And the 'hits' just keep on comin'... the latest one from the U of Iowa:
www.onenewsnow.com/2007/05/tenure_denial_of_astronomer_bl.php
That crashing sound you heard was the last shred of the Scientific Establishment's credibility going out the window!
This is becoming a bad joke...
"One leading intelligent design think tank believes the educator is being punished for his opposition to Darwinian evolution..."   DO YOU THINK???

"And please, SJ, give me a break from your tactic #5"

No, sorry.  It isn't a tactic, my friend.  You can't honestly reject something that you know nothing about.  *shrug* welcome to the real world.

"You admit it yourself:"

I was arguing reductio ad absurdum.  I guess you didn't get it as you immediately exempted yourself from your own principle.

Quote
If you were born in Pakistan, you'd be a muslim.

"suggesting that Atheism is weakened by the geographic nature of religion, is bogus and void"

My suggestion is merely that factors like geography are just that- factors. 

"atheism is not learned, it's how we start before we are told fairystories by our parents based on their geographically aquired beliefs."

That's actually not true.  We can return to Dawkins's God Delusion.   I'd suggest his 'The Roots of Religion' from pages 174-181.  In particular, he marshals a number of scientists (here referring to his sub-section 'Psychologically Primed for Religion) who dwell on the fact that children actually are more prone to be religious- dualists as one general example, creationists in one particular example (pg 180).   This fact is something that Christians and religious people have always pointed out.  The real truth is is that religion is something that has to be stomped out of a person, either by others or by himself. 

I can remember as early as 1994 discussing this topic with atheists and having them mock me for it.  What has changed?  Well, nothing about children and people, that's for sure.  What has changed is that now the evolutionary atheists have what they think is a plausible explanation for this phenonema that at the same time denies any chance of veracity of our inclination to 'dualism.'  This is the notion of 'religion as a by-product of something else' and performs the neat trick of letting Dawkins take the high points of religion but without the implications if they are true.  Some quotes:

"Like most scientists, I am not a dualist, but I am nevertheless easily capable of enjoying "Vice Versa" and "Laughing Gas."  Paul Bloom would say this is because, even though I have learned to be an intellectual monist, I am a human animal and therefore evolved as an instinctive dualist.  The idea that there is a ME perched somewhere behind my eyes and capable, at least in fiction, of migrating into somebody else's head, is deeply ingrained in me and in every other human being, whatever our intellectual pretensions to monism.   Bloom supports his contention with experimental evidence that children are even more likely to be dualists than adults are, especially extremely young children.  This suggests that a tendency to dualism is built into the brain and, according to Bloom, provides a natural predisposition to embrace religious ideas.  Bloom also suggests that we are innately predisposed to be creationists."  pg 180  The italicis and bolding are mine.

It's refreshing to finally have some atheists agreeing to what has basically been acknowledged by anyone with a half a brain for the entirety of human history, and is precisely why 95% of the human race is religious in some sense.  Dawkins needed 'experimental evidence' for what everyone with half a brain already knew- and which he could detect within himself in his own experience of reality.  No, atheism is definitely LEARNED.  Dawkins's says that he himself learned to be a 'monist' which is definitely a materialistic and reductionist and therefore atheistic point of view.

You'll pardon me for formulating my worldview based on the way my nature really is.  I'm not going to be caught chalking up my overpowering instinctive inclinations to be 'religious' to evolutionary traits just so that I can keep my inclinations but deny the implications.  It is not reasonable to deny your own experience of reality in developing your worldview concerning reality.

Anyway, some more quotes:

"My specific hypothesis is about children.... [] trust your elders without question.  This is a generally valuable rule for a child.  But, as with moths, it can go wrong." pg 174

"Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them.  Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival..." pg 176

"They psychologist Paul Bloom, another advocate of the 'religion is a by-product' view, points out that children have a natural tendency towards a dualistic theory of mind.  Religion, fo rhim, is a by-product of such instinctive dualism.  We humans, he suggests, and especially children, are natural born dualists." pg 179

So you see, you're wrong and uninformed.  I doubt you're as smart as Richard Dawkins.  He's smarter than you, and a scientist, so he must be right, and as a free thinker you must conform yourself to what he says.  There is experimental evidence directly defying your assertions.  Can we expect a change in position from you anytime soon?  heh who we fooling

Your attempt to dismiss religions as inherently false because if you lived somewhere else you'd believe something else is fundamentally flawed.  Certainly, where there are mutually exclusive propositions at work they can't all be right and it is certainly the case that where you are born can dictate which ones you choose.  But just because it can doesn't mean it always does.

You grew up in the same country as I did, yet you are an atheist and I am not.  This by itself disproves your premise.  Nor did I grow up in a fundamentalist family, or a fundamentalist church.  The freedom for us to choose our beliefs are a lot different in our particular geographic location then in Pakistan.  In Pakistan, the veracity of Islam is not open to discussion.  In the US, everything is open to discussion and there is little fear that you will be beheaded.

In the old Soviet Union children were raised as atheists and that was enforced in the educational system.  That is still the case in China.  (Dawkins's trots out the old saw about the Jesuits asking for the first seven years, but seems to forget that his atheistic forbears and even contemporary peers- in other geographic locations- have adopted the same principle.)  The hypocrisy of the matter is that if you and Dawkins and all the other atheists had their way, religion would be stomped out from a very young age, calling into question whether or not a person is an atheist because of their locale just as we are doing with Muslims in Pakistan.

But you would object- "Ah, but that's different, because atheism is true."  (You might also say that you don't think people should take advantage of what Dawkins labels 'the vulnerability of the child brain' but then I expect you to ring up the atheistic free-thinker children's camp discussed in the link in my blog entry, HERE, and tell them to stop doing the same thing)

So it matters that it's true?  Of course it does.  The goal in any case, we all agree, is that you would raise children within your geographic locale under the principles that you think are true.  You would do the same.  Your children are growing up within the geographic locale of your house, and I would bet good money that you are raising them as atheistic secular humanists.  You think you are doing them a favor, but all you are doing is rendering their position nonsense because their position is merely derived from their geography and yoru exploitation of 'the vulnerability of the child brain'

But yet again- you don't think the position nonsense at all, and you think you have a responsibility to impart what you think is true.  Very well, I have the same right.  We all do.  All humans have this right, and the fact that we all exercise this right does not bring us any closer to discerning which of the positions are true, it only informs us that there are a variety of positions that some people think are true.

You could not be an atheist in Pakistan, but you can in America- the land of "Young Earth Crackpotism,"... "a geographic phenomenon (like religion itself) almost entirely confined to American Christian bible thumpers".   In this region, you managed some how to escape into a different point of view.  And you even managed to keep your head attached to your neck.  It is no accident that in such a climate- drenched in YECism- an atheist like you could be allowed to remain alive.  It is no accident that in such a climate the freedom to explore any and all propositions has been allowed to flourish.

But we could take free will out of this discussion, too, since it has been the assumed undercurrent.  If you are simple matter as your worldview insists, your position is merely the arrangment of your particular atoms and molecules.  It is not real, and the idea that you were able to come to a different view by any free will is nothing more than an illusion.  Your very brain is the composite of your 'geographic locale.'  Your brain changed as it came into contact with memes just as your arm falls off if its chopped with an axe.  You can be as proud of the fact that you're an atheist (by your reasoning) as you can be proud of the color of your eyes.  Your position has been determined by fate.

That is the absurd reduction that your brazen dismissal of ideas contrary to yours- that you hardly even understand- leads to.

SJ, sorry, no time atm to reply fully - just wanted to emphasize a few points since you are deliberately mischaracterizing me for your fragile argument's sake. Firstly, let me make it abundantly clear that I (in common with my fellow nonbelievers) am against totalitarianism of any description, be it religious (the very definition of totalitarianism) or secular (quite why you persist in tactic #3 "Waaa, Atheism is Communism" after all these years is beyond me).

Secondly, I am not raising my kids as atheistic secular humanists, whatever the crap that means. I have already stated on these boards that we actually quietly encourage a belief in God so that they may gain strength from it should anything terrible happen to them or us (God forbid  ). How much exactly was that "good money" you were prepared to bet?

Finally, your reproduction of the one solitary Atheist camp that exists in the entire country is, quite frankly, bizarre. If I were to reproduce a fraction of one percentage of the religious camps in this country I would bring your server to its knees. Anyway, I would no more send my kids to Camp Quest than I would send them to Camp Dinos-Existed-at-the-Same-Time-As-Humans-It-Must-Be-True-I-Read-it-in-the-Bible, so I fail to see what you are trying to do. No, wait - it's tactic #1!! "Accuse the nasty atheist of all the crap we know we're guilty of, like faith, believing in the unprovable, indoctrinating our children, and being idiots in general". 

By the way, I truly adore the way you selectively quote Atheist scholars when it suits you, but insist that everything else they say is a pack of lies. That must be tactic number...let's see...sorry, lost count.

"Firstly, let me make it abundantly clear that I (in common with my fellow nonbelievers) am against totalitarianism of any description,"

Well that's just great.  So were all the people that Ayn Rand flails in her preface to Anthem.  People who had certain beliefs but pretended as though they did not have consequences.  Now, my eyes may be a bit blurry here, but I really don't see how that was...

"(quite why you persist in tactic #3 "Waaa, Atheism is Communism" after all these years is beyond me)."

Which is quite a misrepresentation in its own right.  My point is not that 'atheism is communism.'   My challenge is 'what is to keep atheism from becoming communism.'  The answer, really, is nothing.  It's two different thoughts, there Stath, but you'd have to actually listen to me (is this waah tactic #1?  I can't keep up with your cataloging) to see that.  But again, that really wasn't my point.  If I were to start cataloging your tactics, this would be tactic #1, "Picking up on a keyword and responding to a point that isn't even the one being made while being oblivious to the one that is being made and then when being challenged on this, heaping contempt and ridicule, which of course everyone knows is what you always had but first you wanted to lay down some cover for yourself so that you wouldn't be revealed as just a mocker." 

Man, that's a tactic. 

"Secondly, I am not raising my kids as atheistic secular humanists, whatever the crap that means."

Boy, you really need to brush up if you're going to hang on this board if you don't know what secular humanists are.    (saying 'atheist' in front is a redundancy   )

"I have already stated on these boards that we actually quietly encourage a belief in God so that they may gain strength from it should anything terrible happen to them or us (God forbid   )."

Feel free to give me the link to the post.

"How much exactly was that "good money" you were prepared to bet?"

An atheist quietly encouraging a belief in God?  And for the reasons you've given?  Just nuts.   If you're prepared to offer a means by which I can verify your claim I may consider 10 to 20 bucks, but only if you reciprocate.

"Finally, your reproduction of the one solitary Atheist camp that exists in the entire country is, quite frankly, bizarre."

Why, the image clearly indicates that there are two. 

"it's tactic #1!! "Accuse the nasty atheist of all the crap we know we're guilty of,"

Actually, this is an illustration of your tactic #1, described above.   You seem to misunderstand the reason why I produced that camp, and much of the other stuff I said.  The point was that you tried to dismiss me because, and I quote:

Let's not forget that one of your most insane beliefs, Young Earth Crackpotism, is a geographic phenomenon (like religion itself) almost entirely confined to American Christian bible thumpers like yourself.

But within the same country there are variations across the board.  Your own existence disproves your thesis.  This is your problem- you literally try to change the subject after every single post.  In your latest post you said nothing at all about the substance of my points at all.  Just like you never admitted that Socrates never wrote anything for us- as you insisted he did- even though you have no doubt that he existed, so too you try to dismiss the entirety of my worldview based on one particular subset of ideas within my worldview by saying that the telltale sign is that this particular subset thrives only in our our country- and yet you live in the same country, and lots who don't take my view do as well- and rather than concede that you ramble on and rant about tangents.

Example:
"like faith, believing in the unprovable, indoctrinating our children, and being idiots in general". 

"By the way, I truly adore the way you selectively quote Atheist scholars when it suits you, but insist that everything else they say is a pack of lies."

It's impossible to create a world where everybody is wrong about everything all at the same time.  This is again an exhibition of your tactic #1, isn't it?  Rather than admit that you've just been smoked, you change the subject.  If I had quoted Christian scholars would that have increased the credibility of my arguments for you?  Of course not.  And does quoting Atheistic scholars please you?  Nope.  So on what grounds could I possibly prove my point?  None.  Thus showing that if anyone is "believing in the unprovable" it is you.

Are you dodging me, Stath?   

What frightens me about that is realizing just how much you like to be spanked, you bad, bad boy. 

While we're waiting for 8d, let me address your points, SJ:

My challenge is 'what is to keep atheism from becoming communism.'

A helluva lot more than what is to keep Christianity from yet again becoming the Crusades/Inquisition/Darfur/Iraq/Belfast/Need I go on?

If I were to start cataloging your tactics

That is, itself, fundie tactic #1 - SJ, you are in danger of becoming a ridiculous parody of the moronic Christian Fundamenalist - D'Oh! Too late! There's already a photo of you (during your "Gay Trucker" phase) in the dictionary under "Moronic Christian Fundie"...

Feel free to give me the link to the post.

You can find it just as easily as I can - and when you do, feel free to apologize - just because you can't imagine brainwashing your children with the same nonsense that you believe, don't you dare presume that I am as narrow minded and self serving as you.

It's impossible to create a world where everybody is wrong about everything all at the same time.

Yet it is ok for you to believe that your great LORD OF ALL THAT IS GOOD created a world where more than 99% of people are wrong about everything all at the same time? Yes, SJ, fewer than one percent of humans believe your laughable fairytales. Pretty puny "Almighty", isn't he?

Now, you may wish to rethink this a great deal.  The Crusades ended about 1300 AD and the Inquisition was just a couple of hundred years later.  Since then, there hasn't been anything of the sort.  (There is no way Belfast fits here, except to disprove your premise)...

Your aren't counting the bloody religious wars and persecutions that took place exclusively inside Europe?  Catholics and protestants murdered and tortured each other for quite a while in England, before things finally settled down.  Luther himself was rabidly anti-semitic.  The US is a secular nation precisely because interfaith violence was such a disruptive factor in European politics.

Why not?  There is an answer:  The Reformation and the rise in literacy that followed.  You have to keep in mind that prior to the Reformation, the RCC operated outside the common vernacular, using Latin.  Most people at the time couldn't read their own language, let alone Latin.  Therefore, most people did not have access to the Scriptures and had to rely on the priestly establishment to inform them on those Scriptures.  The Reformation and the Gutenberg press put the Christian Scriptures into people's hands for the first time.

I agree with your point, but only up to a point.  Protestants were just as nasty as Catholics when it came to oppressing people for religious reasons, but Protestantism did bring in the notion that people could have a direct relationship with God.  That promoted a sense of equality that I think figured into the rise of democratic institutions.  Perhaps one of the contributing factors to the rise of Protestantism, however, was that it tended to cut off the Vatican's share of public wealth.  Governments came to see that as a big advantage.

The more Christians know the Scriptures, the less likely are they to behave as you envision they might.  If you bothered to read them, you'd discover the same thing.  Jesus saying "my kingdom is not of this world" and "my kingdom is within you" is a pretty tough hurdle for the would-be crusader.

I don't think that history can support such a myopic view of Christian behavior.  Christian nations colonized the world, and the Muslims were never as successful at it.  The problem with Christian scripture is that it can be used to justify or condemn just about any kind of behavior at all.  Before the Civil War, it was used to both promote and condemn slavery.  Violence-prone extreme right wing groups such as the Ku Klux Klan are also strong supporters of biblical fundamentalism.  Even Hitler, who was not known for wearing his Catholic religion on his sleeve, managed to use Christianity to promote his bizarre beliefs about Jews.

There is a reason why the Pope no longer runs countries- the Scriptures don't support that behavior.

This statement is laughably false.  The reason why the Pope no longer runs countries is that his armies were defeated.  You should read about the exploits of Sir John Hawkwood, British mercenary and freebooter of the 14th century, sometime.  He fought both for and against the Pope's armies.

I didn't say anything about it being an overnight affair.  Luther being rabidly anti-semitic has nothing to do with this.  And Catholics and protestants murdering each other ties in with the Ireland example- as irrelevant.  The question is, "Is there anything within Christianity to keep these things from happening?"  Yes, a buttload of Scriptures.  It is not the question:  "Do Christians sometimes do bad things?"

Here are the positions you take that I have been trying to address:  1) Scripture should prevent such things from happening.  2)  Scripture actually does prevent these things happening over time.  Briefly, my response is as follows:

1)  The interpretation of scripture varies over time and from person to person and from church to church.  There is no single objective interpretation of it.  Therefore, your question is based on a false presupposition--that a clear, single objective interpretation exists.  It is a loaded question that cannot be answered without accepting a false premise.

2)  Because scripture has no objective interpretation, it can be used to justify just about any kind of behavior.  The growth of civilized behavior in christendom can be attributed to other factors that have little or nothing to do with scripture, e.g. the rise of secularism in government.  When Christians behave badly, they may use scripture to justify their behavior.  When they behave well, they may also use scripture to justify their behavior.  Scripture has no net affect on behavior other than, perhaps, to amplify good and bad behavior.  So, I would not claim that scripture has NO effect on behavior.  I can't honestly say whether it has a slight tendency to make people behave worse or better.  I suspect the former, because it records and prescribes social mores that are outmoded and even dangerous in modern society.  Luckily, most Christians are able to interpret some of the worse passages flexibly--to take them less literally than they could.

However, just for a moment let us imagine that through some bizarre interpretation tactics (argument #1 for why literacy matters) some scriptural justification was presented.  In what way would this possibly speak to my question, which is, what is to keep atheism from behaving that way or any other way?  At least with Christianity there is a source that can be looked at.  With atheism, there is only one source, the single person, and most atheists, though not all, argue for some degree of moral relativism.

Atheism makes no attempt to prescribe behavior.  It has no scripture or moral creed.  You know this from our past discussions, so it could hardly come a a shock that I would respond in this way.  As for moral relativism, I think that we all subscribe to it, whether we like to admit it or not.  That is why Christians can be so flexible in how they interpret scripture.

So, the fact that you guys aren't advocating the murders of hundreds of millions (the Cultural Revolution kicks the pants off of the crusades in terms of body count) is irrelevant.  The question is whether or not there is anything in your worldview, from an objective perspective, to prevent such an advocation.  That's the question, and that has always been the question.

My "worldview" includes other considerations besides belief in gods.  (And so does yours, I might add.)  My atheism has nothing to do with my morality.  So, to answer your question directly, there is nothing about atheism that prevents or promotes a form of behavior, good or bad.

"I agree with your point, but only up to a point.  Protestants were just as nasty as Catholics when it came to oppressing people for religious reasons, but Protestantism did bring in the notion that people could have a direct relationship with God."

See above about the relevancy of nastiness.  That isn't the point.  Stathei took a potshot about my connecting atheism with communism.  He appears to be oblivious to the true nature of my 'connecting' and the true nature of my charge.  You seem to be joining him in that.

I don't think that he is oblivious to your point.  He and I both disagree with it.  Communism is a political ideology that prescribes atheism.  There is nothing about atheism that prescribes communism, because atheism does not prescribe behavior.  It is just a belief about the existence of gods.  I would add that communism, as an ideology, has the same effect as religious ideology.  It can motivate good or bad behavior, depending on how you interpret its doctrines (or scripture).  Mao had his little red book.  You've got your Bible.

You make it sound as though Protestantism's 'notion' that people could have a direct relationship with God is... an innovation of Protestantism.  It is an innovation of Jesus and taught and proclaimed by his disciples.  We have many writings of the disciples.  Protestantism 'brought in' this notion by virtue of improved bliblical literacy.  Thus, even here you are within the bounds of my explanation of why certain behaviors were actively condoned by the church at one point but have largely been dismissed now.

I see nothing wrong with your point.  I was raised a Protestant, and I rather like that view of Christ's teachings.  It's just that, for reasons described above, Christians disagree on whether you have interpreted scripture correctly.  I've met Communists who can tell you exactly why and how Soviet authorities have violated what Lenin believed and advocated.  They can ground their belief in...er...scripture.  There are other Communists who disagree and have their favorite scriptural passages to prove it.  Over time, Communism will have the effect of preventing bad behavior, and you'd make a great Communist, sntjohnny.  You would do your homework even better than the other communists. 

"I don't think that history can support such a myopic view of Christian behavior."

I think your problem is still that you don't understand the question.

And I think your problem is that you don't like my answer.

"Christian nations colonized the world,"

And can that be justified Scripturally?  That is the question.

Indeed it can, but not by either of us.  It takes someone with a very good knowledge of scripture and a will to do it.  You possess the former and lack the latter.  I lack both.

The issue is not whether or not Christians have ever done bad things.   The question is whether or not those things are supportable by their source of authority or not.  However, since atheists have no source of authority except themselves and for the most part reject notions that there is a standard by which to recognize bad thigns in the first place, producing examples like 'belfast' and 'the crusades' is meaningless.  You assert these things as though they are wrong?  But on what grounds?

It is not a question of whether Christians have ever done bad things, but whether their religion was used to motivate those bad things.  Would they have behaved less poorly if they had lacked the power of doctrine to motivate the acts?  And that's the problem with all authoritarian doctrines.  In the end, it isn't a matter of what the doctrine (or scripture) says, but whether the people in power can use their control of doctrine to motivate bad behavior.  The trick is not to let power and authority be limited to a small number of people.  In that sense, I think that Protestantism did some good within Christendom.  But look at Cromwell.  He was a Protestant, and he used doctrine to do some pretty nasty things.  The same can be said of certain evangelical Christians and Christian groups in America.  David Koresh, for example, was a nasty piece of work that was able to use scripture to subvert morals and corrupt the human spirit of his followers.

"This statement is laughably false.  The reason why the Pope no longer runs countries is that his armies were defeated."

It is certainly not laughably false.  I don't usually drag out credentials, but you may wish to give a little credit to a fellah like me who invested a great deal of coursework in church history and reformation theology.  I might know what I'm talking about.  It certainly helps that 'his armies' were defeated, but even referring to something as 'his armies' is completely simplistic and even your 'rebuttal' begins to expose why... a British mercenary....  The pope did not have a standing army.  The pope had to rely on his ability to bribe, coerce, inspire, European heads of states to fight on his behalf.

The Pope had his troops then, and he still even has his Swiss Guard.  It just so happens that Italian principalities relied on mercenary troops to fight each other back then, and the Pope was a player.  He had money to buy troops with, as did his opponents.  He actually had more than money.  Church doctrine was a factor in motivating allegiances and behavior.  He could give dispensations for bad behavior.  He still can, in fact.

The Pope had no army to have defeated.  The Pope, when he had an army, had a 'coalition of the willing.'  It was French soldiers or British soldiers operating under the authority of those kingdoms.  The Pope's 'army' never lost, per se.  Don't you know how the Church of England started?  What about the germanic princes that opted to protect Luther?

It could be said that nobody had an army in medeival times because of the feudal system.  There were only alliances.  The pope had some territories that the Vatican ruled, just like other principalities had territories.  He brought in mercenary troops and allied armies to help him.  He was treated as a head of state, and, because of that historical legacy, he still has diplomatic relationships with other countries.  Does any Protestant church?

What we were looking for were church sanctioned badness.  The Crusades ended about 1300 AD and the Spanish Inquisition was near about 1500 AD.  You gave an example of a British mercenary at 1400 AD. Even if we entertained your hand waving, I clearly pointed to the fact that after about 1500 AD such types of behaviors tapered off.  In refutation, you provided an example from the 1300s.

My position is that Christian-inspired bad behavior has tapered off since the Middle Ages, but not because of scripture.  I can give examples of Christian-inspired bad behavior from those times to the present, but we are clearly living in more enlightened times.  For example, I mentioned slavery in the US, which was both supported and opposed on Christian grounds.  Nowadays, we still have abortion clinic bombings and murders of medical personnel on grounds of religion.  It is, thankfully, rarer in Christian countries to see that kind of thing than it is in Muslim countries, where Sharia law has had devastating consequences.  Since the Middle Ages, that religion seems to have deteriorated to the point where ecclesiastical authorities can promote atrocious behavior openly.  Thankfully, there are still some secular Muslim states (although we seem to have inadvertently obliterated one in Iraq). Within the Christian community, religion-inspired of nastiness seems to have become more moderated, but it still exists.

You provide an example of the type of behavior exactly during the time I indicated where there was widespread illiteracy?  I trust you don't disagree about the literacy rates.  To at least maintain a shred of credibility you'd have wanted to look for something after c.1500.

I do not dispute the fact that widespread literacy had a good effect, but I do not attribute that effect to the reading of scripture, as you do.  I attribute it to the rise of secularism and the middle class, which literacy brought with it.  One could just as well argue that exposure to literature liberated people from church doctrine, since they could now become exposed to a criticisms of narrow-minded and nasty interpretations of scripture.  I don't think that you've really made your point here, and you are using literacy as a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

My argument was that people were no longer willing to do, under the banner of 'Christianity' the more that they knew the Scriptures in their own language.  This began about 1500.  You gave an example from about 1400.

And my argument is that rising secularism, scientific knowledge, academic scholarship, better record-keeping, and a whole host of things other than scripture can be used to explain the moderating influence of literacy.  You have not made your point merely by juxtaposing temporally-related events.  You need to establish a causal link.  In my opinion, religious doctrine tended to follow, not lead, the growth of civilized behavior.