attacks on Christians' on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka

[Patine]

People were certainly taught that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler were fundamentally correct and couldn't be questioned.
Adherents of "political religions" could be just as dogmatic and intolerant as adherents of religion.

In Tenochtitlan, horrible consequences awaited anyone who contradicted the ruling military theocracy that hundreds, evens thousands of grisly human sacrifices a day were needed so the sun could rise and the corn the next day. They were so thoroughly indoctrinated that no one was even willing to gamble by stopping the sacrifices for a day to see if this need was REALLY correct - until Hernan Cortez, a complete outside conqueror, forced the issue for them...

 

[H4run]

Are you sure that is the real story, or because he needs "a christian" reason to rob the gold from the heathen?

Like how scary the Iraqis were back then taking babies away from incubator to be left to death.

I mean people demonized not only their enemy but also their victim

 

[El_Machinae]

People were certainly taught that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler were fundamentally correct and couldn't be questioned.
Adherents of "political religions" could be just as dogmatic and intolerant as adherents of religion.

Absolutely! I'm not absolving any creed. And yeah, I could be wrong. But I suspect that in 200 years people are not going to look at Hitler's writings and insisting that God fundamentally assisted.

It's this wishy-washy idea that all wrtings are equal, that all scripture is equally flawed and equally holy. They're not.

 

[H4run]

it is really interesting seeing a western atheist like you, turned your mental afiliation to Christianity and put on your orientalist's spectacle when the topic is Islam. Lol, what "complex" should we name this phenomenon? I see this a lot.

 

[Patine]

Are you sure that is the real story, or because he needs "a christian" reason to rob the gold from the heathen?

Are you of the opinion that Nahua Polytheism is a pure, virtuous faith that's above reproach and cannot be subject to judgement? Or, indeed, of the growing number of people who think that way of any non-Abrahamic Monotheist (or sometimes outright non-Christian) religion, and blame ALL social evils on Abrahamic Monotheism (or sometimes just Christianity alone)?

 

[H4run]

Of course not, I just simply state they need to convince history that what they are doing is Christian, you read me wrong.

And I really asking out of curiosity, because I dont believe the colonial narration. While your conclusion of my text is way extent beyond what I said. Calamity happened to Christians during Tokuagawa period, centuries of genocide.

 

[inthesomeday]

it is really interesting seeing a western atheist like you, turned your mental afiliation to Christianity and put on your orientalist's spectacle when the topic is Islam. Lol, what "complex" should we name this phenomenon? I see this a lot.

I think there already are some names for it...

 

[Patine]

Of course not, I just simply state they need to convince history that what they are doing is Christian, you read me wrong.

I didn't say that what Hernan Cortez was doing was even remotely Christian. Notice, I specifically referred to him as an "outside conqueror," with no mention of his own religious nature. I was only saying that he was the instrument, regardless of why, that led to the long-believed doctrine in Nahua Polytheism that mass human sacrifice a day was an EXTISTENSIAL NECESSITY being disproven. You, also, misread my post.

 

[bernie14]

It's not ANY of the belief systems themselves (although some were created as a vehicle to evil ends, I admit - but Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Socialism, or even Rationalism's core roots weren't in that direction). It's the application thereof by humanity and human societies, leaders, and militant groups that is where the evil and atrocities lay.

led by example...i mean, Jesus, buddha and Mohammed never killed anyone cuz they were unholy, right?

 

[Farm Boy]

it is really interesting seeing a western atheist like you, turned your mental afiliation to Christianity and put on your orientalist's spectacle when the topic is Islam. Lol, what "complex" should we name this phenomenon? I see this a lot.

It is often pretty enlightening to ask people about their interpretations around John 3, or Acts 4 and the extent to which God is large or small. I presume there are people of the large and small Creator that dance around 112 and more verses I wouldn't know as well? There are always fedoralords to be had, wherever you look, I suppose. Listening and valuing different voices may indeed make being one easier, or harder. Yes/no? Some would certainly seem to make a better argument than others that I should take people with me when I go.

 

[H4run]

I didn't say that what Hernan Cortez was doing was even remotely Christian. Notice, I specifically referred to him as an "outside conqueror," with no mention of his own religious nature. I was only saying that he was the instrument, regardless of why, that led to the long-believed doctrine in Nahua Polytheism that mass human sacrifice a day was an EXTISTENSIAL NECESSITY being disproven. You, also, misread my post.

I mean we know the fact that conquistador robbed Aztec's immense wealth and massacre their population, if the massacre happened because the Aztec refused to gave up their wealth, this is not a righteus excuse, hence they exagerates how evil the Aztec and their religion was, so it was somewhat a christianly justified massacre.

hundreds, evens thousands of grisly human sacrifices a day were needed so the sun could rise and the corn the next day

Like this, I'm no expert in this but I think the number is crazily exagerated.

 

[El_Machinae]

it is really interesting seeing a western atheist like you, turned your mental afiliation to Christianity and put on your orientalist's spectacle when the topic is Islam. Lol, what "complex" should we name this phenomenon? I see this a lot.

You've convinced me. The Quran is inherently superior to the Bible. And a cookbook. Meh.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Absolutely! I'm not absolving any creed. And yeah, I could be wrong. But I suspect that in 200 years people are not going to look at Hitler's writings and insisting that God fundamentally assisted.

It's this wishy-washy idea that all wrtings are equal, that all scripture is equally flawed and equally holy. They're not.

Yes, but I don't think the problem is that people have beliefs, even wrong beliefs. Its their tendency to elevate those beliefs to absolute truths and use that to justify whatever they inflict on those who don't share their beliefs.
I may disagree with them but I accept the right of Christians who think abortion is wrong in all cases to try and convince me of that and to campaign to have the law changed. Its when they start murdering doctors that I have a problem with them.
Religious beliefs may be more persistant than political beliefs in the face of evidence but I'd be hard-pressed to look at the 20th century and say they did more harm in that period.

 

[Patine]

Yes, but I don't think the problem is that people have beliefs, even wrong beliefs. Its their tendency to elevate those beliefs to absolute truths and use that to justify whatever they inflict on those who don't share their beliefs.
I may disagree with them but I accept the right of Christians who think abortion is wrong in all cases to try and convince me of that and to campaign to have the law changed. Its when they start murdering doctors that I have a problem with them.
Religious beliefs may be more persistant than political beliefs in the face of evidence but I'd be hard-pressed to look at the 20th century and say they did more harm in that period.

Fun fact. Abortion (as separate from, and worse than, other types of deliberate killing) isn't mentioned once in the Gospels, Acts, or Epistles. It was first condemned in Christian doctrinal circles by Augustine of Hippo...

 

[AmazonQueen]

I mean we know the fact that conquistador robbed Aztec's immense wealth and massacre their population, if the massacre happened because the Aztec refused to gave up their wealth, this is not a righteus excuse, hence they exagerates how evil the Aztec and their religion was, so it was somewhat a christianly justified massacre.

Like this, I'm no expert in this but I think the number is crazily exagerated.

From what I know its pretty certain that on ocasion the Aztecs did sacrifice hundreds, even thousands, of victims. They even allowed some rival city-states such as Tlaxcala to survive as independent powers so that they might fight "flower wars" that existed mainly to take enemy warriors captive so that they might be sacrificed. Not surprisingly Tlaxcala were one of the native city-states that enthusiastically allied with the Spaniards. I have my doubts about their managing hundreds of victims every single day although I suspect they would of if they could manage it.

But you're undoubtedly right that prejudice plays a part in historical reputation, and ofc the winners get to write history. For a long time historians took the accounts of Greek and Roman historians that the Carthaginians conducted child sacrifice as true. After all the Greeks and Romans were the founders of western civilisation, they wouldn't lie. Never mind that they were both bitter enemies of the Carthaginians. Then archeologists noticed something odd about Carthaginian grave sites. Almost no babies in them. Odd in a period when death in childbirth or infancy was common. Now there is an alternate theory (although unproven and probably unprovable). Perhaps they didn't sacrifice children. Perhaps stillborn children or those who died in infancy recieved a religious cremation, hence their remains being found in the tophet rather than the grave yard.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Fun fact. Abortion (as separate from, and worse than, other types of deliberate killing) isn't mentioned once in the Gospels, Acts, or Epistles.

True

It was first condemned in Christian doctrinal circles by Augustine of Hippo...

False.

Abortion is explicitly condemned in the Didache, the oldest Christian text that was not canonized as part of the bible. It was a manual that the early church used to explain to new or prospective converts what it meant to be a Christian before churches had access to whole bibles. The Didache is probably older than half of the New Testament, including the gospels.

 

[H4run]

. I have my doubts about their managing hundreds of victims every single day although

I doubt that, population at that time not that dense, sacrificing hundreds or even thousand of people in daily will mostly put them into extinction.

 

[Modder_Mode]

You'd probably never suspected that I worked as a social worker for a living, helping people who are homeless and unemployable gain stability, a home, and some sort of income. A job I do out of choice, not because anyone pressured me to. I don't think that counts as "virtue signalling" just because I may get a paycheck for it (and not even a stellar one).

I didn't suspect that you were a social worker, but I could tell by a lot of your posts that you would definitely fit the profile of a social worker as you do seem to care about humanity a lot, you seem like a very genuine and caring person, and what your doing is definitely not virtue signalling, I think your motives are genuine and you do actually care for others.

 

[Modder_Mode]

Considering that Dawkins has said "Islam is the greatest force for evil in the world today" and has been accused of Islamophobia by some I wouldn't say hes low key on criticism of Islam.
He has also said "It’s tempting to say all religions are bad, and I do say all religions are bad, but it’s a worse temptation to say all religions are equally bad because they’re not. If you look at the actual impact that different religions have on the world it’s quite apparent that at present the most evil religion in the world has to be Islam. It’s terribly important to modify that because of course that doesn’t mean all Muslims are evil, very far from it. Individual Muslims suffer more from Islam than anyone else. They suffer from the homophobia, the misogyny, the joylessness which is preached by extreme Islam, Isis and the Iranian regime. So it is a major evil in the world, we do have to combat it, but we don’t do what Trump did and say all Muslims should be shut out of the country. That’s draconian, that’s illiberal, inhumane and wicked. I am against Islam not least because of the unpleasant effects it has on the lives of Muslims."

A lot of what I had known Dawkins to have said was from quite a few years ago, so this sheds light on what he does think about Islam. However I'm not a big fan of Dawkins because of the way he goes about critiquing subjects he doesn't agree with, he does it in a mocking satirical manner rather than actually sitting down and having a fruitful discussion about it, he has been known to do this sometimes though.
Dawkins recently has also had somewhat a kind of revelation of late as he is concerned with the decline of Christianity in Europe and that it is being replaced by Islam; "Benign Christianity is about to be replaced by ‘something worse’ – Islam"

Well as an atheist I'd agree. Its not the religions that are at fault, its the uses people make of them that are. In this I'd disagree with Dawkins, religion isn't the problem, its people.

I think you need to brush up on the history of people who've called themselves Christians and what they've done in the name of their twisted interpretations of Christian, and even what many so-called Christian religious leaders are saying, even today, if you actually believe the above statement. Both Christianity and Islam are beautiful religions - if properly practiced and observed. Both, however, have been turned, by distortion, misinterpretation, and ulterior ends, into the greatest engines of oppression, injustice, plundering, and atrocity this world has ever seen. But please don't think Islam has been more muddied from it's purpose to these vile ends, or that those bending it to evil have someone done so easier than those Christian doctrine to evil.

It's the religions that are at fault. They're codified and then interpreted. Some will be easier to interpret evilly than others.

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that some people will interpret Islamic teachings in a way that's more personally scary than some people interpret Christian teachings.

People will write things about evangelicals that they'd never write about other faiths. It's the contempt of low expectations

The fundamental difference being "Jihad". It is interesting when people try to counter comments about Islam and compare it to Christianity and bring up paedophile priests, the crusades or any other unrighteous act linked to Christianity, they forget the bible doesn't command any Christian to do these things, however in Islam, the Quran and Mohamed's teachings tell Muslims exactly what to do to the unbeliever or anyone that goes against Islam's teachings, these radical Islamist's really are following the true Islam, I don't think there is anyway of escaping this argument? Sure, bring up passages from the Old Testament, no problems, but don't compare apples with oranges.

People should humbled themselves on reading such event. Islam seen as the core problem is pretty much after 911, or we may say post cold war, where previously the godless socialist is the great beast of civilization.

The greatest thing that can be taken from after what happened on September 11, was people in the West finally opened their eyes, at least to some degree of what Islam had been up to in the Middle East, prior to this people in the West didn't care less about what was happening to people in various parts of the Middle East under Islam with a lot of the victims being Muslims themselves; the oppression and bigotry towards other people went almost unchecked because it's "just their culture" and "all cultures are equal" and "we shouldn't question other peoples cultures it might offend someone".

Are you sure that is the real story, or because he needs "a christian" reason to rob the gold from the heathen?

Those early Conquistadors were there for greed and conquest, the missionaries that came later, that's a different story.

 

[Modder_Mode]

And what's even more amazing, that so far in this thread there has been a fruitful discussion about such a "touchy" subject, it's been respectful and some good points made by everyone (AmazonQueen made me aware of Richard Dawkins stance on Islam being more hardline than I thought and also MagisterCultuum's post about abortion being explicitly condemned in the Didache which I did not know).

It hasn't been hijacked by someone who thinks the world should be run off emotion rather than facts, logic and reason, and that some religions are so privileged that they shouldn't face any kind of criticism.