As would the persecution of the Cathars of southern France in the 1200s.
Indeed. “Kill them all. God will know His own”
While it can’t be argued that a lot of horrible stuff has been committed in the name of religion and that religion has been used to justify horrible actions after the fact, one could argue that that is not what the religion itself is about. Just so we understand each other, I am an atheist.
FWIW,
Rob
I got a beef with Christianity. The *whole idea *of it, but if pressed to give a specific example, I’ll offer up the psychological torture of children (including me) by telling them that a loving God might burn them eternally in a suffocating, horrifying, flaming hell.
Just so we understand eachother, I do not consider myself an atheist.
I was about to remark that a suffocating, horrifying, flaming hell is not, per se, a fundamental component of Christianity; then I Googled “hell in the bible” and found this, and realized that 1) I’m wrong, and 2) “bible.org” are not nice people (and seem to have some trouble with objectivity).
Of course, most of these things reflect on Christianity now in about the way that Daniel Boone fighting the Indians reflects on America as a whole now.
Yes, I know that it’s arguable that certain attitudes remain, but do they reflect the core point of the organization, especially now?
Specifically, begin with the reign of Henry VIII and read up through Charles I.
Many examples have already been given, but here’s a story about an autistic boy killed by faith healers.
This also continued into the next generation, with the last gasp of pagan Saxony being the Stellinga revolt, brutally put down by the now Christianized Saxon nobility.
Another example are the Muslims of Lucera in Italy. Deported there from Sicily by Frederik II, for ~3/4 of a century they more or less loyally supported assorted Christian monarchs ( first Hohenstaufen, then Angevin ) with troops and taxes until 1300, when much of the population of the town was sold into slavery or otherwise expelled by their king, the Angevin Charles II, partly at the instigation of the Pope.
The Spanish Inquisition was pretty brutal.
Do a google on Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1566) who was a Spainish Dominican missionary and take note how Columbus and others treated the Indians. He noted that Spaniards:
Also Tainos were hung from a gallows frame:
How’s that?
These quotes I used directly from Professor Gerald Larue’s Freethought Across the Centuries.
I’m not sure why that site convinced you of anything, but a suffocating, horrifying, flaming hell is not, per se, a fundamental component of Christianity.
Even setting aside the question of biblical literalism, there’s the fact that even interpreted fairly literally, the bible can easily and honestly be interpreted as not containing such a message. (Granted it can easily and honestly be interpreted as containing such a message as well.)
The most compelling reference to anything like a flaming hell is in Revelation, with the references to a lake of fire. However (again, recall I’m in “literalist” mode, which is not my natural mode but I’m just illustrating here) the lake of fire is characterized as “the second death,” and elsewhere in the new testament it is said that the end of the cosmos consists in a state in which God is “all in all” and in which there is no such thing as death at all.
I could say more but this is a hijack already. I just wanted to register that there are honest inerpretations of the bible which take it fairly literally and yet which do not ascribe to it the traditional doctrine of hell.
Again, that’s to put aside the question of literalism itself. Once you start understanding scriptural and mythological writings (and the experiences that give rise to them) as fundamentally symbolic and metaphorical, there’s no way to maintain that the traditional doctrine of hell is “fundamental” to Christianity.
-FrL-
I am loving this thread. Thanks guys. I have already quickly dispensed with my friend. I emailed her links in between my customer calls at work, and she was reduced to getting all personal. (It just feels like you don’t like me when you say these things). Ha.
Frylock, I started this threadin Great Debates, because I am interested in more of what you have to say.
Correction: The Spanish Inquisition was unexpectedly brutal.
Christainity reached south India2000 years ago, very peacefully.
But in Goa portugese forced locals to convert.
Congratulations. Maybe you can make her cry too.
She thought I would be easy pickins, having no higher education and being insecure in my ability to debate most topics; she thought she can feed me her nonsense and I would be unable to combat it. If she weeps, let her weep disabused of that idea.
A new use for General Questions