101–110 of 146 posts
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How can “genocide” apply to a voluntary religious group? And even if it could, the linked wikipedia article doesn’t seem to support your claim, either. Do you have anything else we could review?
Genocide, as defined by the UN, includes religious groups. https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
What blew me away was the proliferation of the Church of the East. I never knew Christianity had that much of a foothold in Asia. I wonder if geographically it appears more significant due to that region’s sparse population?
From the comments here I think I'm going to look into the Indian off shoots. Up until now I've mainly explored through Egyptian, Syrian, and Greek/Russian orthodox friends. I wonder if there is an Indian style church established in the US that would have literature created to be accessible to an American church centric point of view? I've always envied the deep spirituality my Indian Christian/Muslim friends have had, I wonder if exploring the Indian church could help me with that. I did a couple year long study with a Pakistani Muslim friend but I didn't really connect with it, though his beautiful spirituality/groundedness/family beleifs have been a godsend as a life mentor.
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No, it's because your education is western-centric and Islamic invasions took over the east. Eastern Christians have been subjected to genocide at the hands of Muslims for 1300 years. Edit - really, someone is asking for a citation that the Islamic conquests happened? Next should ask for a citation that the sky is blue... This is basic world history, like the discovery of the new world, Alexander the Great's conquest…
the linked article describes military campaigns between state armies, not genocide
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> religion is primarily for control of the people. Thats why you see a lot of rules in the bible. thank God the world has moved past this kind of 2010s New Atheism.
Oh, the irony. Yes, it does feed a spiritual need but is's absolutely about control. The current US administration is guided by Project 2025 which wants God to govern (so to speak). I spend a lot of time thinking about religion, and most of that is anger/fear over the religious zealots who want to control everybody else.
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Oh, the irony. Yes, it does feed a spiritual need but is's absolutely about control. The current US administration is guided by Project 2025 which wants God to govern (so to speak). I spend a lot of time thinking about religion, and most of that is anger/fear over the religious zealots who want to control everybody else.
There is a control dimension, because humans require some degree of limitations in order to thrive. Ultra-individualism breaks down entirely the moment you think about actual society (like actually considering children) rather than utopian fantasies about how some people want society to work. That being said, the way anti-religion ppl talk about "control" is so profoundly sloppy and underdefined that it's entirely me…
Not a religion, not a faith. It's simply well-publicized challenging of religion.
I think that you only see it as such because of how you see the world, but Dawkins, Harris, et al are not my leaders and I strongly disagree with several of their positions.
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Oh, the irony. Yes, it does feed a spiritual need but is's absolutely about control. The current US administration is guided by Project 2025 which wants God to govern (so to speak). I spend a lot of time thinking about religion, and most of that is anger/fear over the religious zealots who want to control everybody else.
Does western music lack value because it was forced to settle on 440 Hz? Is punk un-redeemable because there is a nazi punk offshoot?
I’m sure a book has been written with this thesis, but I often think that a system like Christianity was somewhat inevitable, sociopolitically. By this I don’t really mean the specifics of the religion; but rather 1) the idea of universalizing the value all human life and not only certain subsets and 2) a synthesis of ideology and politics with the explicit goal of expanding its domain by means of assimilation, not j…
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> There is a clear phase in our history which was long and no progress was made "Dark age". The Dark Ages are kind of a myth. The Eastern Roman Empire (aka. Byzantine Empire) existed through the whole time period up to the beginning of the Renaissance. And while some parts of Western Europe were "dark" (mainly due to Viking and Islamic invasions), Western Europe wasn't and isn't the whole world.
The Dark Ages are dark, because they lack surviving written record; ironically due to advancements in writing technology, where people would begin writing on hides instead of papyrus or chisel stone; this made writing a lot faster, but also had a far shorter life span, particularly because people could wipe the hide clean (after the text was of no use), and then rewrite on it. Conversely, a lot of the writings of the…
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There is a control dimension, because humans require some degree of limitations in order to thrive. Ultra-individualism breaks down entirely the moment you think about actual society (like actually considering children) rather than utopian fantasies about how some people want society to work. That being said, the way anti-religion ppl talk about "control" is so profoundly sloppy and underdefined that it's entirely me…
> the New Atheism movement Not a religion, not a faith. It's simply well-publicized challenging of religion. I think that you only see it as such because of how you see the world, but Dawkins, Harris, et al are not my leaders and I strongly disagree with several of their positions.
Also relevant here is that the concept of "religion" itself was introduced very recently in the 16th and 17th centuries, and seems to have been created so that specific groups of people could consider their own activities as being non-religious. See Before Religion by Nongbri.
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> the New Atheism movement Not a religion, not a faith. It's simply well-publicized challenging of religion. I think that you only see it as such because of how you see the world, but Dawkins, Harris, et al are not my leaders and I strongly disagree with several of their positions.
If you abstract away the specific claims made by new New Atheists (either the leaders or the footsoldiers) and analyze it from a purely sociological point of view - it behaves identically to any other religion or faith - especially when you consider that strong, top-down leadership is not a universal property of religion. Also relevant here is that the concept of "religion" itself was introduced very recently in the…
What is the analysis? What is the behavior? I'm genuinely curious. Help me see what I am apparently blind to seeing.