Cycling UK Forum

I started reading a book on the good parts of religion from a philosopher, de Botton I think. It's interesting but there's so much good that came from religion. What would society be like without a legal and administrative system that is basically developed from what the church set up in England. The monks and priests were the civil servants, scrives, clerks and basically the core of the legal system in the early days of such a thing.

I do wonder whether without religion we'd be ahead or behind where we are by now. Did it hold us back or actually been part of the developnent of the future beach that includes the democracy and legal system that perhaps latterly has degraded somewhat?

I expect it would have happened any way. The Christianity of the Middle Ages bears little resemblance to that of the founding fathers? Remeber the Romans had their legal system and did quite well for a long time. So also the Greeks. So I expect the northern pagan tribes would also. The last Roman emperors were any way ex-northern tribes leaders? deciding that things looked pretty good down there and wanted a bit of the action. Much of advance came from a rediscovery of the classical world in the Renaissance?

if there is any truth in the last speculation of the BBC 4 programme, then it is to Buddhism that we owe an elightened out look not Judaisim?

The Church always wanted to keep education, and hence power, to itself.
Witness the reluctance to allow translation of the Bible into the vernacular, so laymen could read it.

Tangled Metal wrote:What would society be like without a legal and administrative system that is basically developed from what the church set up in England. The monks and priests were the civil servants, scrives, clerks and basically the core of the legal system in the early days of such a thing.

I do wonder whether without religion we'd be ahead or behind where we are by now. Did it hold us back or actually been part of the developnent of the future beach that includes the democracy and legal system that perhaps latterly has degraded somewhat?

I heard it convincingly argued once (perhaps on Radio 4) that war was what developed administrative functions. What do you need to wage war - money. Where do you get money? Effective taxation. That means an administrative corps. And of course any army requires decent logistics that itself requires organisation. The Romans had a significant civil service.

Mike Sales wrote:The Church always wanted to keep education, and hence power, to itself.
Witness the reluctance to allow translation of the Bible into the vernacular, so laymen could read it.

Not always
The King James, Luther, Bishop Morgan bibles were for 'ordinary' people, forbye many could not read back then
The publication of a bible in Welsh helped develop the language
Cymru am byth!

Cyril Haearn wrote:

Mike Sales wrote:The Church always wanted to keep education, and hence power, to itself.
Witness the reluctance to allow translation of the Bible into the vernacular, so laymen could read it.

Not always
The King James, Luther, Bishop Morgan bibles were for 'ordinary' people, forbye many could not read back then
The publication of a bible in Welsh helped develop the language
Cymru am byth!

I was thinking of the fate of William Tyndale, who was executed before he could finish publishing his translation, and the fate of subsequent efforts.
The Church I referred to was the Catholic Church, and Wycliffe, Hus and Luther were not popular with that Church for their translations into the vernacular.. Indeed Hus was burned, and quite a few others too. People took their religion very seriously in those days.
There were great ructions in European religion before James's Bible was authorised. And Bishop Morgan was rather later too. Battles had been fought and won over the question. The vernacular Bible was one of the causes of contention in the Protestant Reformation.
I once took a club run to the house where Bishop Morgan was born. It is a very simple cottage on a remote lane near Bettws.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ty-mawr-wybrnant

Mike Sales wrote:The Church always wanted to keep education, and hence power, to itself.

It's interesting how different people analyse the same events in different ways. The church of course started the Sunday school movement. This was aimed at giving education to everyone else. In modern days, when we talk about Sunday schools, we think of religious education, but originally they were schools held on Sundays (because, from a young age, people worked on every other day). Of course, the education included religious, and the Bible was used to teach reading, but it probably wouldn't have occurred to people at that time to separate education out into secular and religious, so they kind of did the whole package. And it led to our current education system.

But whether that was the church keeping education and power to itself, I'm not sure. And, where there were attempts to keep power, was that because of religion? Or was it people who would have tried to do that, even in a secular society, using religion as a vehicle? I'd imagine that you could create a pretty convincing case for either, or for several other perspectives as well.

drossall wrote:

Mike Sales wrote:The Church always wanted to keep education, and hence power, to itself.

It's interesting how different people analyse the same events in different ways. The church of course started the Sunday school movement. This was aimed at giving education to everyone else. In modern days, when we talk about Sunday schools, we think of religious education, but originally they were schools held on Sundays (because, from a young age, people worked on every other day). Of course, the education included religious, and the Bible was used to teach reading, but it probably wouldn't have occurred to people at that time to separate education out into secular and religious, so they kind of did the whole package. And it led to our current education system.

But whether that was the church keeping education and power to itself, I'm not sure. And, where there were attempts to keep power, was that because of religion? Or was it people who would have tried to do that, even in a secular society, using religion as a vehicle? I'd imagine that you could create a pretty convincing case for either, or for several other perspectives as well.

I think you are talking at cross purposes? Mile Sales is really refering to the middle ages and pre enlightenment when the Inquisition was active and you to the C19 and later - the battle for the bible in the vernacular had already been won by then?

I understand the difference. Given that the church was active in both scenarios, my conclusion is that it has behaved differently in different eras, and therefore that restricting education had more to do with the spirit of the age than the spirit of the church. Hence my question about whether religion was the cause or merely the vehicle, when knowledge was restricted. It's known, I think, that people who wanted power, in some of the Middle Ages, headed into the church, because its close links to the state meant that that is where power lay. Presumably, had there been a Middle Ages Communist party that was established in the same technical sense, they'd have headed into that. What we'd learn from that is not that Communists or that Christians like power, but that people do.

I'm not necessarily saying that it's black and white, but it's at least worth trying to think about how an age worked when understanding how people and organisations behaved.

I love the concept of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, not as a religion per se, but the way that it addresses some of the more "extreme" beliefs.

Heaven is a never-ending Beer fountain and strippers.... Hell is the same except that the beer is past its best and the strippers have STDs

Religions have often felt justified in treating those who do not accept their beliefs very badly indeed.
Heretics, apostates, kafirs, atheists, Jews have suffered.

the good parts of religion

There's plenty of good aspects to most organised religions (we'll set aside all the suffering caused by the same...), the thing is, all the goodness is entirely possible, without any help from a god!

Cunobelin wrote:I love the concept of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, not as a religion per se, but the way that it addresses some of the more "extreme" beliefs.

Heaven is a never-ending Beer fountain and strippers.... Hell is the same except that the beer is past its best and the strippers have STDs

Does the Idea of strippers with STDs in hell imply that you are having difficulty in seeing the difference between strippers and prostitutes?

simonineaston wrote:

the good parts of religion

There's plenty of good aspects to most organised religions (we'll set aside all the suffering caused by the same...), the thing is, all the goodness is entirely possible, without any help from a god!

Entirely possible but the reality is those good things did happen due to religion.

I was thinking about a related matter. Primary schools that are linked to religion such as catholic and CofE schools. They often have on their websites a list of core values, just like community primary schools, but they describe them as Christian values. I do have an issue with that because many good values probably predate christianity and possibly every organised religion currently existing. I therefore think it is technically wrong to describe such values as Christian values because they are universal values for a stable society I reckon.

Entirely possible but the reality is those good things did happen due to religion.

Not denying that - my point is that all of those good things, like kindness, helping your neighbour, cooking food for strangers, objecting to cruelty, looking after animals, sticking up for the oppressed etc. etc. can just as easily take place without any help from any god/s - or to put it another way, you can be a Great Person all on your own! All it takes is will power. No divine intervention is required.