to offend the "bad" version of the culture in my eyes, the imperialist ones that subjugates us all and reduces us all to wage slaves. The aspects I try to eradicate from my own interpretation of the culture.
With that said, let me explain my framework toward things. I adopt an attitude of "free thought", I don't value the authoritarian aspects of this so called "Christian culture". I dont care what god said. I dont care if we always did things a certain way. I dont care about that stuff. I care about reason and evidence. When analyzing social structures, i do so sociologically. I look at the functionalist approach and whether ideas contribute positively to human well being and society. I look at the conflict approach to see who benefits from the existing status quo. And...Christianity fails on both fronts. Take the idea above. I pointed out how the Christian approach to "charity" and welfare is actually very self contradictory and dysfunctional. I also would argue that the adoption of the christian work ethic is often used to justify the wealth of the elites and the poverty of the masses. Heck, GMS's video makes a strong argument for a belief superstructure around capitalism that uses Christianity as a way to functionally enslave the masses. And when I lost my faith, and applied the methods above, those beliefs failed.
I mean, don't get me wrong, if I can be convinced, through reason, that certain attitudes are good ones, I'll still accept them. Even capitalism. I'm not some raging leftist because I understand that at the end of the day, we need some sort of system, and I tend to believe capitalism is functional, whereas trying to replace it can introduce all kinds of negative consequences I can avoid. So instead, I focus on reforming capitalism and western culture from within, rather than destroying it. If the Christians "got us" in the sense that they argue we're using their structure, have at it, but I dont adopt such structures because of Christianity, if anything, explicit religious framing weakens the argument for such things because actual christian morality is outdated and dysfunctional. Rather, I justify them under different frameworks that extend from the free thinking sociological approach.
Christians love to claim liberal democracy as their idea, but in reality, it emerged as a criticism of the religiously authoritarian systems that preceded them. Just like protestantism emerged as a critricism of the catholic church, liberal democracy arose as a powerful criticism of the system of divine rights of kings. And revolutions were fought here, and despite my own "let's not reinvent the wheel" approach, these guys reinvented the wheel. Which brings us to the founding father. The founding fathers were not explicitly christian. They were religiously pluralistic, with the median founder probably being some sort of deist or at most relatively liberal Christian at the time. And they looked at the religious fighting in Europe with the church of england, the catholic church, as well as various groups in America like the puritans and were like "no thanks, we religious liberty and separation of church and state."
They took locke's natural rights theory, and changed the right of property, something I have MAJOR issues with given my humanist perspective, and changed it to "the right to pursue happiness." Which I think sounds better. And my own morals do reflect this approach too. Except I take them and turn them into the end goals of morality, where when I try to figure out the actual goals we implement morality in the first place, it's to extend life, reduce suffering, protect freedom, and allow people the right to pursue their own happiness. These are just "good ideas" to me. I dont try to justify them from God or anything. I think that weakens them. Because when you invoke god as an explanation, it discourages deeper thought about them. People just accept them as a dogma, and if anything, I'm anti dogmatic. For me, it's like...well if we want a set of goals to guide the morals, these make the most sense.
We can talk about, say, Hobbes and Rousseau for example. Hobbes has a secular argument for law and governments that Christians often use to invoke their morality, that without it, nature is a war against all and its better for people to band together and form governments, even authoritarian ones, than to live in chaos. But again, without the christian elements, it's just a good idea. it holds up under scrutiny. And even in the days before civilization and grand philosophies and social contracts, people just lived in groups of hunter gatherers. If anything, I tend to see the history of civilization more like Rousseau, where we're born free, but then everything's in chains. Our societies were created to enslave us, and I have no doubt about that. And there's been aspects of that in thinkers we tend to view as believers in "western culture" from the get go. It's never been explicitly christian, it's pluralistic. And enlightenment era philosophies did have to deal with the fact that much of society up to that point were literally created to enslave the masses. hell, the version of western culture these christians tout comes from the philosophical traditions that tend to prop up their argument. A lot of strains of western thought DO have explicitly colonialist and imperialist ambitions. A lot of them are pretty racist. And it seems like the aspects of western culture right wing christians seem most keen on defending....are those parts.
I mean, as I see it, the best aspects of so called "western culture", liberal democracy, comes from ideas like the social contract, like the idea of limited government with rule of law, separation of powers, and constitutional rights, like the idea of freedom. Even economically, the strongest argument I can make for capitalism is that, in theory, it gives people freedom.
But...let's be honest. These ideas also have a dark side, and we can't ignore how imperialist that these systems have been over the years, how they have been and still are racist against those not like them. How they came to be in order to colonize and enslave the third world, including the americas (and hell, even europe). How they use religion to reinforce those systems. This is why I said the other day when it comes to these right wing MAGA idiots defending "western culture", there isn't much to defend. They're defending most staunchly the worst aspects and iterations of the ideas, because the aspects and iterations of the idea that reflect their values ARE those bad versions in my view.
Which is why I've long held the stance, since leaving religion, that religion offers nothing of value. We dont need it. We literally dont need it. It's kinds like the saying goes, yeah, in a world of the blind, maybe the one eyed man is the one to lead everyone else. But at this point, secular morality has so far surpassed christian morality that christianity often reflects the worst and most backwards aspects of modern culture.
My own take on the link between christianity and western culture is the following. If you take the christianity out of western culture, you strengthen it and make it better. If you take the western culture out of christianity, you go back to the dark ages. Which side of things is actually doing the work, and putting in the work in making society better? This is why, when I left the faith, I started seeing religion as a regressive force on society holding it back, and that without it, we would have a much better world, with much better ways of doing things. Because if we left it all up to the christian fundamentalists, we'd all be living lives in which we just work all the time for rich people, while people are entitled to nothing (while feeling guilty about ineffectively giving to charity to maybe slightly help things), and we'd be living according to bronze age morals that don't actually help people.
Maybe that stuff was good 3000 years ago. It's not 3000 years ago. It's not even 300 years ago. We live in the year 2026 and I know the right hates "current year" memes because they see their morality as eternal as it comes from god itself, but that's the fricking problem. It never changes, it rejects any positive attempts to change it from progressives, and it holds us back. Cut the cord, be done with the christian aspects of our morality, and let's move on into the future already.
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