No, it was from a hostile pseudo-Christian point of view.
"I said the ancient Greeks whom you prefer to western Christians didn't have a problem with child sexual abuse ..... or infanticide or slavery."
I prefer what I have now to ancient Greeks or western/eastern Christians.
That's your personal choice, but the issue isn't what you want for yourself but what you want for others. You're not cluttering up the net with attacks on Christians and Christianity for yourself. You can be as atheist as you wanna be and no one will stop you. Nobody is dragging you to church, etc.
Christians exceed Greeks in child sexual abuse, infanticide and slavery. Infanticide in ancient Greece was limited to malformed babies etc. where in Christian countries it is a matter of convenience.
You're wrong about that:
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The influence of pederasty was so pervasive that it has been called "the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens." [7] Scholars have debated the role or extent of sexual activity, which is likely to have varied according to local custom and individual inclination. [8] The English word " pederasty" in present-day usage implies the abuse of minors, but Athenian law, for instance, does not recognize consent and age as factors in regulating sexual behavior. [9
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The erastes-eromenos relationship played a role in the Classical Greek social and educational system, had its own complex social-sexual etiquette and was an important social institution among the upper classes. [30] Pederasty has been understood as educative, [31] and Greek authors from Aristophanes to Pindar felt it naturally present in the context of aristocratic education ( paideia). [32] In general, pederasty as described in the Greek literary sources is an institution reserved for free citizens, perhaps to be regarded as a dyadic mentorship: "pederasty was widely accepted in Greece as part of a male's coming-of-age, even if its function is still widely debated." [33]
In Crete, in order for the suitor to carry out the ritual abduction, the father had to approve him as worthy of the honor. Among the Athenians, as Socrates claims in Xenophon's Symposium, "Nothing [of what concerns the boy] is kept hidden from the father, by an ideal [34] lover." [35] In order to protect their sons from inappropriate attempts at seduction, fathers appointed slaves called pedagogues to watch over their sons. However, according to Aeschines, Athenian fathers would pray that their sons would be handsome and attractive, with the full knowledge that they would then attract the attention of men and "be the objects of fights because of erotic passions." [36]
The age-range when boys entered into such relationships was consonant with that of Greek girls given in marriage, often to adult husbands many years their senior. Boys, however, usually had to be courted and were free to choose their mate, while marriages for girls were arranged for economic and political advantage at the discretion of father and suitor. [37] These connections were also an advantage for a youth and his family, as the relationship with an influential older man resulted in an expanded social network
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Typically, after their sexual relationship had ended and the young man had married, the older man and his protégé would remain on close terms throughout their life. For those lovers who continued their lovemaking after their beloveds had matured, the Greeks made allowances, saying, You can lift up a bull, if you carried the calf. [38]
Pederasty was the idealized form of an age-structured homoeroticism that had other, less idealized manifestations, such as prostitution or the sexual use of slave boys. Paying free youths for sex was prohibited. Free youths who did sell their favors were ridiculed, and later in life might be prohibited from performing certain official functions.
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The myth of Ganymede's abduction by Zeus was invoked as a precedent for the pederastic relationship, as Theognis asserts to a friend:
There is some pleasure in loving a boy (paidophilein), since once in fact even the son of Cronus (that is, Zeus), king of immortals, fell in love with Ganymede, seized him, carried him off to Olympus, and made him divine, keeping the lovely bloom of boyhood (paideia). So, don't be astonished, Simonides, that I too have been revealed as captivated by love for a handsome boy. [66]
Greek myths provide more than fifty examples of young men who were the lovers of gods. Pederastic love affairs are ascribed to Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Orpheus, Hercules, Dionysus, Hermes, and Pan. All the Olympian gods except Ares[ citation needed] had these relationships, which are adduced by scholars to show that the specific customs of paiderastia originated in initiatory rituals. [67]
Dover, however, believed that these myths are only literary versions expressing or explaining the "overt" homosexuality of Greek archaic culture, the distinctiveness of which he contrasted to attitudes in other ancient societies such as Egypt and Israel. [68]
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en.wikipedia.org
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"Infanticide was infamously universal" in ancient Greece and Rome. Frederic Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity, page 71. As Will Durant stated, infanticide was so common in ancient Rome that "birth itself was an adventure." Caesar and Christ, page 56. Indeed, so common was infanticide in ancient Greece that Polybius (205-118 BCE) blamed the decline of ancient Greece on it. (Histories, 6). It was "decimating pagan society," Durant, op. cit., 698, and was the leading cause of the tremendous gender gap of men to women in the ancient world. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, pages 97-98. Female infants were particularly vulnerable to infanticide. It was very uncommon for even wealthy, upper-class families to have more than one daughter in ancient Greece and Rome. An inscription found in Delphi illustrates this quite well. Of more than 600 second-century families, only one percent had raised two daughters. Susan Scrimshaw, "Infanticide in Human Populations: Societal and Individual Concerns," in Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, eds. Glenn Hausfater and Sarah Hardy, page 439. In sum, there is no dispute among historians and informed laypersons: Infanticide was incredibly widespread in the ancient pagan world. But what is most chilling is that it was openly practiced. Pagan society approved of the practice and encouraged it. "Not only was the exposure of infants a very common practice, it was justified by law and advocated by philosophers." Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, page 118. See also Durant, op. cit., page 56. In Greece and ancient Rome a child was virtually its father's chattel-e.g., in Roman law, the Patria Protestas granted the father the right to dispose of his offspring as he saw fit. In Sparta, the decision was made by a public official. The Twelve Tables of Roman Law held: "Deformed infants shall be killed" De Legibus, 3.8. Of course, deformed was broadly construed and often meant no more than the baby appeared "weakly." The Twelve Tables also explicitly permitted a father to expose any female infant. Stark, op. cit., page 118. Leading pagan leaders and philosophers also encouraged the practice. Cicero defended infanticide by referring to the Twelve Tables. Plato and Aristotle recommended infanticide as legitimate state policy. Cornelius Tacitus went so far as to condemn the Jews for their opposition to infanticide. He stated that the Jewish view that "it was a deadly sin to kill an unwanted child" was just another of the many "sinister and revolting practices" of the Jews. Histories 5.5. Even Seneca, otherwise known for his relatively high moral standards, stated, "we drown children at birth who are weakly and abnormal." De Ira 1.15. A chilling letter from a pagan husband to his wife captures the casual nature of this practice among the pagans: "Know that I am still in Alexandria.... I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I received payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered (before I come home), if it is a boy keep it, if a girl, discard it." Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule, page 54.
According to Stark, "this letter dates from the year 1 BCE, but these patterns persisted among pagans far into the Christian era." Stark, op. cit., page 97-98.
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christiancadre.org
... in Christian countries it is a matter of convenience.
It is NOT Christianity that has made it a matter of convenience, but the influence of non- and/or anti-Christian elements as you well know. |
