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Even in those religions that claim not to harm things, it seems (without evidence so forgive me) that doesn’t play out in practice. Christianity says turn the o

Even in those religions that claim not to harm things, it seems (without evidence so forgive me) that doesn’t play out in practice. Christianity says turn the other cheek yet is ok with the crusades at the time and the inquisition for example.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
The Crusades and the Inquisition are a tiny, tiny slice of Christian history, and I think bad examples of anything. The Crusades were a legit attempt to thwart invaders in the Holy Land, that vile mercenaries weren't so '20th century manners' should be a surprise to nobody. It was in the end just a war, and the Inquisition was a totalitarian attempt at forced belief system. Germans were mostly Christian in WW2 and often did some 'very bad things' and to me that's a much better example of 'good people gone awry' even though their actions weren't religious in nature. The Soviets, in the name of their very progressive ideology did terrible things 100x the scale, it's just that they had a different ideological premise that happened to not be religious. More consistently and broadly the Church set up charities, the hospital system, education and the University system as we understand them. Also - there's such a huge chasm between 'faith' 'belief' and 'actual behaviour' that it's always a stretch. The OP's point is very valid: Ideologies and religions are very different in terms of their metaphysical ideals, their beliefs, social constructs of morality, and resulting behaviours. Moreover, it's almost impossible to separate those from cultural norms. For example, many of the cultural epitaphs that we often associate with Islam (i.e. head coverings) really are not 'religious' per sey - they are aspects of the hyper conservative culture of the Arabic peninsula. Islam has a lot to say about specific behaviour of it's adherents, so naturally, Arabic aspects of moral behaviour are going to be codified into 'religious law' by Islam. Buddhism on the other hand, doesn't generally have a lot of specific behavioural rules. Finally I would say that all cultures espouse some kind of ideological or metaphysical ideal - some are more overtly religious, some more overtly secular, but they are all ultimately the same thing. You could substitute 'political ideology' for 'religion' and use the same equations. I find this subject basically enthralling and intoxicating, I love it, but I think it's all just far too vague, there are so many variables that we barely understand, it's so hard to draw conclusions. You could stick a number of forks in almost every statement of the paper if you wanted to.
- codezero 8y ago
  This is my bad. I didn’t mean to single out Christians. I meant to single out Humans. We are all guilty of justifying terrible things because they work for us at the time. I used Christianity because I’m slightly more familiar with it. But my point which I didn’t make clearly and maybe is still wrong is that what is doctrine is always and has always been flexible depending on an individual or a community or society’s selfish needs at any given time.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

The Crusades and the Inquisition are a tiny, tiny slice of Christian history, and I think bad examples of anything. The Crusades were a legit attempt to thwart invaders in the Holy Land, that vile mercenaries weren't so '20th century manners' should be a surprise to nobody. It was in the end just a war, and the Inquisition was a totalitarian attempt at forced belief system. Germans were mostly Christian in WW2 and often did some 'very bad things' and to me that's a much better example of 'good people gone awry' even though their actions weren't religious in nature. The Soviets, in the name of their very progressive ideology did terrible things 100x the scale, it's just that they had a different ideological premise that happened to not be religious. More consistently and broadly the Church set up charities, the hospital system, education and the University system as we understand them. Also - there's such a huge chasm between 'faith' 'belief' and 'actual behaviour' that it's always a stretch. The OP's point is very valid: Ideologies and religions are very different in terms of their metaphysical ideals, their beliefs, social constructs of morality, and resulting behaviours. Moreover, it's almost impossible to separate those from cultural norms. For example, many of the cultural epitaphs that we often associate with Islam (i.e. head coverings) really are not 'religious' per sey - they are aspects of the hyper conservative culture of the Arabic peninsula. Islam has a lot to say about specific behaviour of it's adherents, so naturally, Arabic aspects of moral behaviour are going to be codified into 'religious law' by Islam. Buddhism on the other hand, doesn't generally have a lot of specific behavioural rules. Finally I would say that all cultures espouse some kind of ideological or metaphysical ideal - some are more overtly religious, some more overtly secular, but they are all ultimately the same thing. You could substitute 'political ideology' for 'religion' and use the same equations. I find this subject basically enthralling and intoxicating, I love it, but I think it's all just far too vague, there are so many variables that we barely understand, it's so hard to draw conclusions. You could stick a number of forks in almost every statement of the paper if you wanted to.

codezero 8y ago
This is my bad. I didn’t mean to single out Christians. I meant to single out Humans. We are all guilty of justifying terrible things because they work for us at the time. I used Christianity because I’m slightly more familiar with it. But my point which I didn’t make clearly and maybe is still wrong is that what is doctrine is always and has always been flexible depending on an individual or a community or society’s selfish needs at any given time.