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Comment by markemer | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, this is a load of nonsense. The worst part is this essays ahistorical line of thinking. Like highlighting the Romans bad behavior without examining things like the crusades and chattel slavery which used Christianity as a defense. And it’s Christian supremacist since he leaves out the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and any other religion that believes in human rights.

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I think you may be missing the point of the essay. I don’t think it meant to say that Christianity is perfect nor that Christianity is the supreme religion. Of course Christianity has been used to justify hateful conduct (just like most other religions at some point) but regardless it more than anything else is responsible for how “Western Civilization” developed, and by extension our understanding of human rights. Yes Christianity was used to defend slavery, but it was also used to condemn it. Regardless, the point was that Christianity is a driving force behind Western thought/morality and ignoring that is dangerous.

Are there other religions that teach the same values of human rights? Of course! But how many of them directly influenced Western life and the Western definition of those same rights, specifically in the founding of the US (which became the blueprint for so many other countries after it)?

Also, I feel like Judaism is implicitly included to some degree in this because Jesus was a Jew and the author specifically mentions he (the author) was Jewish.

Greece and Rome's civic and philosophical development was the source of how Western Civilization developed. Christianity was then transplanted on top of Western Civilization; it wasn't the source. The author is either mistaken or arguing in bad faith, and makes numerous factually incorrect statements. He argues the Locke "assumed" God given rights, and states that there are no other legitimate sources, despite there being a large body of work in the 3rd century BCE that made logical arguments for treating all of humanity equally. Similarly, in his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius argues that gods or atoms, your first responsibility is to the human race.

The author would have us forget that much of the Enlightenment came from the rediscovery of Greek and Roman knowledge.

The whole article reads as an attempt to convince atheists that they're not really atheist, that all their ideas came from religion and are worthless without religion, completely ignoring the role philosophy had in creating those ideas, long before Christianity was on the scene.

At least in the context of this essay this point seems moot to me. Whether the author argues that only Christianity provided such theories or not, the vast majority of the US founders cite the Christian God as the source of a lot of things, human rights among them. They don’t cite some Greek philosopher because that’s not what they pulled that aspect of their argument from.

Maybe this is just more cut snd dry for me because I’ve studied US history for years and I’m imposing a lot of that into the essay, but I don’t think the author is being disingenuous at all for rightly pointing out the reaching effect of Christianity on our modern understanding of human rights (see Locke’s “Reasonableness of Christianity” for some fun reading).

Many writings of the founders were absolutely rife with references to antiquity and classical authors, it was a common practice of the time to write under a Roman republic era pseudonym, and off the top of my head, Jefferson and Adams knew Latin, Madison knew Greek and Latin, and they all were definitely well versed in the classics.

Maybe we're talking past each other, but the essay seemed to be arguing that Christianity was both the source and only legitimate basis for modern human rights, and I don't think the historical record supports that argument at all.

Hinduism most certainly does not believe in a common set of rights for everyone. Each person is assigned a clear position in the social hierarchy based on the caste of the parents and then the person is obligated to carry out the "dharma" as per that caste - anything outside of that is considered "adharmic" or wrong.

But Buddhism does recognize human rights.

I was just reading some days ago how Buddhist emperor Ashoka the Great abolished discriminating policy of a Brahmin never being punished to death irrespective of the nature and severity of the crime while it was allowed for other castes.

Buddhism is one of the rare religion that does not recognize divine rights of kings. In Buddhist mythology a king is like everyone else who merely gets 1/6th of the harvest and maintains peace and protects from external threats. He is jist another man. Christinaity and Islam, on the other hand, do vastly believe in divine rights of kings.

The aspect of Hinduism that you mention was actually practiced, but the inner core of Philosophy tells the division among men emanate from their quality and practice. Birth does not matter. But, in mythology, when a low caste man named Shambuka tried to study the Vedas, the Ramayana epic king and Vishnu incarnation Rama murders him.

Most of the Reformation was about not believing in the divine rights of kings, and the entire concept (not rightly understood here, but not going into it) was not universal anyway. In example, angle saxon kings (where english, "anglo-is" comes from, were elected.

Isn’t this because killing Brahmin (even in death penalty) is for Hindus mortal sin?

When rules are made by the Brahmins, what do you expect?

To flatly reject the author’s argument just proves his point. Specifically that folks don’t consider the origin of American values and law (he used the Constitution as an example if you recall) as being Christian. This is also why he didn’t mention the other belief systems you stated because they weren’t considered when America was created.

Secondly, just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t mean they are. A true believer in any faith would hold fast and true to all of that belief system’s values. He made note of this by pointing out “Cafeteria Christians”. It’s the same as blaming the law when it’s really the application of the law that’s the problem. Socrates and his willingness to drink the hemlock is an example of this.

Except the origins of American values and law went back farther than Christianity. An easy way to see that is to look at how many pamphlets of the time had (Pre-Christian) Roman pseudonyms.

The author is claiming otherwise and failing to back it up.

> just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t mean they are.

Externally it pretty much does. Unless you have some specific concrete evidence there's not really ever value or reason to claim someone isn't part of the religion they say they are.

If you are _also_ part of the religion they claim then you might have some interest in whether or not they adhere to your doctrines but to outsiders it's all opaque and irrelevant.

> Without the word of God, all we have are opinions.

Hopefully, data can slowly dispel this human flaw: https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22

> we should ask ourselves: “Is Christianity true?” And if you think it’s bogus, then: “Why do I let these ideas influence my worldview so strongly?”

>And it’s Christian supremacist since he leaves out the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and any other religion that believes in human rights.

What does it mean for a religion to believe in "human rights" and why is the belief in "human rights" a hallmark of superiority in your view?

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