Difference between revisions of "Talk:Christianity/Archive1"

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(→‎Crusades: Christian)
(→‎Crusades: I had actually retired, but I there's a few things that need to be cleared up here.)
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::::#It's only a requirement to be aligned with a church - Obama is a Christian, but isn't defined by his Christianity and probably won't be bringing dogma into policy a great deal.--[[User:ConservapediaRoolz|ConservapediaRoolz]] 07:56, 20 March 2009 (EDT)
 
::::#It's only a requirement to be aligned with a church - Obama is a Christian, but isn't defined by his Christianity and probably won't be bringing dogma into policy a great deal.--[[User:ConservapediaRoolz|ConservapediaRoolz]] 07:56, 20 March 2009 (EDT)
 
:::::I think that People don't Always Remember that Obama is a Committed  Christian President.--[[User:Tolerance|Tolerance]] 14:00, 20 March 2009 (EDT)
 
:::::I think that People don't Always Remember that Obama is a Committed  Christian President.--[[User:Tolerance|Tolerance]] 14:00, 20 March 2009 (EDT)
 +
:The idea that the crusades happened primarily for economic reasons is one that was rather popular a few decades ago among certain materialist historians who couldn't quite wrap their minds around the idea of 'faith' as a significant motivation. However, it completely falls apart when you look at it closer. The crusades were not fought by or even on behalf of "landless sons" or "poor knights" or whatever else one might think up. They were funded and executed by some of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles of Europe, such as Robert of Flanders, Godfrey of Bouillon, Roger of Normandy and Stephen of Blois, and later, of course, by the Emperor and the kings of England and France. I can guarantee that these people did not care at all about poor knights, and if they had younger sons that needed land, they could just ''give'' them a piece of land, or arrange for them to receive a fief or a bishopric somewhere.
 +
 +
:Another thing is that going on a crusade was ''ridiculously'' expensive, and many of the crusaders had to outright mortgage their holdings to afford it. It just doesn't make sense why these people spent such extreme amounts of money on moving an army halfway across the known world when they could just as easily, and much more economically, have used it to beat up their neighbour and take his land instead.  The religious motivation, on the other hand, makes perfect sense if you remember that the early crusades were understood by contemporaries as simply a 'peregrinatio in armis' - an armed pilgrimage. Religion is not just a pretext here, it was the fundamental reason for the whole project.
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:And by the way, I'm also afraid that ConservapediaRoolz may be slightly overestimating the power of the 11th-12th century Papacy. There is such a thing as the [[Investiture conflict]], after all. --{{User:AKjeldsen/sig}} 21:58, 20 March 2009 (EDT)

Revision as of 01:58, 21 March 2009

What is being challanged in this edit? The the quoted material was actually asserted, or that the assertion is correct? If the later, I think the place to challange it is at the original source of the quote. HeartGold tx 09:03, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, MM, for this edit. I concur. HeartGold tx 09:32, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I have reinserted the following with HG's comment in quotes --- Although Christianity has been responsible for many deaths a Christian apologist recently justified this saying, "The number of people killed in the name of Christianity pales in comparison to the number of people killed in the name of atheistic ideologies such as communism (Mao, Stalin)."---- --Bob_M (talk) 12:55, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

It would be interesting to analyze, based on percentage of population, how the crusades and inquisition and pogroms compared to Naziism and Stalinism. I don't pretend to know the answer.--PalMD-Goatspeed! 12:59, 3 July 2007 (CDT)
Yes, I guess it would. If I remember my history correctly the 100 years war should count in there too.--Bob_M (talk) 13:17, 3 July 2007 (CDT)
You might make a case for the Thirty Years War, but hardly the 100 Years one. --AKjeldsenGodspeed! 17:18, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

Do we get to count all religious wars/killing as "the other side" to compare the "atheist" killers to? Or only Christianity? humanbe in 17:23, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

God only knows.--PalMD-Goatspeed! 17:43, 3 July 2007 (CDT)
And then you have all the people killed through Acts of God. This could get complicated. We may need to form a committee or something. --AKjeldsenGodspeed! 18:02, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

Arminians?

Should we be clear that this has nothing to do with Armenia so it doesn't get corrected and recorrected forever? humanbe in 23:06, 3 September 2007 (CDT)

Good call. I thought it was in fact referring to the Armenian Church. --AKjeldsenGodspeed! 03:35, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, me too, but I figured if someone corrected it back to "i" they must have a reason, so I looked it up on WP. And added the footnote to prevent future confusion. humanbe in 13:21, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Distressing

Just a little background info; I've been a lurker here for a while now. I like to laugh at CP so naturally this wiki suits me fine, lol. I'm sure I'll end up making an account here. Anyway, I just wanted to say how distressing it is to be Christian with so many fundies and pentacostals running around. See, I accept hard evolution as fact; I believe you can be an upstanding human being whether you have any sort of faith or not, whether its the same I have or not. Though I personally believe in God, and at the very least I view Jesus as having been, if nothing else, a man with a good idea and lessons to follow. But, not only do I not take the Bible literally, I go so far as to wonder if anything of it is really relevant anymore AT ALL. And anything of real value in it, are best taken as metaphors and symbols rather than, excuse the pun, "bible and verse" (I'm a major fan of Ecclesiastes). Basically, everything warped and extreme about Christianity that makes some people condemn it in its entirety is completely absent in me. While I am not a hard "liberal" I sure as hell am not what most would consider a "conservative" except maybe as far as my personal finances are concerned lol, but I digress... I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with homosexuals. I don't think everyone who is not Christian or as if that somehow isn't good enough, is not "born again" (which is ridiculous, that's what baptism is anyway, you don't need it a second freakin time as if you need it at all but then im rambling again...) is condemned to "Hell" (which in the classic sense I do not believe in...). And not only do I not feel the need to proselytize and evangelize, I do feel that such actions are NOT wise, and I highly doubt Christ would want me to shove my views down everyone's throat in some hypcritical act to "save them" when in truth it would just be to make myself look good. As it is with the vast majority of fundies. I am of the turn the other cheek, love thy neighbour, a time for every purpose kind. I sincerely feel that were Jesus to be here today, He would not be doing and saying anything these fundies and pentacostals would expect of Him. In fact I'm quite certain they would be in for a stern chastisement.

Oh and as an aside, I am absolutely in love with the concept of a seperation between church and state. Best idea man has has in all of history if you ask me. I am against official prayer in public schools, though if any student wants to pray for whatever while in the building, he should not be stifled, no matter his faith, that is of course that his prayer doesnt somehow harm another,, i mean actual harm. But any genuine prayer wouldn't anyway. I do not run aroud screaming "America is a Christian nation!" It certainly is NOT, re: seperation between church and state, and we are much the better for being a secular state rather than a theocracy. And just to add some icing to the cake, I think the whole concept of homeschooling is flawed at best, dangerous and insane at worst.

So I guess my point is, as a logical and rational person with a flair for humanism and a scientific mind and yet a Christian at the same time, I am saddened that there are those out there, certain fundies and pentacostals, that have so maligned my faith that other perfectly rational and logical human beings like me take a dim view to my faith, even though I share nothing with those that carry a warped and disfigured version of it; that it seems as if "normal" Christians like me are made to pay for the trespasses of others. -Signed, John, "JRos83" on CP, currently on my third block there. Christian (Lutheran, ELCA, not those crazy Missouri Synod types lol), rational and logical. Moderate. Loves people.

EDIT: Yay, I made an account! So here is the proper four tilde signature! Jros83 05:51, 12 December 2008 (EST)

cut from page

Various Christians addressed at Rational Wiki

Surely there is a category we could use for the many xtians with articles? Or perhaps it even exists? If so, we could just link to the cat. And that's the sensible way to do it (or a dynamic nav template that lists them all). ħumanUser talk:Human 22:51, 16 February 2009 (EST)

That is what I was hoping for, cause this seems a dumb place to put these "small" or "insignifcant" pastors, but there are a host of them that have one liner pages with nothing really directing anyone to the page or from the page. (hint, I found these two in the "special page, orphans" and wanted to stick them somewhere, so the pour souls aren't just left to sit in a wiki and never be found....--EnAttendantGodot 22:56, 16 February 2009 (EST)
Might want to look for a good cat for them, first - there's probably a subcat under category:christianity, or should be. Perhaps there could even be a page listing "minor xtian figures" or some such to cleanly de-orphan them? ħumanUser talk:Human 23:26, 16 February 2009 (EST)
There is category:christians by the way. ħumanUser talk:Human 23:27, 16 February 2009 (EST)
Ah good, my tomorrow project! — Unsigned, by: EnAttendantGodot / talk / contribs
:) ħumanUser talk:Human 01:35, 17 February 2009 (EST)

salvation

I got confused in the edit comment... SDA is not universalist (i was thinking anihilationist). But, for instance, some unitarian and quaker sects are. It's not fair to marginalize them because it's not inline with a particular author's flavor of Christianity and I don't think we need to get into a beard fallacy here. Neveruse513 12:45, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

What I mean is, if you thought you had only to become a Christian once and be saved forever, you could then logically act as violently or irreligiously as you wanted and there would be no comeback, no damnation, no consequences. The fact that people do not do this shows that the doctrine is more complex than the article currently suggests.--ConservapediaRoolz 12:51, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
More than enough universalists disagree. Neveruse513 12:53, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
It's not arguable that the number of universalists compared to the overall number of christians is relatively 'few'. How about "few Christians"? Because "few if any" is disingenuous. Neveruse513 12:58, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

Crusades

The section on the Crusades is facile. They were fought primarily for economic and political reasons, with religion involved partly as a convenient pretext and partly because it was involved with everything at that time. I tried to indicate the complexity of the issue with a qualifying sentence at the end of the section, but was reverted by Neveruse. Sorry, Neveruse, but the current situation is nothing like how religious and temporal office were commingled during that period.--ConservapediaRoolz 12:46, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

It's funny, because we do many economic and political things under the guise of religion. I could have sworn someone said invading Iraq was a mission from God...but yeah, it's nothing like that, is it? We'll need another opinion. Neveruse513 12:50, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did.
At the time of the Crusades, the Pope didn't just rule the Vatican, he ruled large parts of Italy and had hudge armies at his disposal. Furthermore, his power extended into every other Christian country because if he fell out with people, he could excommunicate them and damn them to hell. Because the office held this power, Popes came from the most ruthless members of noble families who politicked and climbed over each other to get the office - they were not primarily religious people. The same thing happened with bishops and cardinals all over Europe to a lesser degree. This ingrained unity between religious office and actual power is a long way from one politician believing that his religion guides his moral compass, and is, as I stated before I was reverted, all but unthinkable in today's world.--ConservapediaRoolz 12:57, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
Would you agree that religious and temporal power are intertwined in America today? Neveruse513 13:10, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
No. A lot of people in government are religious, but they have no religious power. That is to say, they can't appoint bishops, pronounce on doctrine, excommunicate people, or anything like that.--ConservapediaRoolz 13:17, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
It is very difficult to deny that religion and temporal are intertwined. Can you somehow evidence your position? All I can find is GWB saying God told him to go on a Crusade against terrorism (oh ya, and for oil...). Neveruse513 13:24, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
Can you honestly deny the de facto required Christianity of the President of the United States? How does that not make them intertwined? Neveruse513 13:27, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
Yes I can deny it. Before Obama, I expect a lot of people would have said a black candidate would never be elected. And you are missing my main point, which is that people with temporal power, however religious as individuals, hold no authority within religious organisations.--ConservapediaRoolz 13:33, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
I think you're missing the point that I can imagine this and that our wars of conquest/glory/peace of mind/etc are carried out partially under the guise of religion. To say it is unimaginable is ludicrous. Also, please look up de facto. There has been a de facto requirement that is obvious. Neveruse513 13:35, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
Neveruse, as much as I dislike the power Christianity holds over our government, saying that our leaders have Religious authority is wrong and backwards. Xianty *may* (depending on the leader and which xianity) hold authority over them, but no President or Member of Congress at large is now or ever has been in a position of authority over Christianity. Maybe I'm missing your point, and i do agree that Christianity and Political power are intertwined in teh US, ConsevR is correct that it is not a formal relationship.--Sun mowse.pngEn attendant Godot""We are all born mad. Some remain so." 13:47, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
Thanks, WfG. Can you look at the revision in question and propose something?

I was never intending to imply that I thought religion had no influence on Government. However, to suggest that the relationship resembles the situation in the time of the Crusades is laughable - you'll notice, for example, that local pastors are not currently empowered to levy tithes on your earnings to support their churches' good works. The article as it stands suggests that the Crusades were undertaken entirely for religious reasons, which is wrong: the truth is (predictably) much more complex.--ConservapediaRoolz 14:04, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

One of the problems you both have, is in understanding (or rather, defining) what government is, and what a democracy is, and the roles of kings and their non-landowning sons, and the benefits that the church at large gained from the crusades both in "back home" in terms of support for the church, as well as being united in a cause against a very very rich country. There was, without doubt a very important aspect to the crusades that exists purely on the level of "we are right, we are christian, and we are obligated to please our Lord above". There was also lots and lots of money. I think the problem both of you are having is that this is a one paragraph blurb that probably should be a page in itself, fleshed out and argued over -- the religious aspects highlighted, the reasons modern xians want to do revisionism over who decided to go to war and what the real role of the church was, etc. It is truly one of the most ugly times for Christianity, but I can see where in 1 paragraph, none of that, or the associated counter to that will come to light. Just my long winded $.02.--Sun mowse.pngEn attendant Godot""We are all born mad. Some remain so." 14:17, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
My contention is that it's not very hard for me to imagine..."we are right, we are christian, and we are obligated to please our Lord above" is almost word for word GWB.
So are you suggesting that we leave the paragraph as-is and take care of it in Crusades? Neveruse513 14:22, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
Neveruse - I agree, it is very GWB. he was so intertwined with the Christian Right (a very particular aspect of Christianity) that he had daily calls with various religious leaders to "check" what he was doing, and in fact made public statements about "talking with god". But the difference here and with the Crusades, is that we are (supposed to be) a democracy, and he neither speaks for Christianity, nor does he have the legal right (again, "in theory") to use his religion as a motivation for war. As for the paragraph, were it me, I'd jump on the great topic and go make a page on the Crusades. You know it, you both have opinions on it. It would be a good resource for WP,e tc. :-)--Sun mowse.pngEn attendant Godot""We are all born mad. Some remain so." 14:55, 19 March 2009 (EDT)
We have been getting away from the point of this page, which is to discuss improvements to the article. The article as it stands states that the Crusades were waged in order to try and bring about the Second Coming of Christ by driving the heathen from Jerusalem. This is incorrect - it may even be parody. Like all wars, the Crusades were fought because powerful people wanted to increase their power - the religious element follows from the time's overlap between religious and earthly authority, which, excuse me, was far and away greater than it is today.
Regarding the role of religion in today's government, yes it does have influence, but only as a lobby group just like the business lobby, the environmental lobby, and many others. Regarding the de facto requirement for the President to be Christian:
  1. I don't think it's anywhere near as strong as the de facto requirement for him/her to be wealthy. The US is much more of a plutocracy than it is a theocracy.
  2. It's only a requirement to be aligned with a church - Obama is a Christian, but isn't defined by his Christianity and probably won't be bringing dogma into policy a great deal.--ConservapediaRoolz 07:56, 20 March 2009 (EDT)
I think that People don't Always Remember that Obama is a Committed Christian President.--Tolerance 14:00, 20 March 2009 (EDT)
The idea that the crusades happened primarily for economic reasons is one that was rather popular a few decades ago among certain materialist historians who couldn't quite wrap their minds around the idea of 'faith' as a significant motivation. However, it completely falls apart when you look at it closer. The crusades were not fought by or even on behalf of "landless sons" or "poor knights" or whatever else one might think up. They were funded and executed by some of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles of Europe, such as Robert of Flanders, Godfrey of Bouillon, Roger of Normandy and Stephen of Blois, and later, of course, by the Emperor and the kings of England and France. I can guarantee that these people did not care at all about poor knights, and if they had younger sons that needed land, they could just give them a piece of land, or arrange for them to receive a fief or a bishopric somewhere.
Another thing is that going on a crusade was ridiculously expensive, and many of the crusaders had to outright mortgage their holdings to afford it. It just doesn't make sense why these people spent such extreme amounts of money on moving an army halfway across the known world when they could just as easily, and much more economically, have used it to beat up their neighbour and take his land instead. The religious motivation, on the other hand, makes perfect sense if you remember that the early crusades were understood by contemporaries as simply a 'peregrinatio in armis' - an armed pilgrimage. Religion is not just a pretext here, it was the fundamental reason for the whole project.
And by the way, I'm also afraid that ConservapediaRoolz may be slightly overestimating the power of the 11th-12th century Papacy. There is such a thing as the Investiture conflict, after all. --AKjeldsenCum dissensie 21:58, 20 March 2009 (EDT)