Because of the crusades and the inquisition.....

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

And all the other shit like people knocking on my door who don't know the first thing about critical thinking, science and they don't even believe in evolution or know geology and they are going to give me the answers?

They cant even open their eyes and they are telling me I'm going to burn for eternity for having my eyes open - That's why I know they suck and their religion sucks, and religion generally sucks.

[Orrex]

1. Give me your address, and I'll send you some literature

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

3. In the form of a baseball bat - I'm sure

[Orrex]

4. If that's your preferred medium, then sure!

We aim to please, after all.

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

6. Cleanse me of my sins brother

Why don't you tell me where you live - I have better mediums than bats

[Occam Bandage]

8. I have better rares than mediums.

[Orrex]

16. Well done!

:rofl:

[Occam Bandage]

2. So what about the crusades and the inquisition?

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

5. They are The Christian Way

[regnaD kciN]

9. Bullshit

That garbage is no more true than claiming that Pol Pot's killing fields and the Soviet Gulags are "The Atheist Way."

:eyes:

[ZombieHorde]

11. Were the actions of Pol Pot and the Soviet Gulags done in the name of no God?

Most of the time, when a religious person does something nice or not nice, it is for secular reasons; but sometimes religious people do nice or not nice things for religious reasons. Without a doubt, the inquisition was done for religious reasons.

[plantwomyn]

12. As were the Crusades.

Take Jerusalem for "the one true god".

[Occam Bandage]

18. I think that the Crusades were an attempt to redirect the fractured militarism of post-Viking Europe

towards a common external enemy, to end the threat of constant banditry and civil war, and to preserve the feudal power hierarchy against unaccountable warlord armies, spurred in part by the geopolitical situation involving the Eastern Roman Empire. Much like with the Inquisition, I think religion was more an important-but-nonessential enabling factor than a motivating factor.

[Occam Bandage]

17. I think that the Inquisition was primarily done to strengthen the power of the Spanish Crown

against both internal dissent and (perhaps somewhat ironically) the Papacy. Saying it happened "because of religion" seems non-explanatory to me, given how religion was front and center throughout European history, and given how special an event the Inquisition was. Religion may well have been an enabling factor, but to claim it was done "for religious reasons" seems about as correct as saying that the colonization of the Americas was done "for religious reasons."

Not everyone saying "God wants me to do this" is doing it because he literally believes God wants him to do it. Sometimes he's just saying that because it gives him legitimacy.

[rrneck]

19. True. People

frequently use religion as a convenient excuse.

[skepticscott]

20. Funny how

people persecuting, torturing and slaughtering each other in the name of their god and their religion doesn't seem to have been confined to Spain, though. Seems like it happened in England, France, Italy, Germany, and a whole slew of places where religious forces held sway over government. And yes...a lot of it WAS done for purely religious reasons, as was SOME of the colonization of America, though by no means all, despite the straw man you've set up. And if people could divorce themselves from their belief in god altogether, then no one would be able to justify anything with "God wants me to do this", now would they?

[Occam Bandage]

21. "People persecuting each other" is quite vague, and "people torturing/slaughtering each other"

certainly isn't confined to religion, nor is there any evidence it occurs to greater extents in religious societies than in non-religious societies that are otherwise comparable. It certainly happens to a great extent in war, and Europe has been wracked by wars--but if you think the religious wars of the Protestant reformation were caused by earnest religious differences and not by princes looking to exert power outside the Catholic political hierarchy that had so well served kings, then you've not paid much attention to history.

Simply saying "the colonization of America was done for religious reasons" is, again, taking a shallow view of history. The church sanctioned the affairs (as it sanctioned most everything), and happily set up shop wherever Spain did, but to say the church drove it? I think it's only slightly more likely that it had slightly more to do with the previously-unimaginable riches that were there for the taking. A la espada y el compas, mas y mas y mas y mas, after all. Not the words of men spurred by faith.

And if people could divorce themselves from their belief in god altogether, then no one would be able to justify anything with "God wants me to do this", now would they?

No, they'd instead justify it with "the good of the Fatherland demands I do this." Or "the People will be best served if I do this." Or "progress requires that this be done." Or "to save our values we must do this." Insular tribalism and xenophobia are societal traits that paint religions; I see no evidence that religions are anything but reflections of the state of a society. What-if games where you take religion out of things, and leave the rest in, seem no more likely to fix anything than administering a cough suppressant would be likely to fix lung cancer.

[skepticscott]

36. The claim that

if people weren't killing each other over religious beliefs, they'd just find some other equally good and strongly motivating reason (even if it were true, and not just assumed for the sake of convenience) does not in any way absolve religious groups from their moral responsibility for so much death and suffering. No more than I could be absolved of killing someone by saying "Well, they were terminally ill and would have died in a few days anyway."

And was the Protestant Reformation launched in the first place because of Luther's political views or his religious ones? And might the fact that there even was a "Catholic" political hierarchy (made us of kings who ruled by...you guessed it...divine right) as opposed to a secular one have had just a wee bit to do with it?

[Occam Bandage]

40. I think you're arguing against a slightly different claim than the one I made.

It sounds like you're arguing against the following claim: "It's okay that religion makes people kill each other because they'd find other reasons to kill each other if there wasn't religion." Yours is a valid argument against this unfortunately common justification (which appears, in other forms, in gun-control arguments, smoking arguments, etc.)

I made a slightly different argument. I said that religion doesn't make people kill each other, or really do much of anything else. Rather, religion is a symptom of the cultural state of societies--a state that is predominantly caused by non-religious factors. Religions, I think, are memetic symbionts, and are just as subject to natural selection as a genetic organism is. Just like with organisms, there is much random mutation as it is passed from one mind to another. And just like with an organism, these mutations are likely to survive if they assist the religion in surviving in its environment. A religion may well reflect its society, much as a pine tree only grows naturally in areas with cold winters. But a religion is no more responsible for a society than a pine tree is responsible for cold winters.

Your invocation of Luther himself will provide a very good example of what I mean. Luther was hardly the first would-be Christian reformist. There have been dozens and dozens recorded by history, and there were probably thousands upon thousands before him who never got off the ground, much as there are tens of thousands of splinter churches and would-be prophets today. I think the odds that someone, when receiving theology, internalizes it in a way that an irreconcilable contradiction occurs to them (and for which an answer to this contradiction is evident) are probably unchanged throughout history. Presumably, most pre-Luther would-be reformists simply looked at the cultural monopoly the Church held and gave up before they started, though there are of course the odd ducks who challenged the system and got cut down quickly.

Luther came during a rather special time in history. The Western Schism a hundred years earlier (which was a time when both France and Rome claimed, for baldly political reasons, that the true Pope was within their own borders and the other's was a fraud) had laid down fault lines that were ripe for re-exploitation; those who did not enjoy the favor of Rome had a brief taste of the possibility of a social order without that constraining hierarchy. Moreover, the seeds of theological dissent were sown in those fault lines, as the blatantly political nature of the crisis led to many Catholic thinkers (Wycliffe, Hus) growing disenchanted with the secular power the Church wielded.

With many factions in the Church primed to accept complaints about abuses of power, with the legitimacy of Rome proven assailable, with a rising tide of nationalism (for complex reasons I won't get into) telling the general public that their first duty was to their local power and not to a foreign one, and with dozens of princes (especially in the Holy Roman Empire) chafing under the arbitrary favoritism of the Church power structure, Luther's mutated Christianity was able to take firm hold, and outcompete Catholicism for mindshare in many parts of Europe. The important, driving factors of the Protestant reformation did not involve Luther himself or anything in particular that he believed, but rather involved a shifting culture that allowed specific altered versions of Christianity to survive.

----------------

At this point, you're likely to rebut by again saying that the Roman Catholic power structure is religious, and therefore this is all still religious bickering on a fundamental level. A reasonable claim. However, I think the "religious" aspect was nothing but window dressing, much as the "divine right" of kings was. After all, kings existed well before the concept of "divine right" came about, and indeed "divine right" was not even a concept during Luther's day. Divine-right theory dates from the 1600s, and is actually a complete repudiation of the Catholic power structure; it states that all political power rests in the King, and that any attempt by the aristocracy or the Church to interfere constitutes a heretical usurpation of God-granted power. Again, religion is serving only as a post-hoc justification for individual claims of political power; it is just as capable of arguing against Papal secular authority as it is arguing for it.

[ZombieHorde]

22. Subject line.

Not everyone saying "God wants me to do this" is doing it because he literally believes God wants him to do it. Sometimes he's just saying that because it gives him legitimacy.

What method do you use to determine who is lying and who is telling the truth?

[Occam Bandage]

24. I use a time machine and strap them to a polygraph. nt

[ZombieHorde]

25. Subject line the second.

How did the persecution of Galileo strengthen the power of the Spanish Crown against internal dissent and/or the Papacy?

[Occam Bandage]

31. It didn't. That was done because Galileo obliquely called the Pope an idiot.

Which is of course not to say that the Pope did not richly deserve it.

[cosmik debris]

32. Que?

I didn't know Galileo was Spanish.

[Occam Bandage]

34. Galileo was persecuted by the Roman Inquisition.

Which is of course different from the Spanish Inquisition, which is usually what people mean when they just say "the Inquisition," but which is still more or less on topic.

[cosmik debris]

35. OK

That was before my time. :)

[ZombieHorde]

41. He was not Spanish, but he was a victim of the Inquisition.

I believe he was persecuted because his scientific observations conflicted with the religious views of the day.

[ironbark]

28. Yes

Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism.” Vladimir Lenin.

“I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above.” Karl Marx.

“We must hate. Hatred is the basis of Communism.” Lenin

The slogan of the Soviets in their early days was: “Let us drive out the Capitalists from the earth, and God from Heaven.”

“The World has never before known a godlessness as organised, miltarised and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin and at the heart of their psychology, HATRED OF GOD is the principle driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends, Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails a destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly put them into practice.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“A History of Communism in South Africa ” by Henry Pike

"Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden" and
"Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested.
In 1918, the Cheka under Felix Dzerzhinsky executed over
3000 Orthodox clergymen of all ranks.
Some were drowned in ice-holes or poured over with cold water
in winter until they turned to ice-pillars.
In 1922, the Solovki Camp of Special Purpose, the first Russian
concentration camp was established in the Solovki Islands in the White Sea"

Glad to be of service ;-)

[ZombieHorde]

29. Of your six quotes, only the sixth addresses the issue, I am not sure what you were thinking with

other five.

I see the sixth, and most intriguing, was written by Henry Pike, he is not http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F07E0D6153AE033A25755C1A9649C94689FD7CF">this Henry Pike, is he? I am guessing not, but it would be pretty funny. What year was that quote written?

[Occam Bandage]

33. Luke 14:26

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

Sounds like Jesus and your unsourced, possibly-apocryphal Lenin would get along well!

[ironbark]

37. So…let’s get this straight….

In regard the historically recent, verifiable and crystal clear centrality of atheism to Soviet communism we have doubt invoked re “unsourced, possibly-apocryphal Lenin” quote ?
And in the same post/breath we have (an atheist?) sourcing the authoritative non apocryphal on the spot account of ‘Luke’ regarding what was said by an individual who cannot be historically verified.?
And are invited to presume what the Communists said/did with an atheist agenda is in doubt but that Luke 14:26 reports is not?

Those who would deny the centrality of atheism within Soviet communism would “get along well” with those who deny the holocaust or the Church’s role in the crusades…in all three instances it is denial and spin in regard the clear historical record.

“The World has never before known a godlessness as organised, miltarised and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin and at the heart of their psychology, HATRED OF GOD is the principle driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends, Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails a destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly put them into practice.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[cosmik debris]

38. How did you manage to isolate that one cause?

There are many thing that are "central to communism" such as the dictatorship of the proletariat, the absolute power of the party, and communal ownership of the means of production. Yet you contend that the one component which you so clearly despise is the one component that caused all the problems.

What train of thought led you to believe that the absolute power of the communist party had no role in the persecution of those who opposed the absolute power of the communist party?

Isn't it just slightly possible that those who pose a threat to absolute power might be on the hit list?

It looks to me like you have chosen the least likely explanation and given it full credit for all the sins of the communists.

[ironbark]

42. By following the trail of dead bodies

straight back to the central philosophical underpinnings of the Communist leadership.

“one cause”?
Never claimed there was ‘one cause’ to be “isolated”. It would be just as absurd to claim that there was ‘one cause’ to be “isolated” in regards the Crusades and the Inquisition or to attempt to pin that ‘one cause’ to the teachings of Jesus.

The OP invokes the Crusades and the Inquisition and respondents will go along with this as ‘The Christian Way’…such has been the prevailing attitude of the board for some time.

“What train of thought led you to believe that the absolute power of the communist party had no role in the persecution of those who opposed the absolute power of the communist party”?

No such “belief” has been expressed by me.

What train of thought leads atheists to believe that the teachings of the New Testament had a ‘one cause’ to be “isolated” role in the invasion and persecution of the peoples of the Middle East?

You see…You can’t have it both ways…you can’t (logically) ignore the central teachings of Christianity and then make it ‘one cause’ to be “isolated” in the Crusades and at the same time pretend atheism was peripheral to the communism that perpetrated the Gulags.
If atheists on the board wish to continue to do so they will need to find quotes from Jesus advocating invasion, persecution and death of enemies that compare with the quotes from the communist leadership advocating atheism and the destruction of religion.

“We do not fight against believers and not even clergymen.
WE FIGHT AGAINST GOD to snatch believers from Him.”
-Vechernaia Moskva, a Soviet newspaper

“Let us drive out the Capitalists from the earth,
and God from Heaven!” (early Soviet slogan)

"the state established atheism as the only scientific truth."
- Daniel Peris,

"Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless"
Cornell University Press 1998 ISBN 9780801434853

Go right ahead…Find Jesus advocating the ‘Storming of Jerusalem’ then come back and tell me about ‘one cause’ to be “isolated”.

[cosmik debris]

44. That doesn't work

"the central philosophical underpinnings of the Communist leadership" was dictatorship of the proletariat and absolute power of the the communist party.

It sounds to me like you have disproved your point.

You are certainly on the wrong track thinking that christian leaders did not invoke god to inspire the crusades. Popes even sold free passes to heaven to get soldiers to kill for god.

[ironbark]

45. It works better than ignoring or misrepresenting what is said to you.

“"the central philosophical underpinnings of the Communist leadership" was dictatorship of the proletariat and absolute power of the the communist party.”

This has (unlike the points/questions put to you) already been answered-
"You can’t have it both ways…you can’t (logically) ignore the central teachings of Christianity and then make it ‘one cause’ to be “isolated” in the Crusades and at the same time pretend atheism was peripheral to the communism that perpetrated the Gulags.
If atheists on the board wish to continue to do so they will need to find quotes from Jesus advocating invasion, persecution and death of enemies that compare with the quotes from the communist leadership advocating atheism and the destruction of religion".

Deal.

“You are certainly on the wrong track thinking that Christian leaders did not invoke god to inspire the crusades.” Cosmic


Once more and for the last time. I never said, suggested or inferred >anything< about “christian leaders” other than a bloke called Jesus.

If you cannot/will not respond to what is actually said to you rather than inventing, misrepresenting and projecting povs onto me I am obliged (as I was last time) to abandon talking to someone who prefers talking to himself. Your call. You wanna converse on this or any other topic- stop manufacturing and projecting my pov for me.

Last try-
“"the central philosophical underpinnings of the Communist leadership" was dictatorship of the proletariat and absolute power of the communist party.

Are you taking that from the Communist Party Manifesto Cosmic? Or making it up for them?
The way I remember the party’s central philosophy it had to do with the liberation of the worker (from capitalism and religion) and international solidarity.
(Perhaps you are having difficulty separating philosophy from action? What they said from what they did? )

So I ask again…..Can you find within the central underpinning philosophy of Christianity any instruction or justification regarding the Crusades?

[cosmik debris]

47. There is an obvious flaw in your supposed "logic"

You keep demanding that I find something in christianity that supports the crusades.

The obvious flaw is that christians seldom follow the "central underpinning philosophy of Christianity". In fact, they frequently make it up as they go along. That seems to be what you are doing here.

That's what makes your argument absurd.

The leaders of the christian church strongly supported the crusades and presented it to the faithful as a holy duty. Just because Jesus didn't support the crusades (he was dead by then you know) doesn't mean that the christian church was not primarily responsible for the wars. The church recruited and paid soldiers and offered indulgences to those who fought for the church. Your attempt to get christianity off the hook for the crusades because Jesus wasn't there is nonsense. The crusades were owned and operated by the christian church.

"The way I remember the party’s central philosophy..." Your memory is faulty. Good luck with that.

[Occam Bandage]

39. To claim that atheism is "central" to communism is embarassingly agenda-driven.

Atheism is only ancillary, with empowerment of the proletariat being the central drive of the ideology, and atheism existing only inasmuch as Communist revolutionaries believe(d) that organized religion exists as a tool of the governing order. Which, in the case of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Czars, was a reasonable statement.

My point with quoting the Gospel of Luke is simple: that single lines involving words like "hate" are often misleading out of context. In full context, it is clear that the Jesus of the Gospels is claiming that Christianity requires its adherents to believe that nothing is more important than love of God, and not that Christians must hate everyone around them. Given that your Marx quotes come from poems he wrote during a depressive period (and are not policy statements), and that the Lenin quotes cannot be found on Google except in copy-pasted lists on anti-atheist sites, I would hardly be surprised if the full quote (if it is indeed based in reality) was something similar: Lenin claiming that Communism requires people to shun anything that stands in the way of social justice.

Claims that atheists "hate God" are just bizarre. Nobody claims that Christians "hate Krishna," or perhaps as a better analogy, that Protestants "hate saints." Atheists no more hate God than they hate unicorns. They very often do hate organized religions, but that is an entirely different matter.

Oh, and my avatar would give you a clue as to my religious leanings, if you knew anything about religions.

[ironbark]

43. Tell it to those who lived through it

“… HATRED OF GOD is the principle driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends, Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails a destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly put them into practice.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn

If “Atheism is only ancillary” to Soviet Communism then what is the relationship of the teachings of Jesus to the Crusades and Inquisition?-
Antithetical, completely opposed and independent…no relationship whatsoever other than the perversions conducted by people subsequently wearing the tag ‘Christian’.

“My point with quoting the Gospel of Luke is simple: that single lines involving words like "hate" are often misleading out of context” Occam

My point (“embarassingly agenda-driven”) in quoting Lenin/Marx pre empted your “hate” quote with similar intent and sharing the pov articulated in posts 17&18. ie If atheists wish to continually play the Crusades card as the outcome of Christian scripture then it is as easy, equally legitimate and far more supported in doctrine to sheet home the Gulags to atheism/communism. There are more doctrinal links between Atheism and Soviet communism than there are between Christianity and the Crusades/Inquisition.

“Claims that atheists "hate God" are just bizarre” Occam

As an existing/personified being, perhaps so. But the hatred of religion and all things God related is a tangible and ever present condition on this very board. It blinds people to the recognition of any positive contribution from religion and leads to the incessant sheeting of blame for events such as the Crusades back onto religion in the most shallow and simplistic manner. (Thus the quotes I provided, doing same, in same manner and much easier, sheeting Gulags back to Atheism. Good for goose, good for gander. Might make em think about the real origins and the real causes….an “agenda” something akin to taking a Jesus “hate” quote out of context ;-)

“Oh, and my avatar would give you a clue as to my religious leanings, if you knew anything about religions”. Occam

Uncertain as a result of the “hate” quote out of context I asked rather than assumed. Given the quote I thought the avatar perhaps to be a graphic representation of nether regions and/or a statement of intent ;-)

[Occam Bandage]

48. I made the argument that the claim that atheism was central to Communism was agenda-driven.

While Mr. Solzhenitsyn was a Nobel laureate and a fearless and admirable crusader against the tyranny of the USSR (and I admit I was not aware of him before you called him to my attention, so for that I thank you), a man who spent his life dedicated to the opposition of an ideology is, yes, agenda-driven. While I do not doubt the courage of his convictions, nor his life's importance to the global cause of human rights, I do doubt his ability to impartially describe the motives of the Russian revolutionaries, especially given the outright false claims he has made in defense of the Tsarist regime: that it did not censor the press, that it did not imprison dissidents, that it did not have an omnipresent secret police, etc.

I think there are about an equal number of "doctrinal" links between Christianity and the Crusades/Inquisition and between atheism and Soviet human-rights abuses: none, with a slightly stronger case made for the Christianity link. Soviets were atheists, and Crusaders were Christians, and I think that's about it. The reason I think the Christian link is stronger is that Christianity was more central to the Crusader worldview than atheism was to the Soviet worldview. Soviets believed their crimes were for the good of the Proletariat and the World Revolution (of which atheism was but one of many necessary factors), while the Crusaders and Inquisitors specifically believed their crimes were for the benefit of Christ and Christendom. Which is not to say that I believe Christianity was the cause for either the Crusades or the Inquisition; the difference is subtle but, I think, important.

[ironbark]

49. I’d like to make clear distinction

between the doctrine and manifesto/s and the subsequent believer behaviours.

Does Marx get to determine what Marxism is on the basis of his doctrine? Or does it become Marxist, Lenninst, Stalinist communism viewed on the basis of events and outcomes?
Does Christ get to determine what Christianity is on the basis of his doctrine? Or is Christianity the deeds others subsequently “believed their crimes were for the benefit of Christ”?

For Marx we have a reliable authoritative doctrine and a clear picture of how it was played out by early communists. Authorship of the NT? Well, if I was Catholic about it, three authors in one narrating the doctrine to twelve guys who wrote it down much latter ;-)

What interests me most is “the Crusaders and Inquisitors specifically believed their crimes were for the benefit of Christ and Christendom”.
Even as a non Christian I am compelled to ask- On what doctrinal basis did they believe this?
Was there anything that Christ was reported to have said that would encourage, justify or excuse their behaviour?
If there is a “stronger” doctrinal link from Crusaider/Inquisiter to Christianity…at what point does the behaviour connect with the doctrine?

I could understand it if the author of a doctrine left issues vague or failed to give specific directive or didn’t give enough time for it to sink in or be implemented.
But we are talking about behaviours (“crimes”) linked back to a doctrine that is ancient, clear, specific and ‘Commanding’- ‘Thou shalt not kill’.
Breaching that explicit directive was “for the benefit of Christ” or in keeping with or linked to his doctrine?.......>HOW<?

I’m going to suggest that the ‘link’ (in both cases, Christianity/Communism) is >not< a doctrinal one that goes back to the manifesto/s but is a human one that goes back to immaturity or perverse base nature.
The capacity to take ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and turn it into ‘Die heretic die’ is not a reflection of or link back to the ‘No Kill’ doctrine or its author…it is a reflection of the very perversity the doctrine sought to address in the first place. To associate the authors name (Christianity/Marxism) with behaviours diametrically opposed to their stated doctrine is irrational and yet another reflection of the same perversity.

“Soviets were atheists, and Crusaders were Christians, and I think that's about it.” Occam

For me that would require further examination. Were the Crusaders Christian? In what sense of the word? In what link to or association with Christian doctrine? They wore red crosses? They thought/vehemently believed they were Christian? Thinking/believing/identifying makes it so?
(Personally I am far less interested in who they thought they were and what they thought they were doing than in what happened to them when they got there ;- )


Solzhenitsyn? Glad you got acquainted.
His potentially impaired impartially? Well…I’m kinda guessing that a long stint in the Gulags takes the edge off ones objectivity ;-)
He also did a term in the US as a refugee…on returning to Russia he impartially (?) observed
(And here I pray you excuse my faulty memory)…it was either-
“America is a nation in grave danger of litigating itself to death”
Or
“America is a nation in grave danger of entertaining itself to death”

I don’t believe that either condition could be sheeted home to the founding fathers, their doctrines or the Constitution ;-)

[plantwomyn]

13. Read much? nt

[Odin2005]

26. I disagree. IMO they are an expression of the dark side of the Western worldview

Though it has it's roots in Christianity it is part of the deep collective unconscious of every Westerner, including Atheists such as myself. It is the desire to be an agent of universal redemption, to save mankind. to steal a passage I ran into http://www.johnreilly.info/sf3.htm">here:

"Spengler's Faustian West, of course, is a being of immensely vaster scale and subtlety. Its science quite literally seeks the infinite and its technology is contemptuous of the human scale. It alone developed a mathematics which can deal with invisible forces, by means of which the West has probed the regions of the earth and of near space that have heretofore been closed not only to man, but to life itself. Its political and military power has stretched all around the world. In its Spring, it developed forms of Christianity to which all human beings were to be compelled to submit, while in its early Winter it dreamed of ideologies of reform and revolution which would end the need for further social change once and for all, everywhere in the world. Its art is music, just as the art of the Classical world was sculpture. Music is based on harmony, the invisible force which operates between notes, and mathematical time, the clockwork of the Faustian soul.

...

The characteristic enterprise of the West is not the war of conquest, but the Crusade. The peculiarly Western desire is not to dominate, which is common to many times and places; rather, it is the desire to be the instrument of universal redemption. The Crusaders have an ill-name in the Islamic world and the merits of the case cannot be decided here. However, though the Crusaders turned greedy and the sack of Jerusalem was an atrocity, the whole affair cannot be reduced to simple unprovoked aggression. It was sparked, after all, by a plea for help from the Byzantine Empire, which seemed to be about to expire in the face of a renewed Muslim offensive.

Consider how extraordinary a spectacle it was. In the early Crusades, at least, it meant that an appreciable portion of the governing class of a no-longer primitive civilization went on a fantastic mission to the edge of the known world to rescue God ( as represented by the holy places that were filled with His presence). Historical analogies are hard to come by.

This type of enterprise tells you as much about Western art and culture as it does about Western politics and military ambitions. The effrontery is breathtaking. And sometimes, as with International Style architecture or the music of Richard Wagner, it may express itself as the will to crush the audience. In its most corrupt form, it is the desire to shock and to destroy traditional sensibilities. The culture of the Weimar Republic was far more "Faustian" in this sense than that of its Nazi successor. Still, it is important to recognize that these things are corruptions, parodies of the spirit of the West. "

[ironbark]

46. Nice post

and refreshing to see it come from an atheist perspective ;-)

Enjoyed the quotes and the link. Thought provoking. Thank you.

Into the causes of Crusade mix I would also throw the proposition that European nobility had a problem with excess princes and no available principalities. War within or among Christian nations would be inevitable unless some other realm/s should become available. The Middle East was convenient.

Amidst the text you provided this caught my eye-
“It alone developed a mathematics which can deal with invisible forces, by means of which the West has probed the regions of the earth and of near space that have heretofore been closed not only to man, but to life itself.”

And provokes the observation that a very good deal of that “mathematics” came from Islamic civilization and as to probing “ the regions of the earth and of near space” I convey this teaser-

“O assembly of Jinns and men, if you can penetrate the regions of the heavens and the earth, then penetrate them!” Qur’an,55:33

The Arabic distinguishes between physical and metaphysical ‘heavens’, here the physical heavens are being referred to. The “if” employed in this case indicates the proposition is an achievable hypothesis.
My Muslim friends are content that the West reached space first, they claim occurred on the back of the mathematics they provided and confirmed the (seemingly ridiculous) Quranic prediction that it was possible ;-)

Lucky guess merchants.

“Do the unbelievers not realize that the heavens and the earth were joined together,
then I clove them asunder and I made every living thing out of water. Will they still not believe?” Qur’an, 21:30

;-)

[Odin2005]

50. We got Algebra from the Arabs, Geometry from the Greeks. Calculus is our gift to mankind.

Some of Oswald Spengler's assertions are German Idealist nonsense, but his analysis of the deep cultural forces unique to each civilization are simply brilliant. From Gothic cathedrals to skyscrapers, from the Christian Apocalypse to Marxism. From the Inquisition to modern Totalitarianism. From early polyphonic religious music to Beethoven. From Roger Bacon and William Occam to Calculus and String Theory. From Nordic epic poetry to Hamlet to Faust. All are derived from a single inner unconscious drive that is the basis of Western culture: Grasping for the infinite, rejecting limits to one's will. The Alpha and Omega of the Western soul.

[Orrex]

7. A crusader and an inquisitor went to a restaurant

They ordered the same meal, and soon the server appeared bearing a tray with the two identical dinners.

"How do you know who gets what?" asked the crusader.

The woman smiled. "It doesn't matter which is which."

"'Witch is witch?'" sputtered the inquisitor.

So they promptly weighed her down with rocks and threw her in the river.

[plantwomyn]

10. Maybe you need to move into a more rural area

Since I moved out to the city, no more Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't know how you get more rural than Idaho. I keep wondering why everyone seems to think dying by beheading is worse then being shot or blown up by a cluster bomb. WTF. How soon they forget the death and destruction "Christians" spewed on innocents all over the world for the last 2000 years. Read the journals of the Priest that came to the new world with the Conquistadors. Brutal, barbaric, and without conscience. Enslaving or slaughtering especially those of us with dark skin, for after all we aren't equally human are we. And of course we don't worship their god either. The sun, earth and sky are not amazing enough to warrant their respect. Well now they are starting to get it. GO GREEN. Mother Earth is our only chance.

[jody]

14. Please don't hold anything back, tell us how you really feel. n/t

[Traveling_Home]

15. Now don't forget that the Jehovah's Witnesses are responsible ..

for many of the Supreme Court cases protecting our Rights of Free Speech.
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/jw_freedom.html

By: Tony Mauro
Date: 30 May 2000
Source: USA Today

If you have a front door, a Jehovah's Witness probably has knocked on it.

With well-dressed politeness and practiced persistence, they offer literature, biblical advice and a path to God's kingdom as they see it.

As often as not, they knock at the wrong time, when we're too busy to listen or not particularly interested in shopping for another faith.

But before you shut the door on a Jehovah's Witness the next time, pause to consider the shameful persecution they suffered not too long ago, as well as the rich contribution they have made to the First Amendment freedoms we all enjoy.

The legal clashes Jehovah's Witnesses had with government authorities over their proselytizing and practices led to an astonishing total of 23 separate Supreme Court rulings between 1938 and 1946 -- surely more than any other single religious organization engendered before or since. So frequently did Witnesses raise core First Amendment issues that Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote, "The Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties."

<more>

[JustCommonSense]

23. Hi Revolution

If that picture is you - being a Native American - I can understand your point of view....

The term "manifest destiny" is the spirit which moved the self righteous to take all they desired... all the lands without guilt

Yes religion brought the self righeousness...

It may just be me - BUT there seems to be a return to the spirit.

There is a "return of the ancestors" you can google it. meeting later this month... You may like to go...

I am of NO religion - but have been drawn to many Native American teachings. Coming from christian programming - it seems so simple and clean... I envisioned the spirit of a wolf to come within me. even meditated for it - not knowing that to the Cherokee this is God - Grandfather - I later found that I am 1/8 Cherokee and now "feel" drawn due to a past life... true? who knows - it just feels this way.

[Evoman]

27. I'm willing to let that stuff stay in the past and not judge religious people based on it.

As long as they don't pull that shit now. Or try to govern me with religion. If they do, I lose it and things go bad. Deal?

[JustCommonSense]

30. Sorry

It is not staying in the past - though many do not see it...

Religion is used to help US wars which are currently going on...

History continues to repeat itself...

Gee Just listen to Bushes old speeches.

Axis of evil
evil doers
etc...

We are ALL brainwashed to one degree or another - including me