(June 9, 2018 at 3:45 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Atlas' commentary on Colonialism - which he essentially nailed - inspired me to create this thread.
I shall begin with these words of Frederick Douglass on that most xtian of atrocities, slavery.
Quote:Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), who also escaped from slavery and became a leading abolitionist in his day, had some harsh things to say about Christian slave owners of the South:
Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.
Douglass continues elsewhere:I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels…. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of the week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity…. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! All for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together.
As reprinted in Chapter 8 of John Loftus' Christianity is Not Great.
God really screwed the pooch on the slavery issue.
The religious institution gives the oppressors -either slave owners or corrupt judges...etc- the needed justification for abusive behavior. You always get a criminal who picks their way out of the mess they made by playing the "God gave me the right" card.
With that you have all the joints controlling the society's moral code held inside a small building under the mercy of few individuals, justifying their disgusting grip over people with claiming a "divine inspiration".
The result is terrible things like slavery.
