Be Afraid

[exo_doc]

I've brought up this argument with pro-creationists before, and when they've heard something they can't explain, invariably they run to the old chestnut "Well, He's God. He can do whatever he wants too!"....*sigh*

 

[mike]

Good post Exo. I am constantly surprised by some Christians' desperately hanging onto anything that denies evolution. It is true there are a few things that evolution does not explain as well as others but the evidence for gradual change and natural selection is pretty overwhelming IMO.

And, possibly most importantly, I don't see the Theory of Evolution as any threat to a belief in god. I see no problem for Christians to just see evolution as something that god set in motion. So god is still the creator of everything, it's just that he didn't 'magic' us into being fully formed at the same time. He made it so we evolved. I see it as that simple and also just as amazing as if we had popped up all ready to go.

If you believe in god, that is absolutely fine, but no-one can seriously think the Earth is only 6 or so thousand years old. If you accept the Earth is billions of years old then it really is just pure stupidity to think that man and other animals appeared virtually overnight fully-formed. I've said plenty times in this forum that a good portion of my relatives are very religious but I know that not one of them believe the Earth is so young and that none of their ministers think or teach that either.

The problem then is the whole in his image line.
Which version of man is "in his image"

 

[mike]

Came across this today

Leo Allatius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Allatius held some odd ideas. One of his works, De Praeputio Domine Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (A Discussion of the Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ) contended that the rings observed around Saturn were the foreskin of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Prepuce

All this talk of magic foreskins reminds me of a joke.

On his fathers death a man inherits a jar of preserved foreskins, the foreskins of his forebears.
His wife objected to them sitting on the mantlepiece as was the family custom, so he struck on a cunning plan
He took the foreskins to a master leather crafter, and asked him if he could do anything with them.
"Hmmmmm says the craftsman, lot of work, lots of small pieces, and fine stitching, leave them with me and come back in a week."
On his return the leather worker produces a wallet made of the foreskins, all the bits matched and finely stitched, and embossed with the family crest.

Much pleased with the result he asks how much ?

"500 dollars replies the craftsman"
" 500 bucks !!?, for a wallet !!?" he replies

"Ah but sir its a very special wallet, rub it gently on the underside and it turns onto an overnight bag........................."



Not quite as impressive as ascending and become the rings of saturn..... but just as hilarious

 

[RenaissanceLady]

Came across this today

Leo Allatius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Allatius held some odd ideas. One of his works, De Praeputio Domine Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (A Discussion of the Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ) contended that the rings observed around Saturn were the foreskin of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Prepuce

Woah. I've heard of "hung like a horse" but I don't think I'd want to meet anyone who was hung like a planet.

 

[Muadib]

Great editorial from the NY Times by Maureen Dowd on the extinction of the GOP.

MY college roommates and I used to grocery shop and cook together. The only food we seemed to agree on was corn, so we ate a lot of corn.
My mom would periodically call to warn me in a dire tone, “Do you know why the Incas are extinct?”
Her maize hazing left me with a deeply ingrained fear of being part of a civilization that was obliviously engaging in behavior that would lead to its extinction.
Too bad the Republican Party didn’t have my mom to keep it on its toes. Then it might not have gone all Apocalypto on us — becoming the first civilization in modern history to spiral the way of the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans.
The Mayans were right, as it turns out, when they predicted the world would end in 2012. It was just a select world: the G.O.P. universe of arrogant, uptight, entitled, bossy, retrogressive white guys.
Just another vanishing tribe that fought the cultural and demographic tides of history.
Someday, it will be the subject of a National Geographic special, or a Mel Gibson movie, where archaeologists piece together who the lost tribe was, where it came from, and what happened to it. The experts will sift through the ruins of the Reagan Presidential Library, Dick Cheney’s shotgun casings, Orca poll monitoring hieroglyphics, remnants of triumphal rants by Dick Morris on Fox News, faded photos of Clint Eastwood and an empty chair, and scraps of ancient tape in which a tall, stiff man, his name long forgotten, gnashes his teeth about the 47 percent of moochers and the “gifts” they got.
Instead of smallpox, plagues, drought and Conquistadors, the Republican decline will be traced to a stubborn refusal to adapt to a world where poor people and sick people and black people and brown people and female people and gay people count.
As the historian Will Durant observed, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”
President Obama’s victory margin is expanding, as more votes are counted. He didn’t just beat Romney; he’s still beating him. But another sign of the old guard’s denial came on Friday, a month after the election, when the Romney campaign ebulliently announced that it raised $85.9 million in the final weeks of the campaign, making its fund-raising effort “the most successful in Republican Party history.”
Why is the Romney campaign still boasting? You can’t celebrate at a funeral. Go away and learn how to crunch data on the Internet.
Outside the Republican walled kingdom of denial and delusion, everyone else could see that the once clever and ruthless party was behaving in an obtuse and outmoded way that spelled doom.
The G.O.P. put up a candidate that no one liked or understood and ran a campaign that no one liked or understood — a campaign animated by the idea that indolent, grasping serfs must be kept down, even if it meant creating barriers to letting them vote.
Although Stuart Stevens, the Romney strategist, now claims that Mitt “captured the imagination of millions” and ran “with a natural grace,” there was very little chance that the awkward gazillionaire was ever going to be president. Yet strangely, Republicans are still gobsmacked by their loss, grasping at straws like Sandy as an excuse.
Some G.O.P. House members continue to try to wrestle the president over the fiscal cliff. Romney wanders in a daze, his hair not perfectly gelled. And his campaign advisers continue to express astonishment that a disastrous campaign, convention and candidate, as well as a lack of familiarity with what Stevens dismissively calls “whiz-bang turnout technologies,” could possibly lead to defeat.
Who would ever have thought blacks would get out and support the first black president? Who would ever have thought women would shy away from the party of transvaginal probes? Who would ever have thought gays would work against a party that treated them as immoral and subhuman? Who would have ever thought young people would desert a party that ignored science and hectored on social issues? Who would ever have thought Latinos would scorn a party that expected them to finish up their chores and self-deport?
Republicans know they’re in trouble when W. emerges as the moral voice of the party. The former president lectured the G.O.P. on Tuesday about being more “benevolent” toward immigrants.
As Eva Longoria supersedes Karl Rove as a power player, Republicans act as shellshocked as the Southern gentry overrun by Yankee carpetbaggers in “Gone with the Wind.” As the movie eulogized: “Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind.”
Gun sales have burgeoned since the president’s re-election, with Black Friday weapons purchases setting records as the dead-enders rush to arm themselves.
But history will no doubt record that withering Republicans were finally wiped from the earth in 2016 when the relentless (and rested) Conquistadora Hillary marched in, General Bill on a horse behind her, and finished them off.

 

[RenaissanceLady]

Other than the fact I don't actually believe Hillary is going to run, it's an excellent editorial. We've seen what may well be the end of Karl Rove's political career as no billionaire is going to trust him with donations and FOX has turned him into a persona non grata after his little meltdown. It's also been especially interesting to see the GOP try to court the Latino vote, using a mantra that can best be described as "just forget about everything we have done to you and learn to hate women as much as we do." There's a saying in the bible about sewing the wind and reaping the whirlwind yet the GOP doesn't seem to understand how this has just been applied to them.

 

[Muadib]

Other than the fact I don't actually believe Hillary is going to run, it's an excellent editorial. We've seen what may well be the end of Karl Rove's political career as no billionaire is going to trust him with donations and FOX has turned him into a persona non grata after his little meltdown. It's also been especially interesting to see the GOP try to court the Latino vote, using a mantra that can best be described as "just forget about everything we have done to you and learn to hate women as much as we do." There's a saying in the bible about sewing the wind and reaping the whirlwind yet the GOP doesn't seem to understand how this has just been applied to them.

Yeah I had a problem with the end part about Hilary as well, I'm not her biggest fan and even if I was I don't see her being the one to put the final nails in the GOP coffin. Still, other than that it was an excellent editorial. Funny though, I always thought that quote about reaping the whirlwind was from Dune.

Republicans courting the Latino vote is about the funniest thing I've ever heard, just goes to show how absolutely deluded they are. "GTFO of the country but before you do, vote for us!"

 

[RenaissanceLady]

This one is completely unrelated to science or politics. Still, it's part of that ever-growing "race to the bottom" I keep complaining about. While this happened in Ireland, it summarizes Corporate America in all its (amazing lack of) glory. As someone who writes for a living, I've seen such bosses (and clients) far too many times:

Dalkey Archive is a prestigious small press that publishes both new and classic works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. But the press, which boasts of bases in London, Dublin and Champaign, Ill., doesn’t merely distribute memorable works that founder John O’Brien describes as “saying something that people don’t want to hear — that will make them feel uncomfortable.” Au contraire – the press is pretty damn avant-garde and uncomfortable even in its job postings.

In a posting that went up on Tuesday, Dalkey explained it is currently in a period of transition, as it seeks to find a successor to its founder and expand its international offices. It needs new blood. Blood “primarily derived from unpaid interns in the first phase of this process.” And who might you be, unpaid yet eager intern, or possibly even maybe paid employee? You’re the total package. You’re “willing to start off at a low-level salary.” “Doing whatever is required to make the Press succeed.” Also, you have no life. None. Seriously. You “do not have any other commitments (personal or professional) that will interfere with work at the Press (family obligations, writing, involvement with other organizations, degrees to be finished, holidays to be taken, weddings to attend in Rio, etc.) … DO NOT APPLY IF ALL OF THE ABOVE DOES NOT DESCRIBE YOU.” It continues, “Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the Internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies.” I’m not saying that sounds a mite harsh, but I’ve seen cults with more laissez-faire policies about outside socialization.

For full story, please read: All work and no play — or you’re fired! - Salon.com

So much for congenial Irishmen. I wonder if this guy makes his employees get permission to use the restroom? A dominatrix would blush before making such demands.

This is the perfect example of a system that expects people to work for little to no pay, without time off, without a support system of family or friends and even without the ability to make mistakes while learning. The thing is, if he were an American, we'd be hearing how he's a "job creator" by the same folks who insist that those on food stamps or SSI are just too lazy to work hard.

I hope like hell he cannot fill this position.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Ok, how about this, my Christian friends here at the forum (and yes, I may disagree vehemently with all stuff religious but that doesn't mean I have a problem with believers. Half my family are christians and I love them all)

Talking about the age of the Earth from Christianity vs evolutionary theory - well, what do the creationists say to the huge proportion of the world that are not christians but other religion's that do not count the bible whatsoever? You can only say to them that they are wrong. There is no middle ground or saying, 'well they have their beliefs and we have ours' - that doesn't work.

You either believe the bible age or you do not. If you do, you must by definition dis-believe any other interpretation of other people round the world. Many people round the world just might not even come into contact with christianity and you are gonna say to them that they should accept the age of the Earth based on a religion that is not even practised where they live? That goes way beyond conceit.

I just cannot see how anyone fails to see that when the bible was written (by men), they just had no way of knowing how long the earth had been there and they made all this stuff up. It really is that simple. It doesn't even matter if you believe evolution or not. The bible simply cannot be used to gauge the age of the Earth.

 

[mike]

Imo it cant be used to gauge much of anything, Its a snapshot of a primitive period in history, nothing more.
Holding it up as anything more than that in these modern times is absurd.

Its so full of outright nonsense the claim its the perfect word of god is laughable.
Whats left as a rational explanation, is its just the words of men. nothing else makes sense.

Still millons of adults and otherwise mentally healthy men stick to 2000 years old delusions and superstition which in the starting point falls apart on its absurdity and is completely free from any logic and without any credibility. Why?

And why on earth is it a muddle-headed intolerant desert religion from a backward nomadic tribe society in the Middle East that has been preferred an officially approved delusion of the West ?

Religion - scourge of the world

 

[mike]

In the 21st century ? Really

Pianist’s ‘atheist’ Tweet could spell jail — RT

This is the sort of society these clowns would impose on us if they could

As for their positions, we're largely talking about people in the Intelligence community - and a lot from the DIA in particular - and also Air Force Intelligence. There are a few of the older, original members left, but today, they have allegedly placed their research on-hold, due to a belief that a final battle between good and evil is drawing near, and that the UFO presence will be finally be revealed for what they believe it to be.

The most ominous thing is that there appear to be some people attached to the group who believe that to save the US from what they perceive as a Satanic threat, the US should be placed under a near-martial law situation with the nation ruled by an iron-fist that adheres to Old Testament style teachings and beliefs. I expand greatly on all this in the book.​

​

How did they think they could fight these demons?

Their belief is that deep belief in, and acceptance of, the Christian God can literally keep the demons at bay. This is why some of the group have contemplated what should be unthinkable: forcefully changing the entire U.S. mindset to that of an Old Testament nature, as part of what I personally conclude is a misguided plan on their part to try and save our souls.​

​

​

The Secret Sun: Final Events: Interview with Nick Redfern​

 

[mike]

And using comedy to highlight the farcical nature of this

 

[starise]

Been away for awhile......I could type reams IF I had the time. As you can see it has been a few weeks since I can even check this site. I am willing to be flexible to differing views, but neither will you see me running away cowering at what I feel is the truth.

You see, I HAVE done my homework and I HAVE looked into these things and I HAVE reached a solid conclusion.

This is basically how I see things in a nutshell. If you judge it to be ridiculous I won't loose any sleep over that. Although I am afraid and concerned for you.

I think it is healthy to challenge oneself on occasion. I have been wrong and I am not past being wrong again if it can be proven. You are not really going to die all of a sudden if you suddenly discover you might be wrong either. The path to knowledge is learning and the path to learning is sometimes being incorrect.

I am challenging many of you to re evaluate your world view. Look at what you believe and why. Take the hate out of the equation. Be objective. Be willing to admit it if you see a tear in the fabric. There are extremes at both ends of anything. Stop looking at the extremes and hyper inflating them.I am sitting at the other end of this from where most of you sit and I can tell you it may not look this way to you but to to me it is obvious.

Top 100+ Atheist Challenges | iloveatheists.com

 

[Muadib]

Been away for awhile......I could type reams IF I had the time. As you can see it has been a few weeks since I can even check this site. I am willing to be flexible to differing views, but neither will you see me running away cowering at what I feel is the truth.

You see, I HAVE done my homework and I HAVE looked into these things and I HAVE reached a solid conclusion.

This is basically how I see things in a nutshell. If you judge it to be ridiculous I won't loose any sleep over that. Although I am afraid and concerned for you.

I think it is healthy to challenge oneself on occasion. I have been wrong and I am not past being wrong again if it can be proven. You are not really going to die all of a sudden if you suddenly discover you might be wrong either. The path to knowledge is learning and the path to learning is sometimes being incorrect.

I am challenging many of you to re evaluate your world view. Look at what you believe and why. Take the hate out of the equation. Be objective. Be willing to admit it if you see a tear in the fabric. There are extremes at both ends of anything. Stop looking at the extremes and hyper inflating them.I am sitting at the other end of this from where most of you sit and I can tell you it may not look this way to you but to to me it is obvious.

Top 100+ Atheist Challenges | iloveatheists.com

So, once again, you know you're right because you know you're right, gotcha. Your conclusion is anything but solid and your facts when it comes to things like evolution are sorely lacking. Maybe you want to do some reevaluating yourself. There's no hate in my equation, and though I can't speak for everyone here, I doubt that they came to their own conclusions about the ridiculousness of religion based on hate, that's a little myth you Christians like to perpetuate while pretending that you preach tolerance, and that's not hate just an objective interpretation of what I've seen from the vast majority of people who claim to be Christians. Every time you get proven wrong (and there have been many) you disappear for a couple weeks then come back preaching the same crap, it's getting really old. I've looked at both sides and I'm comfortable where I'm at, the side that relies on reason and evidence, not magical thinking and denial.

 

[starise]

So, once again, you know you're right because you know you're right, gotcha. Your conclusion is anything but solid and your facts when it comes to things like evolution are sorely lacking. Maybe you want to do some reevaluating yourself. There's no hate in my equation, and though I can't speak for everyone here, I doubt that they came to their own conclusions about the ridiculousness of religion based on hate, that's a little myth you Christians like to perpetuate while pretending that you preach tolerance, and that's not hate just an objective interpretation of what I've seen from the vast majority of people who claim to be Christians. Every time you get proven wrong (and there have been many) you disappear for a couple weeks then come back preaching the same crap, it's getting really old. I've looked at both sides and I'm comfortable where I'm at, the side that relies on reason and evidence, not magical thinking and denial.

Hmmmm, that's just it I haven't been proven wrong. Not by a long shot. You simply refuse to look at the facts.

I looked at the time from when I posted until the time you replied.....there is no way you had the time to even give my link more than a cursory look. It looks as if you simply decided to post a response without really weighing the evidence.You continue to attack with no knowledge or rational. Christians are human and liable to fallibility. We base our righteousness on Christ who makes us righteous. So you won't find any of us perfect. Your assertion that Christians are haters is so far off kilter that I can't imagine anyone buying it or even entertaining the thought. Christians have been responsible for helping the poor through mission in more ways than you can fathom. In the most recent disasters we were there helping those people to get their lives back together again.

Lets make a comparison to atheism-

ATHEIST ATROCITIES​

We'll grant you the witch-hunts, the Inquisition, and some of the Crusades, but beyond that, organized Christianity can't really be blamed for the killing of innocents. No, you atheists have pretty much cornered the market on murder and mayhem, bearing responsibility for over 259 million deaths around the world. In fact, atheist governments, which are also largely Communist, have killed more people than all the wars of the past century. The Soviet Union alone took 126 million lives, while Communist China has murdered 114 million people and counting.
By way of comparison, note that during the 25 years of the Spanish Inquisition only 2,000 individuals were executed, while the atheist governments of Vietnam, North Korea, and Cambodia have killed 3 million people each.
The most telling statistic?
Try this: 41 percent of all deaths in the twentieth century were perpetrated by atheist governments—during peacetime, mind you, and against their own people. I know what you're going to say—atheism didn't kill these people; they were murdered by confused individuals who just happened to be atheists—but then that pretty much lets us all off the hook, now doesn't it?

Who do see spreading the HATE here?

Even if you blame us for the things mentioned above. I would counter with that fact that many of the things carried out in the name of God were in direct opposition to the scriptures. So in reality even those things were not really"Christian" even though they are given that label.

 

[Muadib]

Hmmmm, that's just it I haven't been proven wrong. Not by a long shot. You simply refuse to look at the facts.

I looked at the time from when I posted until the time you replied.....there is no way you had the time to even give my link more than a cursory look. It looks as if you simply decided to post a response without really weighing the evidence.You continue to attack with no knowledge or rational. Christians are human and liable to fallibility. We base our righteousness on Christ who makes us righteous. So you won't find any of us perfect. Your assertion that Christians are haters is so far off kilter that I can't imagine anyone buying it or even entertaining the thought. Christians have been responsible for helping the poor through mission in more ways than you can fathom. In the most recent disasters we were there helping those people to get their lives back together again.

No you're absolutely right, I didn't look at your link just like you don't look at the many links and refutations of your wrong headed ideas about evolution, the age of the earth, Noah's Flood, how the sun works, FEMA prison trains, and on and on and on. You shouldn't make a habit of asking people to do things that you're unwilling to do yourself, that's a form of hypocrisy my friend. The fact is, you've been proven completely and utterly wrong on a number of topics, time and time again, but you refuse to acknowledge that. This isn't a Christian forum, nor is it an atheist forum, in fact the last time I looked religion was pretty much off topic here period. So if you want to argue your nonsensical point of view, do it somewhere else. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has grown tired of listening to you preach on subjects you clearly know nothing about.

If you want to trade links I can do that all day,

Can there be any doubt that Christianity is, historically speaking, one
of the most murderous religions that has ever existed?


Christian Atrocities

 

[Muadib]

This is just a small list compiled in 1996 of Christian Atrocities:
How many people have died in the name of Christ, Christianity and Catholicism?

VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

by Kelsos

"WONDERFUL EVENTS THAT TESTIFY TO GOD'S DIVINE GLORY"
Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)
Ancient Pagans

• As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
• Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
• Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
• Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
• Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
• Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
  According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
• In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
• In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
• The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
  [DO19-25]

Mission

• Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
• Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
• Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
• 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
• 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
  Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)

• First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
• Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
• 9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
• Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
• after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35]
  Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents—save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
• Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
• Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
  (In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
• The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
• Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
• Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
• Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
• Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]
  Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Heretics

• Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
• Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
• Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
  The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
  Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
• Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
• subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
• After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
• Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
• Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
• Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
• John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
• University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
• Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

• from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
• in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
• incomplete list of documented cases:
  The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

• 15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
• 1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
• 1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
• 1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
• 17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
• 17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
• 17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

• Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
• In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
• 17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
• The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
• First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
• Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
• Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
• Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
• 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
• 1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
• 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
• 1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
• 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
• 1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
• 1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
• 1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
• 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.​

Native Peoples

• Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
• Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
  While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
• On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]​

• Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
• In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
• On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
• The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
• As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
• The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
• What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
  "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
  Or, on another occasion:
  "The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
• The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
• "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
• Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
• "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

continued...

 

[Muadib]

continued...

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

• Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
• In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
  "Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
• On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
• When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
  Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
  The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
• So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
• Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
  "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
• Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
• Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)
  In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
• The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
• Other tribes were to follow the same path.
• Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
  "Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
• Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
• In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
• In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
• To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
• All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
• A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
• In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

• Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
• Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
  From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]
  More gory details.
• By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

• Catholic extermination camps
  Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!
  
  In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
• Catholic terror in Vietnam
  In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]
  
  Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.
  
  The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
• • "Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life....​

• Rwanda Massacres
  In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.
Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:

"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.

According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.
In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]​

As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end....
References:

[DA]
K.Deschner, Abermals krhte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962.
[DO]
K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987.
[EC]
P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985.
[EJ]
S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977.
[LI]
H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961.
[MM]
M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People.
[MV]
A.Manhattan, The Vatican’s Holocaust, Springfield 1986.
See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo NY, 1992.
[NC]
J.T.Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992.
[S2]
Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 12:00.
[SH]
D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992.
[SP]
German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996.
[TA] A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Hapned in the Warre Between the English and the Indians in New England, London 1676.
[TG]
F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980.
[WW]
H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973.
(This is in german and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is the best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of original medieval Christian chroniclers' writings).
[WV]
Estimates on the number of executed witches:

• N.Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253.
• R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York 1959, 180.
• J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39.
• H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56.

 

[starise]

You may not think I read your posts but I do. I have looked at your links.

The one above is quite a copy/paste job from someone who is either clearly biased against Christianity or who doesn't understand the essence of what Christianity is.

In most of the cases above we see things done in the NAME of Christianity but in reality are so very far from what Christianity really is that it is self evident the acts and those committing them are clearly not Christians.

Something is defined for what it is because of how it behaves or how closely it resembles other of its type and kind. Christianity was never intended to be a forced state religion. No where will you find Jesus commanding the church to take control of the government or commanding the government to force Christianity.Christianity has always taught love and changing a man from the inside out. It is interesting that back in the days of the state ordained so called Christianity all one needed to do was be baptized and go through a few other sanctioned acts that really don't make a person a Christian no matter how long or loud you call him one. Another good example is the Church of England. Good old Henry the 8th was a member but would you call him a saint?

The defining qualities of these past organizations can only be looked at as taking the emblem of God/Christianity/the church and wearing that emblem for their own vain and evil exploits. They did this IMO to have better control of the population. They didn't want the general population to really see the Bible because if they had it would be discovered that the so called church was so far away from what the Bible teaches there would be a rebellion.

Everyone that crossed the pond to early America wasn't a Christian,in fact ,there were probably a very large number of ruffians who ended up here who were barbaric. It was easy to do something really bad "in the name of God". Much of what happened during that time was not all carried out by a church.

You also make things seem as if there was no threats to the english in America from Indians. The author clearly eliminates the stories of Indian raids on white settlers who were not violent.

Sometimes Christians sin and do bad things,we are not perfect, but in light of that most every one of the state church sanctioned murdering sprees were politically motivated and given a Christian tag to make them seem more savory to accomplish.Christian in name only Much like Hitler demonized the Jews so he could accomplish his evil murdering spree of a people he hated.

So my short answer to your post is that they weren't Christians. Christians are known for certain behaviors more pertaining to Jesus and not Stalin. Big buildings with Christian signs are not always Christian even today. By their fruits you will know them.

In any case I have never seen anyone argued into believing a postion. You must be convinced in your own mind/heart or not at all.

I haven't preached here yet. I have only tried to give the supporting reasons why I believe what I do and I felt that it was especially important in light of the fact that there seems to be so much disinformation.

Merry Christmas!

 

[Muadib]

I could make the same argument about your atheist post couldn't I? That clearly the author is biased against the idea of atheism so he attributes horrible acts to people that weren't really atheists, they were tyrannical sick individuals who committed terrible acts that had absolutely nothing to do with atheism. You miss the point though, it shows that there exists now and existed in the past a whole slew of people who claimed Christianity as their reason for committing horrible acts. Whether they were following the scriptures or not (and I think an argument can be made that if you look at the scripture, especially the old testament, they were acting exactly how the supposed God of that book directed them to...) is irrelevant, when hardcore fundamentalists go out and murder the doctor at an abortion clinic they aren't following what a vast majority would claim the scriptures say, but in their minds they are completely justified. This is the disconnect that turns me off to religion in general. Ultimately, I don't need a mystical Santa Claus figure in the sky with a naughty or nice list to be a good human being, some do and that's great but when you take your religion and use it to replace your reason there's a problem.

I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist anyway, although I think it's very unlikely that there is such a thing as a God, I don't claim to know one way or the other. There are some things I do know, there's a lot of things I don't know, and neither does anyone else, I don't care what a 2,000 year old book has told them. One thing I do know is that before you can say that you've seriously considered some of the things we talked about in this very thread, you need to brush up on your facts because they are sorely lacking.

And a Merry Christmas to you as well.