Chrisitianities great crimes

[DinoDoc]

I'm suprised that it took you so long to find this thread, LR.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by MrFun
The teachings of Jesus Christ, in my opinion, ranks as one of the most important, and one of the greatest positive things that began in the history of humankind.

Ufortunately, humans over the centuries have skewed and twisted Christ's teachings and values around for their own selfish purposes, so no one probably knows what he truly taught.

Jesus Christ never wrote anything down.

I respect people who are faithful in any religion, but many of them also do not realize the hypocrisy and contradictions in their own religion. But I can never hate a religious, faithful individual.

What I am appalled with, are the institutional abuses and misuses of any religion.

What else can be said?

[Mr. President]

Of the crimes listed (I won't get into the argument of whether they should be blamed on Christianity or not), it was difficult to choose between the Inquisition and the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. In the end I chose the Library, because of the loss of all the knowledge of the ancient world. Three thousand years of literature and science gone in a moment of madness. Perhaps the greatest intellectual atrocity in history.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Anunikoba


What else can be said?

I will let you know.
But I'm glad you and I can agree on this.

It is really a great tragedy though, the way that we may never know the true teachings of Jesus Christ. He was among the great people in human history, in my opinion.

[sparkplug]

I voted 'other'. The greatest crime of the Church was ignoring the teachings on which it was founded on. Jesus never said 'kill non-believers and burn their books'. In fact, alot of early scientific reaserch was done by people trying to discover more about the nature of God.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Logical Realist
Notice how all the nay sayers on this poll are always making unfounded accusations that are nothing more than rationalizations.

"It wasn't real Christians that did it, it was renagades, or the church",

or "people"

or

"politics"

In fact the only things they seem to agree on is that it wasn't "True Christians" aka using the no true scotsman fallacy.

If you don't acknowledge any space between the idea and its adherents, I suppose we can discuss the great crimes of the civil rights movement, such as anti-Semitism, delusions of racial supremacy, terrorism, and the contortion of Islam?

What they fail to realize is that while all these motives are possible, they can easily be made up. In light of that, it is best to accept the event and motives for it at face value. Unless compelling evidece says otherwise. For every possible alternative motive, it could just be religious ferver. The only reason they seem to reject that explanation is that they evaluate the whole thing on the a priori bias that "religion cannot possibly be it" using that premise, they will grasp for any other possible explanation for what motivated these people. And of course they will find one. As such explanations are easy to invent and human nature is multifaceted. (religion is rarely the sole culprit).

The problem is that "Christianity" is an unbelievably broad category, so broad as to be useless for these purposes. Now if we talked about breaking Christianity down into meaningful groups and ideas, there just might be the tiniest basis for a rational discussion, but as is, there's room only for bigoted generalizations.

The alternative argument popular here is the one of two wrongs making a right. "If my belief system causes people to do bad things then so does yours, so its best if we say neither can".

If adherents of both systems are engaged in the "bad things," perhaps the reason is a shared trait, i.e., not their different systems?

I think that thus, both Marxism and Christianity are responsible for some major crimes.

Amazingly enough, both blue and brown eyed humans are also responsible for major crimes. I guess they're both bad. You have to establish some actual connection between the ostensible ideology and the action.

Atheism howver is not. Because depite how many people want to believe it is, atheism is only a negative position. Christianity and Marxism are positive doctrines that prescribe a code of behavior and can motivate. Atheism cannot do this because atheism prescribes nothing, it merely denotes the absence of belief in God.

So I guess that racism isn't responsible for evil, because the belief that the lives of blacks/slavs/whoever have no moral value is a negative belief? Maybe totalitarianism too, since it extends that too all people?

[Logical Realist]

Try this experiment, for every crime obviously motivated by racism, see if you can invent another possible motivation, even religion. For example

1) The KKK was not supported by racism as much as it was motivated by an insecurity due to the drastic econimic change which occured in the South after slavery was ended. For more on this, look at how the clan seemed to grow in power during times of economic insecurity. For example in the thirties clan membership was at an all time high. And in the twenties, when the stock market economy and a world war drastically changed the american economy, clan membership was at an all time high.

2) Race based slavery was obviously economical, it provided an easy way to earn a profit. Any brutality towards slaves was thus, never due out of racism as much as it was done to increase productivity by scaring slaves.

3) Racism towards foreign immigrants really stemmed from religious differences.(Many priests found it profitable to stop other religions from spreading their religion by stererotyping an entire ethnic group) And it helped productivity by providing a cheap labor force.(the Chinese for example) Again not racism at fault but economics and a bit of religion.

4) The concentration camps and Nazi movement were obviously not primarily motivated by racism. High ranking Nazi member Albert Spear even said the anti-semitist idea played little part in Nazi discussions. Hence it was more likely to be really motivated by a need to socialize the economy(Jews were often in charge of banks) and get rid of alien religions which had moved into Europe during the Crusades and had slowly been building up hostility. Notice how the Nazis also punished other alien religious groups like the Jehovah Witnesses and alien ideologies like Marxists-communist. To prove this look at how the Nazis were willing to ally with the fascist japanese and italians. As for the camps themselves, the Nazis only planned on moving the Jews until economic hardship faced during the war caused them to take more drastic action to be rid of political prisoners....the prisoners also made a cheap labor force in the camps.

5) South Africa, at first, looks like an obvious case of racist motivated bigotry. But keep in mind that most native to Africa were not Christian and practiced customs European christians found to be offensive. This offense continued via inertia of religious bias. Blacks at this time also made a cheap labor force, this showed the true motivation behind "racist bogotry": economics. To prove this: look at how the rich and more "Western" japanese were treated as honorary whites.

Economics, religion, politics and human nature can all be easily made to sound like what were "really" responsible for obvious racist acts.

And these points can likewise be made:

1) Most racists are good people. They don't beat people up. They pay taxes, raise kids, promote education, live and let live. Even those who support segragation laws say "Separate but equal".

2) Racist groups have done some nice things. Nazis for example helped many of their poor. Many people who worked in charities were racist. Even many great scientists were racist. The racists who thus get violent can be seen as renegades. Racism does not necessarily prmote violence, that comes from other things. After which people try to use racismto legitamatize their stances.

3) Non-racists have done things just as bad as racists. Hence, since it appears bad things will continue whether there is racism or not, getting rid of racism is not the answer.

Many examples of outright racism can now be easily explained away and many poor arguments like the three above now utilized. Try it, its not as hard as it sounds. All you have to do is be willing to substitute what is the cause at face value for what is the cause given unwarranted speculation, and take advantage of the fact that no racist commits a racist crime for purely racist reasons. Apply such reasoning and you should be able to explain away any example proving that racism is bad.


You can also say that by racism you do not mean that all racists are literally different, but that the idea reflects a difference in the person's soul. Something compatible with modern biology.

[MrFun]

Logical Realist, what are you trying to claim??

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MrFun
Logical Realist, what are you trying to claim??

That Christians, by and large, are evil scumbags.

[Logical Realist]

The teachings of Jesus Christ, in my opinion, ranks as one of the most important, and one of the greatest positive things that began in the history of humankind.

You think ideas like that of eternal hellfire for all non-believers, abandoning family for religion, the promotion of blind faith and the prmotion of doomsday cults was one of the most important and positive things that ever began?

[General Ludd]

Nothing worse then a Fanatic *****ing about fanatics.

[Guynemer]

More than a little disappointed in Che right now...

[Logical Realist]

That Christians, by and large, are evil scumbags.

Nope, I never said any such thing nor would I ever. I wouldn't even say all racists are by and large evil scumbags, nor all Nazis even.I am saying that Christians and Christianity can be held accountable for very evil things.

I am demnostrating how poor the methods of Christian apologists are who seem to be saying that Christianity never motivated any so-called crime. That to me is an obvious case of wishful thinking. I would also say that the world would be better off without religion.

BTW many have suggested that murder cannot be justified within the Christian scheme in order to convert of protect the interests of Christiandom. First off, I haven't seen any Biblical references supporting that. And secondly it is easily justified. In that, in the Inquisition's case, one would be saving souls by damaging bodies, whether the victims or those the victim might influence. Likewise making Christiandom richer could be seen as making it more capable of converting and hence, saving souls. Even if the Bible forbade such practice according to certain interpretations the agressor could just easily ask for forgiveness and get away with it anyways. Remember: until they are agents of God they are agents of Satan.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Logical Realist
I am saying that Christians and Christianity can be held accountable for very evil things.

Samething.

[DinoDoc]

BTW, I'd like to continue an incomplete discussion we had a while back.

Originally posted by Logical Realist
As for the Christian Identity movement, religion clearly has something to do with it, either in an attempt to legitimize it or is somehow actually rooted in the beliefs, remains an open topic.

Of course. I never stated otherwise. How could they have made such a perversion of Christian doctrine without at least having something to do with religion? If you want I could even list other racist cults. It might even give me a little amusement but it wouldn't move the debate foward one iota because it would still fail to even deal with the assertion that either Religion or Christianity as a whole is a malevolent force. Since you granted something to me further down in your post, I will grant you something. The perversion of religious doctrine, of which the Identity Movement is an example, can be evil and do great harm.

(Though Hitler was still pro-Catholic).

Hitler was not a friend of the Catholic faith and neither was the man Christian. One need only look at Mein Kampf to establish that much. Here's an interesting article on the subject for you: Adolf Hitler - Christian, Atheist, or Neither?