(September 27, 2009 at 2:30 am)padraic Wrote: Rather disappointing that you're unable to do better than the No True Scotsman fallacy.
First, as I have argued previously, that fallacy is committed only when there is an ad hoc shifting of the goal posts, and I have not made any ad hoc moves nor even shifted the goal posts in the first place. Feel free to demonstrate otherwise if you disagree. What I have done is indicate or identify the basis, as established and consistently held for hundreds of centuries before I existed, upon which beliefs and behaviors are evaluated as 'Christian', beginning with the original and still held etymology of the term (as derived from the ancient koine Greek). Second, it is bad reasoning to think that X is what Christianity teaches simply because Christians did X, a non-sequitur akin to thinking that because Buddhists in Myanmar were persecuting Christians, burning their churches to the ground and forcing them to either convert to Buddhism or leave the country, that therefore this is what Buddhism teaches. Third, most atrocities attributed to the Christian religion (e.g., the Crusades) were predicated not by religious forces but political ones (a tempting conflation arising from the church and state being the same entity, yet there is a difference between what the state did and what the church taught); e.g., Aquinas' justification for the inquisition invoked no central doctrine of Christianity (moreover, some conflicts were waged as a defense rather than unprovoked assault; e.g., the Crusades, q.v. the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, the Seljuk Turks, etc.). And so forth. One can cite examples of violence, but the salient issue is whether those circumstances are historical or theological; i.e., Judeo-Christian history (which is violent) versus Islamic theology (which commands violence).
See also: Meic Pearse, The Gods of War: Is Religion the Primary Cause of Violent Conflict?; Richard Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism; David Livingstone Smith, The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War; Chris Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)