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So then we should bulldoze all Christian churches, too? Numbers 31 "The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that,

by _bxg1 8y ago

So then we should bulldoze all Christian churches, too? Numbers 31 "The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.” 3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them...7 They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man...9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar...14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. 15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."

CompanionCuuube 8y ago
So you take the Bible to be a literal historical account?
- _bxg1 8y ago
  That's irrelevant. What matters is this assumption that every detail of a person's religious tradition directly and literally translates into an indicator of their ideals and behavior. In reality the number of people who take their texts that literally is small, both in Islam and Christianity. And those are the circles that terrorists come from. And their evil has nothing to do with the name of their religion.
  - CompanionCuuube 8y ago
    That's a goalpost shift from the original post commenting about how these specific mosques were shrines to a warlord who committed actual atrocities. This wasn't an "assumption", these were actual events orchestrated by a real person.
    - _bxg1 8y ago
      Many Christians take the bible to be a literal historical account. Which details of that we can or can't prove are irrelevant. If you want something more concrete, the Catholic church committed atrocities during the crusades (which were conveniently also around the 10th and 11th centuries), and there are still statues and altars of historical saints and popes.
keanzu 8y ago
The Chinese government is destroying Christian churches too. "Over the past year, local governments have shut hundreds of unofficial congregations or “house churches” that operate outside the government-approved church network, including Early Rain. A statement signed by 500 house church leaders in November says authorities have removed crosses from buildings, forced churches to hang the Chinese flag and sing patriotic songs, and barred minors from attending." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/china-christians-religious-persecution-translation-bible https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/china-christia...
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Exactly my point. Good and evil, in the real world, have no correlation with religious symbols. Both the oppressed and the oppressors are both Muslims and Christians.
- faissaloo 8y ago
  Why are you acting like that's a good thing?
growlist 8y ago
You see no irony in us being asked to mourn the destruction of a religious shrine for a person that himself participated in the deliberate destruction of multiple shrines purely on the basis of differing religion. Okay then!
- _bxg1 8y ago
  I'm saying the people who went to that shrine weren't necessarily endorsing one thing that happened a thousand years ago. Lots of people revere Moses without endorsing slaughter and rape. The shrine served a spiritual function for a group of people; that gives it meaning. Unless you can provide evidence that those who visited it spent their time advocating violence, its meaning in their lives, and therefore its value, isn't diminished.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, and certainly not religious flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by _bxg1 8y ago

CompanionCuuube 8y ago

So you take the Bible to be a literal historical account?

_bxg1 8y ago
That's irrelevant. What matters is this assumption that every detail of a person's religious tradition directly and literally translates into an indicator of their ideals and behavior. In reality the number of people who take their texts that literally is small, both in Islam and Christianity. And those are the circles that terrorists come from. And their evil has nothing to do with the name of their religion.
- CompanionCuuube 8y ago
  That's a goalpost shift from the original post commenting about how these specific mosques were shrines to a warlord who committed actual atrocities. This wasn't an "assumption", these were actual events orchestrated by a real person.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    Many Christians take the bible to be a literal historical account. Which details of that we can or can't prove are irrelevant. If you want something more concrete, the Catholic church committed atrocities during the crusades (which were conveniently also around the 10th and 11th centuries), and there are still statues and altars of historical saints and popes.

keanzu 8y ago

The Chinese government is destroying Christian churches too. "Over the past year, local governments have shut hundreds of unofficial congregations or “house churches” that operate outside the government-approved church network, including Early Rain. A statement signed by 500 house church leaders in November says authorities have removed crosses from buildings, forced churches to hang the Chinese flag and sing patriotic songs, and barred minors from attending." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/china-christians-religious-persecution-translation-bible https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/china-christia...

_bxg1 8y ago
Exactly my point. Good and evil, in the real world, have no correlation with religious symbols. Both the oppressed and the oppressors are both Muslims and Christians.
faissaloo 8y ago
Why are you acting like that's a good thing?

growlist 8y ago

You see no irony in us being asked to mourn the destruction of a religious shrine for a person that himself participated in the deliberate destruction of multiple shrines purely on the basis of differing religion. Okay then!

_bxg1 8y ago
I'm saying the people who went to that shrine weren't necessarily endorsing one thing that happened a thousand years ago. Lots of people revere Moses without endorsing slaughter and rape. The shrine served a spiritual function for a group of people; that gives it meaning. Unless you can provide evidence that those who visited it spent their time advocating violence, its meaning in their lives, and therefore its value, isn't diminished.
dang 8y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, and certainly not religious flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html