I am not thinking in terms of the mystical or supernatural meaning of the Atonement, but something else entirely.
In the thread about killing Hitler currently running in GD, the OP asked which historical figures posters would wipe out of history to save innocent lives. One of the respondents listed Jesus Christ, averring that the evil he began has not yet run its course.
To me, this position seems to be logically suspect. Holding it requires that you concede a number of points:
[ol]
[li]That Christ was a historical rather than mythical figure;[/li][li]That he was human rather than divine;[/li][li]That the persons who follow him have been responsible for a great number of murders and other atrocities in the last two thousand years.[/li][/ol]
Now, I won’t argue (3), though I do think it unfairly overlooks the great number of good deeds Christians have also been responsible for. But the combination of 1 & 2 bother me. First of all, Christ left no writings of his own, and stories directly about him (the canonical and non-canonical gospels) were all written after his death–in some cases long after, and in most cases by persons who did not know him personally. These tales are also contradictory in many of their details, and one can see tension between the different groups of early Christianity in them–so much so that it’s hard to ascribe a single mind, Christ’s, as the author of the sentiments the various Gospels express. Add to that the fact that the few details that all the Gospel writers agree on paint him as a pacifist more interested in going about doing good than carving an empire. I just don’t see how one can truly lay the sins of people who call themselves his followers at the carpenter’s feet.
But that’s just me. Anybody else have a different view?
All he has to do is pop in once in a while and say, “These people over here are doing it right-those numskulls over there I’ve got nothing to do with.”
I’m not arguing that Christ is divine, Czarcasm. My position on his identity is that either he was a mortal teacher like, for instance, Socrates, and all the informaiton we have on him comes from the writings of others rather than his own words; or that he was as mythical as Herakles.
Psst - that was me, in a separate thread - not emacknight. Don’t get credit for nothin’ round 'ere!
As to the OP question (and respondents about saving the most innocent lives), I think we’re laying blame on the wrong man (probably the point). Jesus himself preached pretty much wholly on the ‘peace and love’ front - judge not lest ye be judged, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, love thy neighbour, etc. What I’m driving at is the idea that he’s not called the ‘Lamb of God’ for nothing.
Rather, I think you’d need to look forward (and back) to the composers of the parts of the New and Old Testaments (needless to say, Jesus had nothing to do with the actual writing of the Bible) and cast blame at those who squarely ignored all the ‘peace and love’ stuff and thought ‘I don’t like the gays/women/whatever, let’s slip in a quick passage about how they should be stoned to death.’.
Nietzsche made a similar point when he wrote “The very word ‘Christianity’ is a misunderstanding–at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.”
I think the real Jesus Christ – and by that I mean the crazy carpenter hippie who was put to death in 33 AD, not the fantasy figure that followed – would be utterly chagrined at the abuses of power performed in his name. Jesus is one of the few genuinely sympathetic characters in the Bible; it’s jerks like homophobic Paul, schizophrenic Abraham, and that bastard Jehovah Himself who made Christianity into the monolithic, soul-destroying organization that’s been a plague on humanity for two thousand years and counting.
I sort of agree with the OP, but for kicks I’ll offer a counter argument:
Aside from pacifism, it seems from the scriptures that the historical Jesus preached that there was a heaven, that by following his teachings people could go to that heaven and that compared to the afterlife, the affiars of our day-to-day lives and our suffering in this world were more or less unimportant.
I don’t think it takes too much foresight to see that if a certain kind of person accepts the above tenants, they will end up justifying a whole lot of very unfortunate acts with them. After all, burning a heretic to death for their beliefs may seem evil, but if that heretic is putting hundreds or thousands of eternal souls at risk with his teachings, burning him to death is certainly the lesser evil to letting him continue. And if a nation is full of non-belivers, certainly the warfare and death needed to conquer that country and convert its population is a small price to pay to bring more souls to God.
Who knows if Jesus ever actually realized his teachings would be used to justify such acts, but I think it can be argued that he should have, and thus he bears some of the responsibility for the acts that happened in his name.
snip.
I think that this is fairly accurate. We have evidence that shows that many of the other cultures contemporary with the early Christians were fairly liberal in their tolerance of other faiths. Jesus was not just a pacifist preacher, he was a rabble rouser that blended politics in with his message. It was only when the early Christians started making trouble that the Roman empire decided to deal with them harshly. The faith hasn’t had a positive track record of good behaviour ever since either. It is certain that political change would always have occurred, the religious fanaticism and political will of the church drove the western world for the better part of 1500 years. A lot of that time was violent, repressive, and occasionally outright hostile to anyone who dared step out of line. I think it’s fair to say that Christ bears some responsibility for what he started.
He also said things like “I come not to bring peace but a sword”; like the rest of the Bible with selective quotation you can make Jesus out to be nice, but that doesn’t make his philosophy nice. And his basic philosophy, the idea that there is an eternal afterlife and his is the one true faith and so on demands and excuses the evils that Christians have committed.
Exactly what I’ve been trying to say. The atrocities committed by Christianity, the oppression, the conquests and conversions by the sword are the straightforward logical extension of what Jesus said the world was like.
Which brings us straight back to the argument of how much the Bible can be trusted. Contradictory statements are found all over the Bible; how can we reconcile statements like “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.” and “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me”. So which is it, bringing division or unity? They do not appear to reconcile into the same person. Which is more likely to have been made up? Given that the peaceful stuff is such an anomaly in a book full of condemnation, it seems more likely that the true nature of Jesus was that of…well, what we’d call almost a ‘hippy’ outlook, and those that came after emphasised/made up the violent stuff.
This is especially applicable to the idea that statements like ‘no-one gets to heaven but through me’ (which is what I think you are discussing at the end of the first paragraph) automatically lead to evils committed in his name, the violent nature of humans is arguably more to blame than anything Jesus said.
This is not an exclusively Christian thing either, of course.
And at any rate; his fundamental worldview trivializes violence. It’s the eternal afterlife that matters; if you actually take Christianity seriously there really isn’t any reason to care about killing. Kill a hundred, kill a thousand, kill a billion; you are only sending people to what they deserve. For that matter, the bigger the numbers the more moral; killing a whole family saves them from the pain of separation from their loved ones assuming they all go to Heaven. In fact, it’s a straightforward implication of Christianity that one of the most moral acts possible is to kill humanity.
And then there’s the fact that with eternity at stake ANY action you take in the mortal world is trivial compared to saving souls. Torture a billion people to death and save one more soul than you would have without torturing them, and you’ve done an infinite amount of good. Christianity is tailor made to excuse any amount of evil. It doesn’t really matter if he preached peace or war; the basic worldview he was pushing demanded as a moral imperative violence and oppression and conversion by force.
And yet Exodus 20:13 specifically states “You shall not murder”. In Matthew 19:19 Jesus repeats it; “Jesus replied, " ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,’[d] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[e]”" I guess it depends more on your view of humanity as a whole. If you are violent, then you are going to find reasons for violence in Christianity. If you are peaceful, you can find reasons to be peaceful in the Bible. Believing that humans are hairless apes with a fundamental tribal and violent nature explains a lot; particularly why the world hasn’t necessarily become more or less ‘evil’ since the onset of Christianity. The ancient world was just as ‘evil’ and violent as anything the age of Christianity came up with and they didn’t have the excuse of interpreting a book (written by humans).
I’d argue that there’s a line to be drawn between responsibility and result. Leaving aside the matter of good or evil for now, and assuming he existed per general Christian belief, it seems fair to me to say that the actions of Christians today (and since in general) are the result of Jesus. Without him, those things would not have happened. But I wouldn’t say those things were the responsibility of him. An argument could well be made that a preacher or leader is responsible for the actions taken as a result of speeces and advice given, and so it may be fair to say that the actions of those close to him and around that time are partially his responsiblity, but I think we’re too far now for him to have had any idea what his advice would have.
Oddly enough, i’d say that to the small extent he is responsible for the crimes of Christians today, he’s probably responsible for the crimes of non-Christians, too, so widespread is Christianity and its effects nowadays. So it’s a very, very small responsibility, but it’s not really limited to Christians.
Meaningless. As I said above; the fundamental worldview of Christianity ( and any religion with a similar worldview ) simply demands the sort of ruthless campaign for conquest and conversion that Christianity has engaged in.
That assumes that you buy the idea that Christianity didn’t make things worse than they would otherwise have been; I don’t. I think it made things worse, and encouraged wars and atrocities and oppression that a non-Christian ( or follower of a similar religion ) simply wouldn’t have bothered with. Even the most ruthless tyrant isn’t going to kill you for what you worship if he simply doesn’t care. Christianity and it’s descendant Islam didn’t get to their present position by being nice and by letting people believe what they wanted; it was by slaughter and forced conversion and the destruction of whole cultures. Which was simply an example of believers doing exactly what their religion clearly demanded they do.
And really, your argument and the similar ones in this thread are just the standard attempt to defend Christianity by demonizing humans ( and Christianity’s tendency to do that is yet another reason that it is evil ). When something bad is done in the name of Christianity it’s because we are vile monsters, and Christianity has no influence upon us; but when something good is done in the name of Christianity suddenly it’s all because of Christianity, our human nature had nothing to do with it.
Yes, but only if your interpretation is a violent one to begin with. There’s nothing in the Bible that forbids peaceful conversion (you might argue the whole point of the gospels was peaceful conversion; writing down the path to perceived Christian salvation so that you need not convert by the sword). The fact that conversion by the sword does happen speaks again to the violent interpretation of scripture (from whichever religion). Note that today missionaries don’t go out armed and threatening death for unbelievers. This points to the conclusion that there is nothing intrinsically violent about conversion, but that it was a sign of more uncivilised times.
I wouldn’t argue that evil has not been done in the name of Christianity (or Islam, or whatever), because obviously there have been countless examples whereby deaths, torture and other evils have been done in the name of religion. However, what I would argue is that evil acts would be committed regardless of their justification - without Christianity, do you think Torquemada would have been any less despicable, or the Princes of Europe any less warlike? Religion is a convenient banner to rally behind, but without it I have no doubt that other excuses (land, honour, money, take your pick) would have been found, as they were in ancient times.
Has religion made it easier for evil to be committed? Undoubtedly, since men will fight harder for some divine reward than for land. However, I still don’t believe we can blame Jesus for the fact that later Christians chose to use Christianity as a justification for violence. Blame Biblical scribes, blame interpretation, blame civilisation at the time, blame base human nature - but I can’t see where anything Jesus said (if indeed the the Bible is any sort of accurate depiction of what the actual historical Jesus said, to which there are serious reservations) would lead, without a pre-existing evil/violent nature, to evil being committed.
No; it’s more that they are weak and disunited. When they can get away with it they still don’t mind using force and other forms of coercion.
The fact is, the stakes that Christianity claims exist demand that any and all possible measures be taken to “save souls”, and excuse any atrocity doing so. These days Christianity is less powerful, less united and taken less seriously by most. And the latter is especially why society has progressed; only by throwing off or largely ignoring Christianity can a Christian society become more moral and civilized. Because Christianity is fundamentally unethical and uncivilized.
That’s just ridiculous, and ignores reality. The believers have committed plenty of atrocities and engaged in a great deal of oppression that they simply wouldn’t have any reason to engage in without being infected by Christianity. And yes, I do think that Torquemada probably wouldn’t have been as bad ( assuming he existed ), and the Princes of Europe less warlike without such a pernicious religion egging them on and excusing ever atrocity and every consequence.
Once again; the way he claimed the world works demands and excuses violence and oppression, on an unlimited scale. That’s what happens when you make the stakes infinite. And no, human nature isn’t to blame; even a naturally pacifist species would be obligated to go to war if it actually took Christianity seriously; it just wouldn’t have been as good at it.
We seem to be at cross purposes; you arguing that Christianity turns people to evil, myself arguing the opposite, but with the same effects upon the world. I’d argue for the latter on the basis that if “any and all” measures taken to convert go against Christian doctrine, wouldn’t you effectively be sacrificing your own soul for the off-chance that the souls of victims of your efforts would get into heaven? Doesn’t make sense that a Christian would condemn themselves to hell for the sake of ‘unbelievers’. You would, however, if Christianity was a convenient and persuasive banner to rally behind, regardless of anything Jesus said.
If it is your belief that without Christianity humanity would become a much more peaceful race, I’ve got to question the likelihood of that; even with no Christianity the world saw pretty much constant warfare and bloodshed; with it, the trend continues. Eliminate Christianity (and therefore Islam) and you save the world the Crusades, and perhaps the Reconquista and Byzantine-Arab wars, but what would replace them? People had no trouble fighting where there was no clear religion cause (before or after Christianity; Hundred Years War, Norman Conquests, many many conflicts in antiquity). The fact that Christianity was co-opted for purposes does not mean that any other beliefs that arose would not be.
Torquemada was a sadistic lunatic who would get his jollies through more temporal means, the Princes of Europe would continue to squabble over land, thrones, possibly without the influence of Chivalry (brought to Europe through Arabic influence) or the Peace and Truce of God. There’s also the fact that great works were commissioned under the banner of Christianity; would Michaelangelo, Caravaggio and so on have been known if their work had not been promoted by the Church? Not to mention Christian monasteries (and Islamic scholars - at the time producing the finest works in the world, with the Islamic world having some of the highest standards of living in the world) being the foremost hopes for scientific advance following the fall of Rome. Would some rival tradition have had such a literary, artistic and scientific tradition? Who knows, but I wouldn’t like to gamble it.
To me it seems quite simple that Christ is not responsible for the very small number of crimes that have been committed by Christians. That can be seen by basic facts. How many Christians have there been? Somewhere in the range of 5-10 billion. How many have committed violence because of their religion? Hard to give an exact figure or even a decent estimate, but certainly a tiny number compared to the total. Hence, since Christians are among the most peaceful group to have ever lived, Christ should be praised for producing a religion that’s so peaceful.
Or look at it this way. The Spanish Inquisition is often blamed for its violence and cruelty, yet it killed far fewer people per year than the United States has in the past century. Yet nobody blasts Washington, Jefferson, et al for causing the USA’s current murder spree.
Really? The Romans required that everybody within the Roman Empire had to worship the emperor, and dished out some pretty cruel punishments on anyone who refused.
Wait, what do the teachings of Christ have to do with Christianity?
Very, very little as far as I can tell. They like to talk about him being crucified, of course, because the crucified Christ can’t open his mouth and spew more inconvenient “peace and love” nonsense that they will have to ignore or twist to their purposes.