RE: I fucking despise religion
February 6, 2013 at 11:20 am
(This post was last modified: February 6, 2013 at 12:01 pm by Zone.)
(February 6, 2013 at 9:16 am)Aractus Wrote: Ah yes there was, it's called Christianity. Why do you think Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet of God while Jews don't?
The monotheistic movement prior to Mohammed didn't really view Christianity as properly monotheistic as you have the Trinity, the Virgin Mary and various Saints and so on. They were interested in a pure form of monotheism much liker Judiasm but for their own people. What the Arabs generally had was a form of Henotheism where there were various pagan gods but also a supreme God which they associated with the God of the Jewish/Christian faiths. The Kaaba was said to have been constructed by either Adam the first man or by Arbraham. So Mohammed had a great deal to work with, you could say he just reformed the Arab belief system into a purer monotheistic form of which there was already people already in place eager to support the new religion he had in mind. It could be he really did have some kind of a visionary experience or hallucination while he was fasting in a cave which gave him the initial inspiration, but I don't think that's much of an issue either way. To me personally the Quran is Mohammeds own work in much the same way as Book of Mormon is the work of Joesph Smith.
(February 6, 2013 at 8:09 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote: I'm sorry what? The British Isles converted sans any violence towards pagans? This is erroneous Zone. (please cite historical texts that refer to this)
The Celts were converted during the Roman period and the Anglo Saxon were converted later by missionary activity by the Roman Catholic Church initated by Pope Gregory I in 597. He saw some blond Anglo Saxon slave boys and thought that Anglo sounded a bit like Angel so they should be converted to the true faith. What they did was first convert the Saxon kings to Christianity and then the kings imposed it on their subjects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Christianity
There wasn't really any forced conversion at the point of a sword save for that incident mentioned by the Venerable Bede in the Isle of Wight. There's no archeological evidence of a massacre though so it's possible that it didn't happen. I think you have to get to the period of the Crusades to really see the juicy action. But even then initally at least you could say that was in reaction to the conquests of Islam (having conquered about half of the then Christian world) and it may not otherwise have occurred.
(February 6, 2013 at 8:09 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote: EVERY religion has expressed violence towards the "non-believers" of said religion. That is why in my understanding religion is a disease of the human Desire for Privilege.
That's certainly not true of say the Jains. But even if you want to go back to the supposed intolerant Old Testament it says things like this.
"Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt."
Exodus 23:9
"'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him." Leviticus 19:33
"Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge." Deuteronomy 24:17
(February 6, 2013 at 8:09 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote: How else is one to KNOW one is privileged if equality is the norm?
The theme of most if not all religions is that no-one is meant to be privileged or inherently better than others based on their ethnic/religious background. See the Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan for an example, though he had quite a lot to say about the people who saw themselves as being a cut above the rest like say the Pharisees, the spirtually elite Jews, he called them hypocrites.
