virus: More tangents on religion, etc. (prev. Demon Thread)

boneill@voyager.net
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 19:18:39 -0400 (EDT)


>Emphasizing a certain aspect of a religion is not taking it "as a whole".
>By saying that Christianity is a demon, don't you just mean that certain
>institutions like the Crusades, the later Inquisition and a few popes were
>demons? In that case, you'd have a lot of people agreeing with you-
>Protestants, for instance (Check out R. W. Scribner, _For The Sake of Simple
>Folk_, for a collection of political cartoons from the fifteenth and
>sixteenth centuries showing the popes as demons).
>
>>We call Jeffery Dahmer a demon because he killed thrity or forty people.
>>(I am not sure exactly)Christianity has killed billions. Why can't
>>christianity be a demon as well?
>>--
>
>This is blatant rhetoric. So, we're to understand that all people killed in
>the name of Christianity were subsequently beheaded, frozen, and eaten?
>That Christianity, as a whole, encourages sociopathic cannibalism? "Those
>Christians- they seemed so normal and polite to their neighbors until..."
> Most Christians are not responsible for the acts of a select few.
>As an Atheist, I would personally protest being associated with the acts of
>other murdering Atheists. Millions of people were killed under Stalin for
>having a religion- does this make Atheism a demon?

Christianity always gets the blood pumping, so to speak...

Tangent 1:
Are any of us on this list really surprised that an ideological or
theological super-organism might tend to exhibit predatory behavior?
Especially when engaged in a mutually catalytic relationship with political
or economic programs...those factors are all largely inextricable at any
point in history. Do you "blame" christianity or the political motivations
of individuals and movements? Try to iron that one out.

Besides, Christianity is hardly unique in its ravages. Even the supposedly
"contemplative" Eastern religions have a disturbing track record of what we
term "cruel" or "evil" periods and acts throughout history.

Tangent 2:
To dig into that knot of causality even more, to what degree has
christianity, in it's role as cultural backbone, allowed us to profit as
scientific and/or non-religious thinkers? Even to the point of denying the
tenets of christianity completely... interesting how that works out.

Tangent 3:
Christianity is a damn successful complex of ideas. But maybe Islam has a
better gig going for the long haul...of course, too much order can strangle
any organism. That whole phase-space analogy... the "magic region" where
negentropy is maximized. What religion comes closest? Which ones have too
much order and which ones are too chaotic? I'd be interested to hear
conjectures.

Brad