Instigator / Pro
0
1438
rating
7
debates
14.29%
won
Topic
#1853

The Bible Created Western Civilization Part 1: Humanity, Rationality and Technology

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Winner
0
3

After 3 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

oromagi
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Two weeks
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Winner selection
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
3
1922
rating
117
debates
97.44%
won
Description

When I say that the Bible shaped Western Civilization I mean by its literal interpretation. For many reasons I consider that the Catholic interpretation is based on man's opinion that twists God's Word to fit its own belief system. This isn't a debate on religion or different religious denominations. I believe Western Civilization began when man began to interpret the Scriptures as written, because the Bible could finally be read by the common man who could see that the Catholic Church had replaced man's authority over God's authority. The Bible is the foundation for Western Civilization.

Round 1
Pro
#1
Humanity
     In the past and even in the present there are many places without a concept of human dignity. From cultures that had child sacrifice, to Greek infanticide, to the French Revolution, to Nazi Germany and Communist countries and even abortion and euthanasia or dowry deaths in India (whether by extortion or letting second daughters starve to death) and even mass shootings we are seeing the value of humans decline rapidly. Why is this? I postulate that it is because we are leaving the reason for the greatness Western Civilization and are coming to the point of losing it forever.

     Even though Europe was "Christian" before AD 1500, it was steeped in three different beliefs. That of paganism (worship of saints and angels replacing demigods and ghosts) by the uneducated, Greco-Roman cosmology (the belief that everything, even God is bound by the Cosmos) by the scholars and fatalism which was brought over to Europe by Muslims. These beliefs created a view of "Man" as helpless, caught in the cycle of the Cosmos from which he could not escape.
     Circa the 1500s a new viewpoint of man that was based on the Bible came on the scene, it was called...nominalism. This view said that man had been created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27), therefore man had dignity. 
     Plato had taught that Ideas were the reality in life and what was material was only a shadow in the Ideas world. This worldview implied that man didn't create things, but copied them from Ideas.
     Nominalists rejected this Greek philosophy and embraced Genesis 1:1 where God created everything. To them God didn't make copied from a Idea world, but He created ex nihilo. The doctrine of creation says that God does not belong to the material nor Idea world, but is separate and free from preexisting ideas, logic and order.
The Renaissance humanists believed the Bible and concluded that since man was a special creation of God (in His image and likeness) then man can also be free as God is free.

     Some of these Renaissance men were Coluccio Salutati, Lorenzo Valla and Pico Della Mirandola. Salutati opposed Islamic fatalism saying that God was free. He accepted Augustine's writings on man's free will.1 Valla also published a work on the matter of man's free will due to God's freedom and though Mirandola forgot to emphasize man's fallen intellect because of sin he still argued that man had free will because He was created by a God Who was not subject to a Cosmos. Mirandola wrote a commentary on Genesis and even wrote, "Therefore, let us fear, love and venerate Him in whom, as Paul said, are all created things both visible and invisible, who is the beginning in whom God made heaven and earth, that is Christ...Therefore let us form not stellar images in metals but the image of the Word of God in our souls."2

     There would also be no dignity in man if it wasn't for God's incarnation. A belief in creation isn't the only thing needed for man's dignity. If you look at Islam one finds that even though they believed man was created by God, human dignity was not even thought of. Islam and Judaism do not believe that God can become man for to them that would be taking aways God's dignity. However, and the Renaissance man believed this, this would put God in a box and would not make God a free Being. The Renaissance man believed that God was beyond human logic and to go beyond logic to see what God had done in becoming a man to save humankind.
     Because of the incarnation, man could be saved and become a son and daughter of God making humans more dignified and greater than even the angels. Trinkaus wrote that Petrarch used the incarnation of God to explain how man was in misery and despair by looking at his natural self, but the incarnation bridged the gap between man and God.
     The Greek and Roman writers, in ancient times, believed that man could never reach God, however, the incarnation brought God to men. God descending to man allowed man to ascend up to God. Petrarch wrote, Surely our God has come to us so that we might go to Him, and that same God of our interacted with humanity when He lived among us, 'showing himself like a man in appearance.'...What an indescribable sacrament! To what higher end was humanity able to be raised than that a human being, consisting of a rational soul and human flesh, a human being, exposed to mortal accidents, dangers and needs, in brief, a true and perfect man, inexplicably assumed into one person with the Word, the Son of God,  consubstantial with the Father and co-eternal with Him. To what higher end was humanity able to be raised than that this perfect man would join two natures in Himself by a wondrous union of totally disparate elements?"3

Rationality

     The Greek word logos led to a Greek respect for a logic that was transcendent and as long as it stayed that way the mind was able to be cultivated. The book From Word to Silence, by Raoul Mortley, shows how the Greeks, using the idea of logos began with pre-Socratic thinkers. He makes it clear that Sophists began entering politics and used logic to manipulate politics causing the people to distrust logic and begin to believe that no one could really know the truth. If logos can be manipulated and used by both debaters, then it cannot be transcendent. This increased skepticism and almost wiped out the word logos.4 This led to Greeks believing in myths and superstition. Without a rational God who can tell man what is truth led the Greeks to give up the concept of logos and made them skeptical of putting their faith in reason.
     A Jew by the name of Philo saved the word logos from the Greeks, mainly because he recognized that according to the Bible logos is a part of the nature and being of God. Enter the Apostle John who famously said in his book, "In the beginning was the Word [logos] and Word was with God and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." John had actually seen the Word (Jesus) in person witnessing Jesus' miracles, death on the cross for sins and resurrection to defeat death and make eternal life possible for man. For John logos was not an abstract concept, but was something that he had seen and touched. John had recorded Jesus saying, "I am the truth." And Jesus had even told Pilate, "For this purpose was I born and for this purpose I have come into the world-to bear witness to the truth." We can know the truth because God is Truth and He speaks to us rationally in His Word (logos) which makes rationality significant for man. This belief saved Europe from Gnosticism.
     After John, Augustine, Boethius and John of Damascus preserved logic and laid the foundation for Western Civilization's intellectual powers. All these men believed that biblical Christianity was a religion of rationality.
     Then, all of a sudden, the Church closed the Bible (logos) to the people and logic slid back into gnosticism and wasn't unleashed again until the Bible was translated into the tongue of the common man. This can be seen in the contrast between Catholic countries compared with Protestant countries who prospered intellectually because the people in Protestant countries were able to interpret the Bible using logic.
     One of the fruits of the Biblical view of logic was technology.

Technology

     Ernst Benz said in his book Fondamenti Chistiani della Tecnica Occidentale, " Christian beliefs provided the rational and faith for western technology." Why did Christians pioneer technological creativity? Because of their belief in a God who is separate and above the Cosmos who Created all things. They believed that matter was created for spiritual purposes. The Bible taught man that the world was made by an Intelligent Craftsman that they could imitate by being craftsmen themselves, that they should become great artisans because of it, to follow God's logic to be able to use the the physical things for good and to use time wisely.
     While Buddhist monks begged for bread, Christian monks had to work for their bread. So, since neither could have a wife to grind their wheat for them to make bread, the Buddhists begged for bread while the monks worked for their (as most other cultures taught). Christian monks knew that God wanted them to pray, but they also knew that God worked and so to work was to imitate God. However, since prayer was essential, they began to develop ways to make work less, so they could pray more.
     While the monasteries eventually fell into the Greco-Roman philosophy, they originally were filled with men who really did study the Bible in a literal sense and rejected the idea that work was only for those of a lower class. Two monks, Theophilus and Hugh, are the first who actually wrote about mechanics and they did so by rejecting the Greco-Roman based theology of the Latin Church and picking up the Bible to read it for themselves.


2. Quoted by Trinkaus in his book In Our Image and Likeness
3. De Otio Religioso by Francesco Petrarca
4. From Word to Silence by Raoul Mortley


Con
#2
THBT: The BIBLE CREATED WESTERN CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY, RATIONALITY and TECHNOLOGY


DEFINITIONS:

The BIBLE [noun] is "a collection of sacred texts or scriptures. Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and Rastafari. The Bible appears in the form of an anthology, compiling texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they collectively contain the word of God. These texts include theologically-embellished historical accounts, hymns, allegorical erotica, parables, and didactic letters." [1]

CREATED is simple past and past participle of
CREATE [transitive verb] is "to bring into existence" [2]

WESTERN CIVILIZATION [noun] (also Western culture, Occidental culture, the Western world, Western society, and European civilization) is "the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with Europe. Western culture is most strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman cultures.

Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of many elements of Western culture, including the development of a democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science and mathematics. The expansion of Greek culture into the Hellenistic world of the eastern Mediterranean led to a synthesis between Greek and Near-Eastern cultures, and major advances in literature, engineering, and science, and provided the culture for the expansion of early Christianity and the Greek New Testament.  This period overlapped with and was followed by Rome, which made key contributions in law, government, engineering and political organization. The concept of a "West" dates back to the Roman Empire, where there was a cultural divide between the Greek East and Latin West, a divide that later continued in Medieval Europe between the Catholic Latin Church west and the "Greek" Eastern Orthodox east.

Western culture is characterized by a host of artistic, philosophic, literary and legal themes and traditions. Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church, Protestantism, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Oriental Orthodoxy, has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization since at least the 4th century, as did Judaism.  A cornerstone of Western thought, beginning in ancient Greece and continuing through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is the idea of rationalism in various spheres of life developed by Hellenistic philosophy, scholasticism and humanism. The Catholic Church was for centuries at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws and institutions which constitute Western civilization.  Empiricism later gave rise to the scientific method, the scientific revolution, and the Age of Enlightenment.
" [3]

[NOTE:  CON has included a long version of the the definition to demonstrate the degree to which PRO's apparent definition of Western Civilization differs from the traditional encyclopedic definition.  CON has bolded a few examples of direct contradiction between PRO's as yet unregistered but clearly entirely personal definition of Western Civilization and the conventional textbook definition.]


HUMANITY [noun] is "mankind; human beings as a group." [4]


RATIONALITY [noun] is "the quality or state of being rational; due exercise of reason; reasonableness" [5]


TECHNOLOGY [noun] is "the organization of knowledge for practical purposes" [6]

DIGNITY [noun] is "the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights."[7]


BURDEN of PROOF:


Wikipedia advises:

"When two parties are in a discussion and one makes a claim that the other disputes, the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo.... the standard for evidence to meet the burden of proof is usually determined by context and community standards and conventions." [8]

CON interprets PRO's thesis to mean that the entire heritage of European social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies originates only after  the widespread availability of vernacular translations of the Bible and the advent of the Protestant Reformation in 1517.  In order to achieve this burden, PRO must necessarily redefine the traditional meaning of" Western Civilization" to exclude the contributions of non-Protestant people and non-Protestant events. Since such redefinition is only warranted by manifest religious chauvinism, PRO's thesis must fail.

CON 1.1

P1: An act cannot create its own precedent.
P2: Western Civilization is defined as originating in the 5th-century BC (Classical Greece) and conceptualized by Diocletian's division of Empire beginning in 285 CE
C1: Therefore, neither the printing of vernacular Bibles beginning in 1466 CE nor the Protestant Reformation beginning in 1517 CE can be properly understood
to have created a Western Civilization that began 2000 years prior
  • ex.  The first voyage by Columbus to the Americas was an incredibly influential event in the course of Western Civilization, shaping the destinies of many Western peoples ever since.  Nevertheless, the first voyage by Columbus to the Americas cannot be properly understood to have created Western Civilization.
  • ex. The printing of the  King James Version of the Bible was an incredibly influential event in the history of English-speaking peoples but that Bible was created by, for, and within the context of Western Civilization.  Christianity, the Vulgate Bible, the English language, and the printing press were all well-established elements of Western Civilization prior to and necessary for the development of the KJV Bible.  To say that the KJV Bible (or any other contemporary translation) created Western Civilization is more hyperbolic and less rational than to claim that "the KJV Bible created English" or that "the KJV Bible created the printing press."
COUNTER 1.1
DESCRIPTION

  • For many reasons I consider that the Catholic interpretation is based on man's opinion that twists God's Word to fit its own belief system
    • OBJECTION:  The Catholic interpretation is the predominant interpretation of the Bible in Western Civilization.
      • For a thousand years, from 500 CE to 1500 CE, the Catholic Church was the defining institution of Western Civilization:
        • "After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, there emerged no single powerful secular government in the West. There was however a central ecclesiastical power in Rome, the Catholic Church. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West. The Church started expanding in the beginning 10th century, and as secular kingdoms gained power at the same time, there naturally arose the conditions for a power struggle between Church and Kingdom over ultimate authority."
        • "In essence, the earliest vision of Christendom was a vision of a Christian theocracy, a government founded upon and upholding Christian values, whose institutions are spread through and over with Christian doctrine. In this period, members of the Christian clergy wield political authority. The specific relationship between the political leaders and the clergy varied but, in theory, the national and political divisions were at times subsumed under the leadership of the Catholic Church as an institution. This model of Church-State relations was accepted by various Church leaders and political leaders in European history." [9]
      • The majority of all Christians are Catholic:
        • "About half  (50.1%) are Catholic. Protestants, broadly defined, make up 37%. Orthodox Christians comprise 12% of Christians worldwide. Other Christians, such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, make up the remaining 1% of the global Christian population." [10]
        • 76.2% of Europe identifies as Christian (includes 35% of European Christians who are Eastern Orthodox, 46% of European Christians are Roman Catholic, 18% of European Christians are Protestant.) [11]
      • More than any other religious tradition, the Catholic interpretation is the mainstream interpretation of the Bible by Western Civilization.  PRO may not credit the influence of vernacular Protestant interpretations on Western Civilization while excluding the far more ancient and deeply rooted influence of the Catholic Vulgate.
      • The Protestant Reformation cannot be understood absent the dominant influence and culture of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe.
        • The "protest" in Protestant is in reaction to Catholic tradition.
        • The "reform" in Reformation is in reaction to Catholic tradition.
This isn't a debate on religion or different religious denominations.
    • OBJECTION:  This statement directly contradicts the sentence immediately before it,
      • "For many reasons I consider that the Catholic interpretation is based on man's opinion that twists God's Word to fit its own belief system."
        • and the sentence immediately after,
      • "I believe Western Civilization began when man began to interpret the Scriptures as written, because the Bible could finally be read by the common man who could see that the Catholic Church had replaced man's authority over God's authority."
        • PRO's directive that this debate is not about different religious denominations is undermined by PRO's manifest preference for some denominations and exclusion of other denominations.
COUNTER 1.2
HUMANITY

P1: Human dignity is one element of Western Civilization
P2: The concept of human dignity is instituted by Nominalism based on vernacular interpretations of the Bible.
C1: Therefore, the vernacular, Protestant Bible [after 1500 CE] is the foundation for Western Civilization.
  • Human dignity is an inalienable right of all humans neither exclusive or particular to Western Civilization.
    • PRO suggests the absence of infanticide as one hallmark of human dignity.
      • CON challenges PRO to name any culture that has eliminated infanticide.
    • PRO identifies the French Revolution and Nazi Germany as two cultures that devalued human dignity although these are both cultures fall well within the traditions of Western Civilization, after 1500 CE and within the context of available vernacular Bibles.
    • Beyond the Holocaust and the guillotine, we should note that two of the most spectacular examples of genocide are roughly contemporary with the advent of vernacular translations of the bible: 
      • the mass extinction of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and
        • the African-American slave trade.
    • Furthermore, the promulgation of Protestantism across Europe was itself spectacularly bereft of human dignity.
      • The Siege of Munster is one of the bloodier examples, including forced re-baptisms, mass forced remarriages to Anabaptist leaders, forced public nudity and the slow death by starvation of most of the city's women and children forced outside of the city's walls. [12]
      • The Thirty Years' War is often named as the deadliest war in human history, killing more than a third of all Germans- 8 out of 20 million. [13]
  • The concept of Nominalism predates the Bible in Western Civilization: [14]
    • "The first philosophers to explicitly describe nominalist arguments were the Stoics, especially Chrysippus"
      • "[Stoics] have often been presented as the first nominalists, rejecting the existence of universal concepts altogether. ... For Chrysippus there are no universal entities, whether they be conceived as substantial Platonic Forms or in some other manner." [15]
  • Coluccio Salutati, Lorenzo Valla and Pico Della Mirandola were all Italian, Roman Catholic (perhaps heretical by varying degrees) philosophers writing in Latin and sourcing the Latin Vulgate Bible before 1500.  Valla was a Catholic priest.  All three are fine examples of Western philosophers which disproves PRO's assertion that Western Civilization begins after 1500 with vernacular, Protestant translations of the Bible. [16] [17] [18]
COUNTER 1.3
RATIONALITY

P1: Reason is one element of Western Civilization
P2: The Bible identifies a Greek word meaning "reason" as part of the nature and being of God
C1: Therefore, the vernacular, Protestant Bible [after 1500 CE]  is the foundation for Western Civilization.
  • PRO identifies the source of the word logos used in the sense of 'reason, rationality' as Ancient Greek, pre-Socratic, in fact.  Socrates was born in 470 BC. [19] 
    • "The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, and it is known as the Codex Vaticanus[20] [21] The oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin (Vulgate) Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, dating from the 8th century."
    • PRO's argument depends heavily on proof that these pillars of Western Civilization start after 1500 CE, after the printing of vernacular Bibles.
      • Nevertheless PRO has credibly shown in R1 that the idea of rationality was not created after 1500 but likely 2000 years before that in classical Greece before Socrates.
        • PRO's own evidence disproves PRO's claim.
      • PRO identifies St. Augustine as "preserv[ing] logic and la[ying] the foundation for Western Civilization's intellectual powers."  If Augustine [13 November 354 – 28 August 430 CE] has logic (logos) a thousand years before Guttenberg, how can PRO's argument be that printing vernacular Bibles brought logic (logos) to Western Civilization after 1500 CE?  [22]
COUNTER 1.4
TECHNOLOGY

P1: Technology is one element of Western Civilization
P2: The Bible taught man that the world was made by an Intelligent Craftsman
C1: Therefore, the vernacular, Protestant Bible [after 1500 CE]  is the foundation for Western Civilization.
  • Non-sequitur
    • PRO should establish how merely telling people God is a craftsman is sufficient inspire technological creativity [P2].

  • PRO argues:
    • "Why did Christians pioneer technological creativity?"
      • The Ancient Mesopotamians and Ancient Egyptians had plenty of technological creativity, didn't they?
        • Khufu's ship is one of the oldest, largest and best-preserved vessels from antiquity. It measures 43.6 m (143 ft) long and 5.9 m (19.5 ft) wide. It was thus identified as the world's oldest intact ship and has been described as "a masterpiece of woodcraft" that could sail today if put into water, lake and river. However, the vessel may not have been designed for sailing, as there is no rigging, or for paddling, as there is no room.
        • Khufu's ship dates from about  2500 BC and is an example of technological creativity.
        • What is PRO's basis for claiming Christianity pioneered technological creativity?
  • PRO argues
    • "Two monks, Theophilus and Hugh, are the first who actually wrote about mechanics."
    • Please document this claim with dates and names of works.
    • In any case, classical mechanics originates with Aristotle: [23]
      • "Some Greek philosophers of antiquity, among them Aristotle, founder of Aristotelian physics, may have been the first to maintain the idea that "everything happens for a reason" and that theoretical principles can assist in the understanding of nature. While to a modern reader, many of these preserved ideas come forth as eminently reasonable, there is a conspicuous lack of both mathematical theory and controlled experiment, as we know it. These later became decisive factors in forming modern science, and their early application came to be known as classical mechanics."
      • Aristotle lived from 384 – 322 BC, 1800 years before PRO and some centuries, at least, before Christian monks of any kind.  [24]
    • OBJECTION:
      • PRO promised:
        • "This isn't a debate on religion or different religious denominations."
      • but PRO argues:

        • "While Buddhist monks begged for bread, Christian monks had to work for their bread."
      • PRO is clearly arguing from religious preference here.
      • PRO ought not to argue that because some Buddhist traditions rely on community donations, therefore Buddhist monks don't work.
        • "Because of local conditions of geography and climate, as well as local attitudes towards begging, monks generally do not make begging rounds in China, Korea, Vietnam, and many parts of Japan. Instead, monasteries receive donations of bulk food (such as rice) and funds for the purchase of food that is then stored and prepared at the monastery. Many monks and nuns are vegetarians and, after Baizhang Huaihai, many monks farm food to eat; some work or sell." [25]
SUMMARY 1

P1: PRO argues: Human dignity (Nominalism), rationality (logos), and technology (classical mechanics) are necessary and sufficient to demonstrate the creation of Western Civilization.
P2: CON has shown that:  Human dignity (Nominalism), rationality (logos), and technology (classical mechanics) all have their origins in Classical Greece.
C1: Therefore, PRO must find that Classical Greece (and not Gutenberg or the Protestant Reformation) is the foundation for Western Civilization.


CON looks forward to PRO's R2


SOURCES


Round 2
Pro
#3
Everything that Con has above his response on Humanity is not relevant. I had my disclaimer in the description. I will touch on some of those points in other parts of this series that I am beginning (hence, why it is called Part 1. I am not doing a whole discourse in one debate on why ALL of Western Civilization is based on the Bible because it is extensive. I am narrowing such a large topic to only Humanity, Rationality and Technology in this part.
Secondly, my point still stands that I am not going debate the different Christian religions. Yes, I know that I am using Catholics as well, which is why this isn't a big discussion on all Christian denominations. This mainly has to do with how the correct application of the Bible has indeed led to Western Civilization.

Humanity

     Con challenges me to name a culture that has eliminated infanticide. What I will say is that Biblical cultures look down upon infanticide because it goes against what God teaches in His Word about human dignity and even have made laws against it, while even in countries today like India they will starve their second little girl so that they don't have to be extorted later on by families who demand a dowry when they give their daughters in marriage.1 In pagan countries, infanticide has been promoted or at least not cared about.
     I will remind Con that the French Revolution and Nazi Germany had rejected the Biblical Principles the former was based on atheism and the total rejection of the Bible and the latter was based on Higher Criticism which also led to total rejection of the Bible.2
     For one, the indigenous peoples never went extinct. As for them being treated in such a horrid manner is not due because of the Bible for it is still very clear on human dignity, but it is due of men's rejection of the Bible for their own self interest and in the case of slavery, sadly using the Bible to protect their evil deeds. However, this can be easily pushed aside since there were many more Christians who were pushing for the end of slavery than those pushing for it ie., William Wilberforce. Also, I will not deny that several times the Western world has strayed from the Bible due to sin having a strong influence as the Bible suggests, but where else have we heard in world history where slaves were freed in mass? You will not here of this in Chinese, Roman, Greek, Aztec or Indian cultures, only in a Bible based culture where revivals such as the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening paved the road for emancipation. Human dignity in Western Civilization came from the Biblical belief that man is made in God's image and likeness.
     Both the Siege of Munster and the Thirty Years War had more to do with political reasons than Biblical reasons.
     Nominalism, however, without the Bible did not make sense to most people. Which is why it was largely rejected by the Greeks. However, Paul, in Acts 17 was able to make sense of nominalism, which existed in the Jewish nation long before the Greeks, so we are back to the Bible.
     Again, I was not rejecting all Catholicism. I was well aware that they were Catholic (and as you said, even heretical according to the Catholic Church), but they based their beliefs on what? The Bible. My point has never been that Western Civilization began with Protestantism. Humanity in Western Civilization began when it went back to Biblical principles of Humanity.

Rationality

     I don't know where Con got the idea that I am saying that a printable Bible in the people's vernacular was the start of Western Civilization. My heading only says that the Bible created Western Civilization.
     My point was that without the Bible, Greek rationality withered and died. However, when the West based rationality on the Bible it grew and flourished.

Technology

     Let me put it to Con and the audience like this, since we are bringing up an old Egyptian boat, in Africa, to this day, many women carry water pots on their head while their husbands sit around playing cards. Hauling water, is a big waste of time. It takes away hour of labour, creates dirty environments and unhealthy diseases thereby spending more time and resources going to hospitals and being sick. People can only use a fraction of their energy when working and prevents women and children from spending time playing, learning or creating things.
     So why doesn't the American woman still carry water on her head?
     Technology comes from the mind of humans and was used to make water come to us instead. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of using water to create electricity to bring water to every home in the West instead of continuing the process of bringing it on ones head. That way they could bring water to millions of people.
     Africa and India both contain people with great minds. Talking about the Egyptian, they built large pyramids in great mathematical proportions while people in Europe were nothing more than barbaric nomads. Interestingly, though, while the engineers who built the pyramids wanted to honor their pharaoh they didn't think of making wheelbarrows for the slaves who built them.
     In many civilizations in order to fix the dilemma for a sick wife who couldn't carry the water men solved the problem by making their children do it, married more wives or bought slaves. The Hindus created a water carrying class to do that job convincing them that that was how to get to "Heaven".
     Aldous Huxley blamed technology on the Bible because the verse that commanded man to have dominion of the earth. He was a great devotee of Mahatma Gandhi who rejected technology as well.
     Professors Lynn White Jr., Ernst Benz, Robert Forbes, and Samuel Sambursky all affirm that technology came out of a Biblical perspective.
     Theophilus wrote De diversis artibus in 1122-23 who wrote about the technical issues of the flywheel. Hugh wrote in the 1120s Didascalicon which was the first book to tech mechanical arts in formal education.


1. www.indianchild.com/dowry_in_india.htm



Con
#4
Thanks to BiiblicalChristian101

THBT: The BIBLE CREATED WESTERN CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY, RATIONALITY and TECHNOLOGY

DEFINITIONS:

PRO has not contradicted any of CON's definitions.  Therefore, let's let these definitions stand, particularly the conventional definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION

BURDEN of PROOF:

PRO has not contradicted CON's interpretation of this debate's BURDEN of PROOF.  Let's let it stand that

PRO must prove that WESTERN CIVILIZATION is  a product of the 16th Century Reformation
CON will show that WESTERN CIVILIZATION is much older and more diverse than just Protestantism

CON 2.1

P1: An act cannot create its own precedent.
P2: Western Civilization is defined as originating in the 5th-century BC (Classical Greece) and conceptualized by Diocletian's division of Empire beginning in 285 CE
C1: Therefore, neither the printing of vernacular Bibles beginning in 1466 CE nor the Protestant Reformation beginning in 1517 CE can be properly understood
to have created a Western Civilization that began 2000 years prior
  • PRO has dropped this argument and so concedes that WESTERN CIVILIZATION precedes Protestantism by some 2000 years and cannot therefore be a product of the Reformation
    • This concession alone wins the argument for CON.  PRO's thesis is made impossible by the relentlessly one way nature of time
OBJECTION:  PRO claims that all of CON's argument is irrelevant due to disclaimers in description but fails to identify the relevant disclaimer or explain how PRO's argument is invalid.  PRO's description argues that WESTERN CIVILIZATION begins "when man began to interpret the Scriptures as written, because the Bible could finally be read by the common man who could see that the Catholic Church had replaced man's authority over God's authority." That "when" is the Protestant Reformation.

The PROTESTANT REFORMATION was "a movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Roman Catholic Church and papal authority in particular"  The FIVE SOLAE summarize the basic theological differences in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church. [1] [2]

SOLA SCRIPTURA (meaning "by Scripture alone"), is "upheld by Lutheran and Reformed theologies and asserts that scripture must govern over church traditions and interpretations which are themselves held to be subject to scripture. All church traditions, creeds, and teachings must be in unity with the teachings of scripture as the divinely inspired Word of God. [3]

"Sola Scriptura asserts that the Bible can and is to be interpreted through itself, with one area of Scripture being useful for interpreting others.  As all doctrines are formed via scriptural understandings, all doctrines must be found to align with Scripture and as such are then subject to scripture before the believer can begin to apply them.  This particular sola is sometimes called the formal principle of the Reformation, since it is the source and norm of the material cause or principle, the gospel of Jesus Christ that is received sola fide , sola gratia. The adjective (sola) and the noun (scriptura) are in the ablative case rather than in the nominative case to indicate that the Bible does not stand alone apart from God, but rather that it is the instrument of God by which he reveals himself for salvation through faith in Christ"

OBJECTION:  PRO advises that he will argue some points in other debates.

"I will touch on some of those points in other parts of this series that I am beginning (hence, why it is called Part 1. I am not doing a whole discourse in one debate on why ALL of Western Civilization is based on the Bible because it is extensive. I am narrowing such a large topic to only Humanity, Rationality and Technology in this part."
PRO essentially concedes the debate here.  PRO now admits that human dignity (nominalism), rationality (logos), and technology (classical mechanics) are NOT sufficient to demonstrate the creation of Western Civilization, that there are additional concepts necessary to define the advent of WESTERN CIVILIZATION that PRO not only failed to identify but also won't discuss until some other  later debate. 

IF human dignity, rationality, and technology are NOT the only markers of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, then WESTERN CIVILIZATION cannot be said to have been CREATED until all the foundational concepts have been defined, described, and shown to be present before WESTERN CIVILIZATION may be properly said to have begun.  PRO has now announced he has no plans to do so and so this argument fails right here.

COUNTER 2.1
DESCRIPTION
 
  • PRO continues to insist that his argument is not religious while forwarding patently religious claims such as:

  • The Catholic Church replaced God's authority
  • Before 1500, Europe was Pagan, Greco-Roman, and/or Muslim but not really Christian (scare quotes indicate inauthenticity)
  • While Buddhist monks begged for bread, Christian monks had to work for their bread
  • The Hindus created a water carrying class to do that job convincing them that that was how to get to "Heaven".
  • One disclaimer PRO did offer in the description was that "this isn't a debate on religion or different religious denominations" but PRO's motive strikes this reader as exclusively religious in nature and with manifest preference for Protestant Christianity above other religions.
COUNTER 2.2
HUMANITY

  • In R1, PRO suggested the absence of infanticide is one hallmark of human dignity.
    • In COUNTER 1.2, CON argued that infanticide is present in every culture and challenged PRO to name a culture without infanticide
      • PRO failed to name one culture
      • In R2, PRO argues that infanticide in unBiblical
          • "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones"
        • 1 SAMUEL 15 YHWH orders Saul to kill infants and breastfeeding babies, which Saul does [5]
          • "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

        • EXODUS 12 YHWH personally murders many infant first-borns on a national scale simultaneously [6]
          • And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.  And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
          • And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.
          • And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
          • And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
          • And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
          • And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
        • NUMBERS 31 MOSES orders mass infanticide against an enemy people [8]
          • And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the Lord of Midian.
          • And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
          • And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
          • And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
          • And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
          • And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
          • And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle
          • And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
          • Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
          • Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
          • But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
        • GENESIS 7  YHWH genocides humanity, including at least hundreds of thousands of infants [9]
  • CON won't claim to know much about the Bible, but CON is pretty sure that Moses, YHWH, Saul, Abraham- those are the good guys doing all that baby killing, right?
    • Infanticide is quite biblical or at least the Bible is quite infanticidey
    • If the presence of infanticide disproves WESTERN CIVILIZATION- what infanticide-free nation is PRO including within WESTERN CIVILIZATION? 
    • PRO must prove non-WESTERN cultures love their children less
  • In R1, PRO argues that the French Revolution and Nazi Germany were without human dignity
    • PRO confirms unbiblical and therefore not WESTERN CIVILIZATION
      • PRO must offer mainstream historical evidence showing that the French Revolution and Nazi Germany are not ordinarily thought of as milestones in Western History.
        • CON finds that the conventional understanding includes both cultures within the history of WESTERN CIVILIZATION
          • Wikipedia's Outline of the history of Western civilization includes [10]
            • French Revolution – The French Revolution, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France that had a major impact on France and indeed all of Europe. [11]
            • ADOLPH HITLER-Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, commonly referred to as the Nazi Party [12]
            • Here again we see that PRO has a highly modified definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION. 
              • If an event as seminal as the French Revolution is NOT included in PRO's definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION than PRO is shown to be working with a highly specialized definition, which PRO has not yet bothered to offer.  In fact, PRO seems to have accepted CON's definition.
                • PRO should provide a concise definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION from some credible source that agrees with PRO's parameters (no infanticide, no French revolution, etc)
  • the indigenous peoples never went extinct.
  • [Slavery] can be easily pushed aside since there were many more Christians who were pushing for the end of slavery than those pushing for it ie., William Wilberforce
    • PRO admits that slavery is an argument against any claim of superior human dignity in WESTERN CIVILIZATION.
COUNTER 2.3
RATIONALITY

  • I don't know where Con got the idea that I am saying that a printable Bible in the people's vernacular was the start of Western Civilization. My heading only says that the Bible created Western Civilization.
    • CON got that idea from PRO's exact language in the debate description:
      • "I believe Western Civilization began when man began to interpret the Scriptures as written, because the Bible could finally be read by the common man who could see that the Catholic Church had replaced man's authority over God's authority "
        • In R1, PRO discounts Europe before 1500 AD as less than legitimately Christian
          • Even though Europe was "Christian" before AD 1500, it was steeped in three different beliefs
    • So PRO is talking about some era after 1500 AD
      • When the common man started reading the Bible in their own language (vernacular)
        • When bibles were hand written, bibles were too expensive for common men to own
          • The Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed in Europe with movable metal type [13]
            • Bibles became commonplace and inexpensive after 1455 AD
          • [Martin Luther's] translation of the Bible into the German vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible to the laity, an event that had a tremendous impact on both the church and German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation,  and influenced the writing of an English translation, the Tyndale Bible.  [14]
      • "I believe Western Civilization began when man began to interpret the Scriptures as written because the Bible could finally be read by the common man
      • So that is 1522 AD, starting with Luther's printed German translation
      • who could see that the Catholic Church had replaced man's authority over God's authority "
        • That is Martin Luther
          • "Luther's  theology challenged the authority and office of the Pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge"
        • That is Luther's Ninety-five Theses
          • In January 1518 friends of Luther translated the Ninety-five Theses from Latin into German.  Within two weeks, copies of the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months, they had spread throughout Europe.
  • PRO's own words narrow down the creation of WESTERN CIVILIZATION to 1522 AD,  beginning with the first German Bible in the early years of the Protestant Reformation. 
  • My point was that without the Bible, Greek rationality withered and died.
    • Much of Greek philosophy is still evident is Modern thought and so not yet dead.  When does PRO suppose Greek philosophy died and under what circumstances?
    • Paul is writing his epistles in Greek, using his Roman education in Greek philosophy.  The Bible did not influence Socrates but Socrates influenced the Bible
COUNTER 1.4
TECHNOLOGY

  • in Africa, to this day, many women carry water pots on their head while their husbands sit around playing cards.
    • Big generalization totally off-point.  
    • PRO is claiming that the Bible caused technology
      • Aldous Huxley blamed technology on the Bible because the verse that commanded man to have dominion of the earth
      • Professors Lynn White Jr., Ernst Benz, Robert Forbes, and Samuel Sambursky all affirm that technology came out of a Biblical perspective.
    • While totally ignoring the fact that technology by any definition, precedes the Bible.  PRO admits as much:
      • Egyptian, they built large pyramids in great mathematical proportions
      • the engineers who built the pyramids
    • Since Ancient Egyptian had technology, millennia before the Bible, the Bible did not cause technology.
    • PRO's definition of technology does not seem to include the common understandings of the word.
      • Wikipedia offers an Outline of prehistoric technology that defines technology going back 2.5 million years, that's roughly 2.5 million years before the events of the Bible much less the Bible's publication. [16]
SUMMARY 2

PRO desperately needs to explain why his definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION is so far flung from conventional definitions.  Then PRO should define WESTERN CIVILIZATION in some way at least specifying which countries are in WESTERN CIVILIZATION when.  If France and Germany can pop in and out of WESTERN CIVILIZATION at PRO's rhetorical need, what standard is being applied to the designation?
PRO's assertion of WESTERN CIVILIZATION as superior in human dignity fails as unproven generalization.
PRO's timeline of reason and technology is radically different from the commonplace timelines of WESTERN CIVILIZATION

CON looks forward to PRO's R3

SOURCES 2

Round 3
Pro
#5
"PRO now admits that human dignity (nominalism), rationality (logos), and technology (classical mechanics) are NOT sufficient to demonstrate the creation of Western Civilization"

Obviously, Con has nothing to say since he is distracting instead of addressing the points I have made. If Con would have read the title he would have know that I am only discussing Technology, Human Dignity and Rationality. Perhaps he should not take debates unless he is aware about what he is debating.

"That "when" is the Protestant Reformation."

As I have said before, that is not the case. People had interpreted the Scriptures correctly before the Protestant Reformation hence the reason why many humanists (as Con has even pointed out) got in trouble with the Catholic Church which was basing their ideas on human dignity on Greco-Roman philosophy instead of the Bible.So if Con has nothing to say except things that are not related to the debate then maybe he should just concede.

"PRO's motive strikes this reader as exclusively religious in nature and with manifest preference for Protestant Christianity above other religions."

I ask Con, how so? I have been talking about Catholic monks coming up with a work ethic not because of their religion, but because of the influence of the Bible.

Humanity

"In R1, PRO suggested the absence of infanticide is one hallmark of human dignity."

     I never said such a thing and would kindly ask Con use my quotes. I have already said that infanticide is a cause of sin in this world and every civilization has practiced it. However, for centuries infanticide was looked down on and made illegal with severe punishments in place in Western Civilization while it adhered to the Bible. However, the last century, which is known for its big step in secularism, has seen the arrival of infanticide practiced by doctors in Europe (The Groningen Protocol) and pushed by the left in the US (Gov. Northam, Democrats refused to pass a bill condemning infanticide). There is a big difference between infanticide in Western Civilization than in Asia. In Western Civilization a person who commits infanticide will do in secret for fear of being reported for murdering their child, However, in India, though infanticide is illegal, the people look away and well know that infanticide happens is happening around them, indeed, they themselves practice it.1
Now, let us dig into Con's denouncement of the Bible.
     Psalm 137:9- This verse actually is used to prove that the Bible is really the written word of God, for it shows that God does not hide the fact that men, even those who wrote the Bible can be flawed. This Psalm shows that the writer is in deep anguish and has hate rising within him toward Babylon and what they have done to his people. Indeed, the writer probably is thinking about how the Babylonians had dashed Jewish babies heads against walls and stones at the time of Babylon's invasion and the writer is wanting to see the day when God does it to Babylon (nothing has been discovered in history that the Jews were ever able to carry out this horrendous slaughter, indeed Babylon fell to the Persians [the Persians though might have done such things to Babylonian babies, but that cannot be placed on God]).
     1 Samuel 15- If one would read the whole story, we can see that the reason God wanted Israel to kill everyone of Amalek, including the babies and small children, was because Amalek had done this very thing many years prior while Israel wandered in the desert. It was an act of vengeance by God against Amalek. So two things, one, God is the one who dispenses justice "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord," and second God had given Amalek enough time, around 380 years, to repent and seek forgiveness for what they had done, obviously they didn't
     Exodus 12 Again, God's judgment
     Genesis 22- God had no intention of letting Abraham kill his son, also his son would not have been an infant
     Numbers 31-If you read a few chapters (chapter 25) before you will understand that justice was being carried out again by God after allowing them six chapters to repent and seek forgiveness
     Genesis 7-Again God's judgment and how many babies were there at the time? If the world had turned secular or pagan during the times before the Flood, you can already imagine infanticide by sacrifice, pleasure or removing a burden. Also if there had been righteous children, would they not have been on the ark?
"God’s [actions are] only immoral to those who do not recognize God’s right to judge the people He created when they rebel against Him. God has the right to deal with His creations the way He chooses (people said to be ‘playing God’ usurp these privileges)."2

     As shown before, Western Civilization began once the Bible became the foundation for human dignity, reason and technology. How is this so? Because even though the Greeks and Romans are credited for beginning Western Civilization, they hardly affected it based on what has been covered so far. Where were the Greeks and Romans when it comes to human dignity, reason and technology? They are not even discussed. Why? Because both the Romans and Greeks had horrible views on human dignity (infanticide, buying and selling human beings, feeding people to wild beasts for entertainment), and though the Greeks made an attempt at reason, they ended up throwing it out on a large scale and went back to unreasonable beliefs and practices believing all kinds of ridiculous things. And when it comes to technology, where do these ancient civilizations stand? But I already went over this.
     Therefore, though the French Revolution and Nazi Germany happened within Western Civilization, they went back to ideas from before Western Civilization (devaluing human dignity and forsaking reason and as far as technology goes what advancements did they achieve {except more effective ways to kill people} and any positive ones were on the back of technology that already existed). The same can be said for slavery. These ideas were going to the past not the future. Even today, we are ditching Western Civilization to go back to the world before the Bible, a world sunk in obscurity. And before Con says something about the Dark Ages I want to let him know that I already covered that in my first and second turns.

Rationality

If Con would care to read carefully, I also said that it began when man started to interpret the Bible correctly which as I have shown happened many years before 1500. I would also point out that the first English Bible was written by John Wycliffe in the 1300s.3

"Much of Greek philosophy is still evident is Modern thought and so not yet dead.  When does PRO suppose Greek philosophy died and under what circumstances?"
Though it completely died with the coming of the Protestant Reformation, it was already on the decline before that as I showed in the first round (did Con even read what I have written? He might want to go over it again). I do agree that the French Revolution revived it again.
P.S. Paul was not given a Roman education, but a Jewish one.

Technology

According to Google the definition of technology is: "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry"4 Given that definition (and others I looked at) technology is for applying scientific knowledge to everyday life to make human life easier. With that in mind, can the pyramids actually be included as technology? Of course not, technology would have been inventing a wheelbarrow to facilitate the work.

As for prehistory: "We can’t know if there are perfect ‘clocks’ for prehistory because to know we would need to see them work. However, the concept of prehistory rules this out. The very idea that science is supreme is self-refuting. So, with no way to justify prehistory, it’s nothing but an arbitrary assumption. Each axiom is incoherent. Attempts to marry them with biblical theism don’t improve them, and if anything only highlight the incoherence even more. The Achilles’ heel of the whole deep time enterprise is prehistory—the fact that it is history that must ignore testimony. No testimony means no history because without testimony any assumptions we adopt are arbitrary at best."
Like I said, leaving logos and pursuing the illogical.

SUMMARY

I think my title and what I have written makes it clear when Western Civilization began. There is no set date since all three of these points began at different times in history, but there is no doubt that they are founded on the Biblical worldview as I have demonstrated. As to why the French Revolution. Nazi Germany and slavery are moveable is because, as I have shown above, they rejected the advances that Western Civilization had made (as far as human dignity is concerned), rejecting the Bible and devalued human life.

1. Murphy, Paul (May 21, 1995). "Killing baby girls routine in India". San Francisco Examiner. pp. C12.


Con
#6
Thanks, BiiblicalChristian101

THBT: The BIBLE CREATED WESTERN CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY, RATIONALITY and TECHNOLOGY

OBJECTION: PRO's unwillingness or inability to define his terms is breaking down the coherence of our discourse. PRO failed to offer a definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION in the debate description and again in R1.  CON offered a commonplace encyclopedia definition for the term in R1 to which PRO has not offered any objection but continues to make arguments that contradict that definition. 

PRO must either concede this debate or else offer a definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION that matches his argument- NOT created by Greeks, NOT pagan, NOT fatalistic, and NOT Catholic.  All of these elements are commonly thought of as well established traditions within WESTERN CIVILIZATION so PRO must explain his use of the term.  We know PRO thinks WESTERN CIVILIZATION includes humanity, rationality, and technology but then so does every other human culture.  We know that PRO thinks there are other essential elements to WESTERN CIVILIZATION but PRO is saving that evidence for some other debate.

Ultimately, PRO is trying to render his argument unfalsifiable by refusing to set any standards or benchmarks or terms of his own but only refusing standards and terms offered by CON, no matter how conventional.

  • For example, PRO first argued that WESTERN CIVILIZATION began 

  • "when man began to interpret the Scriptures as written, because the Bible could finally be read by the common man"
    • which any freshman student of history would place after Gutenberg or after Luther.  But PRO now says,
  • "that is not the case. People had interpreted the Scriptures correctly before the Protestant Reformation hence the reason why many humanists got in trouble with the Catholic Church which was basing their ideas on human dignity on Greco-Roman philosophy instead of the Bible"
    • So now the goalpost is "correct interpretation of the Bible" and no longer "access to the Bible."  PRO did give three examples of 15th Century Italian Catholics (Salutati, Valla, and Mirandola) as Nominalists (and though PRO has not said it we must assume "correct" interpreters of the Bible),  but those men were intellectuals, priests, or noblemen reading the Vulgate Bible and writing their arguments in Latin within the tradition of the Catholic Church.  None of those men were commoners in the sense of "common man."
CON and VOTERS should not have to keep guessing at PRO's intent.  The burden of proof is PRO's to define:

  • the first common man to correctly interpret scripture
  • the test by which we know his interpretation of scripture is "correct"
  • the link between correct interpretation and WESTERN CIVILIZATION
CON will continue to argue points but until PRO stops dancing and starts telling us what he means by "created WESTERN CIVILIZATION" in explicit terms, PRO has failed to set the standard by which he must prove his claim.

CON 3.1

P1: An act cannot create its own precedent.
P2: Western Civilization is defined as originating in the 5th-century BC (Classical Greece) and conceptualized by Diocletian's division of Empire beginning in 285 CE
C1: Therefore, neither the printing of vernacular Bibles beginning in 1466 CE nor the Protestant Reformation beginning in 1517 CE can be properly understood
to have created a Western Civilization that began 2000 years prior
  • PRO continues to ignore this, CON's only affirmative so far.  Even if PRO does eventually succeed in arguing that WESTERN CIVILIZATION begins with some individual "correct" interpretation of the Bible, the oldest known copy of the Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus still only pushes PRO's start date back about one thousand years, still 800 or 900 years after Socrates.  PRO has to show how and why Ancient Greece is not the advent of WESTERN CIVILIZATION, as is taught in schools[1]
  • Without some sort of direct response, PRO effectively concedes the debate.
PRO has ignored both objections made by CON under CON1:

OBJECTION:  PRO still claims that all of CON's argument is irrelevant due to disclaimers in description but fails to identify the relevant disclaimer or explain how PRO's argument is invalid. 

OBJECTION:  PRO still advises that he will argue some points (specifically, other pillars of WESTERN CIVILIZATION) in other debates but not this debate.  If more than humanity, rationality, and technology must be demonstrated to establish WESTERN CIVILIZATION then PRO must lay out all necessary components to prove his case.  PRO does not seem to care that his burden is unmet:

"Con has nothing to say since he is distracting instead of addressing the points I have made"
COUNTER 3.1
DESCRIPTION
 
  • PRO continues to insist that his argument is not religious while forwarding patently religious claims such as:
  • The Catholic Church replaced God's authority
  • Before 1500, Europe was Pagan, Greco-Roman, and/or Muslim but not really Christian (scare quotes indicate inauthenticity)
  • While Buddhist monks begged for bread, Christian monks had to work for their bread
  • The Hindus created a water carrying class to do that job convincing them that that was how to get to "Heaven"
  • Infanticide is a cause of sin
  • The Bible is really the written word of God
  • God is the one who dispenses Justice
  • God’s actions are only immoral to those who do not recognize God’s right to judge the people He created
  • There is one correct interpretation of the Bible
  • Nazi Germany, Revolutionary France, Slavery, etc rejected Western Civilization because they rejected the Bible
  • etc.
  • In R3, PRO argues that "Catholic monks work while Buddhist monks beg" is not a religious claim because Catholic monks are influenced by the Bible. Biblical influence is generally religious influence.  PRO forgets that we have explicitly defined the BIBLE in R1 as a religious book. 
    • The BIBLE [noun] is "a collection of sacred texts or scriptures. Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and Rastafari. The Bible appears in the form of an anthology, compiling texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they collectively contain the word of God. These texts include theologically-embellished historical accounts, hymns, allegorical erotica, parables, and didactic letters."  [2]
      • PRO may not claim that a biblical influence is not by definition also a religious influence without first showing that these monks were not studying the Bible for religious reasons.  CON argues that most monks study the Bible in a religious context.
  • Even if Catholic monks were not religious, CON has still shown that PRO is violating his own rule against religious arguments to a considerable extent.
COUNTER 3.2
HUMANITY

  • In R1, PRO suggested the absence of infanticide is one hallmark of human dignity.
    • In COUNTER 1.2, CON argued that infanticide is present in every culture and challenged PRO to name a culture without infanticide
      • PRO failed to name one culture
        • In R3, PRO admits
          • every civilization has practiced [infanticide]
    • In R3, PRO argues that he never suggested that the absence of infanticide is one hallmark of human dignity
      • Opening sentence of R1:
  • In the past and even in the present there are many places without a concept of human dignity. From cultures that had child sacrifice, to Greek infanticide, to the French Revolution, to Nazi Germany and Communist countries and even abortion and euthanasia or dowry deaths in India
    • That's quite explicit:
      • child sacrifice
      • Greek infanticide
      • abortion
        • are proof of cultures "without a concept of human dignity" and therefore not WESTERN CIVILIZATION
        • if infanticide is always proof of of an absence of human dignity then it follows that
          • the absence of infanticide is evidence of human dignity
  • PRO's claim 
  • "I never said such a thing"
    • stands disproved.
  • PRO's claim that child sacrifice, Greek infanticide, and abortion serve as evidence of cultures without a concept of human dignity is likewise disproved by PRO's admission in R3 that every civilization has practiced infanticide.
  • In R2, PRO argues that infanticide in unbiblical
    • In COUNTER 1.2, CON replied with six examples of Biblical protagonists committing infanticide 
      • PSALM 137  Cursing Babylon [3]
        • PRO agrees that infanticide is depicted as a just response to earlier infanticide by Bablyon
      • 1 SAMUEL 15 YHWH orders Saul to kill infants and breastfeeding babies, which Saul does [4]
        • PRO agrees God approves of infanticide as vengeance vs. Amalek
      • EXODUS 12 YHWH personally murders many infant first-borns on a national scale simultaneously [5]
        • PRO agrees this is God's judgement
      • GENESIS 22 GOD says to Abraham kill me a son [6]
        • PRO agrees God gave the order
      • NUMBERS 31 MOSES orders mass infanticide against an enemy people [7]
        • PRO agrees this was God's judgement.
      • GENESIS 7  YHWH genocides humanity, including at least hundreds of thousands of infants [8]
        • PRO argues genocide is God's right as creator
    • PRO works to justify all this baby killing but justification is irrelevant to our purposes.  PRO has argued that infanticide is not biblical, that adherence to the Bible made infanticide unpopular and yet PRO now admits that in that book,  hundreds of thousands of babies were ordered killed or killed by God directly and righteously.  Both things can't be true.  
      • Infanticide is quite biblical, often even just and right in PRO's view.
      • Therefore, the relative unpopularity of infanticide in some cultures can't be credited as adherence to the Bible.
  • IN COUNTER2.2., CON asked PRO to prove non-WESTERN cultures love their children less
    • IN R3, PRO replied:
  • In Western Civilization a person who commits infanticide will do in secret for fear of being reported for murdering their child, However, in India, though infanticide is illegal, the people look away 
    • But one of the most defining characteristics separating WESTERN CIVILIZATION from non-Western cultures is legal access to abortion, which PRO has already lumped in with infanticide as evidence of the absence of human dignity [9]
      • If abortion is infanticide as many Biblical adherents believe, then doesn't that make infanticide more commonplace and more legal in Western societies than non-Western?
      • Although some stigma is certainly still associated with this type of infanticide, many Westerners claim to be proud and happy with their choice
    • PRO has failed to show that infanticide is less commonplace or less accepted in Western culture, irregardless of biblical influence
  • In R1, PRO argued that the French Revolution and Nazi Germany were without human dignity
    • In R2, PRO confirmed those events were unbiblical and therefore not WESTERN CIVILIZATION
      • In COUNTER 2.1, CON asked for mainstream historical evidence showing that the French Revolution and Nazi Germany are not ordinarily thought of as milestones in Western History.
        • In R3, PRO admits that Nazi Germany and the French Revolution "happened within WESTERN CIVILIZATION
          • but argues that both cultures reverted to a pre-WESTERN CIVILIZATION state without human dignity, reason, or technological advancement.
            • PRO has offered no evidence to support this claim but then the claim is also manifestly false.
              • For example, Nazi Germany was a period of 12 years.  Is PRO really suggesting that 80 million people switched off their biblically created humanity, reason, and innovation in 1933 and then switched their biblical influence back on in 1945 and so awoke anew their humanity, reason, and innovation?
                • Isn't it more likely that human dignity, reason, and innovation are human traits, not created by the Bible or unique to Western Civilization but found in roughly equal measure in all human cultures, just as human cruelty, and slavery, and wanton destruction are also found in every human culture?
                • Isn't it more likely that PRO only excludes the French Revolution and Nazi Germany from WESTERN CIVILIZATION because those events aren't consistent with PRO's own idea of what Biblical influence should look like?
    • Likewise, PRO has dropped any counter to the argument that the mass genocide and enslavement of many non-Western indigenous cultures during the age of Western colonization serves as evidence disproving the superior human dignity of WESTERN CIVILIZATION
COUNTER 3.2.1

  • PRO argues that Greek and Roman culture hardly affected WESTERN CIVILIZATION
    • PRO's statement is remarkably ignorant of the profound and persistent influences of Ancient Greece on Western culture.  Just of few of which include: [11]
      • Democracy
      • Trial by Jury
      • Debates
      • The first Western stories- The Illiad and The Odyssey
        • Greek Mythology
      • Libraries
      • The Scientific Method
      • Geometry and Trigonometry
      • Architecture
      • Standardized Medicine
        • Medical Ethics
      • Trial by Jury
      • Sports
      • Theater and plays- mass entertainment
        • PRO seems wholly unaware of how heavily this very discussion depends on Greek culture- Greek logic, Greek letters, Greek words like Bible, Greek concepts like debating.  The Western world is so deeply infused with Greek ideas that PRO cannot make the statement "Greeks hardly affected Western Civilization" without employing multiple Greek influences.
          • likewise,
    • PRO's statement is remarkably ignorant of the profound and persistent influences of Ancient Rome on Western culture.  Just of few of which include: [12]
      • Republic
      • Common law, legal precedent, and lawyers
      • The Alphabet
      • Aqueducts, drinking water, indoor plumbing
      • Breakfast, lunch, and dinner
      • Roads
      • Concrete
      • Romance language
      • Bureaucracy
      • Cultural assimilation, including the admiration for and preservation of Greek culture as well as the admiration for and preservation of Jewish culture. 
      • Citizens of the Roman Empire wrote, edited, and published the New Testament
      • St Paul and the Apostles created Christianity by traveling on the new Roman roads and distributing Christian thought to citizens of Roman cities using the Roman postal system.  Without Rome, Christianity would be just another long-forgotten cult from two thousand years ago.
        • PRO seems wholly unaware of how heavily this very discussion depends on Roman culture- Roman alphabet, Roman words and concepts like "dignitas" and "rationalitas" The Western world is so deeply infused with Roman ideas that PRO cannot make the statement "Rome hardly affected Western Civilization" without employing multiple Roman influences.
    • PRO argument that Greek and Roman culture hardly affected WESTERN CIVILIZATION may be dismissed as incredible.

COUNTER 3.3
RATIONALITY

  • If Con would care to read carefully, I also said that it began when man started to interpret the Bible correctly which as I have shown happened many years before 1500.
    • But PRO has also argued:
    • "Even though Europe was "Christian" before AD 1500, it was steeped in three different beliefs. That of paganism (worship of saints and angels replacing demigods and ghosts) by the uneducated, Greco-Roman cosmology (the belief that everything, even God is bound by the Cosmos) by the scholars and fatalism which was brought over to Europe by Muslims."
    • PRO can't have it both ways.  Either Europe before 1500 was not WESTERN CIVILIZATION because it was pagan, cosmological, and fatalistic or it was Europe before 1500 was WESTERN CIVILIZATION and we are still waiting for PRO to explain when Europe became so.
      • PRO must explicitly state which is true and which false.
COUNTER 3.3.1

  • I would also point out that the first English Bible was written by John Wycliffe in the 1300s
    • PRO's description states that:
      • Western Civilization began when man began to interpret the Scriptures as written, because the Bible could finally be read by the common man who could see that the Catholic Church had replaced man's authority over God's authority
      • John Wycliffe's translation does not fit this description
        • Wycliffe translated his New Testament from the Latin Vulgate and not the original Koine Greek, "the Scriptures as written" [13]
      • Wycliffe's translations were hand written and illustrated and were therefore incredibly expensive works of art.
        • It is important to note that after the translations the illiterate and poor still usually lacked the access to the Scripture: the translation originally cost four marks and forty pence, i.e. two pounds, sixteen shillings and eightpence
        • Which roughly translates to more than $20,000 per Bible in 2017  US dollars [14]
          • PRO can't claim that the Bible was being read by the common man at $20,000 per copy.  
      • Literacy rates were fairly low. [15]
        • David Cressy, in Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England, suggests that in the 16th century, 90% of men and 99% of women were illiterate in English
          • The Common man would not, could not read Wycliffe's translation and so PRO's starting point for WESTERN CIVILIZATION comes sometime after 1500, when the printing press made literacy commonplace.
COUNTER 3.3.2

  • PRO argues:
    • [Greek Philosphy] completely died with the coming of the Protestant Reformation, it was already on the decline before that.  I do agree that the French Revolution revived it again.
      • PRO offers no evidence to support this claim and in fact the opposite is true.  Luther clearly read and was clearly reacting to the Western traditions rooted in classical literature: [16]
        • [Luther] also studied rather intently the structure of theorations of Cicero and Demosthenes.  Before he was fifteen he had written several Latin elegies. At the University of Tubingen, where there was more of a humanistic atmosphere, he continued his private reading of Cicero, took up Vergil, Galen, and other writers, and heard lectures on Aristotle.
          • What are the Universities, as at present ordered, but as the Book of Maccabees says: “Schools of ‘Greek fashion’ and ‘heathenish manners.”’ full of dissolute living, where very little is taught of the Holy Scriptures and of the Christian faith, and the blind heathen teacher, Aristotle, rules even further than Christ. Now, my advice would be that the books of Aristotle, the ‘Physics,’ the ‘Metaphysics,’ ‘Of the Soul,’ ‘Ethics,’ which have hitherto been considered the best, be altogether abolished, with all others that profess to treat of nature, though nothing can be learned from them, either of natural or of spiritual things. Besides, no one has been able to understand his meaning, and much time has been wasted, and many noble souls vexed, with much useless labour, study, and expense.

  • PRO's argument that
    • "without the Bible, Greek rationality withered and died"
        • A cornerstone of Western thought, beginning in ancient Greece and continuing through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is the idea of rationalism in various spheres of life developed by Hellenistic philosophy, scholasticism and humanism.
COUNTER 3.4
TECHNOLOGY

  • CON argued in R2 that by any definition, human technology precedes the Bible.
    • PRO responds
      • According to Google the definition of technology is: "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry"4
        • CON already defined technology in R1, but the definition is almost identical.
        • PRO argues that by this definition, the Pyramids don't count as technology but a wheelbarrow does
          • CON simply fails to follow PRO's reasoning here.
            • Wikipedia advises:
              • Ancient Egyptian technology describes devices and technologies invented or used in Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians invented and used many simple machines, such as the ramp and the lever, to aid construction processes. They used rope trusses to stiffen the beam of ships. Egyptian paper, made from papyrus, and pottery were mass-produced and exported throughout the Mediterranean basin. The wheel was used for a number of purposes, but chariots only came into use after the Second Intermediate period. The Egyptians also played an important role in developing Mediterranean maritime technology including ships. [19]
              • A pyramid is one fine example of scientific knowledge (geometry, masonry, corbel arches, hieroglyphics, mummification, etc, etc, etc) for the practical purpose of burying Pharaohs
                • Establishing unequivocally that technology precedes the Bible.
                  • The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece  [20]
                    • Papyrus is technology- using the scientific knowledge of plant biology and plant decomposition, right angles, knives, glue, etc. for the practical purpose of writing. [21]
                      • PRO's claim that the Bible created technology is impossible to support.
COUNTER 3.4.1

  • CON resourced Wikipedia's outline of prehistoric technology to show that technology goes back 2.5 million years.  Technology even precedes humanity since earlier hominids employed tools to solve problems.
    • PRO replied:
      • "We can’t know if there are perfect ‘clocks’ for prehistory because to know we would need to see them work. However, the concept of prehistory rules this out. The very idea that science is supreme is self-refuting. So, with no way to justify prehistory, it’s nothing but an arbitrary assumption. Each axiom is incoherent. Attempts to marry them with biblical theism don’t improve them, and if anything only highlight the incoherence even more. The Achilles’ heel of the whole deep time enterprise is prehistory—the fact that it is history that must ignore testimony. No testimony means no history because without testimony any assumptions we adopt are arbitrary at best."
      • A lot of gobbledygook to say that if it is not in the Bible it is incoherent and we can't draw any non-Biblical conclusion about pre-history because it is not written down.
        • That is, the Bible is the only trusted source of information
            • Even so, the Bible refutes PRO
              • And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.  And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground  GENESIS 4 KJV [22]
                • Cain has a plow.  A plow is indisputably technology.   All by itself, the Bible serves as evidence that the Bible wasn't completed for at least 65 generations after Cain had technology. [23]
    • OBJECTION: unreliable source
        • Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. These sources may be untrustworthy for credible/verifiable information, therefore fact checking and further investigation is recommended on a per article basis when obtaining information from these sources
        • Founded in 1977, Creation Ministries International (CMI) is a non-profit young Earth creationist organisation of autonomous Creationist apologetics ministries that promote a100% literal interpretation of the bible.
        • Overall, we rate Creation Ministries International a quackery level pseudoscience website for promotion of unproven myths that are opposed to modern science.
          • CON recommends that PRO use more reliable evidence to back his claims or at least provide a second, credible source.
SUMMARY 3

Last round, CON stated that PRO desperately needed to explain why his definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION is so far flung from conventional definitions.  What source is PRO using to define WESTERN CIVILIZATION?  Why standard is being applied?

CON now demands that PRO provide a well-sourced definition for the standard under discussion- WESTERN CIVILIZATION.  A standard, CON reminds PRO, instigated by PRO yet undefined more than halfway into the debate.  Then PRO must show how his argument is in agreement with that standard. 

Failure to provide such elementary fact finding to our discussion while also ignoring CON's definitions suggests bad faith and argument by deception.

PRO's assertion that WESTERN CIVILIZATION is superior in human dignity fails as unproven generalization.

PRO's histories of REASON and TECHNOLOGY remain radically divergent from the commonplace timelines of WESTERN CIVILIZATION without any effort on PRO's part at corroboration or explication.

Until PRO gives us a workable standard, PRO's argument continues to lack any coherence whatsoever.

CON looks forward to improved clarity in PRO's R4









Round 4
Pro
#7
I will go through this one more time.

Humanity

     One thousand years ago the Muslims had the wealthiest people, the largest armies and the most advanced art, education, science and technology. However, this has greatly changed. Spain, for instance, translates more books into Spanish in just one year than the Arabs ever translated into Arabic in a thousand years. Take away the oil from Arab countries and one finds that Finland exports more goods and services every year than the Arab countries put together. Secular professors acknowledge that the Western views of human dignity have a lot to do with the rise of the West and the stagnation of the rest of the world. Secular professors get it right when they say that the West "discovered" human dignity during the Renaissance, however, they get it wrong when they say that these Renaissance humanists discovered this idea from Greek and Latin classics. Classical writers may have held noble ideas, but the inherent value and dignity of humans was not there. Instead it came from the Bible.
     An example for the lack of human dignity in the 20th century can be found in India. Because parents must give a dowry when giving their daughter in marriage, many parent opt to starve any female child they have after the first one. The reason for this is because many times in-laws, after the marriage, will hold the daughter as ransom until they believe the her parents have given sufficient dowry to them. Therefore, from the perspective of their culture the parents are not seen as wicked people for killing their daughter, instead it is seen as an act of mercy out of love (just like mothers who abort their unwanted baby in the US or Europe). Hindus hold to a fatalistic worldview where they are trapped in their circumstances and cannot change their fate, karma, nature and culture. Ramakrishna Paramhansa once had a vision where Kali, the mother-goddess, delivered a baby that she proceeded to eat in front of him. When the Kali held the child in her hands the baby looked normal, but on eating it the baby was empty. Ramakrishna Paramhansa interpreted the vision as life is empty. It is not surprising then that Ramakrishna Paramhansa also adopted Buddhism since it teaches Anatman (non-self). Both of these ideas imply that individuals are an illusion and the only way to be saved is by dissolving one's consciousness into a universal consciousness. Life is trivialized in these religions because of faith in reincarnation. Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, encourages Arjuna to kill his cousins and teachers because reincarnation is a soul changing clothes through death, "As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the spirit leaves his mortal body, and then puts on one that is new." 1 
     Many people would say it is common sense that humans can change their future and better their lives, but this is not common sense in India and neither was it common sense in ancient Greece or Rome. India, for instance, did not get notions of human dignity until Christianity arrived.
     As I stated earlier, Europe had become "Christian" before AD 1500, but much of its worldview was not biblical. Instead it was based on pre-Christian paganism, a Greco-Roman cosmological worldview and Islamic fatalism. Before Christianity, Europeans had feared spirits, demigods and gods (Odin, Jupiter, Halloween etc.) and the only change that happened when Christianity came was they still feared spirits, but exchanged the fear of gods and demigods to prayers to saints and angels. Medieval man considered himself to be inferior to the angels. While the common person stayed in their pagan beliefs that were "Christianized", the scholars adopted the Greek and Roman cosmological worldview that said that the cosmos was the ultimate reality. Gods, spirits, angels, ideas and humans were all a part of and fixed to the cosmos. Not even a Supreme God could change the course of history, but history was repeated from the great Golden Age until in degenerated to the Iron Age at which point it was destroyed and a New Golden Age would come about. The Muslims introduced their ideas of fatalism at the same time they translated Greek works into Arabic and Latin. Humanity in medieval Europe was left with no hope because they did not believe they could get out of their "fated" cycle. Pope Innocent III even wrote a book on the subject call "The Misery of Man". While secular professors will say that Greeks were the originators of human dignity, this myth has been debunked by many historians. Henry Thode had demonstrated in 1885 that the Renaissance men got their ideas on human dignity from Franciscan nominalists who had rejected Platonism.2 Paul Sabatier came up with the same conclusion as in his biography of St. Francis.3 Both Wallace Ferguson and Charles Trinkaus used the two previous historians' as they looked into the origin of human dignity. Trinkaus' summary of his book In Our Image and Likeness concludes that while the Renaissance humanists studied, promoted and enjoyed the Greek and Roman classics along with Islamic writings, their idea of human dignity came from the Bible. As I mentioned in the first round they based their view of man's dignity from the writings of St. Augustine and Lactantius who based it on the verse that says, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Then I pointed out the Greek philosophy of man that Plato had developed and that many scholars during medieval Europe adopted, but that the nominalists rejected. Then i went on to prove that the incarnation of Christ made even dignified man the more. Indeed institutions such as slavery were ended because many believed that, "All men are created equal," and therefore, had they all had to have the same rights. But soon the dehumanization of man began once more, first starting in the late 1700s with Linnaeus classifying humans, then Darwinism which said that man came from apes, next Darwinists began to apply eugenics and soon they were putting pygmies in cages. Yes, secularism is moving toward taking away the human dignity of people once more because after all individuality is an illusion.

I did not have time to respond to Rationality and Technology which I will cover in the last round in detail so that Con doesn't mistake what I am trying to say and won't go on a rabbit trail which he has led us down continually.


1. Bhagavad Gita 2.22
2. Henry Thode, Franz von Assisi und die Anfange der Kunst der Renaissance in Italien (Berlin: G. Grote, 1885).
3. Paul Sabatier, Vie de S. Francois d' Assise (Paris: Fischbacher, 1894)
Con
#8
Thanks, BiiblicalChristian101

THBT: The BIBLE CREATED WESTERN CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY, RATIONALITY and TECHNOLOGY

OBJECTION: In R3, CON demanded that PRO offer a definition for WESTERN CIVILIZATION, the object specified by PRO's thesis.

    •    "PRO must either concede this debate or else offer a definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION that matches his argument... Ultimately, PRO is trying to render his argument unfalsifiable by refusing to set any standards or benchmarks or terms of his own but only refusing standards and terms offered by CON, no matter how conventional."

    •    "CON now demands that PRO provide a well-sourced definition for the standard under discussion- WESTERN CIVILIZATION.  A standard, CON reminds PRO, instigated by PRO yet undefined more than halfway into the debate.  Then PRO must show how his argument is in agreement with that standard.   Failure to provide such elementary fact finding to our discussion while also ignoring CON's definitions suggests bad faith and argument by deception."

    •    PRO has ignored CON's demand entirely, establishing with some confidence PRO's bad faith intent.

    •    CON's definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION stands unchallenged and so must be used as the standard by which PRO's argument fails

  • WESTERN CIVILIZATION is defined as "most strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman cultures"
    • Ancient Greece, by definition, is the cradle of WESTERN CIVILIZATION:
      • "Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of many elements of Western culture, including the development of a democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science and mathematics. The expansion of Greek culture into the Hellenistic world of the eastern Mediterranean led to a synthesis between Greek and Near-Eastern cultures, and major advances in literature, engineering, and science, and provided the culture for the expansion of early Christianity and the Greek New Testament. "
    ▪    By any commonplace understanding of the term, WESTERN CIVILIZATION created the Bible not the other way around.  Greco-Roman culture wrote the New Testament and also transcribed, edited, and anthologized the Old Testament.

CON 4.1

P1: An act cannot create its own precedent.
P2: Western Civilization is defined as originating in the 5th-century BC (Classical Greece) and conceptualized by Diocletian's division of Empire beginning in 285 CE
C1: Therefore, neither the printing of vernacular Bibles beginning in 1466 CE nor the Protestant Reformation beginning in 1517 CE can be properly understood
to have created a Western Civilization that began 2000 years prior

    •    By any commonplace understanding of the term, WESTERN CIVILIZATION created the Bible not the other way around.  Greco-Roman culture wrote the New Testament and also transcribed, edited, and anthologized the Old Testament.
    •    Without some sort of direct response, PRO effectively concedes the debate.
PRO has ignored both objections made by CON under CON1:

OBJECTION:  PRO still claims that all of CON's argument is irrelevant due to disclaimers in description but fails to identify the relevant disclaimer or explain how PRO's argument is invalid.

OBJECTION:  PRO still advises that he will argue some points (specifically, other pillars of WESTERN CIVILIZATION) in other debates but not this debate.  If more than humanity, rationality, and technology must be demonstrated to establish WESTERN CIVILIZATION then PRO must lay out all necessary components to prove his case.

COUNTER 4.1
DESCRIPTION
 
    •    PRO continues to insist that his argument is not religious while forwarding patently religious claims such as:
    •    The Catholic Church replaced God's authority
    •    Before 1500, Europe was Pagan, Greco-Roman, and/or Muslim but not really Christian (scare quotes indicate inauthenticity)
    •    While Buddhist monks begged for bread, Christian monks had to work for their bread
    •    The Hindus created a water carrying class to do that job convincing them that that was how to get to "Heaven"
    •    Infanticide is a cause of sin
    •    The Bible is really the written word of God
    •    God is the one who dispenses Justice
    •    God’s actions are only immoral to those who do not recognize God’s right to judge the people He created
    •    There is one correct interpretation of the Bible
    •    Nazi Germany, Revolutionary France, Slavery, etc rejected Western Civilization because they rejected the Bible
    •    Hindus hold to a fatalistic worldview
    •    Life is trivialized in these religions because of faith in reincarnation.
    •    etc.

CON has shown that PRO is violating his own rule against religious arguments to a considerable extent.

COUNTER 4.2
HUMANITY

COUNTER 4.2.1
INFANTICIDE

  • In R1, PRO suggested the absence of infanticide is one hallmark of human dignity.
    • By R3, PRO admitted that infanticide is practiced by every culture and denies ever suggesting infanticide demonstrates a lack of human dignity
    • In R4, returns to the notion that human dignity is what distinguishes Western Civilization from the rest of the world,
      • Secular professors acknowledge that the Western views of human dignity have a lot to do with the rise of the West and the stagnation of the rest of the world again, using infanticide in India as evidence
      • An example for the lack of human dignity in the 20th century can be found in India. Because parents must give a dowry when giving their daughter in marriage, many parent opt to starve any female child they have after the first one.
      • But we've already agreed that "every civilization has practiced it" [R3].0.
    • PRO's claim that child sacrifice, Greek infanticide, and abortion serve as evidence of cultures without a concept of human dignity is likewise disproved by PRO's admission in R3 that every civilization has practiced infanticide.
  • In R2, PRO argues that infanticide in unbiblical
    •  In COUNTER 1.2, CON replied with six examples of Biblical protagonists committing infanticid
    • Infanticide is quite biblical, often even just and right in PRO's view.
  • PRO dropped CON's argument that infanticide is more commonplace and accepted in the West if on considers the legalization of abortion
    • In spite PRO has failed to show that infanticide is less commonplace or less accepted in Western culture, irregardless of biblical influence
  • CON asked:
    • "Is PRO really suggesting that 80 million people switched off their biblically created humanity, reason, and innovation in 1933 and then switched their biblical influence back on in 1945 and so awoke anew their humanity, reason, and innovation?"
      • PRO ignored this question
    • "Isn't it more likely that human dignity, reason, and innovation are human traits, not created by the Bible or unique to Western Civilization but found in roughly equal measure in all human cultures, just as human cruelty, and slavery, and wanton destruction are also found in every human culture?"
      • PRO ignored this question
    • "Isn't it more likely that PRO only excludes the French Revolution and Nazi Germany from WESTERN CIVILIZATION because those events aren't consistent with PRO's own idea of what Biblical influence should look like?
  • Likewise, PRO has dropped any counter to the argument that the mass genocide and enslavement of many non-Western indigenous cultures during the age of Western colonization serves as evidence disproving the superior human dignity of WESTERN CIVILIZATION

COUNTER 4.2.1

  • PRO ignored CON's long lists in R3 of Greek and Roman influences and the overwhelming conventions of Western scholarship. 
    • While secular professors will say that Greeks were the originators of human dignity, this myth has been debunked by many historian
    • Thode, Sabatier, Ferguson, and Trinkhaus share a common view that Renaissance humanism was derived from the nominalist philosophies of 14th century Franciscan scholars.
      • Not one of these scholars held the view that Greco-Roman culture was therefore not a primary influence of Renaissance humanism.
      • Not one of these scholars held the view that Western Civilization begins with Renaissance humanism or denied Greece as the birthplace of Western Civilization.  PRO must offer specific quotes from scholars who argue that Greece was not the place of origin.
        • None of these four scholars support PRO's untenable position


COUNTER 4.3
RATIONALITY

  • PRO dropped:
    • PRO can't have it both ways.  Either Europe before 1500 was not WESTERN CIVILIZATION because it was pagan, cosmological, and fatalistic or it was Europe before 1500 was WESTERN CIVILIZATION and we are still waiting for PRO to explain when Europe became so.  PRO must explicitly state which is true and which false.
COUNTER 4.3.1

  • PRO dropped:
    • The Common man would not, could not read Wycliffe's translation and so PRO's starting point for WESTERN CIVILIZATION comes sometime after 1500, when the printing press made literacy commonplace.
COUNTER 4.3.2

  • PRO dropped CON's demonstration that Greek philosophy was alive and fully engaged by Rennaisance and Reformation thinkers.
COUNTER 4.4
TECHNOLOGY

  • CON argued in R2 that by any definition, human technology precedes the Bible.
    • PRO ignored
      • CON's argument that technology precedes even homo sapiens
      • Egyptian tech is clearly pre-biblical
      • Cain is using plows by page 2 of the bible, proving that technology precedes the bible
    • PRO ignored CON's objection to PRO's unreliable source material
SUMMARY 4

CON proceeds from the presumption that PRO is arguing in bad faith, with no honest intent to define his terms, particular WESTERN CIVILIZATION or to show evidence that WESTERN CIVILIZATION is in fact a far more recent phenomenon than modern scholars suppose.  Here at the end of R4, PRO has yet to offer a single piece of evidence supporting his assertion that the Bible created Western Civilization rather than the other way around.
































Round 5
Pro
#9
Forfeited
Con
#10
Thanks, BiiblicalChristian101

THBT: The BIBLE CREATED WESTERN CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY, RATIONALITY and TECHNOLOGY

OBJECTION: PRO has forfeited final round, dropping all of PRO's arguments

    •    "PRO must either concede this debate or else offer a definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION that matches his argument... Ultimately, PRO is trying to render his argument unfalsifiable by refusing to set any standards or benchmarks or terms of his own but only refusing standards and terms offered by CON, no matter how conventional."

  • PRO concedes CON definition of of WESTERN CIVILIZATION and so loses the debate.
  • WESTERN CIVILIZATION is defined as "most strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman cultures"
    • Ancient Greece, by definition, is the cradle of WESTERN CIVILIZATION:
      • "Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of many elements of Western culture, including the development of a democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science and mathematics. The expansion of Greek culture into the Hellenistic world of the eastern Mediterranean led to a synthesis between Greek and Near-Eastern cultures, and major advances in literature, engineering, and science, and provided the culture for the expansion of early Christianity and the Greek New Testament. "
    ▪    By any commonplace understanding of the term, WESTERN CIVILIZATION created the Bible not the other way around.  Greco-Roman culture wrote the New Testament and also transcribed, edited, and anthologized the Old Testament. Whatever definition of WESTERN CIVILIZATION PRO envisaged, that definition is far from the conventional use.  Whatever concept PRO was trying to describe (some sort of bible-centric, 19th century Lutheranish take on Humanism), that concept is not WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

CON 4.1

P1: An act cannot create its own precedent.
P2: Western Civilization is defined as originating in the 5th-century BC (Classical Greece) and conceptualized by Diocletian's division of Empire beginning in 285 CE
C1: Therefore, neither the printing of vernacular Bibles beginning in 1466 CE nor the Protestant Reformation beginning in 1517 CE can be properly understood
to have created a Western Civilization that began 2000 years prior

    •    By any commonplace understanding of the term, WESTERN CIVILIZATION created the Bible not the other way around.  Greco-Roman culture wrote the New Testament and also transcribed, edited, and anthologized the Old Testament.
    •    Without some sort of direct response, PRO effectively concedes the debate.

PRO has ignored both objections made by CON under CON1:

OBJECTION:  PRO still claims that all of CON's argument is irrelevant due to disclaimers in description but fails to identify the relevant disclaimer or explain how PRO's argument is invalid.

OBJECTION:  PRO still advises that he will argue some points (specifically, other pillars of WESTERN CIVILIZATION) in other debates but not this debate.  If more than humanity, rationality, and technology must be demonstrated to establish WESTERN CIVILIZATION then PRO must lay out all necessary components to prove his case.

COUNTER 4.1
DESCRIPTION
 
    •    PRO continues to insist that his argument is not religious while forwarding patently religious claims such as:
    •    The Catholic Church replaced God's authority
    •    Before 1500, Europe was Pagan, Greco-Roman, and/or Muslim but not really Christian (scare quotes indicate inauthenticity)
    •    While Buddhist monks begged for bread, Christian monks had to work for their bread
    •    The Hindus created a water carrying class to do that job convincing them that that was how to get to "Heaven"
    •    Infanticide is a cause of sin
    •    The Bible is really the written word of God
    •    God is the one who dispenses Justice
    •    God’s actions are only immoral to those who do not recognize God’s right to judge the people He created
    •    There is one correct interpretation of the Bible
    •    Nazi Germany, Revolutionary France, Slavery, etc rejected Western Civilization because they rejected the Bible
    •    Hindus hold to a fatalistic worldview
    •    Life is trivialized in these religions because of faith in reincarnation.
    •    etc.

CON has shown that PRO is violating his own rule against religious arguments to a considerable extent.

COUNTER 4.2
HUMANITY

COUNTER 4.2.1
INFANTICIDE

  • In R1, PRO suggested the absence of infanticide is one hallmark of human dignity.
      • But we've already agreed that "every civilization has practiced it" [R3].0.
    • PRO's claim that child sacrifice, Greek infanticide, and abortion serve as evidence of cultures without a concept of human dignity is likewise disproved by PRO's admission in R3 that every civilization has practiced infanticide.
  • In R2, PRO argues that infanticide in unbiblical
    •  PRO dropped CON's argument that infanticide is more commonplace and accepted in the West if one considers the legalization of abortion
  • CON asked:
    • "Is PRO really suggesting that 80 million people switched off their biblically created humanity, reason, and innovation in 1933 and then switched their biblical influence back on in 1945 and so awoke anew their humanity, reason, and innovation?"
      • PRO ignored this question
    • "Isn't it more likely that human dignity, reason, and innovation are human traits, not created by the Bible or unique to Western Civilization but found in roughly equal measure in all human cultures, just as human cruelty, and slavery, and wanton destruction are also found in every human culture?"
      • PRO ignored this question
    • "Isn't it more likely that PRO only excludes the French Revolution and Nazi Germany from WESTERN CIVILIZATION because those events aren't consistent with PRO's own idea of what Biblical influence should look like?
  • Likewise, PRO has dropped any counter to the argument that the mass genocide and enslavement of many non-Western indigenous cultures during the age of Western colonization serves as evidence disproving the superior human dignity of WESTERN CIVILIZATION

COUNTER 4.2.1

  • PRO ignored CON's long lists in R3 of Greek and Roman influences and the overwhelming conventions of Western scholarship. 
    • While secular professors will say that Greeks were the originators of human dignity, this myth has been debunked by many historian
    • Thode, Sabatier, Ferguson, and Trinkhaus share a common view that Renaissance humanism was derived from the nominalist philosophies of 14th century Franciscan scholars.  Not one of these scholars held the view that Western Civilization begins with Renaissance humanism or denied Greece as the birthplace of Western Civilization. 
        • None of these four scholars support PRO's untenable position


COUNTER 4.3
RATIONALITY

  • PRO dropped:
    • PRO can't have it both ways.  Either Europe before 1500 was not WESTERN CIVILIZATION because it was pagan, cosmological, and fatalistic or it was Europe before 1500 was WESTERN CIVILIZATION and we are still waiting for PRO to explain when Europe became so.  PRO must explicitly state which is true and which false.
COUNTER 4.3.1

  • PRO dropped:
    • The Common man would not, could not read Wycliffe's translation and so PRO's starting point for WESTERN CIVILIZATION comes sometime after 1500, when the printing press made literacy commonplace.
COUNTER 4.3.2

  • PRO dropped CON's demonstration that Greek philosophy was alive and fully engaged by Rennaisance and Reformation thinkers.
COUNTER 4.4
TECHNOLOGY

  • CON argued in R2 that by any definition, human technology precedes the Bible.
    • PRO ignored
      • CON's argument that technology precedes even homo sapiens
      • Egyptian tech is clearly pre-biblical
      • Cain is using plows by page 2 of the bible, proving that technology precedes the bible
    • PRO ignored CON's objection to PRO's unreliable source material
SUMMARY 4

Ultimately, this debate never got past definition of terms.  Western Civilization is a well-worn, well-defined concept that begins with Greek thought and is profoundly shaped by many diverse European traditions.  We can't pretend that Western Civilization begins with the Bible just because we like the Bible.  We can't pretend that 1500 years of Catholic dominion or Vulgate Bibles or the First French Republic or Nazi Germany are not Western Civilization just because we don't like those historic touchstones.

VOTERS should award arguments to CON.  PRO never engaged or explained his discordant notion of Western Civilization and dropped all of CON's arguments, eventually.  PRO's R4 is really just a re-iteration of R1 without any new elucidation or evidence.

Thanks to BiblicalChristian101 for the original topic.

Thanks to all voters for their kind consideration.

Please vote CON.