cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18423698
Or, to put it in words:
"Christianity didn't become a world religion because of the quality of its teachings, but by the quantity of its violence" - Eleanor Ferguson
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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you could literally completely remove the context of history and all the fucked up shit therein, and the religion of christianity would STILL be laughably absurd on the face of it
Just in case anyone thought this could use more jpeg:
thanks just what i needed
No enough kid diddling in that bottom picture.
That comes with having giant institutions that can bury kid-diddling, and do so in the name of preserving their reputation. In consequence, the edifice is more important than innocent human lives.
I suspect the same edifice is what sends crusaders and militarized missions.
Then the human race isn't worth saving cheers to the climate climax!
Well, having come to terms with our not-insignificant existential risk, yes, we seem to be struggling with navigating our current great filters. One of our traits is we're not good at organization, organizations of communities larger than dozens tend to collapse into corruption and factioning, which informs how religious ministries turn against the good of the society. It also informs runaway industries like fossil-fuel and automotive.
So as I see it, it's not prescriptive but descriptive. It's not whether we're worthy but whether we do. It would mean overcoming our tendency to create large institutions in which power is consolidated and then only serves those at the top.
We will or we won't, and in we don't then the next species to evolve sophisticated social cooperation and reason will get to try.
Lol this is exactly how they teach "how we accepted Islam" in turkish history classes. They say our previous religion (tengrism) was really similar to Islam and so we just... idk... converted to Islam?
In reality tengrism is nowhere near similar to Islam and we had to accept converting to islam after years of wars and unending oppression by muslims
It's 2024 and we still have wars on religions. Sigh. And why we still don't have atheist political leaders yet.
Nobody does, it's a dead cult
For what it’s worth, Buddhism was similarly spread by Ashoka.
It’s likely all religion has been spread by violence.
Except it's the other way around. Ashoka gave up conquering after he converted to Buddhism.
Atheists hate this one simple trick (converting monarchs and emperors to your faith).
Yes, because the brutal warlord suddenly became repulsed by violence and never again resorted to violence….
(There are those 18,000 monks mentioned, and I find it dubious there wasn’t internal discord, considering.)
I've read some Buddhist literature, including a lot of tales about the Buddha, and the monks were arguing all the time. There's a handful of stories where the Buddha goes at them because of how much they're always arguing.
More accurately, the brutal warlord actually had feelings and didn't know how to process them. In walks serene monks who seem to be at peace. Compare to: In walks missionaries who promise he can be forgiven and his immortal soul saved in the eyes of God.
I misread as "there wasn't some internal Discord" and thought you were about to say something about leaked DMs. I need to wake up.
I'm sure there have been minor incidents, but as far as I know Sikhism comes to mind as a religion that doesn't have blood on its hands.
While it’d be unfair to compare Sikhs to crusaders, it’s not like there weren’t Sikh states at war (especially with the Mughals. And, uh, the British East India company.)
It’s also important to note much of the Sikh militarism was brought out of self defense- persecution by Muslims and Hindus in particular were pervasive throughout their history; and the handful of states that were specifically Sikh, were mostly short lived.
Suffice it to say, it’s a very modern concept that religions were supposed to be peaceful. For most of history, religion was as much a part of national identity as it was fervent beliefs.
This isn’t to say that members in those religions can’t be absolutely peaceful.
The Baha'is haven't used violence, they also don't proselytize.
It was also done by murdering, massacring, and forcibly converting my Jewish ancestors. There's a reason why my entire extended family is small (people forget that the Holocaust was done for and by Christians).