Holy Horror

[Spongemom]

http://thetrog.com/historic/holy_horror.html

A pig caused hundreds of Indians to kill one another in 1980. The animal walked through a Muslim holy ground at Moradabad, near New Delhi. Muslims, who think pigs are an embodiment of Satan, blamed Hindus for the defilement. They went on a murder rampage, stabbing and clubbing Hindus, who retaliated in kind. The pig riot spread to a dozen cities and left more than 200 dead.

This swinish episode tells a universal tale. It typifies religious behavior that has been recurring for centuries.

Ronald Reagan often called religion the world's mightiest force for good, "the bedrock of moral order." George Bush said it gives people "the character they need to get through life." This view is held by millions. But the truism isn't true. The record of human experience shows that where religion is strong, it causes cruelty. Intense beliefs produce intense hostility. Only when faith loses its force can a society hope to become humane.

The history of religion is a horror story. If anyone doubts it, just review this chronicle of religion's gore during the last 1,000 years or so:

-- The First Crusade was launched in 1095 with the battle cry "Deus Vult" (God wills it), a mandate to destroy infidels in the Holy Land. Gathering crusaders in Germany first fell upon "the infidel among us," Jews in the Rhine valley, thousands of whom were dragged from their homes or hiding places and hacked to death or burned alive. Then the religious legions plundered their way 2,000 miles to Jerusalem, where they killed virtually every inhabitant, "purifying" the symbolic city. Cleric Raymond of Aguilers wrote: "In the temple of Solomon, one rode in blood up to the knees and even to the horses' bridles, by the just and marvelous judgment of God."

-- Human sacrifice blossomed in the Mayan theocracy of Central America between the 11th and 16th centuries. To appease a feathered-serpent god, maidens were drowned in sacred wells and other victims either had their hearts cut out, were shot with arrows, or were beheaded. Elsewhere, sacrifice was sporadic. In Peru, pre-Inca tribes killed children in temples called "houses of the moon." In Tibet, Bon shamans performed ritual killings. In Borneo builders of pile houses drove the first pile through the body of a maiden to pacify the earth goddess. In India, Dravidian people offered lives to village goddesses, and followers of Kali sacrificed a male child every Friday evening.

-- In the Third Crusade, after Richard the Lion-Hearted captured Acre in 1191, he ordered 3,000 captives -- many of them women and children -- taken outside the city and slaughtered. Some were disemboweled in a search for swallowed gems. Bishops intoned blessings. Infidel lives were of no consequence. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second Crusade: "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."

-- The Assassins were a sect of Ismaili Shi'ite Muslims whose faith required the stealthy murder of religious opponents. From the 11th to 13th centuries, they killed numerous leaders in modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria. They finally were wiped out by conquering Mongols -- but their vile name survives.

-- Throughout Europe, beginning in the 1100s, tales spread that Jews were abducting Christian children, sacrificing them, and using their blood in rituals. Hundreds of massacres stemmed from this "blood libel." Some of the supposed sacrifice victims -- Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, the holy child of LaGuardia, Simon of Trent -- were beatified or commemorated with shrines that became sites of pilgrimages and miracles.

-- In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched an armed crusade against Albigenses Christians in southern France. When the besieged city of Beziers fell, soldiers reportedly asked their papal adviser how to distinguish the faithful from the infidel among the captives. He commanded: "Kill them all. God will know his own." Nearly 20,000 were slaughtered -- many first blinded, mutilated, dragged behind horses, or used for target practice.

-- The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 proclaimed the doctrine of transubstantiation: that the host wafer miraculously turns into the body of Jesus during the mass. Soon rumors spread that Jews were stealing the sacred wafers and stabbing or driving nails through them to crucify Jesus again. Reports said that the pierced host bled, cried out, or emitted spirits. On this charge, Jews were burned at the stake in 1243 in Belitz, Germany -- the first of many killings that continued into the 1800s. To avenge the tortured host, the German knight Rindfliesch led a brigade in 1298 that exterminated 146 defenseless Jewish communities in six months.

-- In the 1200s the Incas built their empire in Peru, a society dominated by priests reading daily magical signs and offering sacrifices to appease many gods. At major ceremonies up to 200 children were burned as offerings. Special "chosen women" -- comely virgins without blemish -- were strangled.

-- Also during the 1200s, the hunt for Albigensian heretics led to establishment of the Inquisition, which spread over Europe. Pope Innocent IV authorized torture. Under interrogation by Dominican priests, screaming victims were stretched, burned, pierced and broken on fiendish pain machines to make them confess to disbelief and to identify fellow transgressors. Inquisitor Robert le Bourge sent 183 people to the stake in a single week.

-- In Spain, where many Jews and Moors had converted to escape persecution, inquisitors sought those harboring their old faith. At least 2,000 Spanish backsliders were burned. Executions in other countries included the burning of scientists such as mathematician-philosopher Giordano Bruno, who espoused Copernicus's theory that the planets orbit the sun.

-- When the Black Death swept Europe in 1348-1349, rumors alleged that it was caused by Jews poisoning wells. Hysterical mobs slaughtered thousands of Jews in several countries. In Speyer, Germany, the burned bodies were piled into giant wine casks and sent floating down the Rhine. In northern Germany Jews were walled up alive in their homes to suffocate or starve. The Flagellants, an army of penitents who whipped themselves bloody, stormed the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt in a gruesome massacre. The prince of Thuringia announced that he had burned his Jews for the honor of God.

-- The Aztecs began their elaborate theocracy in the 1300s and brought human sacrifice to a golden era. About 20,000 people were killed yearly to appease gods -- especially the sun god, who needed daily "nourishment" of blood. Hearts of sacrifice victims were cut out, and some bodies were eaten ceremoniously. Other victims were drowned, beheaded, burned or dropped from heights. In a rite to the rain god, shrieking children were killed at several sites so that their tears might induce rain. In a rite to the maize goddess, a virgin danced for 24 hours, then was killed and skinned; her skin was worn by a priest in further dancing. One account says that at King Ahuitzotl's coronation, 80,000 prisoners were butchered to please the gods.

-- In the 1400s, the Inquisition shifted its focus to witchcraft. Priests tortured untold thousands of women into confessing that they were witches who flew through the sky and engaged in sex with the devil -- then they were burned or hanged for their confessions. Witch hysteria raged for three centuries in a dozen nations. Estimates of the number executed vary from 100,000 to 2 million. Whole villages were exterminated. In the first half of the 17th century, about 5,000 "witches" were put to death in the French province of Alsace, and 900 were burned in the Bavarian city of Bamberg. The witch craze was religious madness at its worst.

-- The "Protestant Inquisition" is a term applied to the severities of John Calvin in Geneva and Queen Elizabeth I in England during the 1500s. Calvin's followers burned 58 "heretics," including theologian Michael Servetus, who doubted the Trinity. Elizabeth I outlawed Catholicism and executed about 200 Catholics.

-- Protestant Huguenots grew into an aggressive minority in France in the 15OOs -- until repeated Catholic reprisals smashed them. On Saint Bartholomew's Day in 1572, Catherine de Medicis secretly authorized Catholic dukes to send their soldiers into Huguenot neighborhoods and slaughter families. This massacre touched off a six-week bloodbath in which Catholics murdered about 10,000 Huguenots. Other persecutions continued for two centuries, until the French Revolution. One group of Huguenots escaped to Florida; in 1565 a Spanish brigade discovered their colony, denounced their heresy, and killed them all.

-- Members of lndia's Thuggee sect strangled people as sacrifices to appease the bloodthirsty goddess Kali, a practice beginning in the 1500s. The number of victims has been estimated to be as high as 2 million. Thugs were claiming about 20,000 lives a year in the 1800s until British rulers stamped them out. At a trial in 1840, one Thug was accused of killing 931 people. Today, some Hindu priests still sacrifice goats to Kali.

-- The Anabaptists, communal "rebaptizers," were slaughtered by both Catholic and Protestant authorities. In Munster, Germany, Anabaptists took control of the city, drove out the clergymen, and proclaimed a New Zion. The bishop of Munster began an armed siege. While the townspeople starved, the Anabaptist leader proclaimed himself king and executed dissenters. When Munster finally fell, the chief Anabaptists were tortured to death with red-hot pincers and their bodies hung in iron cages from a church steeple.

-- Oliver Cromwell was deemed a moderate because he massacred only Catholics and Anglicans, not other Protestants. This Puritan general commanded Bible-carrying soldiers, whom he roused to religious fervor. After decimating an Anglican army, Cromwell said, "God made them as stubble to our swords." He demanded the beheading of the defeated King Charles I, and made himself the holy dictator of England during the 1650s. When his army crushed the hated Irish Catholics, he ordered the execution of the surrendered defenders of Drogheda and their priests, calling it "a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches."

-- Ukrainian Bogdan Chmielnicki was a Cossack Cromwell. He wore the banner of Eastern Orthodoxy in a holy war against Jews and Polish Catholics. More than 100,000 were killed in this 17th-century bloodbath, and the Ukraine was split away from Poland to become part of the Orthodox Russian empire.

-- The Thirty Years' War produced the largest religious death toll of all time. It began in 1618 when Protestant leaders threw two Catholic emissaries out of a Prague window into a dung heap. War flared between Catholic and Protestant princedoms, drawing in supportive religious armies from Germany, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France and Italy. Sweden's Protestant soldiers sang Martin Luther's "Ein 'Feste Burg" in battle. Three decades of combat turned central Europe into a wasteland of misery. One estimate states that Germany's population dropped from 18 million to 4 million. In the end nothing was settled, and too few people remained to rebuild cities, plant fields, or conduct education.

-- When Puritans settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s, they created a religious police state where doctrinal deviation could lead to flogging, pillorying, hanging, cutting off ears, or boring through the tongue with a hot iron. Preaching Quaker beliefs was a capital offense. Four stubborn Quakers defied this law and were hanged. In the 1690s fear of witches seized the colony. Twenty alleged witches were killed and 150 others imprisoned.

-- In 1723 the bishop of Gdansk, Poland, demanded that all Jews be expelled from the city. The town council declined, but the bishop's exhortations roused a mob that invaded the ghetto and beat the residents to death.

-- Islamic jihads (holy wars), mandated by the Koran, killed millions over 12 centuries. In early years, Muslim armies spread the faith rapidly: east to India and west to Morocco. Then splintering sects branded other Muslims as infidels and declared jihads against them. The Kharijis battled Sunni rulers. The Azariqis decreed death to all "sinners" and their families. In 1804 a Sudanese holy man, Usman dan Fodio, waged a bloody jihad that broke the religious sway of the Sultan of Gobir. In the 1850s another Sudanese mystic, 'Umar al-Hajj, led a barbaric jihad to convert pagan African tribes -- with massacres, beheadings and a mass execution of 300 hostages. In the 1880s a third Sudanese holy man, Muhammad Ahmed, commanded a jihad that destroyed a 10,000-man Egyptian army and wiped out defenders of Khartoum led by British general Charles "Chinese" Gordon.

-- In 1801 Orthodox priests in Bucharest, Romania, revived the story that Jews sacrificed Christians and drank their blood. Enraged parishioners stormed the ghetto and cut the throats of 128 Jews.

-- When the Baha'i faith began in Persia in 1844, the Islamic regime sought to exterminate it. The Baha'i founder was imprisoned and executed in 1850. Two years later, the religious government massacred 20,000 Baha'is. Streets of Tehran were soaked with blood. The new Baha'i leader, Baha'ullah, was tortured and exiled in foreign Muslim prisons for the rest of his life.

-- Human sacrifices were still occurring in Buddhist Burma in the 1850s. When the capital was moved to Mandalay, 56 "spotless" men were buried beneath the new city walls to sanctify and protect the city. When two of the burial spots were later found empty, royal astrologers decreed that 500 men, women, boys, and girls must be killed and buried at once, or the capital must be abandoned. About 100 were actually buried before British governors stopped the ceremonies.

-- In 1857 both Muslim and Hindu taboos triggered the Sepoy Mutiny in India. British rulers had given their native soldiers new paper cartridges that had to be bitten open. The cartridges were greased with animal tallow. This enraged Muslims, to whom pigs are unclean, and Hindus, to whom cows are sacred. Troops of both faiths went into a crazed mutiny, killing Europeans wantonly. At Kanpur, hundreds of European women and children were massacred after being promised safe passage.

-- Late in the 19th century, with rebellion stirring in Russia, the czars attempted to divert public attention by helping anti-Semitic groups rouse Orthodox Christian hatred for Jews. Three waves of pogroms ensued -- in the 1880s, from 1903 to 1906, and during the Russian Revolution. Each wave was increasingly murderous. During the final period, 530 communities were attacked and 60,000 Jews were killed.

-- In the early 1900s, Muslim Turks waged genocide against Christian Armenians, and Christian Greeks and Balkans warred against the Islamic Ottoman Empire.

-- When India finally won independence from Britain in 1947, the "great soul" of Mahatma Gandhi wasn't able to prevent Hindus and Muslims from turning on one another in a killing frenzy that took perhaps 1 million lives. Even Gandhi was killed by a Hindu who thought him too pro-Muslim.

-- In the 1950s and 1960s, combat between Christians, animists and Muslims in Sudan killed more than 500,000.

-- In Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978, followers of the Rev. Jim Jones killed a visiting congressman and three newsmen, then administered cyanide to themselves and their children in a 900-person suicide that shocked the world.

-- Islamic religious law decrees that thieves shall have their hands or feet chopped off, and unmarried lovers shall be killed. In the Sudan in 1983 and 1984, 66 thieves were axed in public. A moderate Muslim leader, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was hanged for heresy in 1985 because he opposed these amputations. In Saudi Arabia a teen-age princess and her lover were executed in public in 1977. In Pakistan in 1987, a 25-year-old carpenter's daughter was sentenced to be stoned to death for engaging in unmarried sex. In the United Arab Emirates in 1984, a cook and a maid were sentenced to stoning for adultery -- but, as a show of mercy( ), the execution was postponed until after the maid's baby was born.

-- In 1983 in Darkley, Northern Ireland, Catholic terrorists with automatic weapons burst into a Protestant church on a Sunday morning and opened fire, killing three worshipers and wounding seven. It was just one of hundreds of Catholic-Protestant ambushes that have taken 2,600 lives in Ulster since age-old religious hostility turned violent again in 1969.

-- Hindu-Muslim bloodshed erupts randomly throughout India. More than 3,000 were killed in Assam province in 1983. In May 1984 Muslims hung dirty sandals on a Hindu leader's portrait as a religious insult. This act triggered a week of arson riots that left 216 dead, 756 wounded, 13,000 homeless, and 4,100 in jail.

-- Religious tribalism -- segregation of sects into hostile camps -- has ravaged Lebanon continuously since 1975. News reports of the civil war tell of "Maronite Christian snipers," "Sunni Muslim suicide bombers," "Druze machine gunners," "Shi'ite Muslim mortar fire," and "Alawite Muslim shootings." Today 130,000 people are dead and a once-lovely nation is laid waste.

-- In Nigeria in 1982, religious fanatic followers of Mallam Marwa killed and mutilated several hundred people as heretics and infidels. They drank the blood of some of the victims. When the militia arrived to quell the violence, the cultists sprinkled themselves with blessed powder that they thought would make them impervious to police bullets. It didn't.

-- Today's Shi'ite theocracy in Iran -- "the government of God on earth" -- decreed that Baha'i believers who won't convert shall be killed. About 200 stubborn Baha'is were executed in the early 1980s, including women and teenagers. Up to 40,000 Baha'is fled the country. Sex taboos in Iran are so severe that: (1) any woman who shows a lock of hair is jailed; (2) Western magazines being shipped into the country first go to censors who laboriously black out all women's photos except for faces; (3) women aren't allowed to ski with men, but have a separate slope where they may ski in shrouds.

-- The lovely island nation of Sri Lanka has been turned hellish by ambushes and massacres between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils.

-- In 1983 a revered Muslim leader, Mufti Sheikh Sa'ad e-Din el'Alami of Jerusalem, issued a fatwa (an order of divine deliverance) promising an eternal place in paradise to any Muslim assassin who would kill President Hafiz al-Assad of Syria.

-- Sikhs want to create a separate theocracy, Khalistan (Land of the Pure), in the Punjab region of India. Many heed the late extremist preacher Jarnail Bhindranwale, who taught his followers that they have a "religious duty to send opponents to hell." Throughout the 1980s they sporadically murdered Hindus to accomplish this goal. In 1984, after Sikh guards riddled prime minister Indira Gandhi with 50 bullets, Hindus went on a rampage that killed 5,000 Sikhs in three days. Mobs dragged Sikhs from homes, stores, buses and trains, chopping and pounding them to death. Some were burned alive; boys were castrated.

-- In 1984 Shi'ite fanatics who killed and tortured Americans on a hijacked Kuwaiti airliner at Tehran Airport said they did it "for the pleasure of God."

Obviously, people who think religion is a force for good are looking only at Dr. Jekyll and ignoring Mr. Hyde. They don't see the superstitious savagery pervading both history and current events.

During the past three centuries, religion gradually lost its power over life in Europe and America, and church horrors ended in the West. But the poison lingered. The Nazi Holocaust was rooted in centuries of religious hate. Historian Dagobert Runes said the long era of church persecution killed three and a half million Jews -- and Hitler's Final Solution was a secular continuation.

Meanwhile, faith remains potent in the Third World, where it still produces familiar results.

It's fashionable among thinking people to say that religion isn't the real cause of today's strife in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, India and Iran - that sects merely provide labels for combatants. Not so. Religion keeps the groups in hostile camps. Without it, divisions would blur with passing generations; children would adapt to new times, mingle, intermarry, forget ancient wounds. But religion keeps them alien to one another.

Anything that divides people breeds inhumanity. Religion serves that ugly purpose.

Murder. Torture. Millions upon millions of people dead, all for not believing the same religious dogma as someone else. Religion in itself is an atrocity. Nothing anyone could do would make me believe in and follow a religion that condones and endorses this kind of behavior. It's absurd to think that if someone doesn't believe in the same fairy tale as someone else, they should have to suffer.

I dare anyone to try and justify any of this, to try and convince anyone of a sound mind to believe that committing these acts in the name of their "God" makes it any better, more "moral", than any other murderer.

[loki_silver]

I suppose my main question is this: When committing a crime, a murder, torture, what have you, how does claiming you acted in the name of a God justify the act itself?

You have brought up lots of good points, spongemom. Religion does divide people. That is why I don't believe in a "Religion" I believe in a personal relationship God. The way I see it, IF everything in the Bible is true then when I follow it, I'll make it to heaven. And if the Bible is fake, then when I die it isn't going to matter. The only thing I would have to show for it is a life spent serving a good cause. I don't promote the violence, death, murder or torture of anyone. I also belive that simply claiming that you act in the name of God does not justify the act you commit. IF God truly tells you to do something, who am I to argue with God? IF God told you to kill me for instance what should I do? I have no right to argue with what he wants. That is the essence of what Jesus died for. He let people kill him, instead of fighting back. You asked

Do you see that happening in this world? If "true Christians" actually followed that, why is there so much death and destruction, pre-emptive wars, hatred, bigotry, any of it? Where are the "true Christians", hiding in a hole?

The only answer I have for that is simple, You don't hear about True Christians. There is not that many of us!, we are the people who don't do the things the world sees as "news worthy." The people who are out there causing all of this "death and Destruction" are not True Christians. Those are people who believe they are acting for the right cause, and it is not my place to say if they are or not.

"Eye for an eye" is in the old testament. And I don't "cite scripture", because I don't believe a word of that fairy tale book. The article I posted covers many different areas of belief, and they are all fundamentally the same: Anyone who disagrees is just flat wrong. Well, who gets to decide which religion is "better", or "more right"?

I do have a question though. If you don't believe in any Religion what difference does it make which religion right? It's not about being "right" or about being "better". IF you don't believe that there is something out there, some God(s) responsible for all of this, a God that is aginst killing, and torture, what is wrong with doing it? How can we say that Killing someone in the name of Their God is wrong if we don't even believe in and TRULY serve our God?

And I'll say it again, who decides that your God is the right God? He isn't the only one. What makes this one particular religion "better" than any other? Are you saying that all the Muslims, all the Buddhists, all the Hindus, all the Jews, they're all just "wrong" simply because you have a book that says so? Man wrote that book, not a God. Any man could write a book, and claim that the reason we don't have unicorns is because the Leprechauns ate them. Why is this one ordinary book so special? Because it has thinner paper?

You have already answered this one for yourself.

Nearly all religions stem in part from the basic Christian belief, that there is a God watching and controlling everything down here.

Its all about Faith. For me, Believing in One God who inspired the creation of the Bible. He tried making the book for us, written in stone (didn't last to long). I think he decided, the only way to truly give us the chance to live life how WE want to live it, was to step back, leaving no PROOF of his existence making us completely serve by Faith (thats all he wants.)

So we are supposed to just forgive George Bush simply because he's "only human"? Just forgive him for the 3,000+ deaths on 9/11, forgive him for the 1,500+ deaths of Americans in Iraq, and forgive him for the 100,000+ innocent Iraqis who paid with their lives for a war based on blatant lies? Just forgive and forget, huh? You do that. I can't. If America as a whole were to express forgiveness toward this man, this monster, he would never stop. The slaughtering of innocent people would continue as long as he thought he was "forgiven" for all of it. All these people, dead for absolutely no reason, is forgivable? I don't think so.

Yes, we are supposed to forgive George Bush for causing any deaths or pain toward us. Just like a TRUE Christian forgave the "terrorists" who caused 9/11. That is exactly why there is not many "True Christians"

[Jian^sia]

Why is this one ordinary book so special? Because it has thinner paper?

This book is special not because it's a bestseller
nor because people think that its pages have more than stories to tell.
but because God ordained it to be written down so people can know Him.

God doesn't write books.
He gives the inspiration to write what he wants us to know.
He puts the ideas in Man.
The closest written form of revelation by God is probably the tablets that God 'wrote' for Moses.
He passes messages in visions, dreams, thoughts, etc.
The Bible may not be written by God. But the events all tell us how he had worked in the lives of individuals who impacted nations. Read the book of Psalms, it was written by a man named David and how he lamented about his sins against God.
How could this God be non-existent? for a man to show great sorrow and repentance for his sin.
How could a man express such soulful pain towards an anonymous God? Unless the same God that was written about from the beginning of the Bible and throughout the passages was one and the same. Ant this God cannot tolerate an infinitesimal amount of sin.

Nearly all religions stem in part from the basic Christian belief, that there is a God watching and controlling everything down here. Which is an absurdity in itself.

God doesn't tolerate or condone sin.

"For the wages of sin is death..." (Romans 6:23)
The *payment* of sin is death.

God is allowing evil to be done if Man chooses it. He is giving Man the free will that he wants. But He is not going to forget all the evil that is being done. Who will remember all the small sins that humans forget? God is going to remember and we are going to account for them.

Do you see that happening in this world? If "true Christians" actually followed that, why is there so much death and destruction, pre-emptive wars, hatred, bigotry, any of it? Where are the "true Christians", hiding in a hole?

When Jesus was arrested

47While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The one I kiss is the man; arrest him." 49Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, "Greetings, Rabbi!" and kissed him.
50Jesus replied, "Friend, do what you came for."[4]
51Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
52"Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

In fact, no one has the right to kill. A true Christian would know that. Or else, how to love your neighbour as yourself unless you were self-destructive. How could you profess you love your neighbour yet harbour thoughts to kill?

All those who have the desire comes from oneself. A Christian would follow the exemplary action of Jesus by going to the cross for others. In no way should a Christian kill, murder or torture. All these come from the Man's heart or from the devil.

Read from Matthew 27:27. It is about Jesus before he went to the cross.

I dare anyone to try and justify any of this, to try and convince anyone of a sound mind to believe that committing these acts in the name of their "God" makes it any better, more "moral", than any other murderer.

The only payment He demands for man's sins He has already paid for - by the blood of Jesus

Genesis 9:6
"Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man."

And in the OT, "thou shalt not murder."

The Bible is definitely not just a book of fairy tales, if you believe in that stuff. It is more fact than fiction.

Paul and the disciples. They never killed anyone or exhibited violence to spread the name of Jesus. At their various deaths, they were crucified, executed, killed but they never retaliated against the acts of other men upon themselves.

All the murderous and violent acts of men, Christian or not, are nothing more than to fulfill their own selfish ambitions. And they will surely be judged by the God whose name they used to kill. Rest assured.

[Spongemom]

How about getting your nose out of the Bible (which is ONLY a book of stories compiled by MANY different writers HUNDREDS of years ago), try thinking for yourself and stop using an archaic book of stories as your crutch for your existence. If the only evidence you have of the existence of your God is a book, you have no evidence. As I've said before, ANYONE can write a book.

[richic]

Spongemom,

You are right that a lot of evil has been perpetrated in the name of various religions, including Christianity since its founding 2000 years ago.

Bu to get to the true nature of Christians it's interesting to see how they were viewed by the Romans in the few decades after Christ's death. These were the newly minted Christians, evangelized by the apostles and Paul.

To the Roman emperor Trajan it was told that they were basically law abiding, they ate together every day in each other's homes, and other than not sacrificing to the gods, they were pretty harmless. Based on that, the emperorhe called off the active persecution of Christians which had been the policy of the day.

Even Jesus was not overly concerned about the material world. He said "Then render to Caesar what is Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's"

The paradox you have highlighted between Bush and his Christianity is bound to be revealed someday in a book, but God only knows what's in his heart.

[Travis]

I’m surprised this hasn’t come up yet…and I am curious about your response so I think I will throw it out there.

I think that the majority of these wrongs allegedly perpetrated by religion were actually based on something else entirely and that your premise is flawed. To me these histories show religion as an excuse for, rather than a cause of these wrongs.

Think economics, think resource struggles, think population control.

The best way to control a collective is through fear. The best vehicle for such is ones closest held emotional attachment and motivator. (Religion)

A Short Story:

My extravagant palace has cost much in the way of lives and labor from the populace. They are beginning to get restless. (*peers over the ornate carved wall and sees a Jew with his strange customs and unassimilated ways…I grin maniacally…*) The peasants are then told by the clergy I bought, of how that Jew sacrifices stolen children to satan. A few scattered quotations from that big book of magic seal the deal. Ah my plan is foolproof. The Jew becomes our scapegoat and my dictatorship is saved from itself.

I have back up plans for my kingdom too. If the people begin complain about my taxes I will turn them upon one another with tales of witches among them. If they still are too numerous I can send them in a holy crusade against my largest competitor. The sky is the limit. My tool has succeeded again. Rinse and repeat…

[Spongemom]

To me these histories show religion as an excuse for, rather than a cause of these wrongs.

Exactly. I'm confused as to why you say my "premise is flawed", when you're repeated the same thing I've been saying. My main question all along has been just this:

How is this war justified simply because Bush claims "God told him to do it"? How does acting in the name of a religion make your crimes any different than anyone else's?

For example:

My neighbor believes he has just cause in burning my house down, and does so. I know exactly which neighbor set fire to my house, and I go give him a stern talking-to. I then leave him alone to burn more houses down, while I move on to another neighbor down the street (who happens to have fancy cars and expensive electronics galore), burn his house down myself, steal everything he owns, and kill his family and friends. When confronted with this atrocity, I claim that my "God" specifically instructed me to burn this man's house down. The response to that being "Oh, ok, keep on killing then, and good luck with that. This town supports you in whatever arson you feel is necessary."

I'm not seeing a difference in my being allowed to remain free in society, and Bush being allowed to remain in office, the highest office in the country, no less.

[Travis]

Exactly. I'm confused as to why you say my "premise is flawed", when you're repeated the same thing I've been saying.

I was assuming that you were operating under the notion that religion alone is the cause and motivation for these things? My reply was that religion is just a tool for others, not that religion itself was the problem. I see the God claim as irrelevant and immaterial to atrocities committed and perpetrated by humans. Maybe I missed the central thrust of this discussion?

How is this war justified simply because Bush claims "God told him to do it"? How does acting in the name of a religion make your crimes any different than anyone else's?

It is no different in my eyes. Just because you say something it does not make it so. Simply claiming a banner is much different than actually living under it. I agree.

I’m curious about when President Bush said that…? Wouldn’t a better example of ‘God said so’ be found in say, Jim Jones?

My neighbor believes he has just cause in burning my house down, and does so. I know exactly which neighbor set fire to my house, and I go give him a stern talking-to. I then leave him alone to burn more houses down, while I move on to another neighbor down the street (who happens to have fancy cars and expensive electronics galore), burn his house down myself, steal everything he owns, and kill his family and friends. When confronted with this atrocity, I claim that my "God" specifically instructed me to burn this man's house down. The response to that being "Oh, ok, keep on killing then, and good luck with that. This town supports you in whatever arson you feel is necessary."

I see what you are saying here. I think this is the reason most religions have a set of arbitrary written rules, however open to interpretation.

I'm not seeing a difference in my being allowed to remain free in society, and Bush being allowed to remain in office, the highest office in the country, no less.

I thought I was following until I hit this sentence?

[loki_silver]

How about getting your nose out of the Bible (which is ONLY a book of stories compiled by MANY different writers HUNDREDS of years ago), try thinking for yourself and stop using an archaic book of stories as your crutch for your existence. If the only evidence you have of the existence of your God is a book, you have no evidence. As I've said before, ANYONE can write a book.

So do you mean that God does not exist simply because there is no evidence? and what kind for Proof would you have to have to believe in a God?

How is this war justified simply because Bush claims "God told him to do it"? How does acting in the name of a religion make your crimes any different than anyone else's?

Bush has the same right to believe in any God he chooses, just as you do. If he truly believes that his God is telling him to go to war, then he has every right to try and do it. We all must choose to either believe he is doing the right thing or not.

on a side note,

So we are supposed to just forgive George Bush simply because he's "only human"? Just forgive him for the 3,000+ deaths on 9/11

how is Bush responsible for the deaths on 9/11?

[Spongemom]

I’m curious about when President Bush said that…? Wouldn’t a better example of ‘God said so’ be found in say, Jim Jones?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShAr ... &listSrc=Y

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

Search the phrase "God told me to strike" and there's plenty more sources, in case you have any doubts.

I'm not seeing a difference in my being allowed to remain free in society, and Bush being allowed to remain in office, the highest office in the country, no less.

I thought I was following until I hit this sentence?

Goes with the house burning scenario.

[Spongemom]

How about getting your nose out of the Bible (which is ONLY a book of stories compiled by MANY different writers HUNDREDS of years ago), try thinking for yourself and stop using an archaic book of stories as your crutch for your existence. If the only evidence you have of the existence of your God is a book, you have no evidence. As I've said before, ANYONE can write a book.

So do you mean that God does not exist simply because there is no evidence? and what kind for Proof would you have to have to believe in a God?

God doesn't exist for me. I don't care what exists for anyone else, but when someone kills thousands of people and claims that their God told them to, I find that very reprehensible.

How is this war justified simply because Bush claims "God told him to do it"? How does acting in the name of a religion make your crimes any different than anyone else's?

Bush has the same right to believe in any God he chooses, just as you do. If he truly believes that his God is telling him to go to war, then he has every right to try and do it. We all must choose to either believe he is doing the right thing or not.

WHAT????? You can't be serious. This man, this monster, claims that he killed thousands of innocent people all because of voices in his head, then he has every right to do so?? Charles Manson heard voices too, you know.

on a side note,

So we are supposed to just forgive George Bush simply because he's "only human"? Just forgive him for the 3,000+ deaths on 9/11

how is Bush responsible for the deaths on 9/11?

Another one oblivious to the evidence...I'll keep it simple. Document - arrived - White House - "Osama determined to attack inside U.S." - Document ignored.

Or how about the fact that plans were in place for 9/11 to take place MONTHS before September 2001? How about the fact that the Bush administration had plans to invade Iraq from before they even got Bush selected for office by Congress? Everything was set, they needed a reason for the public to be in favor of the war, thus the "terrorist" was born. Iraq didn't attack us. They were sitting on a gold mine, what with all those oil fields.

9/11 was the excuse this administration waited for. With every new action in which they use national security as an excuse for proceeding with plans that they had prior to 9/11, the idea that they allowed the attacks becomes more obvious.