I realize I am very critical of religion. So today I am going to give some "mad props" to Christianity for making some commendable steps toward reason and humanity in the past few centuries. Even though Jesus Christ extolled the virtues of loving thy neighbor, Christians managed to rationalize murder, torture, and barbarism under religious pretenses for another thousand years.
It's worth mentioning that it was not Christianity itself that rescued humanity from the fiery depths of its theocratic madness but rather a growing scientific enlightenment that has and continues to give way to a reasoned, secular discourse. This is ironic given the oft-repeated refrain that Christianity is a pillar of absolute morality and a bedrock of civilization. Ask yourself, "was the problem with the Inquisition that people simply weren't reading their Bibles enough or drawing up their to-do lists from God's orders?"
Apologists for the Inquisition, such as St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine, managed to amalgamate the teachings of Jesus with the practice of flaying, dismembering, burning, stretching and gouging people to death. Whatever has changed in the past two thousand years, the tomes of religious orthodoxy have not.
A truly brilliant graphic.
ReplyDeleteHistorically speaking, though, it is still, at best, a little too early to tell whether this is wishful thinking or not. The 20th century witnessed not only the Nazi Reichskirche, but both Jim Crow in the US and South African Apartheid were closely allied with mainstream forms of Christianity. And today in the 21st century Pentecostalist/Charismatic Christianity is the fastest growing part of that religion and, in particular, is gaining in its political influence.
I respectfully disagree... Christianity, and indeed religion in general, has not evolved. Instead I offer the perspective that religion has adapted, not evolved, to changes in human society and awareness driven by scientific enlightenment. Science has proven beyond reasonable speculation that the teachings of nearly every religion are, frankly, impossible to believe for any moderately educated human. Even the existence of Jesus in the Bible cannot be corroborated by historians of the time. The only place he exists is in the Bible, a book "assembled" by the Council of Nicea, under the order of Constantine, nearly 500 years after Jesus "dies". It was a created history, manufactured to justify a religion used to control the people. It continues its purpose today. It has been used relentlessly Over the centuries to justify war, murder, rape and torture of anyone who does not "believe". From the Crusades, to the Inquisitions, to witch hunts, religion has been used to validate the slaughter of the innocent. The Quran serves the same purpose for the Muslim "faiths" and is still used today to justify the murder, rape, torture and repression of millions of people worldwide. Women being sexually mutilated in the name a Alah continues to this day. Eugenio Pacelli/Pope Pius XII made a deal with Hitler, trading the church's silence about the Holocaust for leaving the Vatican alone in WWII during the occupation of Italy... This is recent history and illuminates the self serving nature of christianity's leaders, seeking only to ally themselves with the 'ruling party' and using their influence over the "sheeple" as leverage to further their agenda. Today, we continue to be horrified by the deeds of those claiming christianity, endless lawsuits against child molesting priests, beheadings in the name of Alah, and Joseph Kony... leader of the Lord's Resistance Army and self proclaimed "Spokesperson of God"; his purpose to "purify" the Acholi people and turn Uganda into a theocracy by ordering the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers. No, religion has NOT evolved, it has only adapted to the light that has been shone on them by science, by irrefutable historical research, and by the instant global communication we enjoy today. Ask the Vatican how global television and the Internet is working out for them as they continue to try and hide their child raping priests. No, religion has NOT evolved... it is the same horrifying institution it has been for thousands of years... and here's the best part; after all their vicious acts of barbarism, their crimes against humanity, genocide "In the name of God"... PEOPLE STILL FOLLOW THEM! No, religion has NOT evolved...
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that the Qur'an supports the evil actions of some who claim to be Muslim, or they just twist it that way?
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