An interesting discussion, among hundreds of comments generated by yesterday’s encore of Moses Apostaticus’ excellent The Myth of Aboriginal Exceptionalism on The XYZ, centred on a criticism of the following line:
“Like all prehistoric groups, they lived their lives in constant fear of spiritual entities.”
The criticism essentially boiled down to; just like Christians.
This provoked an excellent rebuttal, and Quote of the Day, from an XYZ reader:
I guess the difference is that Christian religion is the very foundation that civilisation is built on. Every single thing that makes our lives what they are today is built on that foundation. Dreamtime led to no advances in their civilisation at all. If anything it kept them trapped in fear of spiritual entities while the Christian societies were out inventing, exploring and creating. The myth that they were a perfect society living in harmony with nature and themselves is based not on fact but on what the social engineers of today want us to believe. They were so backward that they now have to invent culture and traditions for them, like welcome to country ceremonies and probably the biggest problem faced by Aborigines today is the industry created by the SJW’s that focuses more on lining their own pockets and political careers rather than offering real help and solutions to the Aborigines.
As an attempted argument against this, the existence of pre-Christian civilisation was noted. Although true, it ignores the point that our current civilisation is based on Christianity.
If not for Christianity, much of the knowledge of pre-Christian civilisations would have been lost. Christianity’s concept of a God who is three people predisposes the Western mind to acceptance of plurality. The importance of free choice, giving humans the ability to either accept God or reject God, fosters the ethos of individualism and personal responsibility. The concept of a God who lives inside us and watches us and judges us is an excellent model for developing self-regulating indivuals, lessening the need for excessive government control.
All these factors contributed to the free market and open societies which encouraged scientific advances and enterprising explorers who would conquer the world.
One may point to ancient Confucian Chinese civilisation, yet European civilisation was able to nosedive, then skyrocket past it. The advances we are seeing today in the East are a result of European, Christian civilisation.
There is no comparison between Christian culture and Dreamtime culture. The former built greatness. The latter left nothing but bush.
