Some 100,000 Christians killed per year over faith, Vatican says

Originally posted by Cuervo
reply to post by mobiusmale

 

After making the last post of mine about how I feel about Abrahamic adherents dying by the hands other Abrahamic adherents, I wanted to actually respond directly to you about how I feel about religious persecution in general.

It is ugly. It still exists. There are very few spiritual paths that have been completely innocent regarding it. It is one of the last vestiges of fear-based mindless hate that seems to serve as a giant ignorant lynch-pin holding together the selfish and bloated "old world order". In other words, I think I hate hearing about Christians dying for being Christians just as much as you do and I'm sorry we still have to read this kind of thing in the year 2013.

edit on 30-5-2013 by Cuervo because: Sleepy as crap.

A complete history of just about all (maybe all?) religions will reveal certain "dark periods".

For the moment, it would appear that Islam is going through one of those periods...though it seems to me that this movement has been "warlike" really since its inception. It is disappointing that, in our time when the people of the world are more educated, technologically advanced, enlightened (in many ways), free, and aware of what is going on around them...that there is this ground swell of mindless violence and persecution against so many perpetrated by so-called Islamic faithful.

As a follow on to my original post in this thread, you may find the following interesting reading:

But the greater lesson of the London beheading concerns its audacity—done in broad daylight with the attackers boasting in front of cameras, as often happens in the Islamic world. It reflects what I call “Islam’s Rule of Numbers,” a rule that expresses itself with remarkable consistency: The more Muslims grow in numbers, the more Islamic phenomena intrinsic to the Muslim world—in this case, brazen violence against “infidels”—appear.

In the U.S., where Muslims are less than 1% of the population, London-style attacks are uncommon. Islamic assertiveness is limited to political activism dedicated to portraying Islam as a “religion of peace,” and sporadic, but clandestine, acts of terror.

In Europe, where Muslims make for much larger minorities, open violence is common. But because they are still a vulnerable minority, Islamic violence is always placed in the context of “grievances,” a word that pacifies Westerners. With an approximate 10% Muslim population, London’s butchers acted brazenly, yes, but they still invoked grievances.

Grievances disappear when Muslims become at least 35-40% of a nation and feel capable of waging an all-out jihad, as in Nigeria, where the Muslim-majority north has been terrorizing Christians—bombing hundreds of churches and beheading hundreds of infidels. Sudan was an earlier paradigm, when the Khartoum government slaughtered millions to cleanse Sudan of Christians and polytheists.

Once extremists become the majority, the violence ironically wanes, but that’s because there are fewer infidels to persecute.

www.foxnews.com...

So, according to the author of this piece, there is a very clear correlation between the percentage of the Muslim population and the levels of violence perpetrated by that population...and the intensity of the efforts to force themselves into the majority.

I do however think that that there are a number of examples of Islamic cultures that continue the "tradition of violent jihad" even after they are in the overall majority. This, though, is because one faction of Islam has not yet completely dominated the other factions of Islam within that population. Afghanistan and Pakistan (Taliban) and Iraq (Shiites versus Sunnis) are but three examples of this .

reply to post by charles1952


The idea of “human nature” needs elaboration.

Do we all agree that we have an unconscious part to our mind? Do we agree that it can happen that forces from the unconscious part of the mind some times control our behavior?

I will give an example.

There was a housewife who was murdered by repeated hammering with an axe from her garage. Blood was everywhere. The last person to see the victim alive was her acquaintance, Ms X, who had stopped by to arrange the car pool for the children after school. Ms X did everything she could to assist the police investigation.

No one would ever suspect Ms X of such a crime as an axe murder. The investigation later found the bloody palm print of Ms X on the victim’s refrigerator. Ms X believed the evidence against her. She said I must have done it. But she did not confess because she had no memory of the violent attack.

The explanation for the behavior of Ms X comes from her unconscious mind.

As time went by Ms X was able to recall an episode from her childhood that was long forgotten. She had been hit by a playmate with an axe. She was so hysterical at the hospital that in order for the doctor to treat her injury her mother had to immobilize her movements by strong physical restraint.

Ms X had also just gotten some bad news. News that was too bad to face squarely. Her husband was having an affair with the victim.

The issue is not revenge on the victim for her dalliance. The issue is that Ms X was finally getting even with the playmate. Her behavior as an adult came from the force of the trauma in her unconscious mind. The girlhood panic was unknowingly an unresolved issue in her unconscious mind waiting for the opportunity to express itself.

This the end of the example.

The lesson of this example and many others is that a principle of human nature (the way the mind works) is that the behavior of people can come from forces (mental energy) of which they are unaware.

To put it another way, you can best judge a person not by what he says but by what he does.

Now we are ready for the summary. History proves that war is a permanent part of human nature. The future will be like the past.

The issue is not Muslims vs Christians. The issue is that violence is part of human nature.

Originally posted by mobiusmale

Originally posted by Cuervo
reply to post by mobiusmale

 

After making the last post of mine about how I feel about Abrahamic adherents dying by the hands other Abrahamic adherents, I wanted to actually respond directly to you about how I feel about religious persecution in general.

It is ugly. It still exists. There are very few spiritual paths that have been completely innocent regarding it. It is one of the last vestiges of fear-based mindless hate that seems to serve as a giant ignorant lynch-pin holding together the selfish and bloated "old world order". In other words, I think I hate hearing about Christians dying for being Christians just as much as you do and I'm sorry we still have to read this kind of thing in the year 2013.

edit on 30-5-2013 by Cuervo because: Sleepy as crap.

A complete history of just about all (maybe all?) religions will reveal certain "dark periods".

For the moment, it would appear that Islam is going through one of those periods...though it seems to me that this movement has been "warlike" really since its inception. It is disappointing that, in our time when the people of the world are more educated, technologically advanced, enlightened (in many ways), free, and aware of what is going on around them...that there is this ground swell of mindless violence and persecution against so many perpetrated by so-called Islamic faithful.

Exactly. Most of the major religions have gone through a fairly consistent evolution. People tend to forget that Islam is a religion still in its infancy. They are very similar to Christianity was at that stage. Christianity is almost at the last stage where they become an enlightened and inclusive religion, shedding itself of their dogma. Only look as far as the new age churches and even the sentiments of the new Pope to see how the religion as a whole is becoming an establishment that may start to improve the world more than it hurts it. It's looking optimistic, for sure.

Great thread S+F

I haven't been on these forums in a handful of months but I say there's a large number of people here that believe intolerance towards Christians is fine? And when it involves another group or when Christians are the ones harming people it get quickly denounced. That's just my observation.

Perhaps those of overtly antisocial religious persuasion should read this, posted by a friend on facebook, it's a funny take on the absurdities of religious beliefs permeating society.

ETA there aren't any mocking images of deities.

theoatmeal.com...