The atrocities of Christianity

[Mazulu]

It's painfully obvious that you have assigned your own interpretation to his words.

There I fixed it.:bagpuss:

 

[Mazulu]

You can attack religion all you like, but that's not going to take away one man's desire to kill another man. You're better off trying to encourage human beings to take care of one another.

 

[spidergoat]

Power . Look over in the forum many of the moderators are of homosexual orientation , If I mention or imply some thing about homosexual or blacks they will threaten me with banning me of excommunicate me from the forum , they have done before.

This forum is a dictatorship.

 

[GeoffP]

What is a religious complex?

A body centred around organised religion for the propagation/dissemination thereof.

I'm sure I could find a more erudite definition, but I don't care to. Instead, I'll just cite a couple examples: the Shura Council, the Holy See, Canterbury, and so forth.

 

[arauca]

Why would you have a problem with someone who is homosexual or black? Do you hate people because of their race? Their sexual orientation?

WHY DO YOU HAVE TO JUMP TO SUCH CONCLUSION? The problem here, and in organized religion or government there are topics that are of limits to discus and if you mention them you get punished .

 

[Mazulu]

A body centred around organised religion for the propagation/dissemination thereof. I'm sure I could find a more erudite definition, but I don't care to. Instead, I'll just cite a couple examples: the Shura Council, the Holy See, Canterbury, and so forth.

I get the idea drom your examples. So you want to dismantle religious organizations because religious organizations abuse their power? Is that correct?

 

[Mazulu]

WHY DO YOU HAVE TO JUMP TO SUCH CONCLUSION? The problem here, and in organized religion or government there are topics that are of limits to discus and if you mention them you get punished .

So you are OK with blacks and gays, those we're just examples?

 

[GeoffP]

I get the idea drom your examples. So you want to dismantle religious organizations because religious organizations abuse their power? Is that correct?

I want to dismantle those religious organizations that continue to try to exercise political power, or at least egregiously so. That's not quite the same as "religious organizations".

 

[Yazata]

Can there be any doubt that Christianity is, historically speaking, one
of the most murderous religions that has ever existed?

I doubt it.

Just philosophically, I don't see how a system of ideas can commit atrocities, or perform any acts at all.

Certainly somebody could argue that evil ideas motivate human beings to atrocious actions that they wouldn't have performed otherwise.

But history is full of non-Christians engaging in wars, attacking perceived enemies and whatnot, justified by any number of reasons that have nothing to do with Christianity.

So I think that it's probably more realistic to say that social groups will try to justify their actions, particularly morally questionable actions, in terms of whatever the group's highest and most respected principles happen to be.

 

[lightgigantic]

Take Americans United for Separation of Church and State... oh wait...

this entire thread is a red herring. The real catalysts of atrocity (especially contemporary versions) are done purely under the banners of economics. Its vaguely reminiscent of Bush playing the middle east conflict being an issue "good and evil, right and wrong" to downplay the states long historical economic interest in the region (and even a great majority of the "dissidents" being the direct consequences of their political intrigue in fiddling with politics to down play the russians during the peak of the cold war)

 

[spidergoat]

this entire thread is a red herring. The real catalysts of atrocity (especially contemporary versions) are done purely under the banners of economics. Its vaguely reminiscent of Bush playing the middle east conflict being an issue "good and evil, right and wrong" to downplay the states long historical economic interest in the region (and even a great majority of the "dissidents" being the direct consequences of their political intrigue in fiddling with politics to down play the russians during the peak of the cold war)

Interesting hypothesis. What money would King James have made by burning women in retaliation for a storm his ship suffered? He had lost wealth and jewels in the wreck, was he hoping to recover his losses from the alleged witches?

 

[Cheezle]

A really interesting book on the subject of violence is The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker. The book is about how violence in general is decreasing through history with the 20th century having been the least violent of all. I know it sounds unlikely but he has a lot of evidence to back it up. In one chapter he goes over the tortures and executions by the Catholic Church in the middle ages and it is quite horrific.

Abstract:

We’ve all had the experience of reading about a bloody war or shocking crime and asking, “What is the world coming to?” But we seldom ask, “How bad was the world in the past?” In this startling new book, the bestselling cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the world of the past was much worse. With the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps, Pinker presents some astonishing numbers. Tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century. The murder rate of Medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then suddenly were targeted for abolition. Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the people they did a few decades ago. Rape, battering, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse, cruelty to animals—all substantially down.

How could this have happened, if human nature has not changed? What led people to stop sacrificing children, stabbing each other at the dinner table, or burning cats and disemboweling criminals as forms of popular entertainment? The key to explaining the decline of violence, Pinker argues, is to understand the inner demons that incline us toward violence (such as revenge, sadism, and tribalism) and the better angels that steer us away. Thanks to the spread of government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize with others, bargain rather than plunder, debunk toxic ideologies, and deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence.

 

[Magical Realist]

Power . Look over in the forum many of the moderators are of homosexual orientation , If I mention or imply some thing about homosexual or blacks they will threaten me with banning me of excommunicate me from the forum , they have done before.

Just out of curiosity Arauca, how many gay peoople or black people do you personally know? You also seem to imply one has to be gay to not think ill of gay people. I can tell you in fact that is just not true.

 

[Magical Realist]

I doubt it.

Just philosophically, I don't see how a system of ideas can commit atrocities, or perform any acts at all.

Certainly somebody could argue that evil ideas motivate human beings to atrocious actions that they wouldn't have performed otherwise.

But history is full of non-Christians engaging in wars, attacking perceived enemies and whatnot, justified by any number of reasons that have nothing to do with Christianity.

So I think that it's probably more realistic to say that social groups will try to justify their actions, particularly morally questionable actions, in terms of whatever the group's highest and most respected principles happen to be.

You seem to imply that an ideology cannot logically drive its adherents to violent actions. I happen to think otherwise. One simply has to survey the history of religious wars, racism, persecutions, and nazi inspired genocide to see the causal nature of believing other human beings are evil and deserving of torture and death. How can you deny religion's murderous legacy? The way I determine if it is a factor in behavior is by asking if the actions would have occurred had the people NOT believed the way they did. In the case of religion the answer is no. To persecute heretics you have to believe in the sin of heresy. To slaughter muslims you have to believe muslims are evil. Hate does not come naturally to humans. It has to be taught. And religion is a huge source of this sort of indoctrinated intolerance.

 

[Magical Realist]

this entire thread is a red herring. The real catalysts of atrocity (especially contemporary versions) are done purely under the banners of economics. Its vaguely reminiscent of Bush playing the middle east conflict being an issue "good and evil, right and wrong" to downplay the states long historical economic interest in the region (and even a great majority of the "dissidents" being the direct consequences of their political intrigue in fiddling with politics to down play the russians during the peak of the cold war)

I have a hard time identifying the economic motivations for things like the Spanish Inquisition, the burning of women as witches, or the terrorizing of black folk by the fundamentalist organization known as the KKK. These evils were basically driven by ideology and not economics. I'm not saying that economics does NOT play a role in global violence. It's just that in the case of religious fanaticism the motivation of hatred is already there.

 

[lightgigantic]

I have a hard time identifying the economic motivations for things like the Spanish Inquisition, the burning of women as witches, or the terrorizing of black folk by the fundamentalist organization known as the KKK. These evils were basically driven by ideology and not economics. I'm not saying that economics does NOT play a role in global violence. It's just that in the case of religious fanaticism the motivation of hatred is already there.

try checking out the wiki pages for those organizations for somewhat of an education outside of stereotype.

Spanish inquisition was clearly operating in Spanish interests (and they didn't overly apply things like torture compared to contemporary judicial systems of the time), Actually you had more to fear from the Spanish inquisition if you were a horse thief ...

As for the KKK, I can't see how you can analyse their activities outside of the interests of plantation farmers or even the american civil war (ie teh interests of an industrial economy versus the interests of an agrarian economy) .

IOW your examples don't adequately justify your conclusions
:shrug:

 

[lightgigantic]

A really interesting book on the subject of violence is The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker. The book is about how violence in general is decreasing through history with the 20th century having been the least violent of all. I know it sounds unlikely but he has a lot of evidence to back it up. In one chapter he goes over the tortures and executions by the Catholic Church in the middle ages and it is quite horrific.

sounds like a book full of hot air.

I mean how can you say cruelty to animals is down in light of industrial economic food processing trends and their influence on diet? Or teh rampant spread of development that is wiping out species and habitats at an unprecedented rate?
As for warfare, its kind of two dimensional thinking to suggest the intelligence that drives violence has somehow failed keep tabs on the legal/political speech/precepts of contemporary society. Just look at how waterboarding escaped being classified as torture ..
:shrug:

 

[Cheezle]

in light of industrial economic food processing trends and their influence on diet? Or teh rampant spread of development that is wiping out species and habitats at an unprecedented rate?

The book does not get into killing animals for food or extinction of species. It is only about human on human violence, though senseless animal cruelty is touched on.

As for warfare, its kind of two dimensional thinking to suggest the intelligence that drives violence has somehow failed keep tabs on the legal/political speech/precepts of contemporary society. Just look at how waterboarding escaped being classified as torture ..

"Legal/political speech/precepts" did not even exist a few hundred years ago. And the recent water boarding incidents you are referring to numbered below 10.

 

[Magical Realist]

try checking out the wiki pages for those organizations for somewhat of an education outside of stereotype.

Spanish inquisition was clearly operating in Spanish interests (and they didn't overly apply things like torture compared to contemporary judicial systems of the time), Actually you had more to fear from the Spanish inquisition if you were a horse thief ...

As for the KKK, I can't see how you can analyse their activities outside of the interests of plantation farmers or even the american civil war (ie teh interests of an industrial economy versus the interests of an agrarian economy) .

IOW your examples don't adequately justify your conclusions
:shrug:

Actually you had more to fear from being tortured if you were a heretic. That was the peculiar value of being tortured--confessions could be forced out of victims thus saving their souls from perdition. That's not an economic benefit to anyone, unless you count the church's acquisition of the heretic's goods as the sole motivation. As for the KKK? No..Lynching black men in no way benefit klansmen in an economic way. Pure racial hatred. Study history sometime. It'll make you skin crawl. Oh, and what about the witches?

 

[lightgigantic]

Interesting hypothesis. What money would King James have made by burning women in retaliation for a storm his ship suffered? He had lost wealth and jewels in the wreck, was he hoping to recover his losses from the alleged witches?

not really a valid example for championing the ideology of christianity since he even radically changed his own views on witch persecution within his own life time
:shrug: