There has been a small debate recently over at Daily Pundit over whether Christianity has some of the same seeds that can spring into irrational violence as Islam. I agree with those who say that it does but that Christianity as currently practiced is obviously not the stark threat to civilized life as is currently-practiced Islam.
Of course, individual practitioners of either religion can be all over the map with respect to how well they live their lives and interact with others. I've been to Indonesia twice, pre-9/11 and post-9/11, and have met many Muslims who are friendly and good. Surely there are many anti-terrorist Muslims, even if they're not always as vocal in their anti-terrorism as we would prefer. It's just that for whatever historical and cultural reasons, it's much less likely these days, notwithstanding the occasional lunatic gunning down doctors at abortion clinics, to see Christian preachers advocating decapitation of cartoonists who draw cartoons offensive to Christian sentiments.
But this difference in contemporary temperament doesn't mean that the actual doctrines of Christianity are or always have been thoroughly sane and mellow.
It's been pointed out that what constitutes a particular religion tends to shift as interpretations shift. Yet the original and still-consulted scripture and all its specific passages are still there, saying, if we're lucky, "It's a good thing you don't pay that much attention to me these days, or, if you do, that you go way out of your way to pretend I mean something different from what I do mean."
For example, according to the Bible, isn't God himself a murderer and mass-murderer? Cf., for evidence, Genesis:
6:13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.6:14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.... [There follow details of exactly what dimensions the ark must be.]
6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Article comments
1 - gazelle
Passion For Freedom, Or Freedom Of Passion?
Mohammed's sublime passion stands in sharp contrast to the base passions on display
[correct url]
2 - David M. Brown
Yeah, and a stitch in time saves nine, Gazelle. What are you talking about? I don't regard muzzy oracularity as a good substitute for reasoned discourse.
Ah, but I see you're merely using the comment box as a way to pitch your own article rather than to comment on mine. Such usurpations are frowned upon in all sacred texts.
3 - gazelle
David:
"muzzy oracularity for reasoned discourse:"
+ I was tring to point out the rational component in islam - i thought that tied in directly with 'de-fanging' the 'worst aspects' - a point that hits the target re islam, in my view, in the sense of reducing the ignorance of senseless behaviour and thought that characterizes a portion of islamic society, and others.
"pitching own article frowned in all sacred texts"
+ yes its true the pitch is there, but only to comment on yours, as an instance where frowning is not the way the go for sacred texts
my apologies, once again, for the double posting due to wrong url.[Now corrected by helpful Comments Editor]
4 - David M. Brown
Okay. Some of my best friends and people I see in the mirror are shameless self-promoters, so I guess I can't be too irked about it.
5 - A.L. Harper
Religion is the root of all evil. The IRA are still Happy, healthy and active in Northern Ireland. They kill innocent people all the time in the name of the christian god and with the blessing of the pope.
I repeat religion is the root of all evil. It should come with a warning on the pack (God is bad for you and could be the cause of your violent and early death).
6 - TS
Wow, let's talk moral relativism ("hey the Christians and Jews are kinda, like, just as bad! Or used to be!!!) while Muslims riot, murder, behead, blow up, honor kill, oppress, fly planes into buildings, and kindap kindergartners in Russia. etc. etc.
Sheesh. Pathetic.
7 - David M. Brown
I don't see how my article argues for moral relativism. What is your evidence, TS?
What I suggest is that there are murder-rationalizing ideas in the Bible and that it's a good thing they're not a dominant part of today's Judeo-Christian character and culture. I stated that as explicitly as one could state it. It hardly constitutes an indictment of non-murderers, nor any kind of intimation of moral equivalence between those who live their lives as killers of the innocent and those who live their lives peaceably and well. I'm all in favor of non-murdering and not-following of the most immoral implications of scripture.
Or are you suggesting that it is wrong to even note the more problematic ideas in the Bible, no matter how plainly they may be stated therein?
Sure, let's talk about moral relativism. You can start by defining it and showing how my article exemplifies it. You're going to have a tough time though, I'm afraid.
8 - David M. Brown
Bidinotto's latest at the Bidinotto Blog on the Latest Development re the cartoons (circa 2/8) (below, aside from the blockquote from the editor, is entirely Bidinotto's commentary; I agree with the indictment of NYC editors, but not with the pessimism about the overall American spirit of resistance...we have to hope that Bill Quick's predictions about the blogospheric ability to competitively beat the pulp out of the MSM will come true ASAP):
Update #4, Feb. 8 -- File this under "profiles in courage": The editorial staff of The New York Press, an alternative weekly, resigned en masse when they were ordered NOT to reprint the Danish cartoons in conjunction with a planned story on the controversy. Editor-in-Chief Harry Siegel sent this explanatory email on behalf of the editorial staff:
Folks, while cheering these men of principle, I must also say this: We may well be witnessing the bloodless, unopposed Islamist conquest of America...from within. Not five years after 9/11, in the once-grand city where these unspeakable vermin drove planes into our two tallest buildings, the geldings who own major media outlets are handing these same thugs the keys to their newsroom
9 - Justin Berry
First of all God is not "the Old Man" that you toss the ball around with. He is the creator of the Universe and he has every right to destroy that creation. That applies to the God of every religion.
Secondly, Is this post referring to Christians or Jews? I am assuming Jews because all of your cited verses were Old Testament. If you were refering to Christians you should probably find somewhere in the New Testament where our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ murdered or advocated murder or even violence.
10 - Christopher Rose
No, Justin, "god" is either a naive if well intentioned attempt to explain life, the universe and everything or a seriously out of control fairy story.
As far as I'm concerned Muslims, Jews and Christians can believe whatever they like but if the rest of us are obliged to take their beliefs any more seriously than astrology, there's something seriously wrong here.
It's about time we all woke up to the realisation that we need to save ourselves in the here and now, not look to some extremely dubious concept of paradise or heaven after death.
11 - Justin Berry
Chris I am not asking you to believe anything. I am not preaching to anyone. I am making a point that no religion believes God is the "Old Man" that you play catch with. In his post Mr. Brown quoted verses from the Bible, Old Testament to be exact, Christians need the Old Testament to gain insight into the mind of God and the history.
Mr. Brown also says "Fortunately, the worst aspects of Christianity have been largely tempered and de-fanged by civilizing ideas, institutions and cultural habits in a way that the worst aspects of Islam apparently have not been." My second comment is merely pointing out that we as Christians follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, as in the New Testament not "civilizing ideas..."
If the New Testament is what Mr. Brown calls "civilizing ideas,institutions, and cultural habits" then I digress.
12 - Christopher Rose
But why should we even take any of you seriously? I think you're all slightly mad. This is perfectly okay whilst you all remain in "dotty aunt" territory but when people are fighting and rioting like this it's time to reel in the lot of you, frankly.
13 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"...why should we even take any of you seriously?"
I'm not arguing religion here, Chris, but just who is this "we" anyway? I speak for myself. What authority do you hold yourself out as representing?
14 - Christopher Rose
I don't know about authority Ruvy, I used the word in the sense of we who don't believe the theory that all three strands of this god cult are based on. It's quite simple logic to follow; no god, ergo you're all barking up the wrong tree.
I will go so far as to agree that some extremely unusual events went on since humanity started settling about 10,000 years ago, and especially around 3,000 years back.
Let's briefly review a few key highlights from back in the day, courtesy of Wikipedia's excellent history timeline.
12,000 years ago, the main headline events of the day were
"Mesopotamia: Three or more linguistic groups, including Sumerian and Semitic peoples share a common political and cultural way of life. People begin to collect wild wheat and barley probably to make malt then beer." That's probably the start of the argument right there!
10,000 years ago we saw the rise of the Punjab culture, possibly the first pyramid in Mexico, village building, musical instruments and globally widespread crop and animal farming development.
By 8,000 years ago, the English Channel formed and Australia became an isolated continent as global sea levels rose drastically. According to the Byzantine Empire, the world was created.
6,000 years ago, all sorts of stuff starts to kick off, including Creation itself on either March 29th or September 25th 3760BC according to the Jewish theory.
About 5,000 years ago work started on Stonehenge whilst a few kilometres from where I sit here in Andalucia, something drove the people to haul blocks of stone the size of cars for tens of kms to build huge burial dolmens.
More significantly, we can see many echoes of the contemporary world when Wikipedia notes
I also note the start of Judaism around the relatively recent date of 1200BC, by the way.
Let's round off this tour of the long ago by noting that the final thousand years BC saw the founding of such diversities as Japan, Buddhism, Jainism, and the rise and fall of the Roman Republic.
Superstars of the time included Alexander the Great, Israelite King David, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, Lao Zi, Confucius plus "Pānini, Indian Sanskrit grammarian, world's first known linguist, considered the father of computing machines; Homer, Greek poet; Hebrew prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan empire; Ashoka the Great, ruler of the Mauryan empire; Pingala, Indian mathematician, inventor of the binary number system and the concept of zero; Qin Shihuang, first emperor of China; Euclid, Alexandrian mathematician; Archimedes, Greek scientist; Cicero, Latin orator and philosopher; Julius Caesar, Roman conqueror and dictator; Virgil, Latin poet and Emperor Jimmu, the first Japanese Emperor."
All this gives me a sense of a species living, growing, learning, thriving and hopefully surviving; despite all our faults and problems, the tired and cranky concepts that serve only to separate not unite, the universe would be a lesser place without us.
So if I could claim any authority at all, it would be that which is based on an honest acknowledgment of my species' story so far, not the relatively recent ideas of these earnest but weirdly competitive theories so many of you seem prepared to espouse.
15 - David M. Brown
"I am making a point that no religion believes God is the "Old Man" that you play catch with."
Basic reading skills might be helpful here. I was obviously referring to Abraham in that sentence. Fathers and sons play catch. "I wonder what tossing a baseball around with the old man is like after you have learned that he was willing to murder you on some maniacal deity's say-so." There are two separate references here, one to "the old man," a common phrase sons use to refer to fathers. The other reference is to the deity that the old man was willing to obey.
Abraham was willing to kill Isaac on the say-so of a deity, God. Isaac, once he is spared, now knows that his father was about to kill him and willing to kill him. Why? Because some deity, without giving any reason, said so. So, what are the relations of Abraham and Isaac going to be like now?
The mere assertion that a mythical God "created" the universe and hence has the "right" to destroy his creation carries no weight with me. It is a mere unsupported assertion. Granting for the sake of argument that there were a God, you might as well say that "God, being God, has a right to be a vicious monster." Justin is confirming my thesis: that ethics is in fact tossed out the window on such religious assumptions. Any sane ethic would note regard murder as evil, certainly the kind of mass murder God perpetrated when he sent the flood to wipe out all mankind but Noah and a few relatives. If "might makes right," there is no "right," only the strongest fist.