killing for god

[juldea]

Still reading Trinity. It's really appalling the killing and other atrocities done in the name of god.

Even if you can point and say, "That was them, they were mistaken, they totally did religion the wrong way," I have never heard of someone killing another human being "for atheism."[1]

I can't think of a better reason to be an atheist.

[1] Feel free to provide examples if you have them.

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Woah, woah, woah.

Where does the mandate to kill come from in Christianity? The Crusades, the Inquisition, all that crap was done in the name of God, but God didn't wander down from the Heavens and say "Go kill those people." the Church (the institution, not the religion) took it upon itself.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

The Devil's Advocate in me says that if the religious texts can be interpreted to support those kind of viewpoints... *shrug*

But that's not my real argument. :)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

The Devil's Advocate in me says that if the religious texts can be interpreted to support those kind of viewpoints...

If you have a Devil's Advocate to begin with, you're at least halfway to understanding that any complex religious text can be interpreted to support any arbitrary viewpoint.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

*grin* I was just using it as a known figure of speech!

[tpau]

"thou shall not suffer a witch to live" ? plus, i could be wrong :)

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

There's more to that quote than just what people use. Apparently, the orignal Herbrew word that was transalted as "witch" (in the King James Version) was "chasaph" whihc is more accurately translated as "poisoner."

More on this here: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=68504

It's also from Exodus. Ian't that part of the Torah?

[tpau]

exodus, yes, so?

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

That was written by the Hebrews, yes? Along with that litany of Bad Things You Should Not Do from Leviticus. So... that puts the directive there on the Jews. We (Christians) just tagged along.

By this same arguemnt, you can say that Islam requires people to kill the in the name of God. Now, it's pretty much agreed that Islam the Religion does not, but Islamist Extremists* do.

So, again I ask, where, in Christinaity, does a directive to kill people, from God, not the Church, come from?

*A lot of people just shorten that to "Islamists" but I think that's confusing and slightly misleading, personally.

[tpau]

what does that have to do with anything? JEws have killed for religion as much as soem others, i have never argued that. i jsut said that there were some religions that did not. i am nto pickign on christianity, it is jsut hte first thing that came to mind.

while iam at it, while there were all sorts of political reasons for say the crusades, the average joe on a crusade didn't think of that. he thought of cleansing hte holy land for jesus...

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

What you said was "most religiouns (though not all, i do nto believe christianity falls under this ) do not come witha mandate to kill."

Whihc I interrepted as "I think Christianity may come with a mandate to kill."

I want to know why.

[tpau]

why? well, msotly because outside of recently where Islamic Extremeistsseem to be doign a lot of killing, it was the Christians that kept killing peopel for about 2000 years.

christianity, as far as i understand, whic hsi nto too far, is built aroudn the church tellignthe peopelwhat god said. therefore the church speaks for god no? esp when the pope does the thing wher ehe speaks for god directly. if one says this is true, thenchristianity and not jsuthte church tells peopel to kill...

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Okay, so we're interpreting things differently.

Chrisitnaity is built around the idea that Jesus came to earth as the physical incarnation of God to live as a man, and then suffer and ie for our sins. As long as we (Christians) believe that (and are actually sorry for the sins we may have committed, and different denominations have different standards for this.) we get to go to heaven. Also, we're supposed to try and live good lives and have as few sins as possible to be sorry for.

The "living good lives" bit is where it gets mucky. The hating people who don't believe as you do thing (even if those others are Christians, just a different demonination) is acceptable to some people. And they think God is alright that. Some think that hating others is not so much a good thing, but eating pork is fine. Some think that tithing is manditory, so give what they can afford, some don't bother. What *I* think is a good life, what *you* think is a good life may or may not be what God thinks is a life. That's between you and God and me and God.

Someday I want to sit down with God and ask just what the hell he was thinking. Because I do not believe for one second that this mess we have now is what he intended.

[tpau]

mm, yes. i agree with everythign you say.

and yeah i tink we are all fuckign it up royally...

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

As long as we (Christians) believe that (and are actually sorry for the sins we may have committed, and different denominations have different standards for this.) we get to go to heaven.

Well, there's that whole Doctrine of the Elect bit put for by Calvin, which argues that it really doesn't matter what you believe or do, God's already decided who's getting into heaven and who's not.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Which I totally do not get. At all. As I recall (I don't know much about Calvinism) the standards for behavior are pretty strict. No drinking, no dancing, laughing is frowned upon kinda way... if your afterlife fate has been decided already, where's the carrot and the stick to keep people doing what they're supposed to do?

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

I don't get it, either, but then, I don't get much of Christianity. As I understand it, your good behaviour in this life was a way of demonstrating that you were of the elect. Sort of like a dress code for the Pearly Gates Country Club.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Where in Christianity does ANYTHING come straight from God and not through the Church?

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I take the stuff Jesus said as from God. And Jesus said "love one another" and "Turn the other cheek." He did not say "Anyone who doesn't believe in me is an evil bastard who is going to hell." (Now, I admit that "He who does believe in me will have a new life." can possibly be interpreted that way.)

Pretty much anything that we are told is the Word of God after the Ressurection is somewhat suspect, in my mind. It may very well have been inspired by God, but still filtered through human minds- and mostly through *men's* minds.

The Early Chruch had an agenda. The Catholic Church has an agenda. All churches have an agenda. The institution and the religion are not the same.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

But... don't you know what Jesus said only through the Church?

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Not really. It's in the Bible, yes, and I have looked at some of the "gospels" that didn't make it into the Bible. (whihc is an interesting story in and of itself.)

But look at it somewhat objectively. What the Bible says Jesus said is not really "in line" with the position of the Church for most of it's history. The CHurch goes on and on to say that anyone who isn't a Christian (or specific flavor of Christianity) is going to hell and is a bad person. The Church also has said that women are the root of all sin, and this that and the other... Jesus said "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This is not the same message. I'm more inclined to believe that the writers of the Gospels (whihc were written by jesus' followers after the Crucifixtion, and they were there for his ministry, and either pieced together or just plain made up the early childhood of Jesus.) were *not* going to mess with what they know he said because the smite factor is pretty high on that.

Church says homosexulaity is wrong. I don't recall any statements said by Jesus on the subject. (I could be wrong)

My main arguement here is that Christinaity as a religion doesn't have a mandate to kill... or if you say we do, then so does Islam, and every other religion who has EVER killed int eh name of God. You don't get to pick on all of us just because some of us have been assholes- or pick on every other relgion that has had an asshole.

[tpau]

unrelated to most things, jewsus QUOTED "love thy neighbor as thyself" from leviticus...

[tpau]

also, somehwere(and again i think LEviticus) it says "men should not lie with another man as they woudl with a woman". lesbians are ok, gay man not so much.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

That's Leviticus. That's not Jesus. The Bible in it's entirity is treated as the Word of God, but I (as supported by a pastor who agreed with me when I brought this up) see it as God's inspiration through the filter of human minds.

And a lot of the rules of Leviticus make good sense- for a desert tribe near the beginning of time. You need population increase, pork might not be so healthy, bathing a kid in its mother's milk is...well it's rude, honestly, linen and wool will shrink weird when you wash it... but the rules didn't change as the world did. We have dry cleaners now that can (try) to prevent weird shrinkages, and chickens still don't give milk.

(Jamie came up with a bunch of other quotes in support of homosexulaity from the Bible. Or rather, I think someone else did and he just reposted them.)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I hope that's the collective 'you'. :)

I haven't claimed any religions have a mandate to kill, just a history of people killing In The Name Of.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

It was. :-)

Oh, yes, I believe most (if not all) religions have had people kill in the name of.

Now (moving away from the religions of Abraham, or The Big Three and dreging up a half remembered factoid) there was a sect in India that killed people... Ah, yes The Thugees were a cult of Kali (not our Kali, the goddess) that would kill people (usually strangulation, it looks like) as a worship to Kali.