So I was thinking about this and I figured this would be the best forum to post it in.

Of the three major monotheistic religions you have: Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Jews currently have the "Jewish state" of Israel and have a history of ties between their politics and religion where the chief political leaders in their texts have been prophets/chosen by god. IE Moses/David

Islam was created by Muhammed who was a political leader, and began the formation of an empire. He, much like Moses, was both a political and spiritual leader.

Currently there is the Jewish state of Israel and multiple "Islamic" states, however to my knowledge outside of the Vatican there are no openly "Christian" states.

Christianity was created of a man who was never a political leader, as to say he never led an army or a country or any other metric which I could think of that would constitute a political leader. That is not to say you could not think of his teachings as political.

The rise of Christianity in Europe led to a dichotomy of Kings and the Church but the Church never held direct rule of over a multitude of nation-states even though the Kings' basis for their rule was diving right (ie King was chosen by god to rule this country, which is evidenced by the fact that he does rule this country, and if god exists his will must be followed). The Church certainly held sway over many rulers with the power of excommunication and people such as Charlemange took up the mantle as King of the Holy Roman Empire, and even the church of England is headed by the King as the "Defender of the Faith" but these all appear to be more of the exception than the rule.

Basically I was curious if the "methods of leadership
by the founders the mainstream monotheistic faiths could have a long term effect on the synergy between the politics and religion of the countries in which they inhabit.

That is to say, I don't see The Age of Reason ever being written in an Islamic country.

Ofcourse there is "synergy" (I hate the word) between religion and politics. In which direction this goes is open for debate.

The age of enlightenment and modern political models is certainly more a result of Greco-Roman legacy...but the idea that everybody has worth is certainly not etc.

It is also a bit weird that you are so hesitant to use the word "Christian nation", yet so quick to use the term Islamic country. "Islamic" is not some cultural unity term.

The hard sciences owe a lot to the Greek and Arabic/Persian cultures (maths, geometry, physics etc). To what extent Islam made this harder or easier I don't know.

Something worth studying. Christianity in its earliest stages was never spread by Christ and the Apostles through the sword while there were a lot of religious wars in the early establishment of Islam.

Christians model on Christ but I don't know to what extent Muslims model on Muhammad.

One of the next books on my reading list is Rodney Stark's God's Battalions. I'd like to know more about them sans modern diatribe.
http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Battalion.../dp/0061582611

Its also interesting that as soon as Christianity got power it used it to oppress non believers.

Christianity is not a person.

If you mean people professing to be Christians then that is not the same as Christ himself. Christ never oppressed anyone.

I mean Christianity was spread through most of its history by the sword and its political power and as soon is it got those it used them. Much like Islam.

Also some of Christ's views and values i would consider oppressive, but we probably see oppression differently.

No it wasn't.

Christianity has suffered more persecutions and martyrs than any other religion. It went through more than 300 years of persecution and 10 Roman persecutions before being governmentally adopted.

If you don't believe me you can consult Foxe's Book of Martyrs for the body counts.

Then it was institutionalized by the Roman Emperors and paganism began its' assault.

I already know all that and its kind of my point. Christianity was around for three hundred years in relative peace (ignoring all the infighting among the many sects). Then as soon as it got power it used that power to spread itself for the next thousand plus years.

Uh no. Some people with unspiritual minds did that.

The Church in ancient times was never the refuge of only spiritual people.

Oftentimes landless second sons were sent off to become monks so they could survive or have a profession.

You could hardly call those people dedicated now could you? Not that some people aren't dedicated by their parents as Samuel was by Hannah in the OT.

But to some people the Church was just a job and not a vocation.

There have always been splits when people tried to rule the roost in the church. See the Waldenses. Or the East/West schism. Most likely division is inevitable in the Church because spiritually immature people and people that lose their faith don't leave or step down or eschew positions of power within the Church any more than the average Joe doesn't try for promotion in the real world. But that doesn't invalidate Christ or the body of Christ. Any more than a corporation ceases to be valid because it has a thief on the payroll.

Alright Splendour if you want to pull the they were not real Christian card, whatever.

This is particularly lol since Foxe's primary emphasis in the book was the suffering Christians faced at the hands of... other Christians.

It's a mixed list.

Under Nero:
http://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/fox101.htm

The 10 Primitive Persecutions:
http://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/fox102.htm

IIRC there were millions killed throughout the 10 Roman Persecutions.

Obviously it's a mixed list. But Foxe's immediate impetus was the persecution of Protestants under the reign of the Catholic, Mary Tudor. During Elizabeth's reign and continuing well into the 1600s, Catholicism (other Christians) was seen quite literally as Satanic, its adherents misguided at best and demonic at worst.

I call major BS on any figure that states "millions" in the Roman persecutions, unless you're really stretching figures of who is being killed over what time period. Christianity wasn't that big before it became the Roman State religion. During that time period, a culling of "millions" would represent a significant percentage of Europe's total population.

I researched it a couple of years back and you think 10 Persecutions for 380 years wouldn't result in millions of deaths?

But if you disregard Foxe and look at other sources you have to add in the 20 million killed in the USSR, the millions in China (cause Mao is estimate to have killed around 72 million of various groups not just religious ones), the early persecution in Judea, the Zorastrian persecution in Persia, the medieval Caliphates persecution, 17th Century Chinese persecution of Christians, the 17th Century Japanese persecution of Christians, various Indian persecutions of Christians, French Revolution persecution, Ottoman Empire persecution, Soviet led Warsaw Pact countries persecution, Mexican government's persecution, Madagascar persecution, Spanish Civil War persecution, Nazi Germany persecution of Christians, Republic of Turkey, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan (1 and a half million killed in Sudan), Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians

funny how any christian killed was a true christian, and any christian who kills isn't... *rolls eyes*

I don't want to discuss this all over again, but do you think the Crusades, the Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, Oklahoma bombing etc. were in line with Christianity? Because that's the point here.

When a 'True Christian' does something which is not in line witch Christianity, does the sin become moral Christian behaviour?

Jesus Christ is the perfect 'example' for Christians. Would HE start the Crusades, Inquisition etc. ?

'WWJD'

I think those things were in line with someone's Christianity. I'd say the typical level of cruelty in a specified version of Christianity usually hinges on its view of the old testament.

I have no problems in seeing that some versions of Christianity can be displeasing to other versions of Christianity. I mean...there have been wars and genocides over such disagreements.

The problem with this is, that we can ask the same question for communism.
Do you think Stalin Mao or Pol Pot represented real communism?
If you read Marx you’ll see that a peaceful, equal and all around swell society is to be created;
that was very far from what those leaders did, so clearly they were not real communists, and we don’t know how great things could be if a real communist gained power.
You cannot judge a utopian belief system on its intention; that always is to create a paradise.
You have to see what real believers who did their best to follow the system actually did.
The communists did terrible things everywhere, and from that we are justified in claiming that communism is bad.
We are equally justified in judging Christianity on the behavior of Christians.
It doesn’t matter what a hypothetical perfect Christian would have done; there are no perfect people.

Stalin represented true Stalinism
Mao represented true Maoism
Christ represented true Christianity
Marx represented true Marxism.

I don't believe communist is bad because of the bad communists. I believe communism is bad because of its inherent moral principles.

If you and I make a pact/contract/ideology/a new religion. And we write down, killing is immoral, and that killing is never ever allowed. We call our pact/contract/etc. 2p2ism. Let's say there are people later who begin calling themselves 2p2ists and start to kill people because they don't play poker. What is to blame? 2p2ism, the pact you and I made? Or the people who misrepresent the 2p2-ideology, the 2p2ists?

Christians believe there is a perfect man. His name is Jesus Christ. If a Christian now does something which Jesus Christ condemned. What is taken as true Christianity? Jesus Christ (imo True Christianity), or the contemporary Christian?

Sure Stalin represented Stalinism, in the sense that everyone is true to their own character; there really is no way not to be.
But that misses the point; none of what Stalin, Mao or pol Pot did represented true communism, which is very easy to see if you read what the belief system actually entails.
My argument is that their behavior is a predictable result of trying to base a society on a flawed utopian belief system, but the philosophy of communism does not condone any of the abuses practiced by communist leaders.

You say communism is bad because of its moral principles, but it’s important to notice that the actual communist principles would create a wonderful society, if they worked in the real world; the problem is not what the communists are trying to achieve. The problem is that it cannot be achieved.

If the non killing bit is the only thing the belief system says then no, but that would not be much an of an ideology.
A real world ideology will usually contain contradictory elements, or just elements that cannot work in the real world, because they conflict with human nature.
Seeing what the results are, of people trying their best to implement the ideology is in my opinion the best way to evaluate a belief system.
Every ideology wants to create a better world, it’s the details of how they want to do it that are important.
Christianity is a utopian belief system, and as such contains many things that contradict human nature; making it very hard to live up to it.

The important point here is that if you say that only the text that Christianity is built on matters, and the behavior of the followers can be discounted, then you must extent that same courtesy to followers of other belief systems.

If communism is creating equality in wealth via force instead of via voluntarism, then that is immoral. No matter if the society will be perfect. There is a difference in 'logic of consequences' and the 'logic of appropriateness', meaning, there is a difference between morality and result. Choosing between force or voluntarism is a moral choice (logic of appropriateness), the society that is the result of the moral choice is a result, not a morality (logic of consequences).

I can not make a good judgment of Stalin, I know he killed many people. I don't know what are the limits of 'true communism'. If it is okay to steal money from rich people to give it to the poor, that is a moral choice, which I do not approve. But 'true communism' condones stealing of the rich. I don't know if it condones killing the rich. If leaders that call themselves communists, yet there is nothing inherent in communism that says something about killing to reach the communist goal, we don't know if killing is communist or anti-communist.

There is no problem in wanting an utopia to exist. It becomes a problem if you want to reach your goal via immoral ways.



How do you know if something can not work in the real world. Tell me, what do Christians have to do which is impossible? The desire to create an utopia is not wrong.

So you would still evaluate the belief system of 2p2ism based on the people that try to get the 2p2-society. Let's make our 2p2ism bigger.

• 2p2ism says killing is never allowed. (morality)
• 2p2ism says we want everyone to have the same amount of wealth (result)

And then there are people that claim to be 2p2ists and kill people trying to reach the result in spite of the inherent morality of 2p2ism. What is to blame? The ideology of 2p2ism, or the 2p2ists? What is true 2p2ism? Our pact? Or the people?


There is no problem in wanting an utopia to exist. Yes it is very difficult not to sin, and to be a perfect man. Should thus Christianity lower it's morality and say: ok you can have gay relationships if you're tempted; ok you can kill if somebody does something you do not like etc. etc.?

The behaviour of the followers should be analysed according to the basis of Christianity. I'm not saying discounted. I'm saying if a Christian does something which is not in accordance with True Christianity (you maybe don't know if there is a True Christianity, but I necessarily believe there is), then what is inherently Christian is not based on what people do, but what people should do.

I will give the same courtesy to followers of other belief systems yes. That's why I judge the morality of the belief systems, not the people.

I think the Roman emperors (particularly Justinian) destroyed most other religious monuments and oppressed non Christians a little bit after Christianity gained power.

As far as what Jesus would do. I dont think that vary much mattered to those who were oppressed in the name of him. Just like today in America with Christians who oppose Muslims freedom to build a house of worship. It doesn't matter what Jesus would do it only really maters what those who speak for him do.