fett on 4/12/2008 at 02:53

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As usual, Harris fucking rules.

Kolya on 4/12/2008 at 10:14

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The evil masochist goes to heaven where cute cherubim sing and dance all day and night around the pole they taped him on.
In fact I'm awaiting the same fate (for different reasons).

Gryzemuis on 4/12/2008 at 15:46

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Understood. But this was a nice opportunity to slam religion. I couldn't pass.



I'm not a historian or theologist, so I'll believe what you tell me. But how is this different from the current "crusade" in Iraq ? I know it wasn't the church who sent the US army to Iraq. But I remember very well how G.W. Bush used the word "crusade" in the first day(s) after 911. And he got immediately corrected and was forbidden to use the word crusade again. However, it was clear that the idea of "us versus them" and "muslim terrorists versus the great neation of the USA" was at the core of the revenge. You hardly hear the media talk about "Pakistani terrorists" or "Iraqi terrorist". It is always "Muslim terrorists". Maybe the educated part of americans does understand you can't generalize. But the "less educated" part of americans understood their lesson very well. And for them, every muslim is the enemy.



True. But how much is this because the uneducated part of the US doesn't know anything about the outside world ? Once the evangelicals have "fixed" the USA, why would they stop and not try to "fix" the rest of the world ?



OK, I exaggerated a bit. And yes, the missions have done good things. But those good deeds were often coupled to force to press people to join Christianity. My country has a rich history of both world wide trade missions and world wide "christian missions". And I can tell you, they often went hand-in-hand. Basically there were 2 goals: 1) save souls, help the poor, grow the church, and 2) suppress local population, and use them for labor in making money.



Who says I went to high-school ? :p
In my days, there were no discussions in school. You had to sit still, and do what the paters (fathers, priests, padres) told you to do.

What does Iraq and Afgan wars have to do with Christianity ? Do you think these are unrelated ? Do you think the US would have acted the same if they had to fight against other christians ? 250k+ Iraqis have died after the war has ended. Do think the casualities would have been so high if the war had been somewhere else ? As I wrote earlier, I think Bush really thought that God had chosen him to fight a holy war, a crusade, against the muslims, to protect the chosen people, the americans. I think he learned a lot now. But 7 years ago, the hawks and imperialists in the US goverment have tricked him into starting a war, and it helped that Bush was a born-again christian.

Anyway, my point was: Christianity is an aggressive religion. Even though the bible says "love is all".

jtr7 on 4/12/2008 at 19:37

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As long as Christianity is defined by the Old Testament/Old Covenant, rather than the New Testament/New Covenant brought by Christ, who said loving God with your whole being and loving your neighbor as yourself were the sum total of all the Law, grievous, atrocious, and fatal harm will be done in his name. Bush is not a Christian by the true biblical definition, but by the common definition of the ignorant sheeple. It's all about his ego, not the setting aside of it. It's all about ignorance and believing what he wants to believe for his own agenda, not dedication to the study of his god's instructions and seeking His will not his own or seeking constant correction of his flawed views.

fett on 4/12/2008 at 20:51

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jtr has a point tho. When you put the Bible under a microscope, there is never any justification for oppressing non-believers, persecuting people of other religions, etc. Even Israel's conquests in the OT had nothing to do with a difference between religions (despite popular belief).