Christianity and The Base/Superstructure Thing....

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I've been reading Tariq Ali's Islam Quartet series. Not great literature and I think he massively over romanticizes medieval Islam (he makes the Umayad Caliphate almost seem like an lgbt paradise) but it is a fun read.

This got me to thinking..

Historically Christianity has been one of the most viciously intolerant belief systems (outside of Nazism) that's ever existed in human history.The witch burnings, the generally low status of women, the various Inquisitions, the Thirty Years War, the destruction of the Aztec and Inca civilizations, genocide in the Americas, etc.

We can't blame the "teachings of Jesus" or modern liberal or leftist Christians today.The destruction in the New World can be traced to the dynamics of late feudalism and the genesis of capitalism. The Church, to some extant tried to mitigate this. Of course there was persecution in Islam and Tang dynasty China.

The fact remains though that Christianity has been uniquely intolerant and destructive.Why is this? How do we look at this from a historical materialist perspective? How much is this the fault of the belief system or the historical religious organisation and how much is caused by the material conditions of Europe?

Perhaps the much greater tolerance of Islam comes from the fact that Islam spread over ancient civilizations with other religions-Byzantine Empire and Persia but I suspect there is more.

India and China had semi-feudal systems with a semi-divinized ruling class but there wasn't the extreme intolerance of Christianity.

[Platonic Sword]

Christianity is no more or less intolerant than other religions.

Christian nations have been more destructive in terms of world impact because Europeans acquired the technology (caravel ships, gunpowder) that enabled conquest before other regions of the world did (that practiced other religions). The crusades were preceded by centuries of Islamic expansion and Jihads into Africa and Europe. All written records indicate that Europeans were shocked by the savagery practiced by the Aztecs, which included ritual human sacrifice ( something which hadn't occurred in Europe since era of the Roman Empire). Today the most intolerant religion is easily Sharia Islam. A Danish newspaper can draw a picture of Muhammad and Muslims around the world will be rattling on fences and promising to destroy the West. They decapitate people, mutilate females and their religious leaders strive to keep people ignorant by forbidding them to listen to music or the news. Their females aren't allowed an education. Christian nations? We're so "intolerant" that we allow Islamists to immigrate to Europe en-mass and set up Sharia societies and air hate-speech against us :lol:

[RGacky3]

Christian-nation is a contradiction in terms. Anyway, we don't need to look at mideavil christians doing stuff to other people, just to each other. the witch burnings, the inquesitions and so on.

Also they did'nt just slaughter the aztecs, they slaughtered EVERYONE.

[Zostrianos]

Christianity is no more or less intolerant than other religions.

Christian nations have been more destructive in terms of world impact because Europeans acquired the technology (caravel ships, gunpowder) that enabled conquest before other regions of the world did (that practiced other religions). The crusades were preceded by centuries of Islamic expansion and Jihads into Africa and Europe. All written records indicate that Europeans were shocked by the savagery practiced by the Aztecs, which included ritual human sacrifice ( something which hadn't occurred in Europe since era of the Roman Empire). Today the most intolerant religion is easily Sharia Islam. A Danish newspaper can draw a picture of Muhammad and Muslims around the world will be rattling on fences and promising to destroy the West. They decapitate people, mutilate females and their religious leaders strive to keep people ignorant by forbidding them to listen to music or the news. Their females aren't allowed an education. Christian nations? We're so "intolerant" that we allow Islamists to immigrate to Europe en-mass and set up Sharia societies and air hate-speech against us :lol:

I'd say there is something particular about Evangelical Christianity in its vicious intolerance of other faiths, though today it may be less violent. Although Islam has a lot to answer for, it's rare nowadays to see Islamic missionaries setting up fake charities and scamming the poor to convert them. Christians on the other hand are on a quest to eradicate traditional cultures everywhere, especially in India and southeast Asia. They have unlimited monetary resources, are full of skilled conmen in their ranks, and are hard at work creating religious tension and fomenting conflicts, especially in India, so that they'll provoke a violent response, which they'll then use to claim they're being "persecuted". Here's a typical example of the scams they pulled during the Asian tsunami, when scores of them swarmed the region hoping to exploit the tragedy for their own benefit:

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jan/24shoba.htm
When I entered one of the rows of temporary shelters built for tsunami victims in Pattancherry village in Nagapattinam, I witnessed a minor scuffle in a corner.
Some inmates had surrounded a Christian priest and two nuns, and a war of words was going on.
"We are Hindus and we want to live as Hindus. Why do you want to convert us?" some young men shouted at the missionaries.
The priest said, "We are not here to convert people. We were only offering prayers for your peace of mind."
But flashing some pamphlets distributed among them by the three, the inmates snorted, "What does this mean?"
The priest had no answer.
"Why do you enter our houses and pray?," they asked. "Your nuns do this when our women are alone at home. We know how to pray."
The young men were extremely furious. The priest was unruffled. But the nuns were shaken by the sudden surge of animosity from the muscular men.
The scuffle went on till the three were forced to leave the place.
Day two:
As I was visiting the areas close to the sea that were badly affected by the tsunami waves, I saw another angry scene outside another temple in another village.
Police jeeps were seen parked outside the temple in Samandapettai. So was a van.
Villagers were complaining to the police about a missionary group to which the van belonged.
They said the group had taken away to another place their belongings and the relief they had got from nongovernmental organisations and the government, which they had kept inside the temple, because they refused to listen to its missionaries.
"They want to try their luck at some other place. Since we resisted, they took away our things. We won't allow this to happen," they said. "Why don't you arrest all of them?" the villagers asked the police.
The villagers' torrent of angry words continued. "We have lost everything to the sea. They said they would help us if we followed their religion. What logic is this? Are they here to help us or change our religion?" The police couldn't cool their tempers.
The group said it did not take away the belongings of the villagers and insisted that the contents inside the van belonged to it.
That evening, some villagers came with the news that the police had arrested the priest they had confronted the previous day. Apparently some angry villagers had gheraoed him, and forced the police to arrest him.
"He shouldn't be doing this when we are grieving, when we are suffering. Everything has its time and place," a villager said.
When I wanted to talk to the panchayat president and locals of the Karakkalmedu village at Karaikkal, they called me inside the village temple. That was where they met outsiders. The temple has become the centre of activity in the village.
Before we started talking, one of them opened the door to the sanctum sanctorum and pointed to a mark left by the strong tsunami waves. They told me that water stopped at the feet of their deity and then receded. "We might have suffered, but our Goddess saved us."
This belief had taken the villagers all the more closer to their deity.
"That is why it hurts us when others come and tell us that it was because of our God and our belief that we suffered. We won't let anyone exploit us when we are down," the panchayat members asserted.

[Franz Fanonipants]

european history is a history of intolerance and persecution coinciding with the development of the modern state. christianity went from being a eastern mediterranian religion to being a european one and was again and again used to create a european identity (and state identities during the fracturing of "christendom" during the 16th c.). do history.

but basically you guys probably know p. much 0 about religion and the conquest of the Tenochteca/Mexica (they had it coming and the Inka probably had it coming too) so that's probably not a good place to try and claim some kind of historical knowledge.

peep camille townsend's malintzin's choices then come back.

[Zealot]

Christianity was also unique in that it was one of the first, if not the first, religion to actually delude itself that it was destined to be a worldwide phenomenon and ironically evolved from the tribal cult/s of Judaism which even today is a pretty closed religion. This world conquest mission was obviously taken up by its new spawn, Islam.

These Abrahamic religions had a tendency to encourage martyrdom that was fueled by a delusion that an afterlife awaited them to make their deaths not seem in vain. Heretics and blasphemers were severely punished and faith was made a virtue. But even further than that, the more faith you had and the more you believed something that defied evidence or reasonable thought the more rewards you got. This conglomerate is an obvious recipe for disaster.

Islam may have been more tolerant because of the Jizya tax which, in essence, was a tax for being non-muslim thus giving non-muslims a chance to practice their beliefs. Some schools of thought within Islam felt the Jizya should only apply to "People of the book" (Jews, Christians and some other now-extinct monotheistic religions) but some rulers extended it to even polytheists, such as the Hindus in India, after realizing that forcing so many people to Islam was basically impossible. Christianity on the other hand was even less tolerant than Islamic states which were, by today's standards, still fairly intolerant.

It's interesting to note that even when Christianity was still a "persecuted" cult in Rome they were still perceived to be intolerant by a few Roman writers (they were even called atheists at one point). This was because of the fact that they refused to respect the gods of anyone else whilst the Romans were willing to worship basically any new god that popped up on the scene.

[Zostrianos]

Christianity on the other hand was even less tolerant than Islamic states which were, by today's standards, still fairly intolerant.

Islam has a long track record of brutality and intolerance, but overall it was indeed more tolerant than organized Christianity. During the Moorish occupation of southern Spain and Portugal, Jews and Christians were allowed to practice their faiths freely (there was a period of persecution at one point, but it was brief). They may have had to pay the tax, but it's still better than having to forcibly convert or die, which is what was happening to non Christians in Catholic Europe. A good example of Islamic tolerance in the region concerns the following incident, where a couple of zealous Christians, thirsty for martyrdom, set out to provoke the authorities:

Although somewhat beyond the chronological focus of this study, a highly illustrative parallel can be found in ninth-century Muslim Spain. A group of Christians in Cordoba publicly and repeatedly insulted the Prophet Muhammad,knowing full well that the Muslims would treat this as a capital offense. After the Christians had turned down numerous chances to recant or apologize, the Islamic authorities reluctantly granted them the martyrdom they had so zealously sought. In scenes deliberately reminiscent of classical martyrology, Muslim jurists are shown to be every bit as befuddled by the martyrs’ apparent death wish as had been the Roman magistrates of earlier centuries. (M. Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire, 200)

A large percentage of Christian "martyrs", especially before during the Roman era, were simply fanatics who deliberately provoked the authorities. Here's another relevant incident, this one centuries before, during the Sassanid era:

Christian extremism could have dramatically different consequences when expressed in the far less indulgent context of a non-Christian regime. Our next example takes us outside the Roman Empire entirely, to Persia, where in 419 or 420 a series of Christian attacks on Magian fire-temples provoked the Sasanian government to a savage persecution of Christians, which in turn led to war between the two empires in 421– 422.The incidents that provoked the persecution are described in Persian Christian martyr acts preserved in Syriac, and in a corresponding account in Theodoret.The initial response of the Persian king was surprisingly lenient. Hearing that bishop Abda of Hormizd-Ardashir, or one of his priests, had destroyed a temple, he sent for him, complained “in moderate language,”and ordered him to rebuild the temple—in short, exactly the way the Roman authorities had initially handled the Callinicum incident. When the ascetic Narsai was arrested for destroying a temple, the king even offered to drop the matter if Narsai would simply deny that he had done the deed. Abda refused to rebuild the temple, and Narsai refused to renounce his action.For their stubbornness, both were executed. At this point the king exhausted his patience and launched a general persecution against the church. (ibid, 197)

[Elysian]

Christians believe in the great commission, but unfortunately some of them take it to an extreme, especially ones with power. Christian violence is a contradiction in terms because Christ never asked his disciples to conquer the world with weapons or army. Islam, on the other hand, is spread by the sword. The founder himself did the same.

[Zealot]

Christians believe in the great commission, but unfortunately some of them take it to an extreme, especially ones with power. Christian violence is a contradiction in terms because Christ never asked his disciples to conquer the world with weapons or army.

After reading the Bible, it's not hard to see how the average Christian would think violence and conquest was a virtuous mission given by God himself. In fact, the genocides and xenophobic military adventures of the Bible are still celebrated in Church today with Hymns and poems, often recited by children! Christ never asked his disciples to conquer the world because he was basically a hermit with a small but loyal cult that not even the Jews would allow to topple the Romans.

However, judging from some of Jesus' statements we can definitely see that had he been given a position of military power he would have no hesitation in conquering others (e.g in Luke 19:27, where he compares himself to a King who returns at a later date to slaughter his enemies.) Not to forget that he also ordered his disciples to buy swords and basically made a small guerrilla army, which succeeded in lopping off someones ear but was otherwise too weak to stand a chance.


Islam, on the other hand, is spread by the sword. The founder himself did the same.

It really isn't that straightforward and I can't help but feel you say that simply because you're a Christian. As I've already explained above, Islamic states were much more tolerant than Christian states. The Jizya tax even guaranteed them exemption from military services and the tax was at one point actually less than the Zakat (obligatory charity) Muslims had to pay. Christians didn't even afford this, not even for other Christians of a different opinion!

[dodger]

Christians believe in the great commission, but unfortunately some of them take it to an extreme, especially ones with power. Christian violence is a contradiction in terms because Christ never asked his disciples to conquer the world with weapons or army. Islam, on the other hand, is spread by the sword. The founder himself did the same.

Elysian, not entirely, but mostly, muslim traders as did christian ones spread their faith. I am sure you have heard the term "rice christians" too. Here in Mindanao the christian militia under KUMMMANDA Toothpick used to eat the flesh of muslim enemies, to show both contempt and gain strength to withstand bullets Ultimately , in his case it was unsuccessful. Wifey remembers him well also her uncle decapitated, thanks to the strife. .The wars were about land, not doctrinal. Money, surprised? Shocked, hardly. With a venal christian culture here there is a crying need to curtail church powers. The level of hypocrisy astounds me on a daily basis. Along with its contradictory nature. Primitive superstitions abound. The catholic church past masters at worming their way into societies worldwide tolerate and ingratiate.Thereby perpetuating ignorance. The Franciscans were charged by Royal charter to keep the many languages spoken here alive so that not one would prevail, the better to keep the people divided. I am not a fan of christianity here. Although my late father in law was a pastor in some yank protestant outfit and was a fine man. He is still remembered by muslims with affection, though he never converted a single one. Then neither did Toothpick...