njlauren
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
quote:
ORIGINAL: njlaurenquote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
Anti-semitism was not "fanned by religion," it was fanned by the remnants of a virulent brand of Christianity. On the subject of sore thumbs, however, I do agree that something here stands out like one.
Sorry, Kirata, I suggest you read the book of Matthew before saying that, reading the section of the Passion.... Anti semitism was fanned by religion, because Matthew puts the blame of the death of Jesus squarely on the shoulder of the Jews, and that was used as justification for what happened to Jews.
Here's a news flash: The word religion does not mean "Christianity." Here's another one: There is nothing in Matthew that calls for the persecution of Jews. And here's one more: There is no functional difference between using the bad actions of the Sanhedrin to justify bashing Judaism and Jews and using the bad actions of the Church to justify bashing religion and the religious.
K.
I am not bashing religion and the religious as a whole, I am pointing out that religion in its many forms, while it can do good things, also like most things human can and is used for horrible things. In pointing out the horrors of anti semitism, it is not wrong to point out Christianity's role in that, in large part because Christianity was the dominant force in western Europe from the 5th century, and for the most part organized Christianity, whether it was the Catholic Church or many of its protestant splinters, was hostile to the Jews and made their lives a living hell, and you don't have centuries of demonization, of desensitizing people to Jews being fellow human beings and children of God, and not expect horrors like the holocaust to happen. It is funny, people of Faith, especially Christians, go on and on about how the Church and faith shaped western civilization, was so influential on the shaping of our civilization, how "God fearing Christian men" founded the US, yet suddenly when it comes to the darkness that was the holocaust, it was like "don't blame Christianity, don't blame the church", and that is an utter bullshit copout. The Churches fanned anti semitism, instead of tampered it, and through inquisition and the secular authorities they controlled, they made the Jews lives miserable, killed them, took children away, tortured them, and for example, when as is celebrated in history, Good old Ferdinand and Isabella took back Grenada from the Moors, the first thing they did was expel the Jews who had lived their peacefully for centuries......and sorry, but the reality is that the Church and its splinter sects were very much a dominant part of people's lives, and the reality is had they not preached the hate of the Jews they did, if they told their people Jews were fellow children of God, it is very likely that anti semitism, while it would exist, would have been muted and the horrors of the holocaust would not have been allowed to happen..but because that wasn't the case, The nazis were able to carry out the final solution, countries that could have helped the jews escape as refugees turned their backs (in part because as in the US, the wonderful Christian churches put the full court press on to stop anything like that from happening..don't believe me? Read some of Mencken's writings from the late 30's after the world started realizing what was going on). It also led the Pope, who by his own writings was very anti semitic, to basically turn his back on the Jews and as a result did little to nothing to help them (sorry, but all the claims of saving 650,000 Jews, all the things he did, are basically made up, no one can back those up; whereas people like Daniel Goldhagen have documented just how bas Pius XII was......and the church today is trying to canonize the schmuck, as my Jewish friends would say, Oye...).
And no, it wasn't limited to Christianity, the Seducees and their ideas of purity, the various battles between Jewish sects (for example, the Samaritans were Jews whom the Temple based jews hated), the OT is full of Jews doing horrible things and claiming it was their right to do so, Moslems kill others, Christians kill Moslems, all justified by their God and so forth. The problem isn't religion per se, it is religions that start to proclaim universal truth or their faith makes them better than others. The old Greek and Roman religions were local, and they never assumed universality, Hinduism thrived in part because it was local (and was why Islam ultimately failed to convert more than a small portion of India), when you have a religion that believes it knows all, and has the right to say others are untrue or infidels or whatever, you have the bad side of it. Christians who believe homosexuality is wrong have a right to believe that, but when they think that the law should enforce their notions, it is basically the same thing, it is 'my religion is right, so everyone else should live by it'.
As far as Matthew goes, I suggest you read it again, when it has the Jews wailing as Christ is executed and saying "his death is upon us, woe is us"....the whole tenor of Matthew is anti Jewish, and not surprising, Matthew was writing to try and appease the Romans (his characterization of Pilate is an absolute joke...Pilate was not a milquetoast, he wasn't a vacillator, he was a bloody, sadistic bastard whom the Romans later recalled because he was such a bastard that it was riling the Jews in Judea up even more.
My problem is not with religion or the religious, my problem is what they do with the faith. While many people looked the other way during the holocaust, a number of people, clergy and lay, because of their faith went out of their way to try and save their Jewish neighbors, many of whom died; when after the war poor Polish Jews who somehow survived the camps went home, they were often set upon by their fellow Poles and some estimates were maybe 10's of thousands of Jews died after the war was over in this way, yet there also were those who tried to stop their neighbors from doing this, and these people acted the way they should. We always had religious groups like the Quakers, who ended up on the right side of slavery while mainstream Christian groups helped support it, either by staying quiet or actively supporting it. Liberal Christian groups have been at the forefront of gay rights, and while the same garbage that overlooked kids being molested (ie the Catholic Bishops) are extremely anti gay, most catholics have rejected that.
Put it this way, every major religion has as its root the golden rule and that our duty is to love our fellow man, and when people live into that, rather than using faith as a weapon, it works fine. The problem is that as a weapon to divide people and stir up hate, religion drives a passion that leads to the kind of things the poster said. If I had to rewrite his words, I would say that dogmatic religion that proclaims universal truth and spends a lot of time judging others who believe differently or use their religion as a cudgel against others, whether in law or with the iron fist, is what will be likened to racism and I think that would be correct.
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