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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Religion and Violence
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DangerousDeacon
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# 10582
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Posted
We have all heard the old canard "religion causes violence" (or even sillier, "all violence is caused by religion"). Now clearly religion and violence have been part of almost all societies, so you could argue a correlation of religion and violence. But correlation is not causation. Perhaps it is violence that causes religion?
By this I mean (I think!) that inherent in violence as an instrument of the state, is a reaction to said violence. Drawing on the inspiration of our spirituality, religious practices and precepts are put into place to limit or tame the violence.
Any thoughts?
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'All the same, it may be that I am wrong; what I take for gold and diamonds may be only a little copper and glass.'
Posts: 506 | From: Top End | Registered: Oct 2005
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
Interesting thesis. In The Myth of a Christian Nation Greg Boyd suggests a complementary notion-- that violence is used by the state for economic and political interests, but the state needs to use religion in order to induce young people to sacrifice their lives to the cause.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
I agree that saying "religion causes violence" is nonsense. However, trying to tease out the differences between religion and politics - as in, what belongs to the realm of religion, and what to politics - is difficult. Schleiermacher made a valiant effort in On Religion when he tried to elucidate what religion was by discussing what it wasn't - namely, ethics and metaphysics. But this is a very modern attempt. As Gandhi said, whoever believes religion and politics are separate understands neither one.
Returning to the question, I think it would be impossible to establish that religion causes violence, but equally religion is part of a bunch of contingencies that are part of the operations of power, and hence lead to violence in its many forms.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.
Boyd's point was that nationalism is a sort of highjacking of religious conviction. Although it's my impression that the Third Reich was actually rather explicit in exploiting their own particular version of "German Christianity".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Boyd's point was that nationalism is a sort of highjacking of religious conviction.
That seems like the converse of the One True Scotsman fallacy.
"Religion isn't the only reason people do evil things. Look at nationalism."
"Nationalism is really just a form of religion when it does evil things."
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.
But you can arrive at a similar program via religious reasoning. For example, Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies outlines a very similar program to the one eventually enacted by the Third Reich. (Many have suggested that the writings of Germany's foremost theologian were one of the main reasons German antisemitism was so strong and persistent.) If religion is a palliative against violence, especially violence by the state, as DD suggests we wouldn't expect this to be possible.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Boyd's point was that nationalism is a sort of highjacking of religious conviction.
That seems like the converse of the One True Scotsman fallacy.
"Religion isn't the only reason people do evil things. Look at nationalism."
"Nationalism is really just a form of religion when it does evil things."
That's not what Boyd is saying, although you might be able to make your argument if you switch the two variables.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.
But you can arrive at a similar program via religious reasoning. For example, Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies outlines a very similar program to the one eventually enacted by the Third Reich. (Many have suggested that the writings of Germany's foremost theologian were one of the main reasons German antisemitism was so strong and persistent.) If religion is a palliative against violence, especially violence by the state, as DD suggests we wouldn't expect this to be possible.
I think I would disagree with DD if he is claiming that religion is a palliative against violence. I suppose I could be convinced otherwise.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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DangerousDeacon
Shipmate
# 10582
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Posted
My personal experience is that religion can be a palliative for violence (thinking of a civil war which was considerably contained by the work of the combined churches before the arrival of the peacekeeping force of which I was a member): but is not always so (thinking of jihadism or the Crusades).
Which leaves one in a quandry - perhaps religion masks deeper impulses in both directions and therefore religion is merely an epiphenomenon. But that then seems to be a very weak description of religion.
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'All the same, it may be that I am wrong; what I take for gold and diamonds may be only a little copper and glass.'
Posts: 506 | From: Top End | Registered: Oct 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The Bible and therefore Christianity (the Koran and Islam fundamentally so; all the major religions INCLUDING Buddhism) are perichoretically, inseperably suffused with the myth of redemptive violence from beginning to end.
We ALL need to move along the arc.
[ 27. October 2014, 07:15: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Violence and religion are inevitable bedfellows whenever a religion claims that it is the one true way to connect to God, and that the laws it has written in its holy books are absolute and have to be imposed by decree. Spirituality is an individual responsibility and path, not something that fits well into a politicised power structure.
I personally like tha Daoist approach - they say - if you try this, interesting things can happen - have a go. Then you have to go and explore it more or less on your own for years. The guidance supplied remains absolutely minimalist. The difficulty here is lika all other spiritual systems - unless you are an extraordinarily advanced soul, you have to trust someone to tell you a few of the instructions - trust that they actually know what they are talking about, that they are not themselves deceived, that they are not playing a power game with you for malicious or profiteering ends. So again it is up to each individual to sincerely seek out now they know they can trust. On the flip side of trust is fear, and this fear of not being in the right place is at the gateway of spirituality. If the fear is taken in rather than love, then violence ensues.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
I like the analogy of seeing the relationship between religion and violence as being akin to that between water and bacteria.
Pure water is a good thing, and necessary for sustaining life. Yet it can also act as a breeding ground for bacteria which rather poisons the well. It doesn't mean that the water is inherently evil, though some may fail to discern between the water and the bacteria it carries.
If we ask people to drink from a stagnant pond, then it is no surprise that everything that is sipped gets spewed out and that they will view us with suspicion.
It is then beholden upon us to only serve the living water, that which brings life, to the world.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Yes - thankyou for that
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Clearly there is a similarity between group religion and politics, or, rather, political parties.
Both operate on a rather nebulous "just have faith and BELIEVE" that is necessary to belong, and both are violent towards those who aren't part of the group.
Simple questions will reveal that both political affiliation and religious belonging are weakly understood by most adherents, which may be why a lot of shouting is involved. Uncertainty leads to anxiety, and anxiety leads back to really, really wanting to belong, so needing to prove to everyone in sight how strongly one belongs...
Which can be played upon by the cynical to develop fanatics as pawns.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
It might help to answer the OP with the question, which came first; violence or religion? In evolutionary thinking the obvious answer is violence; from the strength of the biggest ape in the tribe. Religion was added later as the tribes grew bigger with competing big apes. It was necessary to have something, someone who was bigger than any ape, The answer; a god, who could strike down the biggest ape (or carried out by the followers of the god).
Posts: 1318 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
Clearly, Jesus taught passive resistance to violence, hence the cross. Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, allow a Roman occupying soldier to not only force you to go one mile, but two.
To stand up and be counted in words despite the risk of being slaughtered takes a lot of nerve. Any one of us would be likely to grasp the message from our leaders that we could eliminate those who threaten us rather than try to stand against them without weapons.
Who do we trust the most? Our leaders, or Christ? If politics becomes intertwined with religion, people are duped into thinking that the leaders represent God. It's then very easy to persuade people to fight, as they think they're giving their lives in order to serve God.
The Christian religion doesn't cause violence, nor was it violence that caused the religion, unless the violence against Jesus and his followers is counted.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Except that historically it very obviously has, Raptor Eye. Whether it's Christians killing Jews, Protestants killing Catholics, Catholics killing Protestants; not for nothing did Ben Elton write Black Adder II the line "My name is Edmund, and I'm the new minister for religious genocide".
Once you put the possibilities of heaven and hell in front of people, and make out that believing the right things to get to one and not the other is more important than anything else, you set the stage for people to start justifying anything. It's human nature, it seems.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
As I said it's easy to convince the masses if they are being fed the line by church and state that this is God's will. Adding that they would undoubtedly go to heaven as a consequence would help quell any dissent. As would burning or cutting the head off of any who did speak up. Some were brave enough to try, anyway.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
As I said it's easy to convince the masses if they are being fed the line by church and state that this is God's will. Adding that they would undoubtedly go to heaven as a consequence would help quell any dissent.
Only if the people have been conditioned to accept whatever the church and state say.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
I agree Mousethief. If the people believe that what the church and state leaders say are God's will, they will accept the message, even though it's against the teaching of Christ.
Thinking for ourselves, praying for ourselves, and trusting God over and above human beings is of paramount importance.
Too often, the Church's interests have placed a stumbling-block in the way of God's will, as have the interests of the people in power in the government, or in the monarchy.
If only everyone were honest, had integrity, and worked for the good of all, as per the teaching and example of Christ. Sigh.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Nearly anything can be misused. Sex can be beautiful or sex can be rape. Wine can be consecrated or wine can be the stuff drunks drown in.
We could just as easily say "science and violence".
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.
But you can arrive at a similar program via religious reasoning. For example, Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies outlines a very similar program to the one eventually enacted by the Third Reich. (Many have suggested that the writings of Germany's foremost theologian were one of the main reasons German antisemitism was so strong and persistent.) If religion is a palliative against violence, especially violence by the state, as DD suggests we wouldn't expect this to be possible.
The only problem with that thesis is that Germany, after the Treaty of Westphalia, was religiously plural. If you look at countries that were Lutheran through and through you have Norway, Sweden and Denmark none of which were exactly hotbeds of exterminatory anti-Semitism. Indeed, the Danes succeeded in saving their Jewish population by exporting them en masse to Sweden. Which, if Lutheranism was the basis of German anti-semitism, we wouldn't expect to be possible.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Also, the Nazi party began in Bavaria, which was staunchly Catholic.
Actually, most of Hitler's anti-Semitic writings were taken directly from the speeches and writings of a Viennese who was mayor around 1900. Vienna, of course, was Catholic.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
If only everyone were honest, had integrity, and worked for the good of all, as per the teaching and example of Christ. Sigh.
Then Christ wouldn't have needed to have died.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
mousethief: Then Christ wouldn't have needed to have died.
What's more, no-one would have killed Him.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
And then He would have had to deal with all those pesky issues (eg circumcision, kashrut and what to do with non-Jews who wanted to be Christians) that Paul et al did in Acts and who knows how he'd have been behind a desk (as it were)...
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Karen Armstrong'slatest book, Fields of Blood, is about exactly this topic.
I haven't read it yet, though I've heard her speak on it. She examines the interaction of violence and religion through history. Her thesis is that it isn't religion itself that causes violence and war, though religion can become entangled with violence, used to justify it, etc etc. After all, there are examples of terrible violence driven by forces that not only are not religious, but vehemently anti-religious, as in the French Revolution (though as she says, such is the human need for transcendence that then they tried to make a new religion, La Nation).
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
They also had various cults, including the cult of the Supreme Being, and the Cult of Reason. The latter involved various Temples of Reason, which included Notre Dame. The former was deist, the latter atheist. I think there are still a few churches in Paris which have a stone inscription, 'temple de la raison and de la philosophie'.
They all lost their heads, and then these cults were banned by the big cheese himself.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Raptor Eye;
quote:
The Christian religion doesn't cause violence, nor was it violence that caused the religion, unless the violence against Jesus and his followers is counted.
by Karl LB;
quote:
Except that historically it very obviously has, Raptor Eye.
The Christian religion in itself does not cause violence apart from violent reactions by those who persecute it. What basically causes 'religious violence' (including the violence of secular 'quasi-religions' like Nazism and Stalinism) is the association of the religion with the power and needs of the state - that is, having, or trying to establish, a state religion or philosophy - even plural democracy.
Sadly, about 300 years after Jesus' death, a Roman Emperor, needing a replacement for a pagan religion just about dead on its feet, chose to co-opt Christianity for that role even though that meant contradicting Christianity's own teaching on how church and state should be related. The resulting state religion operated like other state religions and so got involved in violence - but, as I say, in defiance of the NT teaching.
Eventually it became rather obvious that the Roman Catholic version didn't live up to the NT in all kinds of ways, precipitating the Reformation. Many of the Reformation churches initially remained state churches, but the new availability of the Bible led many to look afresh at the original teaching, and recover it and try to put it into practice, leading to the modern concept of religious toleration. We haven't yet got all Christians accepting the NT teaching on this, but if we do then Christianity will be removed from the list of religions practicing violence.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The Christian religion, in its Jewish roots up to and including the NT, is unbelievably violent in its God. The God of the Bible, of the texts, is extremely violent from beginning to end. God the Killer. Its adherents cannot be blamed, including most here, myself for 95% of my life, justifying and emulating, killing for, in the name of that God.
Despite Jesus' example.
Which only recently broke through my primordial state of being wedded to redemptive violence. Until 2 years ago for years before that, if I'd had my time again, I'd have been a soldier. Now mourn for Call Of Duty!
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Eventually it became rather obvious that the Roman Catholic version didn't live up to the NT in all kinds of ways, precipitating the Reformation. Many of the Reformation churches initially remained state churches, but the new availability of the Bible led many to look afresh at the original teaching, and recover it and try to put it into practice, leading to the modern concept of religious toleration. We haven't yet got all Christians accepting the NT teaching on this, but if we do then Christianity will be removed from the list of religions practicing violence.
Which would be arguable if true, but the result of "reading the Bible for oneself" was an immediate descent into civil war between all the factions, each one of which was "right" - except for the Mennonites, who refused to play and were therefore persecuted by everyone (just as the Baha'i are today in the parallel case of Islam)
This situation lasted until they came up with the bright idea of "nation-states" who should be left to do their own religion, each in its own way, but only after rather more than a third of all Germans had been killed. The relative peace, with wars between "professionals", of the early 1700's was due to sheer misery and exhaustion, not lack of religious fervour.
Similarly, in the US of the time, the various states became associated with different religious sects, and persecuted all the others to some degree, with the exception of Rhode Island, which was, and still is, the smallest in the Union. People WANT a religious reason to fight, until the "I-don't-really-cares" become the majority, as we see developing at present.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Eventually it became rather obvious that the Roman Catholic version didn't live up to the NT in all kinds of ways, precipitating the Reformation.
To paraphrase Horseman Bree; cute, but inaccurate.
Luther hammering into a door might have been a spark, but much of the fuel was political.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Many of the Reformation churches initially remained state churches, but the new availability of the Bible led many to look afresh at the original teaching, and recover it and try to put it into practice, leading to the modern concept of religious toleration. We haven't yet got all Christians accepting the NT teaching on this, but if we do then Christianity will be removed from the list of religions practicing violence.
Hmmm, the availability of education, the growing power and prosperity of the lower and middle classes especially as separate from the church; might have had some influence, yes?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
If this was conducted as an experiment then we'd require a Control Group. IE what is the level of violence in a society of humans completely devoid of all religious influence whatsoever?
Many secularists make the passing assessment that geographically -- where there's religion there's trouble-- , something that's sadly difficult to argue against.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That seems like the converse of the One True Scotsman fallacy.
"Religion isn't the only reason people do evil things. Look at nationalism."
"Nationalism is really just a form of religion when it does evil things."
Violence can occur for many reasons: we want what you've got being the simplest. But robbing and plundering for gain is self limiting since once you've stolen your neighbours' goods where do you go next?
If you want a really vicious war you have to invoke not greed but some transcendental possession which is being threatened, such as the purity of the Aryan Nation, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Christendom, Islam, "Our Martyred Dead" or just "Our Nation" or whatever. It is something which can't be measured so there is no point at which you can say it's not worth it. Body counts don't do it because you are fighting to protect unborn generations as well.
If in addition you can "show" that your enemies are sub-human, inherently evil or anything that means killing all of them is "cleansing the national body" or "removing sources of disease" then you can justify almost anything. The more you kill, the more good you are doing.
"No True Scotsman" isn't quite right: religion and nationalism are both the sort of thing than can justify extreme violence but neither is reducible to the other.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Horseman Bree;
quote:
Which would be arguable if true, but the result of "reading the Bible for oneself" was an immediate descent into civil war between all the factions, each one of which was "right" - except for the Mennonites, who refused to play and were therefore persecuted by everyone
I thought that was what I said, actually. People did unfortunately take quite a while to get to the bits that reject establishment and similar; some, like the Anglican Church, still haven't got there. Only when people did realise the Bible was against the 'Christian country' idea could they realise that they shouldn't play that game; and of course the people who didn't realise had the persecution built into their position. Only as people increasingly realise the point will they stop playing that game in the name of Jesus.
by lilBuddha;
quote:
To paraphrase Horseman Bree; cute, but inaccurate.
Luther hammering into a door might have been a spark, but much of the fuel was political.
Of course much of the fuel was political - how would it not be in an established church situation? Another reason for the Mennonite reading of the texts....
lilBuddha again;
quote:
Hmmm, the availability of education, the growing power and prosperity of the lower and middle classes especially as separate from the church; might have had some influence, yes?
I presume that this refers to the growth of toleration bit. Lots of things were in play during this period with different groups at all kinds of different stages between the continuing advocates of establishment and the Anabaptists. The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue - are you saying you don't want that? And if you are saying you don't want that, then for what hell-begotten reason would you be saying it?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Which would be arguable if true, but the result of "reading the Bible for oneself" was an immediate descent into civil war between all the factions, each one of which was "right" - except for the Mennonites, who refused to play and were therefore persecuted by everyone (just as the Baha'i are today in the parallel case of Islam)
Except when they tried to take Münster by force. But that's easily forgotten since they're so peaceful now.
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
"No True Scotsman" isn't quite right: religion and nationalism are both the sort of thing than can justify extreme violence but neither is reducible to the other.
Which was precisely my point.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by lilBuddha;
quote:
To paraphrase Horseman Bree; cute, but inaccurate.
Luther hammering into a door might have been a spark, but much of the fuel was political.
Of course much of the fuel was political - how would it not be in an established church situation? Another reason for the Mennonite reading of the texts....
My point was the desire of the powerful to wield more power themselves as it was by any realisation that the Roman Church had it all wrong.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue
I believe human nature is all that humans need to commit violence. And that religion is more an excuse than cause. I also believe that, regardless of what is professed, an excuse will be found. I do not think Anabaptist strains are immune to this, they simply have not been tested as they exist within states which protect them.
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I thought that was what I said, actually. People did unfortunately take quite a while to get to the bits that reject establishment and similar; some, like the Anglican Church, still haven't got there.
Maybe because they don't have your secret decoder ring to interpret the bits in invisible ink. There really isn't a Biblical case to be made for the toleration of other religions. Nor for a religiously neutral state. Certainly not if your Bible includes the Old Testament. Nor is the case that Christianity is inherently peaceful unambiguous.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I believe human nature is all that humans need to commit violence. And that religion is more an excuse than cause. I also believe that, regardless of what is professed, an excuse will be found. I do not think Anabaptist strains are immune to this, they simply have not been tested as they exist within states which protect them.
Pretty much agree with all of this. Well said.
Though, as MT points out, Anabaptists haven't always been that peaceful. The Münster Rebellion is quite a significant blot in the history books.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
One of the antidotes to violence is empathy.
So the type of religion that promotes ideals of universal brotherhood, common humanity, is a force against violence.
The sort of religion which promotes tribalism, which has ideals of purity from contamination by other peoples and other ways, reduces empathy for outsiders and thereby encourages violence.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
This situation lasted until they came up with the bright idea of "nation-states" who should be left to do their own religion, each in its own way, but only after rather more than a third of all Germans had been killed.
Cuius regio eius religio (*) was adopted as a principle before the Thirty Years War. Catholic France intervened against the Catholic Holy Empire.
It wasn't the Thirty Years War that precipitated the rise of the nation-state. It was the rise of the nation-state that precipitated the Thirty Years War.
(*) Whoever rules, his religion
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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Posted
The "nation-state" idea was more-or-less accepted by the Treaty of Westphalia, but obviously had to come from somewhere. The beginnings of those independent states had to develop, and one way to do that was to gather around the concepts that were crucial to that state, the most visible one being the form of religion that they could live with.
I'm quite sure that the leaders and their henchmen were quite happy to have a visible symbol for their people to idealise, whether it mattered to the leader or not.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye Russ. The evolution of universal empathy can only develop through universal sapient suffering. We have a way to go ... but our sapience is being augmented by communication, mass and interpersonal, education: a by-product of economics. So there is hope of that emergence as we suffer more together.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
Dealing with the various criticisms chucked at me earlier without lengthy quotes therefrom
First, Munster. The Reformation period was actually quite confused and lots of different ideas were experimented with over a century or more between Luther and (roughly) the English Civil War. One of these 'experiments' was the Munster group who were indeed technically 'Anabaptists' in the sense that they baptised converts to their group, and therefore in the eyes of the RCC and Protestants 're-baptised' or 'ana-baptised' those who had been baptised as infants in those other churches.
However, on church and state relations, the Munster group continued to hold essentially the same ideas of an 'established' church in a 'Christian country' as the Catholics and Protestants held, including the idea that it was permissible to fight wars to create and defend such a state. As with the earlier 'Crusades' and the 'wars of religion' of the Reformation era, this had terrible results.
Some of the Anabaptist groups were already pacifist before Munster. For others Munster itself caused them to ask the question “Are Christians meant to behave like this towards one another?” and they went back to the Bible where they found that Christians were indeed not supposed to behave like that, and that God had set forth in the NT a different way for His people to relate to the surrounding world, a way of separation from that world and of non-resistance. They have followed this way ever since.
Unlike the RCC and most Protestants they learned from the Munster disaster and changed their ways. Bizarrely (and surely more than a little hypocritically!), the RCC and Protestants continue to criticise Munster for the one aspect where the Munsterites behaved exactly like the RCC and Protestants themselves, while using the fact that the Munsterites were technically 'Anabaptists' to criticise Anabaptists who have learned from and rejected the Munsterite aberration and do not behave like that.... I hope shipmates will avoid that hypocrisy in future!!!
It is true that most, though not all, modern Anabaptists live in states which afford them some degree of protection – at least partly because their ideas and example have had some effect. However that has certainly not been true in most of Anabaptist history and even in supposedly liberal Europe and the US they were frequently persecuted a hundred years ago (in 1914-18) for their pacifism.
The Anabaptists were able to learn better and to reject Munster precisely because the alternative is there in the NT – thoroughly visible, Croesos, and NOT requiring a 'decoder ring'; perhaps it would help if you turned your good eye instead of your blind eye? Finally a quote, from Croesos;
quote:
There really isn't a Biblical case to be made for the toleration of other religions. Nor for a religiously neutral state. Certainly not if your Bible includes the Old Testament.
You're getting this a bit upside down. The case in the NT is not about having a 'Christian country' (or any other kind) that tolerates other religions. It is about Christians 'coming out' from the surrounding paganism and living as 'resident aliens' in a non-Christian state (or a state which unfortunately has ignored Jesus' teachings to set up a 'Christian country' and therefore more biblically faithful Christians like the Anabaptists must set that state a better Christian example). It is not a direct teaching that there should be a 'religiously neutral state' – however it does set the example that a plural state with accommodation between different religions and philosophies is a possibility (and surely a desirable one compared to the alternatives).
My Bible does include the Old Testament. However, 'there is a clue...' in that very phrase. The Old Testament is indeed 'old' and represents a period of preparation and learning which leads up to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In the light of that, the NEW Testament or Covenant both brings in a new way and also provides the framework in which non-resistance/pacifism makes sense as the appropriate conduct of God's people. Unfortunately not everyone gets it....
I repeat my earlier point;
quote:
The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue.
Does anybody out there really believe that would be a bad thing?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Some of the Anabaptist groups were already pacifist before Munster. For others Munster itself caused them to ask the question “Are Christians meant to behave like this towards one another?” and they went back to the Bible where they found that Christians were indeed not supposed to behave like that, and that God had set forth in the NT a different way for His people to relate to the surrounding world, a way of separation from that world and of non-resistance. They have followed this way ever since.
<snip>
The Anabaptists were able to learn better and to reject Munster precisely because the alternative is there in the NT – thoroughly visible, Croesos, and NOT requiring a 'decoder ring'; perhaps it would help if you turned your good eye instead of your blind eye? Finally a quote, from Croesos;
quote:
There really isn't a Biblical case to be made for the toleration of other religions. Nor for a religiously neutral state. Certainly not if your Bible includes the Old Testament.
You're getting this a bit upside down. The case in the NT is not about having a 'Christian country' (or any other kind) that tolerates other religions. It is about Christians 'coming out' from the surrounding paganism and living as 'resident aliens' in a non-Christian state (or a state which unfortunately has ignored Jesus' teachings to set up a 'Christian country' and therefore more biblically faithful Christians like the Anabaptists must set that state a better Christian example). It is not a direct teaching that there should be a 'religiously neutral state' – however it does set the example that a plural state with accommodation between different religions and philosophies is a possibility (and surely a desirable one compared to the alternatives).
Simply repeating the same assertions over and over is not the same thing as making a case. We have New Testament examples of members of the early church dying for their defiance of the church hierarchy (and that this kept the rest of the Church terrorized), the idea that the state is God's earthly representative (or at least appointed by God, so defiance of the state is defiance of the Almighty), and the idea that the Kingdom of Heaven is a totalitarian despotism, with uniform belief among members and non-members consigned to torture in Hell.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
My Bible does include the Old Testament. However, 'there is a clue...' in that very phrase. The Old Testament is indeed 'old' and represents a period of preparation and learning which leads up to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In the light of that, the NEW Testament or Covenant both brings in a new way and also provides the framework in which non-resistance/pacifism makes sense as the appropriate conduct of God's people. Unfortunately not everyone gets it....
And yet the Second Testament contains a lot of fairly positive references to Elijah, to pick one example, who is most noted for killing (or having killed) adherents of rival faiths, supposedly at God's express command. While a series of holy wars and suppression of rival religions may indeed be "preparation and learning" for something, I don't think it's how to get along in a religiously pluralistic society.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I repeat my earlier point;
quote:
The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue.
Does anybody out there really believe that would be a bad thing?
Once again, just because you want something to be true or it would be convenient if it were true is not evidence that it is true. Simply re-asserting a point is not an argument.
[ 31. October 2014, 12:45: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
By Croesos;
quote:
Simply repeating the same assertions over and over is not the same thing as making a case. We have New Testament examples of members of the early church dying for their defiance of the church hierarchy (and that this kept the rest of the Church terrorized), the idea that the state is God's earthly representative (or at least appointed by God, so defiance of the state is defiance of the Almighty), and the idea that the Kingdom of Heaven is a totalitarian despotism, with uniform belief among members and non-members consigned to torture in Hell.
I have on several previous occasions Shipboard discussed the details of the NT teaching on this point and so this time I contented myself with the outline assertions rather than go through it all in detail again.
Ananias and Sapphira didn't die for 'defiance of the church hierarchy', nor did those authorities kill them – they died for greed, hypocrisy and self-serving dishonesty when they definitely had better alternatives. Do you think God should have approved of their conduct?
Romans 13 – well for starters it should be read in context, which begins back in ch 12. And you might also consider the parallel (and longer) passage in I Peter. This is quite a nuanced statement about how Christians are meant to live in relation to the 'worldly authorities'; In an age when there was a fairly obvious temptation to think that 'God is on our side' meant behaving like the Jewish Zealots or modern Ulster paramilitaries, Romans, Peter and the rest of the NT set forth a different approach where you don't necessarily OBEY whatever ungodly thing a pagan emperor may require, (Acts 5; 29 - “we must obey God rather than men”) but when you must disobey, you still remain 'subject to' the earthly government and therefore you face martyrdom rather than getting out your machine-gun and starting a rebellion. I assume you disapprove of the Ulster paramilitaries; well this is how Christians ought to behave over such issues, and when they do I can't see that you'd have much cause for complaint.
It's not so much that the Kingdom of God is a totalitarian despotism as simply that it is about love and truth and those who choose otherwise have as much chance of living there as fish in air. The NT is more nuanced than later hellfire preachers and includes such texts as John 3; 19 - “...this is the verdict (or 'judgement'), that the Light has come into the world, and people have loved the darkness more than the Light...” Or in simple terms, those in Hell are getting what they want because they are the kind of people who want the kind of thing Hell is about – unpleasant though such a state of existence will necessarily be. A totalitarian despotism would be if God forced them to change into heavenly beings whether they liked it or not.
By Croesos;
quote:
And yet the Second Testament contains a lot of fairly positive references to Elijah, to pick one example, who is most noted for killing (or having killed) adherents of rival faiths, supposedly at God's express command. While a series of holy wars and suppression of rival religions may indeed be "preparation and learning" for something, I don't think it's how to get along in a religiously pluralistic society.
I'd need quite a bit of space to expound the detail of this. But there is a kind of paradox here that essentially 'New Covenant' living requires the New Covenant; and until that's set forth you can't fully operate it among people who don't know and understand it. The OT prepares the way for the New Covenant – and also foretells that covenant and says a lot about what it will ultimately involve. The New Covenant then becomes the pattern for God's people. One of the contrasts is that the preparation takes place in an ordinary earthly nation (well, OK, not quite so ordinary...) which needs worldly protection for the time being. In the New Covenant things are no longer confined to one nation, and entry into that Covenant is now more clearly revealed as needing a spiritual rebirth; that spiritual change obviously happens at a personal and humanly speaking voluntary level, and not just by being born in the ordinary way in a supposedly 'Christian country'. Such spiritual birth cannot be made to happen by passing laws about it or waging a 'jihad' to enforce conversion.
Thus 'THE CHURCH' is not set up to operate like a normal nation, but in a different way; again humanly speaking voluntary, and so not needing the kind of power a state uses to impose and enforce a state religion. Adding such state power is not authentic Christianity but an external human imposition, and an improper imposition where it tries to impose that new birth in defiance of the NT teaching.
That is the short version and I can already guess at quite a few questions you might want to ask about it – but at least think a bit before chucking out stock glib responses.
And finally;
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
quote:
I repeat my earlier point;
quote:
The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue.
Does anybody out there really believe that would be a bad thing?
Croesos;
Once again, just because you want something to be true or it would be convenient if it were true is not evidence that it is true. Simply re-asserting a point is not an argument.
You are not answering the question, though – do you believe it would be a bad thing to take Christianity out of the religious violence business? Having answered that, then look again at whether the Anabaptist version is true; I'm entirely with you that merely wanting something to be true, or that it is convenient, doesn't make it true – but in this case, if it actually is there in the NT, is it really a good thing to keep resisting it?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Ananias and Sapphira didn't die for 'defiance of the church hierarchy', nor did those authorities kill them – they died for greed, hypocrisy and self-serving dishonesty when they definitely had better alternatives. Do you think God should have approved of their conduct?
Maybe I'm just suspicious by nature, but if two people are involved in a financial dispute with their cult leader over missing funds and they both happen to die in his immediate presence, and the cult leader just happens to have a burial detail standing by, the possibility that the cult leader has at least some complicity in their deaths has to occur to me. Plus we're assured not once but twice that the remaining cultists were very intimidated by this pair of mysterious deaths that just coincidentally happened during meetings with Peter. The obvious conclusion, as you suggest, is that we're supposed to guess that God doesn't approve this behavior and that any defiance will be met with swift and fatal punishment. The term "Reign of Terror" doesn't seem too extreme for this situation.
[ 31. October 2014, 17:54: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I'm not sure what you'd call the actual Reign of Terror, on that reading. I'm pretty sure that republicanism would have had an easier time of it if the death toll under the Jacobins had consisted of two people whose deaths came, literally, under the heading of Act of God. Three, if you count Simon Magus falling to his death when St. Peter made the Sign of the Cross when Simon was demonstrating his Jedi Levitation powers in front of the Emperor Nero.
Incidentally, I can see the point of a reading of the New Testament which affirms that it accurately records at least some miracles occurred and I can see the point of a reading of the New Testament which insists that miracles essentially unbelievable and that their presence in the New Testament renders it inherently unreliable but I don't think you can really get away with an account that says that none of the miracles in the New Testament happened except the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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