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Post by gymnopodie on Oct 17, 2010 13:18:42 GMT
Was there something about beating plowshares into swords?  And they may have gotten it if it was not for the dictatorial, sociopathic rulers. And the dictatorial, sociopathic rulers would never have gained power if it was not for the even more dictatorial, sociopathic religious rulers that the masses became fed up with. So, Christianity does not promise peace, land, and bread from fellow Christians? Have you ever read the Sermon on the Mount? What I'm getting at is that there is nothing Godly about the history of Christianity. If God was truly behind his followers, it would seem to me that Christians would somehow stand out from non-Christians, especially with respects to bloodshed. When I was in Vietnam with the US Army, we had a chaplain who happened to be a Catholic priest. He actually armed himself and fought with us. Afterward he said he prayed for every man that he shot. Do you see anything wrong with that picture? |
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Post by courtney on Oct 17, 2010 23:04:51 GMT
Hello gymnopodie
I'll see your Isaiah 2.4 and raise you Matthew 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
We can go on quote mining like this but I don't think any reasonable interpretation of the Tanakh/Old Testament, New Testament or Quran in their whole would assert that the Abrahamic religions were promising the end of warfare any time soon. Certainly their adherents have never thought it (that appears to be a secular thought). And from what I know of other major religions the same appears also to be true.
Well, that is as maybe, but we are at least then agreed on the point that the communists were promising worldly peace.
Yes, I've read it. Where does Jesus make a promise to people that if they follow him they are going to get peace, land and bread in the sense that the communists did?
Actually, men and women held up as examples of Christian virtue do tend to stand out with respect to bloodshed amongst other things.
But as for wider so-called Christian societies I don't see why I would necessarily have to expect them to clearly stand out from non-christian societies with respect to bloodshed in order to believe that there was currency to the Christian religion.
No, I don't see a dichotomy in principal between this and orthodox Christian belief.
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Post by himself on Oct 17, 2010 23:54:23 GMT
Gym confuses societies with individuals and thinks that because secular rulers give lip service to some religion that the society is itself religious. But only individual people can be Christians [or muslims]. Sometimes they are Men With Swords; but not often, given the exigencies of the secular state. So the question is not "What has Christianity done?" but "What have Christians done?" We are told that the weeds will grow up with the wheat, so there is no reason to suppose that because a man was sprinkled he will magically become impeccable. In fact, a prime belief of Christians that that all men are sinners in need of help.
But there is one test we can apply: compare the routine thuggery and brutality of the pre-Christian age to that of the Christian age; and then again to the secularizing Modern Ages in which the State took control of the Church and subordinated it to secular interests. Once it became important what Nation or Race you were, we find that French Christians tended to act in the interests of France while Spanish Christians acted in the interests of Spain, etc.
But people who believe in the magical influence of a nominal religion seldom give thought to more materialistic factors.
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