Well if it fails to follow the traditions and convention it has in the past it ceases to be Western civilisation - espercially when what it embraces is totally the opposite to what Western civ. is. Or to explore another avenue you believe that the current "progressive" agenda of homsexual marrriages, abortions and social "liberalism" is the future of mankind and that eventually eveybody will employ it (which in my view is boulderdash!) and will only lead to the West's demise and Muslim and Chinese civilisation to take our power. Today's modern social liberalism will only last a generation because it demands the destruction of traditional christianity - once you rip out the soul of the West Islam will come rushing in too fill it up.
I'm not sure why you would use a "crazy face" to punctuate what you said. Unless you believe your sentance is mental (which i do) it suggests that I'm crazy. But I do think that if Western Civilisation remains Western Civilisation it's the same and it is ok, but if it changes to something utterly opposite and outisde of its tradition than it fails to be Western civ and i think that is quite reasonable.
Well, I can't believe I'm commenting on this, and I know it won't do any good. But still.
First, to identify Christianity with "western civilisation" is absurd. Christianity is a Middle Eastern religion. The cultural baggage that you seem to associate with Christianity, such as the attitudes to marriage and sexuality that you defend, don't come from Christianity at all. They developed over a long period within society in general. Only relatively recently have they become associated with Christianity, but in fact there's not much connection.
The whole marriage thing is a good example of this. The church didn't have much of an attitude to marriage at all until the Middle Ages. It wasn't bothered if people lived together without being married. It didn't regard marriage as much of the business of the church. Often, marriages would be "saved up", and once a year the bishop would come round, give a general sort of blessing to all the couples who were currently living together, and they would regard themselves as married. The marriage ceremony was regarded not as creating a new state, but as recognising a state that already existed. Now in the later Middle Ages the idea developed that marriage was a sacrament and that by performing the ceremony, the church actually
did something and changed the status of the couple. So marriage became more important from a religious point of view.
On the question of homosexuality, it may interest you to know that until modern times Christianity had virtually nothing to say about it. It just wasn't a topic of interest. In the entire European Middle Ages, do you know how many books were written about homosexuality? Answer:
one. That is the
Liber Gomorrhianus by Peter Damian. And that book is entirely about homosexuality among monks (which Peter Damian thought A Very Bad Thing) - it doesn't say anything about homosexuality in general or even condemn it, at least not explicitly.
So to make out that to adopt a liberal attitude towards homosexuality is intrinsically unchristian or involves abandoning Christian principles is quite, quite wrong. In modern times,
some Christians have become very anti-gay, but at the same time, plenty of others are highly liberal when it comes to gay rights. If you'd ever spent any time in the diocese of London (or the diocese of Southwark!) you wouldn't think that toleration of homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity. Most of the priests I've met in those two dioceses are not only gay but cheerfully working their way through the Old Compton Street scene on an almost nightly basis.
The only reason why people outside the church think that Christians are all anti-gay is that the anti-gay Christians are, unfortunately, the ones who make the loudest noise - i.e. the evangelicals and fundamentalists.
Now if you think that allowing gay rights and gay marriage involves dismantling Christianity or abandoning it, then quite frankly you have simply been duped by the evangelicals and fundamentalists. That is not what Christianity is about. Christianity has changed enormously over history - it has always changed enormously in every culture it has become part of, and it will always change. It is what is sometimes called a "translating" religion, meaning that it takes different forms in different cultures and adapts to cultures, rather than trying to change cultures that it joins (usually). Western culture, like all culture, changes greatly over time too. Christianity changes to match it. What generally happens is this. Society develops some particular value. Christianity adopts that value too. People come to think that the value in question is part of Christianity. When the value is challenged, people view it as a challenge to Christianity.
Again an example: as I said, in the Middle Ages, and also in early modern times, Christianity wasn't much bothered by people living together outside marriage. In the later part of the early modern period (i.e. late eighteenth century and nineteenth century), society came to reject cohabitation of this kind. It went against the values that were accepted in society. That happened as a result of various factors. And people came to associate these values with Christianity. To live together outside marriage was not simply socially taboo - it was unchristian. Today, cohabitation of this kind is far more accepted. Society has changed. But many social conservatives think that it's unchristian. Of course it's not. It's only unchristian by the standards of Victorian Christianity - but those aren't the standards of Christianity in general!
It sounds to me like you're making the same error. Western society used to be highly prejudiced against homosexuality. (And it seems that parts of it still are.) People associated this attitude with Christianity and thought that to be a good Christian you needed to be anti-gay. Today, society has changed and homosexuality is much more tolerated. People mistakenly think that this represents a secularisation of society or an abandoning of Christian values. But of course it doesn't - exactly the same change of values has happened in the church!
The point of all this is: be anti-gay if you must (it's impossible to argue someone out of a prejudice, because by its very nature it is irrational and not amenable to argument), but don't blame it on the Christians.
