Youth Violence = Deprived OF Christian Values = Aggressive Secularism.

111 posts / 0 new
Last post
Old man shouts at clouds's picture
@ Rasster

@ Rasster

Catholic slavery

Are you deliberately lying? Lets look at the NT shall we....Not once does Jesus mention slavery being abhorrent, in fact several of the tales ascribed to him are set in a slave/master relationship.

Now lets look at the founder of your particular brand of christianity: slaves were told to obey their masters "with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ." (Ephesians 6:5 KJV)

And
Titus
"Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior."

Nowhere is the clear and easy instruction : "Do not own another human being: it is wrong"

You are the worst kind of apologist, you don't even know your own Church history viz: Though the Pentateuch gave protection to fugitive slaves, the Roman church often condemned with anathema slaves who fled from their masters, and refused them Eucharistic communion (wikepedia with references).

The Vatican City had slaves as did many cardinals, bishops and other worthies of the church throughout the ages. If the bible and the might of the Church had not supported it, why would they continue to practice this abomination?

"Eugenius IV and his immediate successor issued a series of bulls, including Illius Qui (1442), Dum Diversus (1452), and Romanus Pontificus (1455), that recognized the rights of the monarchs of Portugal and eventually Spain to engage in a wide-ranging slave trade in the Mediterranean and Africa — first under the guise of crusading, and then as a part of regular commerce. As Pope Nicholas authorized the Portuguese in Romanus Pontificus. Crisis magazine ( A catholic apologist magazine)

Please, if you are going to carry on with these apologist gymnastics at least get some research going. Even your own historians call BS on your claims.

Sheldon's picture
"Our Lord Jesus took on the

"Our Lord Jesus took on the form of a slave through poverty."

Jesus endorsed slavery, and I'm starting to wonder if you've even read the bible.

1 Peter 2:18

"Household slaves, submit to your masters with all reverence not only to the good and gentle ones but also to the cruel."

fruyian's picture
"when we deprive them from

"when we deprive them from our Christian values on respecting life and the dignity of life.

This is the most interesting part of your post. Whatever made you think the whole of Christian culture was peaceful? Because you happen to go to a nice church with nice singing? Because you feel restful on Sundays with your community? Because the priest told you so?

You will have to get out of your bubble a little bit to see and learn a little more about yourself and what you hold as true. I hope the links help.

* Christianity and capital punishment: thou shalt not kill?
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/aug/24/christianit...
* Capital punishment
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/cap...
* 'Endemic' rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, inquiry finds
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/20/irish-catholic-schools-chi...\

Despite the attempts of religions to claim otherwise, religion follows morality, not the other way around. Morality predates religion. It's almost funny watching religious people try to claim that religions are responsible for (good) morality. It's funnier when they then cherry pick their scriptures to pretend that their religion doesn't explicitly endorse some terrible morals, like condoning slavery or murder or rape or pedophilia or sexism.

None of the good that comes from religions actually requires religion; they're obtainable through secular organizations and practices. Yes, people do good because of their religious beliefs, no denying that, that is great, it is simply another way we derive morality. Religion is a reflection of the moral standards of a time, not the source of it. In fact, that’s why there are occasional issues with it because religion by its nature is fixed and unchanging but moral standards are not. In fact any time society has made great advancements in ethical thinking, it is nearly always religion that lags behind, often for hundreds of years.

We as a society collectively determine our morals based on the values held by the people who make up our ranks. That is why we today understand that slavery and marital rape are immoral, despite the fact that Christian morality says that both of those are okay. It is our innate solidarity, and not some security camera in the the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

"when we deprive them from our Christian values on respecting life and the dignity of life.

29-year-old Travis Reinking, the Waffle House shooter, attended a Christian school then was home-schooled by a deeply Christian family. Because of threatening behavior, police had confiscated his guns, and his born-again Christian father returned the guns he used to kill four people and wound four others.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who murdered 10 people at his high school a couple weeks ago, attended the Greek Orthodox church along with his family. Pagourtzis did not impulsively bring a gun to school, he also planned the shooting well in advance and brought several home-built bombs with him.

Feel free to tell the families of those 14 victims that this wouldn't have happened if only everyone attended church. You'll probably find those family members near a church, because they now have to visit their loved ones their.

Rasster's picture
As regards violence by a

As regards violence by a Christian such a shooter you mentioned or a priest who abuses or covers up a crime, they do not confirm Christian teaching they betray it, which betrayal of Christ teaching has been there since Judas.

fruyian's picture
If a member of the church

If a member of the church commits a crime, they don't promote Christian values, they betray them. Just as some have done from the very beginning since Judas.

That looks like a great way to avoid your responsibilities though, isn't it?

Anything that a person from your kind of Christianity you personally don't agree with or like then you can evade the responsibility and never apologize or stand up for the wrong that Christianity had done in the past.

You then say, as if you think it is a reason but it is rather an excuse, you say, "oh well they don't promote the true values of Christianity that I think is true".

You do know what this is, don't you? This is what we call 'No True Scotsman Fallacy' that you apparently love to use to distance yourself from those whose similar faith was abused.

You claim that anyone who does bad things in the name of your Christian God is not serving God or his true teachings. You don't think so but they sure think so. Not only is this pure bias confirmation conjecture, It's the classic an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. All members of [my Christianity] are fundamentally good, and then to abandon all bad individuals as "not true [My-Christian]-people" .

How does really one define a real Christian? and what about the other 44,000 or so denominations? It goes on and on.

Jihadists are definitely "true" followers of Islam just like cafeteria Christians are true Christians. (While I do prefer moderate Muslims than the extremists and I would be happy with the continued existence of the moderate part and not the extreme. But there is simply no definitive way to say which is true. The moderate Muslims could be true, and if it is, I would then say that the morality both good and bad is merely just another way we human appropriate morality.)

Why is this the case? Why can we not claim one is truer than the other? because there is simply no way to determine who the 'true' followers are. The holy texts, including Jesus' teachings, are so vague and broad that anybody can draw a path to literally anything. It can be interpreted in many different ways and still be sound. While what you say could be true, there is no definitive way to be sure. You could cite this and the other Christian could cite another thing that follows from another verse to make his interpretation sound. So on and so forth. We know the bible has many contradictions within it. Many historians and theologians have admitted this.

Just as Hitchens said in his opening statement here (https://youtu.be/_CGFMwtJTyE?t=10m9s):
(Although the topic is about Islam, the point can be transferred to Christianity).

"now you will say - I can hear it already being said you may be saying it to yourselves as the defense mechanisms kick in... and you may say "ah that is not the real Islam". Those are not the real Muslims. Now, isn't that a fascinating objection. Is there anyone in this room who would care to arbitrate that question? Who is to say, where is the authority that defines who is the true son of the prophet or the true interpreter of his work? Part of the problem to begin with and its part of the problem is because of it is a religion, is that it is perfectly true to say we don't know who the true Muslims are, how right that is, who does speak for it?" - C.Hitchens

Besides after all of this, even taking your claim that these people who did bad things were not doing it by 'true' Christian values, they still did it and motivated by what they thought were the true Christian values.

So even though you may be sprinkling sugar over your porridge, these people still committed these crimes in by because of what they believed to be true. And in many cases, these people directly used passages out of the bible to justify what they did, even if it was interpreted wrong. This just emphasizes the fact that Christianity and the bible are so vague that it can be used to justify just about anything from abolishing slavery and mandating it.

EDIT:

A few grammatical errors. Clarifications and such

David Killens's picture
@ Raster

@ Raster

Now you are cherry picking. You are counting the hits (the good things done by christians) and ignoring the misses (the bad things done by christians).

I understand where you are coming from, burdened with the belief that christians are all good people, who follow the moral dictates of the bible, while atheists have difficulty being good because their morality is not derived from your beloved bible.

Sorry, but valid studies and the numbers do not support your assertion.

Just google the ratio of christians versus atheists in jail.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/08/21/atheists-now-mak...

Sheldon's picture
"As regards violence by a

"As regards violence by a Christian such a shooter you mentioned or a priest who abuses or covers up a crime, they do not confirm Christian teaching they betray it, which betrayal of Christ teaching has been there since Judas."

There it is, only a matter of time, The No True Scotsman fallacy. How stupid does someone have to be to think indiscriminate murder and genocide, rapine the sex trafficking of girls and women, and ethnic cleansing represent a benevolent deity?

Is it moral to torture a newborn baby to death because the bible claims your deity was angered that it was conceived in an adulterous affair? How about the Noah flood myth, if you believe that's true then your deity killed every living thing on the planet bar a few humans and a few animals on a boat, that;s some designer at work, and to claim such a deity is benevolent is incomprehensibly stupid.

Sapporo's picture
In terms of the proportion of

In terms of the proportion of people dying as the result of homicide and in wars, we are living in the most peaceful time in history. The homicide rate is a factor of 100 times less than during the time of Jesus.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_is_there_peace/

This is most notable in Western Europe, the most secular region on the planet in the most secular age. Japan is another good example of an especially peaceful country with secular values.

Sky Pilot's picture
Rasster,

Rasster,

"Following from what I said, where would the world be without Gods law, the 10 commandments?"

Based on your question it's obvious that you don't know what the real Ten Commandments are.

You may want to watch these videos = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkCJ8rb8Grw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36g3auOm9HA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0

Or you can read the fairy tale yourself =Exodus chapters 19-34.

arakish's picture
And watch these by Aron Ra.

And watch these by Aron Ra. More truthful than the Bible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36g3auOm9HA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0

rmfr

algebe's picture
@Rasster: all societies

@Rasster: all societies before the Christianity you will find very inhumane and barbaric lifestyles.

Does that include Han Dynasty China, which achieved technological and artistic brilliance and economic prosperity under enlightened Confucian rulers? Do you also include the Athens of Socrates and Plato?

When people talk about barbarism in pre-Christian societies, I'm always reminded of a scene in Terry Jones' wonderful documentary series on the Crusades. Terry describes the peaceful and prosperous lives enjoyed by the people of Constantinople until they were invaded by cannibals--from France.

Your religion is the most violent, sadistic, evil, degenerate mental plague ever unleashed on a suffering humanity. And in your ignorance and total lack of irony, you have the nerve to offer it as a cure for violence. Go to hell. (Oh sorry, you Christians are already there.)

Jared Alesi's picture
I always drew a delightful

I always drew a delightful sense of irony from the phrase, "go to hell." As if life on earth isn't already hell with theists running around, ruining everything we secularists have worked to accomplish. World peace, human rights, sensibility, all to the hog trough with these fuckwits running the world's governments.

Jared Alesi's picture
Yes, the Christian Dark Ages

Yes, the Christian Dark Ages were much more civilized. The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition were the pinnacle of human morality, and ever since then we've been falling farther and farther into darkness. It was such a good time to be alive, with suppression of education, lack of human rights, destruction of art and expression, serial murder of minority groups, just a grand old time. Way better than the stupid technological era, human rights movements, scholasticism, the Enlightenment, democracy, and freedom of expression brought about by secularism. Stupid secularists, ruining everything AGAIN!

chimp3's picture
I recently read Steven Pinker

I recently read Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature". Things are better than they used to be! Thanks to secularism.

Terminal Dogma's picture
The 10 commandments are kinda

The 10 commandments are kinda nothing Burger really.

Cognostic's picture
@ Rasster

@ Rasster

1. If you are going to make the assertion that American society was founded on Christian Values, you will have to demonstrate which group of Christians you are talking about. It was certainly not those Christians escaping from persecution by the Christian Church of England. Remember history class in the third grade? The Pilgrims came to America to escape RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. Why in the hell would they create another government like the one they had just escaped from? FACT IS - THEY DIDN'T The formed a SECULAR GOVERNMENT. They formed a government FREE of religious values.

The Puritan churches of New England demanded total obedience at the risk of being shunned. The church was the central meeting place for secular and non-secular activities. A typical church service lasted all day.

The middle states were Quakers, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Mennonites, and Jews. They all came to America to escape the persecution of the Christian Church in England. They came to the new world and created their own little religious communities separate from other religious communities.

The Southern Colonies consisted of Catholics (Primarily in Maryland), Planters (The Church of England), Anglican, Baptists and Methodists.

Each of these religious communities was like a nation unto itself. They were ruled by the religions they brought with them from England. They were highly dogmatic, religious communities.

So how did the government of America get formed? These religious groups identified the need for mutual preservation. They identified the need for a single government with a standing army for protection. They were also scared to death that the same thing would happen in America that was going on in England. (STATE MANDATED RELIGION). And now comes the genius of America....

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. Have you heard of it before? The religious communities of early America, unwilling to give up their little religious communities, unwilling to be ruled with a larger, more popular religion over a smaller one, did one of the most amazing things in history, they created a GOVERNMENT FREE OF RELIGIOUS VALUES. THEY CREATED AN ENTIRELY SECULAR GOVERNMENT THAT WOULD HAVE NO CONTROL AT ALL OVER RELIGION. No one religious community could then have influence over another religious community. This was of the utmost importance to the original colonists. Asserting that America was founded on religious values is asinine.
Yes it was founded by religious people, most people were religious. Not Everyone. And it is a fact that this new government was to be SEPARATE FROM RELIGION. It was not to support any one religion over another religion. THAT IS WHY LADY JUSTICE IS BLINDFOLDED. The new government of the New world was created COMPLETELY SECULAR and independent of any one groups RELIGIOUS OR MORAL VALUES.

History lesson is over.

Tin-Man's picture
And Professor Cog promptly

And Professor Cog promptly drops the microphone and casually strolls off stage, while the crowd gives a roaring standing ovation.

Cognostic's picture
@ 2) Look at all the violence

@ 2) Look at all the violence and evil acts committed by our youth when we deprive them from our Christian values on respecting life and the dignity of life.

Once again you are so far off target as to sound ridiculous. Catholic make up 39.164% or all prison populations in America. I personally worked with Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, Ca. You will not find a nicer bunch of believers in the Catholic faith, God and family. They prove it with their tattoos, their reverence to god, and their willingness to kill for their neighborhood.

35.008% of our prison populations are Protestant. Church going Baptists, Lutherans, Evangelic whatever, pick your denomination. Another 6% are made up of groups like Mormons, Pentecostals, and Jehovah's Witness who are not recognized as Christian by mainstream Christian denominations but who are actually Christian based on their worship of Jesus and the foundations of their faiths. That's a 41% Christian population in Prison.

Catholics plus Christians - all good God worshipers - 80% of the current prison population in America is Regions.

Religions have never had, nor do they have today, a lock on morality. No one in the Prison System today has been deprived of religious values except for the Atheists who make up 8 to 15% of the population of America today. Atheist are under represented in the prison system. They make up 8% of the general population but only 0.21% of the prison population.

Frankly, because the religious population in prison matches the early religious population of the original 13 colonies, you could say that prisons were founded on religious values.

http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

Cognostic's picture
@ Rasster (Some of this is

@ Rasster (Some of this is copied and pasted. The Source is cited. The reason for the copy paste job is not actually so anyone will read it, but rather so you can skip through it and measure the amount of atrocities committed by Christians, their Church and their way of life.

A HISTORY CHECK WILL REVEAL: CHRISTIANS ARE ASSHOLES!!!

Christianity was founded on war and killing. Constantine won his battle because of Christ! He slaughtered the non-believers and this was the imputes for his conversion to the Christian faith (If you count a senile death bed conversion from the head of the Church of Mithra.)

Remember the Good Christians brought us THE DARK AGES, THE INQUISITION, THE CRUSADES, TORTURE, SLAVERY, WITCH BURNING, AND A WHOLE LOT MORE!

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
[DO19-25]

Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)
First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents—save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
(In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]
Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Heretics
Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.
Witches
from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
incomplete list of documented cases:
The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars
15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews
Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]
(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples
Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:
I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
"And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]
Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
"Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
"Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)
In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
Other tribes were to follow the same path.
Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
"Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.
More Glorious events in US history
Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]
More gory details.
By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]
20th Century Church Atrocities
Catholic extermination camps
Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!

In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
Catholic terror in Vietnam
In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]

Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.

The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
"Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."
Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life....

Rwanda Massacres
In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.

Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:

"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.

According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.

In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]

FUCK CHRISTIANITY AND YOUR CHRISTIAN VALUES!!!

http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
@ Cog

@ Cog

The anger, and sickness in my stomach I feel at any hypocritical arse who bleats on about the "love of God" and Joy of Christ etcetera is blood boiling. This is an excellent document. Thanks for that Cog. I shall use portions of this in the future.

And I echo your thoughts "FUCK CHRISTIANITY AND YOUR CHRISTIAN VALUES!!!" you are bringers of death.

Also you missed the 4 - 6 thousand innocent (of the crime) women and men executed in Lowland Scotland after James VI decided that witchcraft was a threat to him in Scotland. Many of them accused and judged by the local Kirk (church) ,,,such good christians.

Rasster's picture
Your list of violence means

Your list of violence means nothing.

If a member of the church commits a crime, they don't promote Christian values, they betray them. Just as some have done from the very beginning since Judas.

Just like the shooters and the abusive priests that l.a. lakers person mentioned. They do not confirm Christian teaching they betray it.

algebe's picture
@Rasster: If a member of the

@Rasster: If a member of the church commits a crime

That's the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

Besides, how many members of the church need to commit crimes before you start questioning the church itself?

Rasster's picture
Yea well you guys do the

Yea well you guys do the exact same thing with the atheistic communists like the Soviet Union.

If I say something like:

How many millions of people have massacred in atheistic communists societies were there was a ban on religion, old Soviet Union for one example.

You atheists will go something like:

Well they are not true atheists

Well look, you guys just made that Scotsman fallacy too didn't you?

Jared Alesi's picture
Herein lies the difference,

Herein lies the difference, however: Atheism is not a creed. It has no dictates. Atheism is simply one answer to one particular question, nothing more, nothing less. Atheism is simply the position of being unconvinced by the rhetoric of theists who claim that their God exists. No one has ever been killed in the name of atheism, no moral implications are attached to atheism, and no edicts or dictates exist either.

Christianity is a creed. There are rules, rulers, and a holy text for any Tom, Dick, and Harry to interpret as violently as he so chooses. Billions throughout history have been killed in the name of Christ or Yahweh. Untold suffering has been brought to undeserving masses in the name of bronze age bullshit. Atheism has none of that. No book, no rules, no rulers, nothing. It's not a religion.

In addition, nobody is claiming that those Soviet rulers were not true atheists. They were. They fit the only criterion: Not believing in a God. But here's the thing. Atheism is not a moral position. Atheists are just as capable of atrocities as theists. The only difference is motivations.

algebe's picture
@Rasster: Yea well you guys

@Rasster: Yea well you guys do the exact same thing with the atheistic communists like the Soviet Union.

Have a closer look at those "atheistic" communist regimes. They all replaced their gods with figureheads like Lenin/Stalin, Mao, and Kim, and they ended up deifying those leaders. I've attached a photo of a religious service in North Korea to illustrate this point. Anyone who questioned the divinity of these leaders went straight to hell.

Attachments

Attach Image/Video?: 

Yes
Cognostic's picture
Communist: a person who

Communist: a person who supports or believes in the principles of communism.
"I was very left-wing, but I was never a communist"
synonyms: collectivist, leftist, (radical) socialist; More

If you are going to assert Atheists are communists, you have to prove it. Some may well be. How would you know? Well, they might be carrying around Mao's little red book. They might have copies of the Communist Manifesto around their home. Frankly speaking, the communists I have known have been proud of it and come right out and tell you "I'm a communist."

"Though the term "communism" can refer to specific political parties, at its core, communism is an ideology of economic equality through the elimination of private property. The beliefs of communism, most famously expressed by Karl Marx, center on the idea that inequality and suffering result from capitalism."

Ahemmm - What exactly does any of this have to do with Athens?

"Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist."

Please share how you think these two things, an economic system and a lack of belief in God are related.

Sheldon's picture
"Yea well you guys do the

"Yea well you guys do the exact same thing with the atheistic communists like the Soviet Union."

Bullshit, like most theists who come here you make up lies and don't even pretend yo evidence them. The SS was exclusively christian as is the Ku Klux Klan, does that mean you're a Nazi and a member of the Ku Klux klan?

"How many millions of people have massacred in atheistic communists societies were there was a ban on religion, old Soviet Union for one example. You atheists will go something like: Well they are not true atheists"

Another moronic lie, I'd say no such thing. I'd say what I always say, what the fuck has their atheism got to do with their crimes? All totalitarian dictators commit crimes, and that includes all theist dictators as well, like Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, or how about the Russian Tsars whose barbaric rule led directly to the Russian revolution and Stalinism. The Pope has absolute authority over the RCC, and the RCC is one of the most heinous criminal organisations on the planet.

"Well look, you guys just made that Scotsman fallacy too didn't you?"

Of course not, because no one made that claim, you just lied and made up a straw man argument. I'm happy to accept Stalin was an atheist, he claimed he was so why would I doubt him, but I see no evidence his crimes had anything to do with atheism, and it's beyond facile to claim he would not have behaved as he did is he had believed in a deity.

Now why don't you show comparable integrity and admit Hitler was a christian, and so were the SS. Or are you going to use the No True Scotsman fallacy, and add hypocrisy to your brazen lies?

I'm guessing you'll never give an honest answer, but will slither away like all the other theists who have burst into this forum with their sententious preaching, and then run and hide when their vapid superstitious claims are challenged.

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
@ Rasster

@ Rasster

Oh, I get you mean these great teachings ?

The Sword of the Gospel
33 But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father in heaven. 34 Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn ‘A man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.…

And

Luke 12:51
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but division.

And

Revelation 6:4
Then another horse went forth. It was bright red, and its rider was granted permission to take peace from the earth and to make men slay one another. And he was given a great sword.

These are just from memory, there are more....
Yeh, those sort of peaceful values I can see working....is that what you meant? Or are you an oatmeal christian? You know one that cherry picks the feel good bits and ignores the real bloody meat of the misogyny, the hate and the violence in both the OT and the New?

David Killens's picture
Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan

Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan. He murdered thousands of Catholics.

Child labor

Slavery

The 19 terrorists that were involved in 911, not one was an atheist.

Those that commit evil are/were not betraying religious doctrine, they are following it.

From https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/mi...

"And within America, the states with the highest murder rates tend to be the highly religious, such as Louisiana and Alabama, but the states with the lowest murder rates tend to be the among the least religious in the country, such as Vermont and Oregon."

Sapporo's picture
Rasster: "If a member of the

Rasster: "If a member of the church commits a crime, they don't promote Christian values, they betray them"

As Fruyian has already pointed out, Christianity promotes eternal torture. If that is not a crime, then nothing is a crime.

Pages

Donating = Loving

Heart Icon

Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.

Or make a one-time donation in any amount.