Persecution Complex

[vorlon13]

Some of us find ourselves longing for the good old days when Christian persecution was definitely real, and carried out BY OTHER CHRISTIANS with different ideas they had about how .The Lord God Almighty wanted things done.

Call me nostalgic, I find myself getting wistful just posting this . . . .

Maybe a Lutheran reading this will go pee on the sidewalk in front of a Catholic church to recapture the glory of past pogroms . . .

[downbeatplumb]

Some of us find ourselves longing for the good old days when Christian persecution was definitely real, and carried out BY OTHER CHRISTIANS with different ideas they had about how .The Lord God Almighty wanted things done.

Call me nostalgic, I find myself getting wistful just posting this . . . .

Maybe a Lutheran reading this will go pee on the sidewalk in front of a Catholic church to recapture the glory of past pogroms . . .

Ah Christians and their bitter enemy, other slightly different Christians.
A bit like the Muslims.

[vorlon13]

I dare say, the Islamites could be breeding that trait out of their theology a bit faster. Maybe they need more schisms?

I wonder what really defanged so many of the blood lusting christers? Attrition, or the body of Christ has been divvied up so many different ways there just isn't the safety in numbers to launch a good effective bloody pogrom any more ??

[chimp3]

I don't know, GC. You see such things spouted by the likes of Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson. And, as far as I can tell, it's rubbing off on ordinary Christians. I've known quite a few people personally who have had this attitude. One guy I used to hang with in South Carolina was into it really hard. But it isn't something the majority of Christians subscribe to or anything.

 As I do you have to take those two with a grain of salt and go on. They have a tendency to blow things out of proportion real persecution is yet to come to this country but it will. For those who do believe we are being persecuted they listen to people who sensationalize things and then buy into it without real understanding real persecution, if they were to ever experience persecution they wouldn't be able to handle it in MHO.

GC

So GC? You believe in a future persecution based on what? Persecution prophecies? Still, a persecution complex in my opinion.

[vulcanlogician]

I wonder what really defanged so many of the blood lusting christers?

That's a good question and I wonder if there are any history buffs around who could properly answer it.

If I were to take a guess, I would say the printing press got the ball rolling. I see the printing press as a primordial internet. It allowed many people from different regions to communicate different ideas to masses of people. Before that you had to copy books by hand. Ideas were slow to move. Copying a book was very labor intensive and all it took was one church official to put fire to it, and all that work went down the drain.

And of course the printing press sparked the Age of Reason--the name alone had to send shivers down the theocrats' spines--which created a space for figures like John Locke to share unique ideas concerning justice and freedom. Liberal democracies to come into prominence in the West. These liberal democracies supported a free exchange of ideas as well as freedom from religious authorities.

So religion could exist but no longer had its precious powers of coercion. Add to this the ability of people to freely exchange ideas and you have a defanged Christianity in the course of a couple centuries. Of course new innovations and cultural phenomena (the sexual revolution, the internet) periodically spring forth and further divorce people from their traditional modes of thinking.

So long as people are exposed to the other side of the story, religion has a hard time selling its shtick. That's my guess anyway. Of course you have some religious movements acknowledging the atmosphere of free thought and adapting their doctrines accordingly. IMO religion will always have a place in society. It sates genuine spiritual impulses in people that, for all we know, are natural.

It's folks like the fundies and evangelicals who simply can't cope in free society-- so we see them dig in their heels and gnash their teeth and desperately hold onto what's left of their coercive power.

[Minimalist]

I dare say, the Islamites could be breeding that trait out of their theology a bit faster.  Maybe they need more schisms?

I wonder what really defanged so many of the blood lusting christers?  Attrition, or the body of Christ has been divvied up so many different ways there just isn't the safety in numbers to launch a good effective bloody pogrom any more ??

The horrors of the 30 Years War seemed to do the trick.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo...still.html

The Thirty Years War (1618-48) isn’t exactly a household word, though maybe it should be. Its atrocities and devastation were a trial run for the world wars of the 20th century, and it left us with a recognizable outline of modern Europe. By war’s end, the Dutch had won their independence from Spain and Habsburg hegemony had shrunk to what we’d recognize as Austria today, leaving the rest of the Empire as a hazy geopolitical notion of modern Germany. The French emerged as top dog, ushering in the age of the Sun King (Louis XIV).

The Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648.  What we call the Age of Enlightenment is generally credited to begin somewhere between 1650 and 1685.  Having finally had enough of jesus bullshit in whatever form the governments of Europe and the educated elite - and here the printing press does come into it - finally came to the conclusion that jesus wasn't worth fighting over.

Some day, hopefully soon, the muslims will attain that level of sanity.  I do fear it will take even more bloodshed than we are presently seeing.

[possibletarian]

How appropriate is it for Christians to have a persecution complex? I mean, Christians were pretty much in charge of the Western world since the fall of the Roman Empire. How did they treat those who were of a different faith than themselves?

The answer is simple. They killed them.


My question is this: if the way Christians are treated in modern times (ie having to bake cakes for lesbians) counts as persecution then what the FUCK do you call killing anyone who doesn't agree with you? How can any Christian fail to recognize that their perceived persecution pales in comparison to the shit they've been dishing out for centuries? If they do admit that what Christians have done historically is wrong, then they at least ought to humbly accept the fact that they no longer deserve to be in power. They had their chance and they blew it.

There seems to be some cognitive dissonance going on here. I'd love to hear from any Christians on the matter (whether you buy into this persecution nonsense or not). I understand that Christians actually were persecuted by the Pharisees in Israel and then under Nero in Rome. That was wrong. You'd just think that, since most of that was documented in the NT, that Christians would have not repeated it against others. "Do unto others" right?


Any atheists here ever been accused of persecution? IRL, I mean, not by some whackjob who strolled onto the forums...

Christians in the U.K. have been preaching of a coming persecution for at least quarter of a century.

Usually now though it's more like butt-hurt because no one really gives a toss if they are Christians or not, hardly the dawn of persecution.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I dare say, the Islamites could be breeding that trait out of their theology a bit faster.  Maybe they need more schisms?

I wonder what really defanged so many of the blood lusting christers?  Attrition, or the body of Christ has been divvied up so many different ways there just isn't the safety in numbers to launch a good effective bloody pogrom any more ??

The horrors of the 30 Years War seemed to do the trick.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/bo...still.html

The Thirty Years War (1618-48) isn’t exactly a household word, though maybe it should be. Its atrocities and devastation were a trial run for the world wars of the 20th century, and it left us with a recognizable outline of modern Europe. By war’s end, the Dutch had won their independence from Spain and Habsburg hegemony had shrunk to what we’d recognize as Austria today, leaving the rest of the Empire as a hazy geopolitical notion of modern Germany. The French emerged as top dog, ushering in the age of the Sun King (Louis XIV).

The Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648.  What we call the Age of Enlightenment is generally credited to begin somewhere between 1650 and 1685.  Having finally had enough of jesus bullshit in whatever form the governments of Europe and the educated elite - and here the printing press does come into it - finally came to the conclusion that jesus wasn't worth fighting over.

Some day, hopefully soon, the muslims will attain that level of sanity.  I do fear it will take even more bloodshed than we are presently seeing.

Yep. The stove was hot, the Europeans burnt their hands, but I'm thinking it'll need a lot more coal before the tribal feud culture that permeates so much of the Middle East using sectarianism as a fig leaf of justification burns down.

[Minimalist]

People need to say "enough of this shit....god ain't worth it."  Jesusism got rolling as a going concern in the 4th century AD.  It took until the mid 17th century for people to get sick of its bullshit and start seeking a better way  I make that roughly 1300 years.

Islam pulled itself together sometime in the 7th century.  They have had 1300 years also.  They really are not that far behind and they have the advantage of modern weapons which the sackers of Magdeburg did not.

[JackRussell]

People are happy to be stupid and deluded.

I present Trump as the current exhibit A.