I can’t agree with your statement about Christianity being more popular among the Roman lower classes. Rome was thoroughly Christian by the time of its fall. Indeed the last Roman officials in any province were the Bishops, who were usually aristocrats. Sidonius Appollinaris is a good example of this phenomena, a person of senatorial rank, taking religious orders in order to maintain civil society and negotiate on behalf of the Roman community with the barbarians. Remember also that the barbarians who took power from Rome were themselves Christians. It was the second wave barbarians such as the Franks and Saxons who needed conversion.

I recommend “The Inheritance of Rome” by Chris Wickham as further reading on this era. It’s a magisterial review of the period between 400-1000AD.

(1). The age of consent in the Netherlands in 16 – not 12. And, according to Reuters, when the “Charity, Freedom and Diversity” party called for reducing it from 16 to 12, Geert Wilders “asked the government to investigate whether a party with such ‘sick ideas’ could really be established.”

(2). According to Wikipedia, Wilders’ “Party for Freedom” calls for “a far stricter policy toward recreational drug use.”

So why is Lindsay making this stuff up and spreading it all over the internet? This post of his is a more or less verbatim reprint of a comment that he posted to several blogs back in February – so he’s had plenty of time to find out the truth about these things.

Apparently he’s just not interested. Why not?

By “Germanization” I was referring to German Christianity. When Christianity was first brought the the Germanic tribes the religion was adapted to better fit them.

Before this Christianity was most popular with the lower classes in the Roman empire, these people were attracted by the promise of paradise after death.

The German outlook on the other hand was much different, being centered around the family and the tribe the Germans didn’t really feel that they needed to be saved. This lead to Christianity taking up some of those German values. An excellent book on the subject is “The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity” by James Russell.

I think my approach to egalitarianism is slightly Nietzschean, although with some major differences. Egalitarianism destroys any sort of group identification, if we are all the same than there is no reason to identify with a group beyond economic interest. So, we can see that egalitarianism attacks society at its roots: the connections that bind people together.

Egalitarianism also attacks traditional sources of social order such as religion and the family by delegitimizing their claims to authority. So, we are left with nothing but disconnected individuals who have no groups to identify with and no authorities to look to for guidance. I think this leads to a world-rejecting view or “slave morality” that Nietzsche warned of.

When people lose any group identity, they are more likely to reject virtue and the advancement of something greater than themselves and instead seek wealth and pleasure. This destruction of society also leaves people open to the depredations of the state and large corporations leading to the economism we see today.

Such opinions and anti-Christian and anti-Jewish videos do in fact exist, but they are not promoted by leading politicians targeting a whole segment of society.

And Ruben, you believe the Quran has evolved into “a book of conquest, based on an individual perception of God”. So has the Bible for many Christians. That is the theocon-neocon nightmare we have in the US with these fake Christians like Rev. Hagee who want to use US military might to force God’s hand in the End Times.

There may be Muslim immigrants INVITED by liberal Western elites in Europe and North America, but the Moors are out of Spain, the Ottomans are out of Bulgaria and Greece … where is the American military? Which countries issue the most threats? Is Iran threatening to fire missiles at the US and instigating covert terrorist operations there or is the US threatening Iran and are they not funding a Sunni organisation to bomb their generals?

Who are the most serious aggressors in the world and what religious views, IF ANY, do they hold?

I am not sure what you mean by the Germanized faith of our ancestors. If I were to use the term, I would be referring to the Lutherans, and maybe, to the Calvinists. Modern Christianity in the US is probably rather far from original Christianity with the rising prominence of charismatic and non-denominational megachurches emphasising outward displays of emotion and easy salvation.
And unless you are arguing that after the demise of feudalism, people lost their sense of purpose leading to loss of moral compass, I still do not understand how egalitarianism is the direct cause of hedonism. I agree people are not equal in ability or circumstance from birth, and this is partly uncorrectable. I might also see how democracy, or at least the propaganda of democratic values, could be harmful. Perhaps you could expand your argument? I might agree with part of it.

iMac,

While there may be other readers here who are okay with Wilder, I do not think your arguments will be helpful. So his party has moved to a populist position on pensions? Fine, so have all the other right-wing nationalist parties. But you want sympathy because it is a liberal party defending homosexuals and feminists?

The Netherlands doesn’t have a president. And PVV lost the Euro elections anyway to the Christian Democrats.

Glad to be Dutch.

As to egalitarianism, I would say that it leads to individualism and hedonism. By rejecting any differences among people, egalitarians turn us all into faceless economic units with no real value or purpose. These consequence of the egalitarian philosophy eventually lead to the moral decay we see today.

The egalitarians have removed all traditional sources of authority leading to an aimless pursuit of pleasure. This didn’t happen in the middle ages, because when our ancestors were made to accept Christianity they didn’t just completely leave the old ways behind. Instead they brought their cultural predispositions with them fundamentally changing the nature of christianity. That being said, I think modern Christianity is much closer to the original Christianity than the Germanized faith of our ancestors.

I do not see how you can blame egalitarianism for the wider decline in the moral structure of the West, as you put it. There is nothing in the egalitarian doctrine that specifically encourages moral degeneracy (maybe political degeneracy, but that is another topic). Undoubtedly, extreme individualism and hedonism have been the problem. I suspect part of the blame for this can be put upon the neo-Americanism that emerged during the Cold War, redefining the US as a country unlike others, without any nationhood, as a political credal nation that stands tall in opposition to fascism and communism.
If you define the essence of your nation as, above all, being against authoritarian/totalitarian systems, can you be surprised if you end up with the 1960s? Where are the ex-60s hippies today? Are they socialists primarily or extreme liberals, emphasising cultural tolerance and decadence? This is mostly true even for those who were extreme socialists at some point.
As for Alain de Benoist, I do not think he is relevant to social liberalism. As far as I know his work, he is not terribly liberal in any realm, even if he subscribes to neopaganism (in a fully detached, intellectual manner). Why is he anti-Christian anyway? Because he says Christianity promotes egalitarianism, leading to Marxism, etc. (i.e., EXACTLY agreeing with you concerning the source of our moral decline). And the man was never influential in party politics anyway. He thinks Le Pen is a cretin and the latter suspects his paganism and cosmopolitanism.
In fact, Christianity (not Calvinism, but that is not orthodox Christianity) is revolutionarily democratic/egalitarian in the history of world religion. (Unlike Judaism or Hinduism, anyone of any class or race can join, and anyone can choose to be saved.) But this did not lead to moral havoc throughout the Middle Ages.