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Actually, it really does matter. Because you can't really blame the religion if it doesn't actually teach it.
Hint: I don't blame "religion"... I blame those who find in their religion justification for their actions.
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Except that the writer of the Koran had no real knowledge of what Jesus taught.
What constitutes "real" knowledge of what Jesus taught, clearly Christianity was being proselytize in the Arabian peninsula long before and after the First Council of Nicaea established what was canonical in 325.
But these are side issues that have very little to do with the issue that I've raised.
Hint: I don't blame "religion"... I blame those who find in their religion justification for their actions.
Good to know.
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What constitutes "real" knowledge of what Jesus taught, clearly Christianity was being proselytize in the Arabian peninsula long before and after the First Council of Nicaea established what was canonical in 325.
But these are side issues that have very little to do with the issue that I've raised.
He had some really interesting notions about the teaching of the Trinity, and other things of Christianity. It's clear that the writer of the Koran simply wasn't aware of what Christianity was.
But agreed---it's kind of a side issue, and one that really doesn't need to be hashed out here.
I recently ran across a newsletter published by the Alamo Christian Ministries , albeit an obscure, inconsequential group and certainly not representative of the vast majority of Christians and what struck me was the how similar their wildly paranoid, and almost psychotic biblical interpretations resembled the paranoid and psychotic screeds that run through the statements made by their Islamic brethren. I say brethren because they use religious tracts to fuel their psychotic visions.
Now it is said that no one "sees" Christians going around beheading people to enforce their religious tenets, and for at least the last 300 years that is largely true (Yugoslavia, WWII eastern Europe and a few events in Africa excepted) but the problem is, the seeds of Christian "Jihadist" as vile as anything coming out of the middle east is present in the tenets and interpretations of Christianity. So what keeps them in check and prevents its growth into malignant mass? I would suggest that it is the overall stability of our democratic society, as flawed as it may be. I would conversely argue that absent such stability that the rise of fanatical Christianity could mirror, the fanaticism of extremist Islam just as it has in the middle east. Raising the question, is it the religion, or is it the societies in which they exist?
Have at it.
Yes, I do agree that it is largely the stability of our government, legal system, and culture that keeps Christian Taliban types from going on a wholesale rampage of slaughter and mayhem. A lot of Christians don't like to admit it, but those people are out there and they are constantly throwing themselves at the bars of their ideological prison - bars that are constructed out of the US Constitution, our secular laws, and, get this, our social safety net.
Places where people who end up failing in their endeavors, who are unemployable for whatever reason, and those who have been laid off or can't find work (mainly the young) will ultimately resort to desperate measures to gain whatever it is they want. Fundamentalist religious groups in those types of regions are very tempting in the eyes of anyone whose bellies are rumbling and their kids are starving.
Our social safety net - welfare, unemployment insurance, disability, social security, Medicare and Medicaid - THOSE programs keep our society stable. In fact, those programs are the glue that keeps Western civilization from going crazy (yet America's social safety net is weak and frail, often ineffective, and worried more about nailing fraudsters than it is worried about actually helping people).
You might be tempted to ask why our society hasn't collapsed long before, since government programs are recent, only enacted in the 1930's and 40's in response to the Great Depression. It would be an excellent question, one I can answer, but it's a bit beyond the scope of the topic.
I bring this point up only because I have noticed that it is quite often conservative Christian Republicans who voice the most opposition to those programs - and while I don't believe they are actively seeking a riotous uprising in order to give Christian jihadists the freedom to run wild, they all too often flirt with lock that holds the lions at bay. There's a reason why many of those Christian hate groups have stationed themselves in sparsely populated Red States filled with conservative anti-government Christians.
Do I blame the religion for this? No, not directly. What I DO blame Christianity or Islam or any other religion for this? Well ... no, not directly.
But allow me to explain what religion IS responsible for and why it is still culpable for groups like ISIS, the KKK, the NRA, and other terroristic groups.
Religion is as dangerous to civilzation as an armed 50 megaton thermonuclear warhead sitting in a downtown city park filled with curious children who keep staring at the big blinking red button. And no, I'm not being melodramatic. I'm for real.
There are many reasons why this is, and I could write several posts on the subject to just scratch the surface. Instead, I'll bullet point the reasons and if someone wants to discuss them in more detail, they can tell me which one and I'll go to town.
The major reasons for religion's culpability include but are not limited to:
The absolutist nature of religion
The fact that it can't be disproven leaves people fearful that it MIGHT be true no matter how extreme the message
The heavy-handed threats of eternal hell and torture for disobedience and doubt
The profound influence religion has on the cultures where they exist
The fact that people tend to internalize their religious beliefs so that God becomes an extension of themselves; there is no difference between opposing God and religion than there is opposing the believer. In other words, religious conflict is often intensely personal to the combatants.
In addition to the fear of hell in the afterlife, there is the fear of retribution by an angry God in the here and now should members of society disobey or denounce God - in other words, scapegoating for natural disasters, political upheaval, losing a war, plagues, or any number of other bad event
The morality of most religions themselves, as well as the morality of the God being worshiped, can easily be called into question
There is no social mechanism that even comes CLOSE to religion for convincing normally good and decent people to become brutes, thugs, and murderers in the name of their ideology and their God. Not even the infamous Nazis could get the German people to actually go along with the Holocaust no matter how ferverently they believed in National Socialism. Only the Waffen SS, most of whom were indoctrinated earlier while members of the Hitler Youth, really ever got behind the Holocaust with Hitler and Himmler.
Odds are good, however, that the situation in Germany would have been much worse if Nazism had a religious component to it - and that is precisely what Himmler was trying to create before the war ended.
So while yes, I cannot blame the doctrines of most religions for creating these kind of fanatics and zealots, but I CAN blame the very concept of god-centric belief systems no matter what they are. Only the far eastern "religions" (they are more aptly considered philosophies) have always remained at peace because there is no deity to tell them what to do, no deity to defend, and no absolutist morality sent down from these deities. Sadly though, Hinduism is beginning to show signs of its own fanatic god-worshiping brutality, a direct result of the fanatic actions of Muslim zealots inside of India.
Just a few thought-morsels to place on your tongue. Watch out though ... they have a very bitter taste.
Yes, I do agree that it is largely the stability of our government, legal system, and culture that keeps Christian Taliban types from going on a wholesale rampage of slaughter and mayhem.
I honestly have no problems envisioning an alternate time and place in history in which the guy hacking off heads in Syria is wearing a crucifix. The barbarism and violence perpetuated by both religions throughout history gives neither the moral or ethical advantage over one another. Right now Islam is having its moment in the sun but Christianity has proven itself more than capable of the same sorts of barbarism and violence.
I recently ran across a newsletter published by the Alamo Christian Ministries , albeit an obscure, inconsequential group and certainly not representative of the vast majority of Christians and what struck me was the how similar their wildly paranoid, and almost psychotic biblical interpretations resembled the paranoid and psychotic screeds that run through the statements made by their Islamic brethren. I say brethren because they use religious tracts to fuel their psychotic visions.
Tony Alamo, aka Bernard Lazar Hoffman, was arrested in Flagstaff, Arizona and was convicted on July 24, 2009 for 10 counts of interstate transportation of minors for illegal sexual purposes, rape, sexual assault, and contributing to the delinquency of minors. On November 13, 2009, he was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison. He is currently incarcerated at United States Penitentiary, Tucson with the Federal Bureau of Prisons ID number 00305-112 according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator.
He was known for his cult's slipping anti-Catholic pamphlets under the windshields of cars, and using his followers as sweatshop labor to make fancy sequined jackets that were popular among the Hollywood set (including Michael Jackson). He believed the Catholic Church, the Pope, and the U.S. government were responsible for 9-11, the Waco siege, and who knows what else. Not exactly a representative of mainstream Christianity.
I would agree that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, regardless of belief or lack of same. The examples of what happens when rabid atheists achieve absolute power in a secular regime should thus be a cautionary tale, and we should remember that the first widespread use of an automated beheading machine was in the service of an atheistic regime during the "Age of Reason.":
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Extremism is the inevitable result of the belief that they alone possess the one true religion and that all other people are damned and that it is their duty to save their souls by any means necessary.
How can one possibly believe that and not become an extremist?
Christians in America tend to take this sort of belief for granted but in fact Hindus and Buddhists have no such belief and indeed would consider such a belief (and anyone professing such a belief) to be barbaric.
And I for one would tend to agree with them.
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