(December 21, 2019 at 11:50 pm)Belacqua Wrote: There's an idea that's revived every now and then. It says that as religion loses its influence in society, the arts and humanities are necessary to pick up the slack.
Yeah, like the passion plays during Holy Week which would invigorate Christians in their religious feelings.
Also Mel Gibson's "Passion Of Christ" picked up the slack and invigorated Christians. Did you, Belacqua, also enjoy Gibson's movie? Has it moved you, you know, religiously?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
