”The fact is that fundamentalist Christians and radical Muslims are not interested in coexisting or getting along. They have no desire for peace. They do not want to sit down with us in diplomatic efforts to iron out our differences and come to an agreement on developing an integrated society.
”They want us to die.
”Their interpretation of the Bible and Koran are such that there is no other course of action but to kill the infidel, and if anyone believes otherwise they are only fooling themselves. It is not just in the best interests of atheists to be intolerant of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam, but it is also in the best interest of mainstream believers within these faiths, as well. Moderates and even Progressives who stand in support of extremists just because there is a claim to the same deity are not doing themselves any favors. Fundamental Christians make all Christians look bad and radical Muslims make all Muslims look bad.
”The growing ranks of fundamental Christians and radical Muslims should be of concern to everyone who is not part of these two groups. Everyone. Again, bigotry, discrimination, hatred, coercion, terrorism, slavery, misogyny and everything else that is part and parcel of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam should not be tolerated and anyone who agrees with this needs to adopt extremist points of view that includes the intolerance of their very existence. The only reason these groups exist is because they are allowed to, and we, as a society, are allowing them to...
”But the underbelly of fundamentalist Christianity and radical Islam does not operate in the legal system. They don’t respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated. As long as they are allowed to exist, we will continue to be inundated with accounts of buses, buildings, markets and abortion clinics being blown up, rape victims being murdered for adultery, wives being beaten (sometimes to death), airplanes being flown into buildings, people being tortured and sometimes beheaded for blasphemy, people being burned for witchcraft and sorcery and all the other horrific, inhumane and insane practices that are part of fundamental Christianity and Radical Islam.
”If we don’t take a stand and, as a society, insist that these doctrines and beliefs are treated just the same as they would be if religion were not part of the equation, we will become extinct not due to natural selection, but at the hands of those who believe that the supernatural has made the selection.”
Santelli wrote a follow-on article, claiming that everyone misunderstood his call for eradication, yet saying, ”I make no apologies for my words”. He then quotes Dawkins’ famous diatribe against God as if Dawkins has been endowed with some sort of ethical god-ship himself. And he tops it off with Hitchens’ statement in which he confuses organized religion with Atheist Soviet Russia:
”Organised religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.”Again, indicative of the massive Atheist assaults on humanity of the 20th century. But that is just a Tu Quoque, even though it is true; is Hitchens right? For a start, Hitchens universally condemns all “Organised reliegion” with unsupported designations, designations into categories of evil. This is typical of Atheist psychopathic rantings by those who haven’t been in a church, possibly ever, yet fully self-enabled to condemn what they have created in their minds – stalking horses to engender fear in the religiously ignorant, including themselves.
― Christopher Hitchens
Let’s repeat part of Santelli’s diatribe, above, just for a quick analysis:
”…buses, buildings, markets and abortion clinics being blown up, rape victims being murdered for adultery, wives being beaten (sometimes to death), airplanes being flown into buildings, people being tortured and sometimes beheaded for blasphemy, people being burned for witchcraft and sorcery and all the other horrific, inhumane and insane practices that are part of fundamental Christianity…
With the exception of the murder of two (?) abortionists, not one of these things is descriptive of even the most radically fundamental Christians, or sect offshoots; and the murders were not done by groups of Christians, they were individual actions outside of any church whatsoever and without sanction of any “organized religion”. From this might we conclude that Santelli is irrational? Or perhaps merely an ideological liar? From his denial of miswriting his accusations, maybe he is both.
7 comments:
Merely being "without a belief" in God or gods, Mr. Santelli certainly has a lot to say on the subject. Wouldn't you say?
I find conflating "fundamental Christianity and radical Islam" into one to be dishonest.
They are quite different groups, the only tenuous thread between them is alleged violence. And while Islam's record of violence is well documented, including their motivations, not so much with the so called fundamental Christianity.
And while Islam's record of violence is well documented, including their motivations, not so much with the so called fundamental Christianity.
Christianity, with its crusades and inquisitions, doesn't have a record of violence?
I believe Christianity's violence has lessened in the Western world for one reason. Christianity won and the violence lessened. In my grandfathers day, you could still be imprisoned for expressing a disbelief in the deity of Jesus but at least that was an improvement.
Of course, Christianity is still violent in areas where it hasn't won - as anyone who has seen videos of "witch"-burnings in Africa can tell you.
Secondly, a lot of violence I hear attributed to Islam is often defended by its perpetrators in political language but spoken about by its detractors in religious language.
"Christianity, with its crusades and inquisitions, doesn't have a record of violence? "
The Spanish Inquisition (which no one expected, and I am assuming that's the one you are talking about) was put in place to help the Spanish Crown restore control over Spain during the Reconquista by rooting out false Christians, specifically Jews that had outwardly professed a conversion to Christianity but were still practicing Judaism. The Spanish crown was concerned that if these people were lying about their faith, how solid were they in their loyalty to the Crown? Investigations were made, the reports indicated that there were certain Jews actively trying to get Muslim leaders to retake al-Andalus. The Spanish Crown asked Pope Sixtus IV to create a branch of the Roman Inquisition for the Crown's use. Initially the Pope declined, but King Fredinand played hardball by promising not to send support to Rome if ever needed. The Pope then issued the papal bull Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus on November 1,1478, establishing an inquisition in Spain.
The Spanish Inquisition did not try to convert anyone, they had no power over other faiths, their sole job was to find false Christians. Remember, this is at the end of over 770 years of fighting on the Peninsula, Spanish forces had recaptured most of what they had lost and they had no desire to repeat the past 800 years of war to reclaim it a second time. Some their cities had already been retaken; a strategic action would be to root out possible plots, and they did so.
Over the 345 years or so the Spanish Inquisition was active, only 1 percent of the 125,000 trials ended in execution, that's an average of 9 deaths a year, 3230 all told.
It was wielded by the Crown, a secular power. It was finally the Spanish government that ended the Inquisition on July 15, 1834, mostly due to influence and pressure from the Enlightenment, people believing further separation of Church and State would be more hospitable to their beliefs.
The Spanish Inquisition isn't anything like Islam, not in the scope nor fundamental design and principles.
The first Crusade was motivated by religion, the subsequent ones where geo-political in nature.
"Secondly, a lot of violence I hear attributed to Islam is often defended by its perpetrators in political language but spoken about by its detractors in religious language."
In Islam, religion and politics are one and the same, there is no separation, religious leaders wield secular power over their followers; when they talk of political motivations, they do so in the context of a religion that controls all aspects of their lives, not as separate concerns.
But with Christianity as in the new covenant-new testament there is nothing there that justifies the atrocities committed in it's name, Jesus wouldn't have sanctioned it.
WIth Islam however the ideology is conquest... the formation of an Islamic world state under Shariah law by conquest or consent- Islam has political roots at it's center and Muhammad sanctioned this and modeled this Islamic ideology perfectly.
When someone charges the violence of Christianity based on the crusades and the Inquisition, the bottom of the barrel has been scraped clear through. The person charging thus is absolutely free to emigrate to Atheist nations where he might feel safer. Yet none of them do. Why? Because here they are free to make the most absurd arguments against the culture which protects them, while otherwise, not so much.
I doubt seriously that your grandfather, who undoubtedly lived mostly in the 20th century, would have been jailed for heresy. The early 20th century abounded with all sorts of Atheists, many of them quite famous, and none of them threatened with imprisonment for heresy.
The fear model of Christianity doesn't hold up, not nearly as well as the fear model of Atheism and the New Man Humanisms. The fear model has so little empirical evidence to back it up, that it severely punishes the Atheist claim of being evidence based. Even Jesse Jackson's famous line about having "fear of footsteps behind him until he realized that they were white youths leaving a bible study" puts the fear of Christianity to rest. Or it should.
As for your theory of history, the Crusades were reconquistas designed to liberate Christian slaves from the Muslims, who invaded and captured them. And as for the Inquisition, many miscreants preferred to submit to the courts of the Inquisition, rather than the courts of the secular governments which were much more severe. Few were actually punished, with the demonstration of the equipment usually being enough.
If Christianity so brutally conquered the world, which wars were fought by Christians against Atheists, in order to subjugate the Atheists, worldwide? Pick a major church and tell us which one argues for the death of infidels.
Fear mongering is easy. Believing it is hazardous.
An interesting and liberally annotated article regarding the Crusades is here:
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1483
Post a Comment