Posted on 07/29/2002 6:35:04 PM PDT by Tribune7
This is about the 3rd time I answer that charge made against Christianity. Islam encourages killing, Christianity discourages it. Just like all the laws against murder do not stop murder, all the religious injunctions against killing do not stop it completely either. All that laws and religions can do is encourage or discourage certain activities. Islam encourages killing, Christianity discourages it. Atheists encourage mass murder, Christianity discourages it. Our own troops have been guilty of atrocities even though they are severely discouraged from it. What this means is that the atrocities of American troops have been far fewer than those of other troops, not that they have been nonexistent. You cannot change human nature, you can only nudge it in the right direction.
It may never be known how many millions were killed during the Spanish conquest of the western hemisphere. The native populations of many caribbean islands were eliminated. Slavery (agricultural and mining) was the way things were done, and indians died very soon after being put to such labor. Africans were imported as slave labor in part because they survived the work better, and in part because it was "more humane" to enslave them rather than the rapidly dying indians. All those picturesque old spanish missions in California and all over the west were the centers of vast slave plantations, operated by the Church. When the US purchased Florida from Spain in 1820, there were no indians left alive in the entire peninsula, all had been worked to death, killed by disease, or rounded up and sent elsewhere as slave labor.
And this is the record only of Spain, in the Americas. There is also Portugal in Brazil, and other European nations in Africa. I don't want to open the can of worms that is England's still-continuing problems in Ireland. And then there is mother Russia (pre-marxism) and her endless expansion into southern asia and eastward to the Pacific. Does anyone know how many asians died as Christian Russia expanded?
This is not a condemnation of Christianity. It's a commentary on man's nature. And it's evidence that religion really doesn't alter man's nature. We are what we are, regardless of the prattling of preachers.
Please don't get me started on this topic. Some of the greatest brutality exercised against fellow humans was done in the name of Jesus. For a small sample, please refer to Doctor Stochastic's excellent posts within this very thread: Post 1008 and Post 1009
Yep. His train of thought is like a stopped up toilet.
I already answered the above indirectly. Religion does not change human nature. All it does is nudge people one way or the other. Christianity influences people against murder. Atheism and Islam influence them towards murder.
"Kill them all, God will know His own." -- the Abbot of Citeaux outside the walls of Beziers.
To: RightWingNilla:Can you believe this? I'm truly stunned. The outrageousness of such a statement raises the creationist tactic of shameless brazenness to a whole new order of magnitude.Asked and answered more than once already. You seem to have the dishonest habit of repeating the same stuff that has been refuted a few hundred posts before as if it had been completely ignored.
1094 posted on 8/11/02 1:04 AM Eastern by gore3000
You're right, I'm not reading a lot of blue these days. For anyone who hasn't seen it, there's quite a case study in psychopathology there.
But I've seen it. Breathtaking hypocrisy, yes.
I speak as a Christian fundamentalist - that is, a person who believes the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.
Indeed, there were many atrocities committed in the name of Christ. In my opinion, these were caused by people not knowing or believing the teachings of Christ - people who could falsely rationalize that others were subhuman - animals - either by race, customs, or the deeds of their ancestors.
Paradoxically, that kind of thinking exists today among the very ignorant as well as the very educated. On the one hand, the CI/Aryan types and on the other, the anti-Semitic intellectual agnostics. I do not take it lightly that the hate always seem to center first on the Jewish people.
IMHO, the more people are discouraged from embracing the teachings of Christ, the more likely these atrocities will happen again.
I urge you to examine the numbers on these exhaustive tables Democide - along with the sources. It puts the entire issue in much better perspective to all such atrocities and will substantiate that the greatest horror was brought by atheistic political regimes.
Great site, Alamo-Girl. But I keep bringing up the track record of Imperial Spain because they were possibly the most religious nation of their time -- and the most genocidal. Priests accompanied the exploration and colonization missions. I'm not making a cause-and-effect claim here. All I'm saying is that religion is no guarantee against beastial conduct.
Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---the anatomy of TYRANNY...
Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/America---the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin-DEFORMITY-cancer...Atheist secular materialists through ATHEISM/evolution CHANGED-REMOVED the foundations...demolished the wall(separation of state/religion)--trampled the TRUTH-GOD...built a satanic temple/SWAMP-MALARIA/RELIGION(cult of darwin-marx-satan) over them---made these absolutes subordinate--relative and calling/CHANGING all the... residuals---technology/science === TO evolution via schlock/sMUCK science...to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering***('test' for office/vetting)--PC--atheism...anti-God/Truth RELIGION(USSC monopoly)--and declared a crusade/WAR--JIHAD--INTOLERANCE/TYRANNY(breaking the establishment clause)...against God--man--society/SCIENCE!!
***...new!
All I'm saying is that religion is no guarantee against beastial conduct.
I agree with you that religion is no guarantee. I believe this is so because denominations generally add their own set of values and interpretation to the Word.
Some religions put their own teachings (traditions) on par with (or ahead of) the Word and thus, a religious leader instructing a soldier to kill would be in the soldier's eyes the same thing as if Christ himself told him to do so.
This is in direct contradiction to the Word:
In the example, if the soldier knew and believed the teachings of Christ, he would likely have refused to his own peril.
IMHO, the more people know and believe the teachings of Christ the less likely they will be do any kind of harm to another person.
No, what it shows is your utter dishonesty. The very post your are responding to ( Post #1094 ) reposts where RWN's exact statement had been previously answered and Post# 1100 gives another example.
You are a shameless liar.
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