Everyone. One glance at this section of the board and it become evident that it's piled with things like: 'Proof God exists and Atheists are all dumb!' Or 'Jesus vs. John Cena' I wish you'd all cut it out. Let's discuss some philosophy. Here is a prompt: Let's discuss the concept of property. I argue that property (not necessarily ownership) is a construct of the human mind. When one dies, the imaginary and ethereal of ownership surrounding all our assets vanishes. A dog does not have the concept of property. It does not contemplate whether your unguarded pizza is your property, however it may understand the potential repercussions from past experience. In any case this "construct" as I call it has allowed our intellectual and primarily industrial development as a species. The concept of property also varies culturally. Native Americans did not believe land could be owned by man, While tribes of New Guinea based their entire society on property and assets. However in western society, the king, and the bishop would have your head for such seditious talk of a right to property, or liberty in 15th century Europe; even with Thomas Aquinas's interpretation of the Stoic's "natural law.' that would later be the foundations of ideas such as the social contract and the "inalienable' right to property. The notion of our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property took quite a while to develop. My question is to what degree have religious ideals and institutions in western society hindered the ultimate development of this concept?
You forget that prior to Christianity, the whole Roman World was Pagan. Everyone worshiped one of the 12 basic mythologically described Gods or Goddesses. What Christianity did was to wipe these gods out,... and destroy the pagan religion,... leaving just Christianity in its place. Now we nee only deal with the one religion to discover that,... Truth is our lord, and Reality is our creator.
My post in concerned with both religion and philosophy and how they have affected each other historically. This section is intended to discuss both philosophy, and religion. It is perfectly acceptable to discuss theology here, as this section indicates. I do not have a problem with people discussing theology. My problem is that a majority of this section is nothing but the religious and irreligious telling the other who's right and wrong. I wish there were more rational discussions about philosophy here, rather than strictly religious banter. That is my complaint, if you couldn't infer it from the original post. Way to be snide.
You missed the part where I said religious ideals and institutions in western society, and by that I meant Europe, post Roman Empire. What you've said is essentially irrelevant to my question.
? You don't think that the Western Culture, where paganism existed,... was eliminated by Christianity in the Roman Empire...?
The concept of personal property is almost universal. Even in monkeys you observe the precursors to property in the form of exchanges of food for sex http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7988169.stm . Children have a basic sense of fairness and get upset when you take their stuff (or something they happen to be using). Native Americans had the concept of property, they just didn't think it could be applied to land because everyone's ancestors were buried somewhere so no one person could lay claim to a specific area. This doesn't mean they didn't have family homes or personal tools/objects.
They were uncivilized though... And their young men lived in an Indian culture,... which told them that raiding parties were OK. Hence, they attacked the distance and isolated farmers,... stole the horses and cattle,... and made slaves out of the young children they abducted. So the Army went after them,...
