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Guynemer
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Committed in the name of Christianity? Okay.
But that is not the same thing as saying "Christianity's great crimes". That implies something very, very different.
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MrFun
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of Iowa
Nov 2000
time: 23:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Logical Realist
You think ideas like that of eternal hellfire for all non-believers, abandoning family for religion, the promotion of blind faith and the prmotion of doomsday cults was one of the most important and positive things that ever began?  |
You have exaggerated some of what we THINK are Christ's teachings, and you have distorted them as well. 
Many Christians today have come to respect other religions, believe it or not. The only image you have of Christians, though, is that of the extreme fundamentalists, who do not even represent the mainstream faithful Christians.
Jesus more than likely taught unconditional acceptance of others, and that people should forgive the shortcomings of other people.
He was an advocate for the impoverished, the downtrodden, and the persecuted. He was a revolutionary figure who became a martyr.
Why do you take the extreme end of Christianity, and apply it to the mainstream Christianity?? 
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Adalbertus
Why isn't this a multiple-choice poll? |
Cuz I wanted people to have to think about it, and make a choice as to what was the single worst.
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Starting Christianity: A great thing. Many concepts of the Western culture depend on the christianity - including freedom, equality, solidarity (AFAIK, Christians were the first who had the concept of all humans being equal in something else than death - which is in the love of God) |
This was just a choice for those whom I knew would choose it.
I see you missed anti-Semitism. For those who would like to bring up the point about the Church protecting Jews later on, that's fine. However, Christianity started this abominable practice and belief very early. It wasn't even 100 years old before the Christians began demonizing the Jews, and it's carried this infection with it ever since. "Let his blood be on us and our decendents," was part of that attempt to castigate Judaism. And while some popes may have tried to ban forced conversions, it should be remebered that the Inquisition forced 1/3rd of Spain's Jews to convert, and that in the last century, a Pope stole a Jewish child that had been baptized in secret (they are trying to make him a saint, now  )
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The early supression of heresy and the destruction of the Gnositic Gospels:
Inner-religious dispute. |
Most of the early Gospels of the life of Jesus Christ, and possible even the "Q" text were lost as a result of the suppression of the early heretics. How might Christianity have treated women differently if The Gospel of Mary Magdelene had survived? Early on, Christianity showed its displeasure with difference of opinion.
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The destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Bad thing anyway. According to what I've heard (certainly not the summit of all wisdom) is that the Muslim mob finished the work - but mob is mob. FYI - At this time, Christianity wasn't so much divided into separate groups as it is now. |
Nope, it was burned down after the last head of the Library was murdered by a Christian mob in 415 (two hundred years before Islam). They pulled her from a chariot and tore the flesh from her bones with abolone shellls, all cuz of ArchBishop Cyril.
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The suppression of other religions: In some way or the other, this is the way to survive. |
Christianity could have survived without outlawing all other religions. It's surviving now, isn't it?
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The Crusades: Definitely a crime - from the inner-Christian logic: Jesus gave very clear instructions on how mission is to be performed. If people don't want to be converted, |
It was a religious war, and while there were definate matieral causes for the war, it doesn't stop the fact that war was carried out in Christianity's name. They litterally made the streets of Jerusalem run red with blood. They were absolute brutes to the people they conquered.
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The Inquisition: Definitely a crime: |
Agreed.
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The supression of science: There was one pope who suppressed the teaching of Galilei. Unfortunately, most popes have the tendency to follow unquestioning their predecessors. On the other hand, I think that Christianity made science possible in the sense that it liberated man from the fear of "asking too much". |
That's crap. Science in Europe didn't take off until it was liberated from the shackles of the Catholic Church. Science existed prior to Christianity, and it left Europe for a thousand years because of it.
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The destruction of the Mayan Codices: See Great Library |
Catholic Inquisitors burned almost the entire written body of the Mayan works as pagan. A few survived, but what we might have known about Meso-America that was lost?
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The witch trials: See Inquisition. And they are also a sign of a weak faith. |
Thousands of women and men, tortured and murdered in the name of God.
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The Thirty Years War: Had mainly political origins. |
Irrelevent. It was done in the name of Chrisitianity. Tens of millions of people died in the name of Christ.
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Supporting slavery: |
Look, the point that it was fervent Christians who helped to abolish slavery is irrelevent. This isn't a poll of Christianity's greatest accomplishments, though that might make a good poll. Christians used the teachings of the Bible to justify their enslavement of fellow humans. It was a crime committed in the name of Christianity.
The deformed status of men and women in Christianity is a great crime. Not allowing humans to express the full variations inherent in being human denies us the ability to be fully human. This crime is ongoing.
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Televangelism: The banana option is way more serious. |
That was just silliness.
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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:18
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"However, Christianity started this abominable practice and belief very early"
How about the Egyptians?
"and that in the last century, a Pope stole a Jewish child that had been baptized in secret"
First, I doubt you'd be able to prove that. Nextly, the pope could have confessed his sin if he did that.
" it should be remebered that the Inquisition forced 1/3rd of Spain's Jews to convert,"
Again, political motives. Ferdinand and Isabel by this point had already gained large amounts of control over the Catholic Church in Spain. They were uniting Castile and Aragon, two countries historically didn't like each other, so they chose this immoral method to try to unify Spain under the banner of Christianity.
"Nope, it was burned down after the last head of the Library was murdered by a Christian mob in 415"
No, it was the Moslems who did this.
"Catholic Inquisitors burned almost the entire written body of the Mayan works as pagan."
Part of Spanish imperial policy, designed to subjugate the native people and destroy their culture.
"It was done in the name of Chrisitianity."
A whole lot of stuff was done in the name of Communism, too.
"This crime is ongoing."
Most mainstream churches DO NOT teach that discrimination or hatred is anyway acceptable. Some merely teach that homosexual sex is a sin.
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OzzyKP
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Rockville, MD
Oct 1999
time: 00:18
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What a hateful thread. I don't understand people who hate Christianity at all. How can anyone have such seething hatred for a religion whose core beliefs are peace and love? What is so terrible about peace and love?
Do you all start threads about the crimes against humanity the hippies wrought? No, of course not. Bill Clinton may be considered a hippie in the 60s, does all his wreckless bombing during his 2 terms count as crimes against humanity by hippies? No.
Christianity doctrinly is the most peaceful, loving, tolerant religion to have ever existed.
Those who pull out Bible passages to support some hateful, violent action of theirs is always, always, always pulling from the Old Testiment. The Jewish Torah. If you wanted to look at it that way you should blame Jews for hetro-sexism, or any other things people have done.
As has been noted earlier, the crimes that occured in the past have been political crimes, not religious crimes.
If you wanted to do a tally of the last 2000 years, or perhaps for all of history, the number of abuses and the amount of violence and oppression undertaken by government and by religion there would be no comparision. Governments BY FAR have killed more innocent human beings than religions ever have, why are there lots of athiests denouncing harmful religion and not anarchists denouncing the very existance of governments?
This is just anti-Christian hatemongering.
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Dr Strangelove
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The "deformed status" of women was more inherited from the germanic barbarians who overran Europe than from the Gospels or the writings of Paul. There were a large number of female bishops early in church history, The practice seems to have died out in the 6th century, right about the time that the invaders took over.
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I think the greatest crime is fooling its believers for thousands of years into believing something that isn't true.
Everything else is just a side effect.
One thing that seperates Christianity from say, Communism, or Islam, is that Chrisitianity can have positive interpretations.
Overall though, Christianity has the highest death count of any ideology/religion.
Well, Western Christianity anyways. The Orthodox church didn't take part in crusades or inquisitions. In fact, the amount of intolerance in the Roman Catholic church was part of the reason the Eastern Orthodox church split.
When you say Christianity, you should really specify Roman Catholicism. That's really the bad one.
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Guynemer
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quote:
Originally posted by Sava
One thing that seperates Christianity from say, Communism, or Islam, is that Chrisitianity can have positive interpretations.
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My my my. You are one ignorant, spiteful, hateful little man, aren't you?
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Sava
You are correct, but historically, it is the worst one; in terms of highest death count. I'm not saying the modern religion is bad. |
Would you like to back up that statement? When you do so please do not lump in Nazis depravities since Hitler was more a pagan (Wotanist) than a Catholic. Also do not attribute to he Catholics the devastation of the Amerinds by diseases brought to the new world by europeans as the nature of those diseases was not understood then and could not have been prevented.
You might want to consider the massive waves of death wrought by Genghis Khan. During his reign one third of the population of China, Europe and the Middle East was wiped out. There have been numerous religious wars waged in India and other areas of Asia between Hindus and Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus, Confuscians and Buddhists, Shinto and Buddhists, Animists and Buddhist, Animists and Hindus, Muslims and just about everyone else,and so on. Christian europeans simly have this nasty habit of keeping records of what they do and then disseminating the information. They also have a habit of allowing some dissent, thereby ensuring that critical interpretations of events will be recorded and disseminated.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Heresson
The destruction of Roman Empire, both western and eastern part |
Actually the Chinese finished off the western empire. Pressure put on the nomadic peoples living north of china forced some of them to move westward. They gathered together under the Huns and began a multi-generation long march across the Eurasian steppes. Arriving in eastern europe they displaced numerous germanic tribes like the visigoths, ostragoths, vandals, lombards, and burgundians. These tribes swarmed over the borders of the empire, often with the permission of the Imperial government. The Huns followed them, destroying the local political and commercial structure of the empire virtually everywhere norht of Rome. In many areas the germans were left as the strongest force and they took control. The empire no longer had the strength to oppose them, but they had not been completely assimilated so the areas they dominated became estranged from Roman government and culture.
Byzantium was whittled away over a period of 6 centuries by slavic peoples occupying the eastern european parts of the empire, and then by various muslim groups occupying the asian parts. Yes, I know that crusaders once sacked Constantinople, but by that time the empire had regressed to occupying a small area around the Aegean Sea. Ultimately it would have fallen to the Ottomans anyway.
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MrFun
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of Iowa
Nov 2000
time: 23:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The same old myth that has been perpetuated for aeons?
If you have some basis in fact for what you wrote about Jesus of Nazareth, I'm all ears. Until then, what makes your position more correct than mine? Please, bald assertions don't work. |
Not all beliefs have to be based on concrete, scientific evidence.
Watch the History Channel. Sometimes they have theological documentary that show how archaelogy, sociology, and theology have been used in studying the Christian religion in a way that respects that religion.
Or, try finding some books that discuss Christianity's history. You will find both, the good and the bad. But you're only looking at the bad, which distorts your perception of Christianity.
Based on Jesu's life, he was seen as a threat with his revolutionary teachings, and so the Roman authorities felt it was in their best interest to execute him.
Bad mistake -- he became a martyr, and in the most powerful sense, too.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
"However, Christianity started this abominable practice and belief very early"
How about the Egyptians? |
The Egyptians weren't anti-Jewish. They enslaved everyone.
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"and that in the last century, a Pope stole a Jewish child that had been baptized in secret"
First, I doubt you'd be able to prove that. Nextly, the pope could have confessed his sin if he did that. |
Actually, it was a big scandal at the time.
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" it should be remebered that the Inquisition forced 1/3rd of Spain's Jews to convert,"
Again, political motives. Ferdinand and Isabel by this point had already gained large amounts of control over the Catholic Church in Spain. They were uniting Castile and Aragon, two countries historically didn't like each other, so they chose this immoral method to try to unify Spain under the banner of Christianity. |
Chrisitanity wasn't just a set of bliefs, it was the ideological underpinning of European feudalism. It was a political system in and of itself. Saying that the inquisition was political is no defence. The Church was a political institution. Furthermore, the Inquisition was in all the Catholic lands. Italians were burned also. And though this antedates the Inquisition, the Hussites were rather brutally repressed as well.
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"Nope, it was burned down after the last head of the Library was murdered by a Christian mob in 415"
No, it was the Moslems who did this. |
Islam didn't exit yet. Islam wouldn't come into Egypt for another 200-300 years.
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"Catholic Inquisitors burned almost the entire written body of the Mayan works as pagan."
Part of Spanish imperial policy, designed to subjugate the native people and destroy their culture. |
See earlier point about Inquisition.
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Most mainstream churches DO NOT teach that discrimination or hatred is anyway acceptable. Some merely teach that homosexual[ity] sex is a sin. |
They mostly tend to fail to practice what they preach.
MrFun, the Monks did save some of the ancient works, but most of what we know of ancient Greek philosophy, science, and literature is due to the Arabs and Turks saving and copying those works.
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Dr Strangelove
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The Arabs and Turks perserved the ancient literature of Egypt and Byzantium? Doesn't that imply that Christians had preserved the works up to the time that the Muslim hoards came crashing in? We're to congratulate them for continuing the work that Christians started, yet condemn the Christians for some obtuse reason?
Ah, here's an example of ancient anti-semitism that you can't blame the Christians for: Who exactly was responsible for the diaspora? Was it by chance pagan Romans? Here's another mystery: If Christians were the great medieval era persecutors of Jews that you make them out to be, why then did the descendants of the diaspora come west into europe after being escorted into the Caucasus region by the Romans? For awhile they had their own kingdom ( Kahzars ), but evidently after the pagans reasserted control of the area living in that area got to be a little hot for the Jews and they relocated west. Funny how we've been so often led to believe that pagans were such paragons of political correctness.
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