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The name came out the the desire to unite catholic and protestant groups after WWII in a centre party. They've been open to non-christians since inception, and
The name came out the the desire to unite catholic and protestant groups after WWII in a centre party. They've been open to non-christians since inception, and they decided to keep the "Christian" in the name to emphasize their concern over the Christian image of man, from which they derive their view that human dignity is worthy of protection as it is given by God.
They do seem conservative by comparison to their main opponent party, the SPD, which has Marxist roots, but compared to say US politics, they would be considered moderates. In that sense, it's disingenuous to take them out of the German political spectrum (which is much more moderate than the US), and judge them by name alone.
She's certainly not a bible thumping Christian denying global warming. [0]
[0][http://www.environmental-watch.com/profiles/angela-merkel/ http://www.environmental-watch.com/profiles/angela-merkel/]
Well, her opinion on gay marriage (not compatible with her opinions about the traditional definition of marriage) shows that she is definitely quite conservative.
> they derive their view that human dignity is worthy of protection as it is given by God
q.e.d.
> compared to say US politics, they would be considered moderates
compared to the US politics, probably all german parties are considered moderates
Till the AfD showed up, CDU/CSU were the most conservative parties (besides some really small ones that never got over 5% of the votes) in Germany.
> She's certainly not a bible thumping Christian denying global warming
That's true, but there don't seem to be much countries in the world, besides the US, where you could get voters which such comments...
My point was just, that the parent poster quoted this text, that made the impression Germany is so advanced that we even have a physicist as Chancellor, while Merkel in fact is a member of a christian party.
I don't know how having a chancellor who is member of a party bearing the word christianity in it's name makes a country more or less "advanced".
She is a physicist though, which reminds me of one "controversial" statement she made in an interview.
Essentially, the interviewer asked her what she liked most about her job as Chancellor, to which she replied "I like that there's interesting new problems every day", which her critics jumped on almost immediately.
Now the thing is, she almost certainly meant that in the way a scientist talks about "problems", but it wasn't interpreted that way by political commentators.
I'm honestly not too concerned about there being a CDU instead of there being just a DU, as long as they're not pushing the Christian angle too strongly. As long as their policy is sound, they could be the Pastafari Democratic Union for all I care. Maybe the Pirate Party will step up to that role, becoming the PPP, which would net them my vote.
> > they derive their view that human dignity is worthy of protection as it is given by God
> q.e.d.
Why would you use q.e.d. with out a reference. I know I am strange in that I studied Greek and know a decent amount of Latin but how were you using q.e.d.?
Also can we please not lump ALL Christians into the same boat it feels kind of like calling all Muslims terrorist. For Global warming the Bible is very clear that we are to protect the Earth which many Bible Global Warming protesters claim to upheld.
"...quod erat demonstrandum, meaning "which is what had to be proven". The phrase is traditionally placed in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument when what was specified in the enunciation—and in the setting-out—has been exactly restated as the conclusion of the demonstration." from Wikipedia[0].
I've seen this kind of answer between computer engineering/sciences people as some sort of "you haven't explained anything" response, though in a more thorough reading of OP and response, I can't really say what was the intention. The downvotes on the response would seem to support that interpretation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D.
> the Bible is very clear
Well, that's just the problem, isn't it? The Bible is always very clear that I'm right and you're wrong.
The traditionalist horror at postmodernism and poststructuralism is that they give the game away: They admit outright what the religious have always done sub rosa, that the meaning of a text is determined by its interpretive context and therefore all religious interpretations, like all artistic interpretations in general, are equally valid.
> The Bible is always very clear that I'm right and you're wrong.
I have studied the Bible and other world religions for over a decade in higher education. Have multiple years of Greek and Hebrew education, and includes Aramaic, and Latin. I can tell you MOST people don't really care what the Bible says and most just care of how thy feel and/or think. Most things in history of Christianity have very little to do with what the Bible says. (I was working on a PhD in Historical Theology which is the nerdiest of focuses when it comes to Theology.
If people ever want to have a discussion and are Christians it is hysterical to me to talk scripture with them and realize they will just twist something out of the air and consider themselves proven. In the exact terms of "Global Warming" which I was speaking about there are zero scriptures that supports the idea that it doesn't matter what people do or don't do with global warming but for those working to protect the earth it is in the Bible. So the funny thing is that these Christians are so strongly opposed to the science of Global Warming against the Bible they claim they are fighting scientist for.
> that made the impression Germany is so advanced that we even have a physicist as Chancellor, while Merkel in fact is a member of a christian party.
Christians can't be physicists? Someone tell Newton, Leibniz, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin...
> human dignity is worthy of protection as it is given by God.
Except if those humans are gay, or Turkish, or Muslim...
> Why would you use q.e.d. with out a reference. I know I am strange in that I studied Greek and know a decent amount of Latin but how were you using q.e.d.?
The claim was that the CDU is somehow christian. The argument against that was that they aren't actually christian, but that they rather get inspiration for their politics from christian theology.
Now, if your opponent presents an argument for your position as if it were for their own, there isn't really any need to restate that argument, you can simply point out that your position has been demonstrated.
> Also can we please not lump ALL Christians into the same boat it feels kind of like calling all Muslims terrorist. For Global warming the Bible is very clear that we are to protect the Earth which many Bible Global Warming protesters claim to upheld.
The problem with christianity (or any religion, for that matter) is that it tends to encourage people to believe things for bad reasons. Now, there might be christians who don't, but that doesn't change that a vast majority of them do. Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable to lump them all together, at least in this regard, when making general statements. The problem is not whether some christians believe that the bible clearly tells them to protect the earth (while other christians ironically equally fervently believe that the bible clearly tells them that they don't need to do anything because god will take care of it), it's that they think that the bible telling them something is a good reason to act accordingly. That is an irresponsible method for trying to obtain knowledge, and it's outright dangerous when other people are affected by the results.
If I feed a starving child because my horoscope told me that I should, then the fact that feeding a starving child is good does not change the fact that the reason why I do it is still bad, and that acting according to astrological advice is not a reliable way to do good, and might well lead to bad consequences in other cases.
> The problem with christianity (or any religion, for that matter) is that it tends to encourage people to believe things for bad reasons.
>...acting according to astrological advice is not a reliable way to do good, and might well lead to bad consequences in other cases.
Something needs to inform your knowledge of what is 'good' and what is 'bad'. Why do you take feeding a starving child as a good? It's likely that you've internalized a morality and ethics from your culture that tells you so. So what makes the externalized (religion) more wrong than the internalized (culture)?
Culture is as useless as an authoritative basis for ethics as is religion (plus, I would tend to consider religion a form of culture). That is to say: Yes, my ethics certainly are influenced by culture (and probably even by religion, even though I am not religious, simply due to religion's influence on culture in general), but if someone were to challenge the ethics of some action of mine, "because my culture says so!" is as bad a defense of my position as "because my holy book says so!"
Culture, if anything, is a shortcut for learning about ethical behaviour from others, just as school is a shortcut for learning about, I dunno, the mechanics of rigid bodies from others, but whether what we learn from either of those sources is (tentatively) correct can be determined only by observation of reality/by experiment.
If you think that ethics is something that needs to somehow be provided by someone rather than a property of reality that is to be discovered, that is already a religious presupposition. Sensible ethics are utilitarian/consequentialist: You look at what causes harm and what avoids harm to build an understanding of ethical behaviour. It's not much different from what we do to figure out what is healthy: There is no source of health rules with a book that is not to be questioned, but you look at what causes harm and what avoids harm, and that then is what we label as "healthy" or "unhealthy".
q.e.d. means in Latin quod erat demonstrandum, meaning "which is what had to be proven". q.e.d. is used at the end of Philosophy (I was a Theology Student) arguments and in science. It seemed strange to see that used here on Hacker News and I have no idea what you were trying to say. I am asking what did you mean by q.e.d.?
>The problem with christianity (or any religion, for that matter) is that it tends to encourage people to believe things for bad reasons.
You have a strong bias against religion without data. To me it just seems that you really don't care about religion and your reflecting your negative feelings on a subject and building a straw-man out of it. The vast majority of the world and almost every person of historical significance were religious. This idea that religious people are lesser and clearly not enlightened isn't very different then racism.
> bible clearly tells them that they don't need to do anything because god will take care of it.
There is no reference in the Bible for that and it isn't the basis of people's belief why they are against Global Warming (It is based on Conservative Pro-Business politics and not religion (In the US that is they identify as Republicans as they believe all good God Fearing Christians belong :( ) http://www.ibtimes.com/what-do-christians-have-against-climate-science-410202 http://www.ibtimes.com/what-do-christians-have-against-clima...
I think q.e.d. used in this sense means "look at me I'm smart."
> I am asking what did you mean by q.e.d.?
I didn't mean anything by it, that comment wasn't mine. But the comment used it exactly as you defined it: 50CNT tried to show that the CDU is not christian by mentioning that they follow christian doctrine. Given that that is actually an argument for the position that the CDU is in fact christian, there is no need to provide any further arguments, k__ simply concluded: QED.
> You have a strong bias against religion without data.
How do you know what data I have?
> To me it just seems that you really don't care about religion and your reflecting your negative feelings on a subject and building a straw-man out of it.
Well, I can assure you that you are mistaken.
> The vast majority of the world and almost every person of historical significance were religious.
Your point being?
> This idea that religious people are lesser and clearly not enlightened isn't very different then racism.
Could you please show where I made any such claim? Or was that an attempt to build a strawman argument?
> There is no reference in the Bible for that and it isn't the basis of people's belief why they are against Global Warming (It is based on Conservative Pro-Business politics and not religion (In the US that is they identify as Republicans as they believe all good God Fearing Christians belong :( ) http://www.ibtimes.com/what-do-christians-have-against-clima.. http://www.ibtimes.com/what-do-christians-have-against-clima....
You missed the point: I don't care what the bible says on the topic (nor what specifically you think it says), but I notice that others care and try to justify their actions on that basis, which is irresponsible, as nobody has demonstrated that that is a way to obtain reliable knowledge about the world (plus there are plenty of examples to the contrary). That people claim equally loudly completely contradictory conclusions from their respective reading of the bible just is further evidence that it might not be that reliable a source of information.
A majority of Americans believe that aliens have visited earth and that the government is hiding evidence of UFOs. By your logic I should conclude that all Americans are stupid, which wouldn't be that extreme, given the popularity of Donald Trump. I then could come up with a rhetoric that it's irresponsible to let americans go to vote. But all of that wouldn't be fair now, would it?
> If I feed a starving child because my horoscope told me ...
In our times astrology is nothing more than a fun conversation piece. I do wonder what your definition for "good" and "bad" is.
> A majority of Americans believe that aliens have visited earth and that the government is hiding evidence of UFOs. By your logic I should conclude that all Americans are stupid, which wouldn't be that extreme, given the popularity of Donald Trump. I then could come up with a rhetoric that it's irresponsible to let americans go to vote. But all of that wouldn't be fair now, would it?
What's your point?
You have straw-manned my argument quite a bit, but let's ignore that for the moment ...
If, say, electing Donald Trump for president were to lead to world-wide nuclear war, and people were to vote for him, how would it not be irresponsible to let americans vote on that if you had any chance to prevent it? Also, how does fairness get into this? How does the fairness of a decision-making process change anything about the consequences of any given decision and that it is irresponsible to not prevent harm that you easily could prevent.
> In our times astrology is nothing more than a fun conversation piece.
For one, that's not actually true. But more importantly: Why is the same not at least mostly true for christianity, islam, judaism, hinduism, ... ?
> I do wonder what your definition for "good" and "bad" is.
The short version: Good is what reduces harm, bad is what increases harm.
Now, I wonder what your definition is if it doesn't agree with mine, at least roughly.
Where does your conclusion stem from? I haven't been aware of the German government discriminating against these groups, nor of the CDU proposing laws to do so.
One issue I can think of is same-sex marriage, but there's laws enabling same-sex couples to get into a "Lebenspartnerschaft", which is functionally equivalent to a marriage. There is some areas where things differ, like certain clauses in the explosive ordinance regulations, criminal rehabilitation law and census regulations. Granted, it doesn't say marriage, but it's close.
Regarding the legal treatment of Muslims in Germany, there seems to be two issues. One being head-scarves, the other circumcision. On the former, the German constitutional court ruled in January 2015 that a general ban in schools is unconstitutional. The latter, the state court in Cologne ruled as grievous harm, but this was later overturned by a law passed by the Bundestag.
Really, the spirit of the formulation the CDU used does not specify which God. Even taking it in bad faith, one has to remember that Islam and Christianity are both abrahamic religions, so they share the same god, which makes it doubly moot.
There are legitimate issues to be talked about in this context, from integration of immigrants to a growing anti-islamic sentiment in Germany and the rest of Europe.