The End of Christendom

RichardPoe.com ^ | April 12, 2002 | Richard Poe

[jeffyraven]

*sighs*

It's not a matter of endurance, it's a matter of not wishing feeble-minded sheep to exercise the folly of their superstition on my behalf. I certainly don't lay awake nights hoping that reason and logic will intervene and put Christianity and Islam and religions into the history books alongside the Greek myths, where they so dearly belong.

[TomSmedley]

What Christians fail to understand historically and repeatedly is that their version of The Truth is not universal and shared by everyone.

If there are no standards in the universe, than smashing a pieta is as meaningful an act as scultping one. Flying a jetliner into a skyscraper is as significant an act as building the jetliner or the skyscraper.

OTOH, if there are absolutes "out there" that can be known, then some will understand them better than others. Some will be more right. Others will be more wrong. And some will be totally evil. The 20th century slaughtered 200 million civilians in the name of post-christian sophistication.

[jeffyraven]

VERY interesting point, sir, and one I largely agree with.

Our only point of divergence, I suspect, is the source and perhaps the meaning of those absolutes. To quote the master, "we feel the same, we just see it from a different point of view."

[TomSmedley]

The 20th century slaughtered 200 million civilians in the name of post-christian sophistication.

20 million to the Nazis, 60 million to Lenin & Stalin, Inc, another 100 million or so to Chairman Mao, and the remainder to the secular humanist "decolonization" fad wherein the US and the USSR cooperated to consign benighted millions back to barbarism.

[nickcarraway]

In England, Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas, because it was not in the Bible.

That's funny it's in my Bible. Did Cromwell's Bible start after the birth of Christ?

[SerpentDove]

As Vance Havner once observed,

"There are countless men who have tried to bury the Bible. Yet those men are buried, and the Bible is still here."

[RightWhale]

Christendom doomed? The Catholic Church is the second largest operation in America, right behind the Federal Government. Doesn't seem particularly ill.

[helmsman]

Eventually, however, people began noticing that, if you took everything in the Bible literally, much of it just didn’t make sense.

This would be the expected result of combining dozens of different documents, written by dozens of different authors who wrote over a period of at least a thousand years, together into one book -- then claiming that God was behind it all. And which Bible are we talking about? Evidently, God has "inspired" at least two major modern canons, the Catholic and the Protestant. I think Christians would do much better to just focus on the story of Jesus without insisting on the concept of biblical inerrancy. While the gospels may conflict in style and detail, they do agree on the crucifixion/resurrection story, which is the whole ballgame, after all.

[Gurn]

If we're just feeble-minded sheep, why would you care if we waste our time.

Who created the earth, by the way?

[jeffyraven]

Who created the earth, anyway?

How the hell should I know? I will tell you, though, that my inclinations tend toward "what," not "who."

[3catsanadog]

Don't forget the millions slaughtered by Pol Pot. But I don't think he was a Christian.

[RobbyS]

Christendom simply means "land of the Christians.'

[1 spark]

I'll bet the church yearns for the day of teaching the illiterate and ignorant masses the "simpler faith, of candles, statues, incense, processions, incantations and stained-glass windows"...just like it yearns for the days when children and parents kept silent about molestation.

This guy talks about witch burnings ("rare in Catholic countries") without considering the history of the Catholic church? Give me a break. Has he heard of the Inquisitions?

The church is in trouble. The lies and wickedness are just beginning to surfacing.

[RobbyS]

Read John Locke's "Reasonableness of Christianity" and you will discover that the major preconceptions of liberal democracy are found in his thought. Remove his religious ideas, and you remove the essence of Americanism. Tocqueville recognized this and also the role of religious enthiusiasm.

[RobbyS]

The nquisitions were actually gentler than the secular courts. Even being burned alive was better than being drawn and quartered. And the Inquisition gave the accused more legal rights than the English Star-chamber courts.

[MEGoody]

"phantasmagoria of Protestant sects emerged, many preaching a nightmare version of Christianity, in which every thought and custom not found in the Bible was forbidden"

Okay, this line is a riot. I can't quite figure out how it is a 'nightmare' to be saved by grace through faith, and be eternally secure in that, while always working, never knowing whether one is saved is considered a non-nightmare.

[RobbyS]

I am wondering what the reaction of the media will be if it becomes clear that most of thse guys were gays?

[MEGoody]

What is your evidence for your claim that there is no such thing as absolute permanence? If you have any, can you cite sources? Or are you only sharing your belief with us? If so, how can you look down on someone else for having a belief?

You may chose not to believe the bible, but there IS a wealth of evidence, both historical and archeological, of its validity and accuracy. If you really want to know what that evidence is, I can give you a whole list of resources.

[MEGoody]

If our prayers for you make you nervous, then perhaps you believe what we do deep within your heart, but you just chose to pretend you don't. If you truly didn't believe, our prayers for you would not have such an effect on your emotions.

[foreverfree]

bump