What is Christianity?

That picture looks pretty accurate to me.

Ah, the joys of theistarded belief in an imaginary sky-daddy.

(shrug)

Who can really accuse modern Christians of being terrorists? Being usurpers? Starting wars? Acting murderous?

I’ll do it.
Starting with the religious war we are fighting in the Middle East. Sure, it’s for oil, but there’s no way the American public would’ve been so quick to bomb and occupy another “Christian” nation that wasn’t (to borrow Hemant’s term) full of brown people.
Pastor Hagee, who McCain recently renounced, and apocalyptics like him have millions of followers across the country who see Muslims as the enemy of Jesus. He advocates attacking (if not nuking) Iran. I read the post of a Bible-quoting Christian on another board wherein he said he’d be happy to see all Muslims wiped off the Earth, and he didn’t mean through reasoned debate, either. My own mother thinks this way.
Meanwhile, occupier-soldiers try to convert the local Iraqis to Christianity…when they’re not planting weapons on massacred civilians.

As individuals, no xian I know would think of committing these barbarous acts. As a community/nation/voting bloc absoutely! They have and will continue to do so.

end.rant()

edit: It goes without saying, but I’ll say it just to make sure everyone knows. I’m talking about “Fundies.”

The terrorism thing isn’t widespread. But awhile back I got creeped out when a poster to the comments section Off The Map started defending the actions of Eric Robert Rudolph.

It’s not the majority of Christians. It’s not even a significantly sized minority group among Christians in America.

But I’m actually afraid that it’s not merely isolated to a few mentally-imbalanced and culturally isolated individuals.

The Irish have quite a bit of experience with Christians being terrorists, on both sides of the Protestant divide, and that struggle is entirely an inter-Christian fight. Black people in the American south experienced a gigantic terrorist campaign from their Christian brethren in the KKK and other white supremacist organizations. The white supremacists of the Christian Identity movement were killing people like Alan Berg and robbing banks and armored cars as recently as the 80’s.

Most Christians, like most Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Atheists, etc, are decent, nice people. But, none of us is free of the stain of terrorism.

I came to say that I disagree with you that Christianity has not taken part in many of the “black” activities, but I see that I have been beaten to it. Not only that, while, say, the established churches (Church of England, Catholic Church…) do not appear to sanction such behaviour now, their followers most certainly take part in it – Ireland at a lower level, and Iraq seems to me a very Christian-motivated event.

“Who can really accuse modern Christians of being terrorists? Being usurpers? Starting wars? Acting murderous?”

All black words look accurate to me. I can easily think of many examples that apply to all of them without straining. A few:

Threatening children with hell or other retribution for being bad.
Killing abortion doctors and/or their staff.
They’re most certainly “usurping” the constitution in a myriad of ways!
Wars?:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/curr_war.htm

Friendly atheist consistently pisses me off with his pussy-footin’ around the religious.

I have to agree with Kate. I, myself often express concern over a faith that works so arduously to rationalize and justify the atrocities of the Bible, to include the notion that we’ll burn forever just because we can’t believe. Where that kind of rationalization exists, the potential for savagery remains.

On the other hand, Christians compartmentalize just like the rest of us. Yes, it’s inconsistent, but thinking that it was somehow right for the Israelites to slaughter all the Amalekite babies so that a few wouldn’t be sacrificed to Moloch doesn’t automatically mean they advocate the same thing today. Some of the finest people I know are Christians–even Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians, BTW.

Who can really accuse modern Christians of being terrorists? Being usurpers? Starting wars? Acting murderous?

The first time I ever saw a gun, it was strapped to the back of a British soldier in Belfast. My father has scarred brain tissue due to an explosion in the building next to his house. His neighbors were protestant. My mother met my father while they were working with orphans, many of whose parents had been killed. I am twenty-two. I’d say that the xians involved were fairly modern.

And you “friendly atheist” sheople piss me off too! Every one of you failed to think outside the box that FA laid down for you when he erroneously and prejudicially spoke to the content of the image: “But to say certain (black) words in the image represent MOST PEOPLE in the faith is foolish.” That is NOT what it says, that’s FA’s subjective interpretation of the image.

Neither the image, nor I (in my previous post), speak in regard to a quantity — the few, the many, or the majority of adherents. It, and I, spoke to the things that have often been done and are still done in the name of, and for the god of, Christianity, as well as those overarching characteristics that constitute its domain.

In all your desire to foremost feel good about yourselves, you bend over backwards in the extreme and fail to see the forest for the trees. In constantly pointing only to the quite obvious that not every individual adherent (how many is not the issue here) participates in many of the anti-human behaviors mentioned, and in persistently (at this site) going out of your way to focus on that aspect alone, you are effectively blinding yourselves from the real damage being perpetrated by the whole of the beast. And in doing so, are effectively giving the beast (Christianity) a pass as you let that which should be utterly condemned, just go by.

Jack,

I really think that you’re being defensive/offensive too early. You have a valid point, but why all the hostility? Realize that some of these people feel accused by this message. Shouldn’t they have a right to point out that they aren’t like how this picture portrays them?

Again, your point is valid; we too often overlook atrocities without always meaning to. Many times we do this by changing the focus to the xians who don’t do these things. However, are you really going to get people to be listen to your point if you immediately go on the offensive?

I think not. I bet people are much more inclined to listen to somebody who doesn’t preface their point with

You sheople piss me off…

And those bombs exploded not because the people who planted them were Christian, or even Catholic.

Pseudonym, those bombs exploded PRECISELY because the people who planted them where Catholic. Sure you could make the argument that they exploded because the timer, or fuse set them off. But that’s just semantics.

Those bombs were planted because his neighbors were “Orange” (Protestant).

Something else you said in response to my first post.

What follows is very interesting, but I have to wonder if this is what the church has stood for, or just what humanity has stood for?

Yes, some Christians (the ones in charge, perhaps) have done some horrible things, but so have people in general.

Humanity hasn’t stood for these things unless you mean stood by while those who could crush them perpetrated atrocities. Since the early 300’s CE Christianity as a whole as stood for every one of those words written in black All the while claiming that they were really all about the words in red. Since the advent of the Enlightenment we have had ‘liberal’ denominations that have realized that the Bible isn’t even close to the highest sort of morals or ethics that can be practiced. These groups, I think, aren’t generally as guilty of the picture above. But, by insisting that religion is a ‘sacred’ or otherwise untouchable subject, they have enabled those who act out the words in black. I say that these groups I think aren’t as guilty, because I’ve only ever heard about them. The Christianity I am familiar with practices most of those words in black. Sure not murder, for the most part; and maybe not terrorism, for the most part. But even with murder and terrorism I can think of several cases within this year where someone has murdered someone else because “God told them too”.

I would really like to meet these mythical ‘liberal’ Christians because I’ve never seen them, only heard of them. Let me tell you that here in the heart of the Bible Belt… The lying, the manipulation, the bullying, the sexism, the cover-ups, the paranoia, the demands for instant and total obedience to ‘authorities’. All of this I have witness and experienced on a daily or weekly basis growing up. And that’s without having to think too hard.

I don’t think it’s a baser human nature to be that way. However, I do think it is intrinsic to religion. Nietzsche, I think, said it best when he said something to the effect of “In their attempt to see the world as bad and evil, Christians have made the world evil and bad.” I think it is tied explicitly to the thought that Christianity have that this life is worthless and only preparation for a future eternal life. This dislike of life and desire for the afterlife and its rewards drives Christians to follow the words in black in that image.

On the contrary, I’m arguing that the reason they exploded is because of British colonisation and the reaction to it, not religion. To find the real answer, you need to look back to Oliver Cromwell and beyond.

The way I see it, religion is just another aspect of politics – a way to control people. In the case of Ireland, the Protestants objected rather less to the control from England than the Catholics – if that doesn’t make it a religious conflict, I don’t know what does. The reason the British army was sent to NI in the sixties/seventies was originally to protect the Catholic population from Protestants.

Just to prove my liberal credentials: There’s one black word on the image that I not only agree with, but am positively proud of. Want to guess which one it is?

I can’t particul;arly see any words to be proud of, but my guess would be “Obedience”. Blind obedience can (not always, but sometimes) lead to things like the German concentration camps… “I was just following orders.”

Mark:

The way I see it, religion is just another aspect of politics – a way to control people.

Growing up where and when you did, I can understand that. I can imagine that people living in the US “Bible Belt” would feel the same. But I grew up in a largely secular country in a very liberal religion, so the “control” thing is not in my experience.

Mike:

I’m going to go with “mythological”. Atheists and other Moderns tend to use that word as if it’s an accusation of some sort. And yet personally I see myths as deeply meaningful and powerful. Not to mention that the technical (i.e. literary) definition of the word is not at all synonymous with “untrue” or even “unhistorical”.

You got it, and for exactly the right reasons, too.

I’ve got to disagree with that – this is from disctionary.com: “based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity;”

Two comments about that.

First, dictionaries are compiled from how a word is used, so if people use a word “incorrectly” a lot, that’s a new meaning.

Secondly, that doesn’t actually conflict with what Mike said. The purpose of representational art is not to depict nature “accurately” in the sense that a newspaper report or a biography is “accurate”. It’s meant to bring certain details into focus in a way that an “accurate” representation can’t.

A good portrait need not be an accurate likeness. And good mythology need not be accurate history.

I also grew up in a secular country – I am British.

So you grew up in a country with an established church.

That doesn’t stop me observing that the purpose of religion does appear to be a political (and therefore a control) thing.

Politics isn’t always about control either. But for what it’s worth: For every anecdote there’s an equal and opposite anecdote.

One more thing, while I think of it. I couldn’t help noticing the similarities between Darryl’s post and something that Mark said:

That doesn’t stop me observing that the purpose of religion does appear to be a political (and therefore a control) thing.

There’s something to be said for the argument that religion and politics have a lot in common: They bring out both the best and worst of humanity.

Darryl:

This is the most damning indictment of religion–it is impotent. It cannot cure us of sin. How can a symptom of a disease be its cure?

Christianity explicitly teaches that we are not curable, or at least not in this life.

The problem with believing in a mythology instead of fact is that you have no footing to say that your belief is any more accurate than someone else’s.

I’ll grant that the technical definition of mythology includes things that might have a basis in fact somewhere in the past. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are a perfect example. Troy really did exist. Did Athena and Poseidon actually exist? Probably not. The problem with mythology is that while it isn’t always false it’s rarely close to the entire truth.

For example, the Native American legends of Raven were an attempt to explain the fickleness of nature. While Hephaestus was the Greek’s way of explaining volcano’s.

Mythologies are excellent resources to investigate how our ancestors attempted to explain the world without a mechanism like science. However, Pseudonym you said:

The purpose of representational art is not to depict nature “accurately” in the sense that a newspaper report or a biography is “accurate”. It’s meant to bring certain details into focus in a way that an “accurate” representation can’t.

That, in my opinion, when applied to religion/mythology is horse shit.. We don’t go on a (or shouldn’t) psychic’s imaginings of how a crime took place. Instead we should use DNA evidence, and well tested forensics skills to determine ‘whodunit’. The only purpose for mythology is to understand how our ancestors used to explain the universe and teach their children how to get along with others. Representational art still represents reality, myth and religion only do as we use them to understand how our ancestors saw the world. Beyond that they are useless as a way to see ‘truth’.

To use mythology as a basis for living your life would be like believing that Atlantis really existed because a fictional character in one of Plato’s accounts describes hearing the legends of Atlantis. We know enough of geology, history, etc to know that the odds are very high that Atlantis as described by Plato didn’t exist (there’s some who think his time/distance scale’s could have been off and he was referring to the downfall of the Minoan civilization). But this force of 10 million strong, as described in Plato’s Timaeus, probably didn’t attempt to invade Europe in 9500 BC.

That side track taken; I’m going to assume that the mythology you pride yourself in believing is the Christian Myth. That is, that the Bible is literal and records what actually happened. What is it that compels you to believe such fantasy? There is a great lack of historical and archaeological evidence that important events actually happened. The Exodus has little evidence for it; the events ‘recorded’ by the Gospel writers aren’t recorded by any other historian living in the time (that I know of). Instead of revealed truth, Christianity at its core if all about control and domination.

Christianity explicitly teaches that we are not curable, or at least not in this life.

There’s another problem with your belief system Pseudonym. What about all the advances in ethics and morality in the last few hundred years? (Decrease in racism, end of slavery in many countries, equality of women etc). These were, and in some cases still are, resisted by Christian Churches who use the Bible to prove why what they believe is correct. Humanity is growing up and soon, I hope, as religion loses it’s stranglehold on people’s minds we will see a decrease in crime and violence. Once it is no longer preferable to kill someone of a different belief system because you are totally right about your belief system and they are leading people to Hell (or Hel, or whatever your version of the ‘bad’ afterlife is), I think we’ll see a change in wars etc. Then once a better understanding of neurochemistry is understood we’ll be able to help people who have imbalances that drive them to commit other crimes. Mythology holds no such promise, except in the afterlife that it provides no evidence for. The belief in the afterlife is exactly why a mythology/religion is so dangerous. The sheeple are told that this life doesn’t really count except for obeying the priests/pastors/leaders/authorities and ‘building up treasure in heaven’ where the real life begins. Check out the Rapture Ready forum sometime if you want to see a bunch of people who hate life (but still don’t want to ‘die’) and are only living to see God come back and take them away.

Here’s what I see believing in a Mythology as being like. Belief that Homeopathy works. A single substance diluted down to the point where there’s no way to tell if there’s actually any of that substance left in the solution you are drinking. Truth/Fact in mythologies are like that substance diluted down 30,000 or more times. There may have been a truth that you can dig out of it. But the odds are pretty low and in the case of homeopathy you have a simple solution of water. In the case of Mythology you have the untruth left and worshiped. Not just worshiped, but belief in that untruth without evidence or fact to back it up is promoted and held to be the highest good. This is what led to 9/11, the murder of abortion doctors, the Crusades, the war going on in Sri Lanka, the great jihad directed against the enemies of Islam. This is what also drives the dominionists I grew up around to desire a way to take over the country and force everyone who doesn’t believe the way they do to either submit to their theocratic rule or leave.

Pseudonym, for all your attempts to come off as a liberal Christian; you sound more like the dominionists I grew up around, and less like the ‘liberal Christians’ I’ve heard tell of.

I think the sooner that the bandage is pulled off the wound of religion and exposed to the light of fact and truth the sooner that humanity will be able to grow up and leave such infantile belief systems in the past. When no mechanism for understanding the universe is available I can understand believing in mythology, but when that mechanism is available it, to me, reeks of deliberate ignorance. A desire to stick one’s fingers in their ears and shout “La-La-La I can’t hear you”. Why a person would want to cripple their understanding of the universe and its wonders doesn’t make sense to me. But then I never understood the believers when I was raised by them and they attempted to indoctrinate me (some of it took and I’m still working that crap out of my system).