by Joe Schmoe
Wouldn't God be happy if just a small percentage of our religious order acted as exterminators? They would be the good people sworn to eliminate the rabble in the world...the rabble being the people NOT like us. You know the kind, the ones who don't believe as we do! And we're right cause God said so and that means they are completely wrong. If we killed off those wrong types, its not like we're going to miss them. Heck, killing them is actually wonderful thing! I hate th...I mean, God hates them... because they are unbelievers and they are obstructions to the global acceptance of Christianity that God has ordained! Praise be to God Almighty!
Seems to me those courageous Christian exterminators would be God's favorites. They would help the whole movement spread the word by force, fear and coercion. Become Christian or die, yep perfectly fair. And it also seems just as fair that He (God) would have a special payoff in Heaven for the slayers of those nasty infidels...why, I , uh.... Holy Scriptures Abraham! There is a voice coming right through my tin foil hat. . . wait, yes, there it is, it is God, no doubt about it, its God speaking to me please stand by for an important announcement and I will tell you what he is commanding us ALL to do:
"Attention my faithful...God speaking, I'll give you 5 really hot babes in heaven if you will go kill somebody who doesn't believe in our brand of religion and/or who offends my good name...but, wait, if you start killing infidels right now, I'll double that offer and give you 5 more hot babes... for a total offer of 10, count them ten...really, really hot babes once you are in heaven! And wait...that's not all! With this amazing limited time offer you will get a free get into Heaven Pass! No more waiting in those long lines just to find out if you are eligible to enter heaven. As one of my favorite's you can just march right past that line and right up to St. Peter, no waiting!
But, this offer won't last - you must act now! Remember, this is a limited time offer!
And if all that is still not enough.... the first "500 killers for Jesus" will also get a free gold door knob for your heavenly domicile absolutely free.
Tell a friend... tell a neighbor... but act now, heaven awaits! However, if you are for any reason not 100% satisfied you can come back to earth no questions asked or my name isn't Beelza...er, I mean Jehovah!"
Of course this is sheer lunacy. . .and its hard to imagine how anyone but a mentally defective person could fall for this crazy and immoral scheme. But, lets say they did! Well, you can bet the rest of the world would quickly turn against the Christians everywhere until they stopped this murderous idiocy! The argument against such evil in the name of God is obvious. However, if only a small fraction did it, it would still destroy the credibility of the whole Church... every Christian would bare some accountability.
Consider that it was only a small fraction of Nazi's that acted as death camp exterminators, but it did not excuse the majority of Nazi's who not directly involved with that fanatical sort of genocide. In this latter case, both groups, the non-violent Nazi's and the killer Nazi's, sought the same goal the global acceptance of Nazism. In this context it is hard to draw a distinction between Nazi killers and Nazi's at large.
Can you draw any other inferences, any other examples come to mind? Feel free to write in and let us know.
Joe is forgetting about those Crusaders. It would be nice to be able to assert positively that them Christians have entirely grown out of that sort of thing ... but I look around and see ominous indications of serious back-sliding.
Joe didn't forget, Joe just couldn't imagine how a person could draw a nexus from that period of time of history, in which such things such as the Crusades, pirates and Muslim wars were pretty much the NORM vs modern times now when the very same thing is ABNORMAL and weird.
I am no sucker, I want at least 20 hotties and they must all be virgins too!
Okay, I just checked with God and He said for you, it's 20 virgins, but don't tell anyone that you got a special deal! You sure drive a hard bargain, your Mama didn't raise no fool did she?
I'm thinking that message should read, JOIN NOW OR ELSE!" to be truly consistant.
"Joe is forgetting about those Crusaders."
There you go with that, "but they did it too" argument that you profess to hate so much.
Y'know the verse about 'taking up the sword?'
Well, some folks are actually dumb enough to think it means violence in the name of Christ.
I know, I know, mindless, unquestioning adherence to centuries-old books IS kinda strange, but I wouldn't say it was any more ABNORMAL in the 21st century than in the 11th.
People are doing every *od da**ed day.
Witness these folks.
Just doin' it in the name o' Jesus!
Tina--"There you go with that, "but they did it too" argument that you profess to hate so much."
You're projecting, Tina. The entire point of this article seems to be that Christians haven't ever behaved this way, and if they had, then Christianity as a whole would be condemned. If I'm understanding the author right, he is trying to say that we should condemn all of Islam for the current problem of Islamofascism. Pointing out that Christians HAVE behaved this way--even by drawing on examples from ancient history--is perfectly valid in this case, because it is a fact that contradicts the main premise of this article. It was not meant to excuse Muslim fanatics or to draw any kind of moral equivalence, it was just pointing out a very obvious and fatal flaw in the original poster's argument.
Tina--"There you go with that, "but they did it too" argument that you profess to hate so much." K: You're projecting, Tina.
No...I was being a smart a**...Libby is always accusing me of playing the "but you do it too" card when I point out that liberals make a point of smearing conservatives while giving progressives a pass for the same behaviors.
It was a gotcha plain and simple.
Libby: "It would be nice to be able to assert positively that them Christians have entirely grown out of that sort of thing..."
What we can assert is that Christianity avowed as a group against it.
As soon as you find that one perfect individual "without sin or failing" let us know...we'll alert the media.
"No...I was being a smart a**..."
That I'll agree with...
"Libby is always accusing me of playing the "but you do it too" card when I point out that liberals make a point of smearing conservatives while giving progressives a pass for the same behaviors."
I accuse you of doing this too, but that's because you actually do it in situations where it makes no sense.
I don't think Libby or Quentin or I have ever said, "Liberals/non-Christians have never done anything like this!" in any of our arguments. So for someone to respond to a criticism of, say, Rush Limbaugh calling Chelsea Clinton the White House dog with "But look at how mean the liberals were to Palin's kids! So...um, there!" would not be a valid response to that argument.
However, if any of us had said, "Look how Rush Limbaugh treated Chelsea Clinton. No one on the left has EVER done anything like THAT to any children of Republican politicians..." then you replying, "Well, actually, the lefty media was pretty brutal to the Palin kids, so you don't have a leg to stand on..." would be an appropriate and accurate response, because it would actually have something to do with the validity of our argument. And it isn't implying that this kind of behavior is OK just because the other side does it too.
This is what happened here. The original poster implied that no Christian has ever acted violently in the name of his religion. That is bullcrap, and everyone with even the foggiest understanding of history knows it. Libby was merely pointing that out, not giving anyone "a pass for the same behaviors."
"What we can assert is that Christianity avowed as a group against it.
As soon as you find that one perfect individual "without sin or failing" let us know...we'll alert the media. "
This is the exact opposite of what Joe Schmoe wrote. His point was that if any Christian were to act this way, all Christians would be rightfully condemned. So why are you arguing with Libby and I rather than him?
K your side of the aisle has never had to ask why the left is given a pass because it has been given a pass by the main stream press. I don't offer it as an excuse, I offer it as a demonstration that objections are difficult to take seriously because of the double standard. You do not indulge in this practice but Libby has by her silence if nothing else.
K: "The original poster implied that no Christian has ever acted violently in the name of his religion."
Funny that is not what I got at all. In fact what the original post was about is the double standard I was referring back to with Libby.
In fact the world comes very close when they turn their backs on Israel and support the terrorist group Hammas.
The left in this country screams that religion must be kept out of our schools but embrace and accomodate Muslim children and thae religion by teaching about it in schools and accomodating children for their prayer time. There have been many instances that show a double standard is actively enforced. One example, a child that was reading her Bible during a free period in class had her Bible taken from her and was further humiliated by being lectured about not bringing it to class.
It is the double standard we object to and rightly so. The post brilliantly demonstrates this obvious truth. You, Quentin, and Libby miss that point completely...simply amazing.
Must be like that white culture thing...it's so much a part of the norm you don't even notice.