All Comments (36)

Here's an unbiased source:

http://www.jstor.org/view/00030279/ap020180/02a00510/0

Ryan:

Just because the Wikipedia entry is supposedly biased does not mean its untrue. I know because my forefathers fled Goa to escape the religious persecution at the hands of the Portuguese. There was a systemic genocide of Hindus in Goa at the hands of the Portuguese and thats a historical fact, not fiction!

Nivedita,

The use of the word "Holocaust" to describe the unhappy fate of native Americans, in either North or South America, is also a horrifying exaggeration.

What Anglo-Protestant settlers in North America did to the native Americans was both systematic and accidental, but it was not genocidal, though certainly millions of native Americans died - from smallpox. You aren't blaming settlers for spreading diseases to which they were also subject, are you? The systematic part was encroachment on native American lands, and wars, chalk-full of atrocities, to remove the native Americans from their lands. I won't defend the conduct of Anglo-Protestant settlers. I can't, for that matter.

What happened in South America was altogether different. The encomendado system, resembling slavery in some key areas, was in law and in fact very different. Similar, because it included forced labor without any real compensation. Yet it diverged because Church law - and civil law in both Spanish and Portuguese territories - required the release of native encomendados upon their baptism as Christians. This possibility made the system singularly unpopular with the landowners, who benefitted financially from it. It was unpopular with the clergy because of abuses within it, because of scandal it gave to the natives, and because of its ineffectiveness at producing sincere conversions (duh). Disease wasn't as much of an issue in South America as in North America, and there is to this day a much larger indigenous population in South America than in North America. Except in the 20th century, there wasn't any systematic effort to destroy indigenous populations. Argentina and Chile experienced such efforts under secular regimes subscribing to racial ideologies; Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras in particular experienced widespread destruction in which natives (and others) were badly harmed, but not for racial reasons as much as for economic ideology.

As for the rest of the indigenous population of South America? What happened to them in the "holocaust" you mention? Those dirty Catholic settlers hated them so much that they married them, had children, and produced the meztizo ethnicities and cultures that make up the great majority of Latin American populations today.

Several of my father's aunts, uncles, and cousins were, as part of a very modern and technological organized effort in a very modern and secular state, taken from their homes, deprived of their belongings, shipped in cattle cars across the continent, gassed to death with cyanide, and burnt until nothing remained of them whatsoever. In this, they shared the fate with millions of other people in a span of just about 4 1/2 to 6 years, depending on how you count what.

The use of the term Holocaust, other than for its designated purposes (burnt whole-offerings, and the Jewish Shoah from 1941-45) really, really runs the risk of insulting the memory and descendents of its victims.

Was the continual, treachous predation of native lands particularly nice? No. It was particularly bad. Does that make it in any way like the Holocaust? No, except that in both people died and that their murderers were not particularly nice people.

"And even if the Wikipedia entry is supposedly biased or whatever, the point is that Christianity spread by violence..."

No, it's not. The point is that making unsubstantiated allegations, or allegations substantiated by a solitary, dubious source, is liable, negligent, bigoted, or some combination thereof. You said that I shouldn't base my conclusions on one opinion, but you seem to have done exactly the same thing.

Ryan: I meant the holocaust of the native Americans (also the ones in South America), not Indians. My poor choice of words!

And even if the Wikipedia entry is supposedly biased or whatever, the point is that Christianity spread by violence. The fact is that the Portuguese did use terror to spread their religion, that was the point I was trying to make. And it was not just the Hindus who were persecuted in Goa. If you read, the Syrian Christians who were among the first Christians in India were also persecuted for their faith.

As far as your co-worker is concerned, thats his opinion, but I wouldn't base my conclusions about Christians in India and their actions in general based on one opinion.

Ryan Haber,

"No, the approach is called spiritual interpretation (in this case typological), as opposed to literal/historical."

Right. Your typological spiritual interpretation engages in retroactive shoehorning. Now I understand that you don't perceive it that way and that's perfectly fine with me. We don't have to agree on it.

I think I can sum up the rest of your post rather handily: "You picked the wrong denomination TJ and if you aren't (or weren't) a Catholic you really have no business with a bible anyway".

I don't think it's possible to progress much farther given that. Thanks for the chat though.

Nivedita,

Fine, Goa. Ya got me there. I read the Wikipedia link. Did you see how many of the references were marked 'dubious' and that the article itself was contested as lacking neutrality? Great source, that. Again, a webpage.

You again use the term "holocaust" to which I again, as kin to Holocaust-survivors, take exception.

You simply cannot expect me to believe that the Bishop and Inquisitors of Goa had cattle cars full of Hindus being indiscriminately thrown into gas chambers. Even the Wikipedia article cites a whole, whopping 121 executions in the first few years alone. Good grief, I think Texas beats that. You're honestly comparing that to the Nazi action against European Jewry by using the same word? That killed maybe 1.2 million in its first year or so. Are you out of your mind?

One of my Hindu coworkers, when told by a lapsed Christian that Christians do no good and never have, replied immediately, "Are you kidding? Everyone in India knows that the only people who do good for anyone but themselves are the Christians!"

But that was just his opinion - I've never been there.

I did not compare the burning of the Alexandria library to the holocaust. I compared the Christian atrocities (mass murder) to the concept of "burn all" (holocaust). You should read what I write before putting words into my mouth.

"You would be amazed how much of what we "know" is actually reconstructed hypotheses strung together from an amazingly few fragments of papyrus and clay pots in ditches."

You describe the Christian sources quite well.

TJ,

"Your claim varies with denomination. There is wild variance even between the LCMS and the ELCA. Defend your claim of an absolute 'correct' reading the bible in light of this fact or withdraw the claim."

Hmmm... True. That is a problem.

"Now you're out in fantasy land. What you're doing, although I doubt you realize it, and what the NT authors did, and I'm certain they realized it, is known as 'retroactive shoehorning'."

No, the approach is called spiritual interpretation (in this case typological), as opposed to literal/historical. I didn't even hint that the original authors intended any such meaning, but only that subsequent readers have, with the help of the Holy Spirit, seen such meaning in it. Spiritual interpretation is only properly done when coherent with the literal/historical meaning, but it need not agree with it continuously.

The problem in understanding the Bible is understanding its contexts: the contexts of its books' drafting, the context of their compilation into the Bible as we have it, and the context of its interpretation.

The New Testament books do not precede the Church. Paul's earliest letters are written and addressed to already extant Christian communities. The Church does not emerge from the Bible, but the Bible from the Church. That's Protestantism's first and biggest mistake underlying all its biblical interpretation. Protestant exegetes, theologians, and pastors put the cart before the horse. That causes problems.

The books were not compiled in a vaccuum, nor does any of them include a list of books that should be included. As a prooftext, Evangelicals will often quote 2 Tim 3:16-17, "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." While the verse may or may not be true, it only underlines the problem: what is to be included in the Scripture? Very likely, none of the Gospels, John's letters, the catholic letters, or Revelation had been written yet. Are they useful or no? The books of the Bible were not compiled by the Bible, but by a consensus of Bishops of the Catholic Church. Those books, if we are to understand what was intended for us, have to be read in that light.

Even in their own time, Paul speaks about the things people have learned from him, either in writing or by word of mouth (2 Thes 2:15). The books of the Bible are part of a broader teaching tradition that has continued without pause or rupture since before the books were penned. After all, who taught the first converts, and by what means, about Jesus of Nazareth even before the gospels were written? Should their audiences have disregarding things that they heard but were not included in the gospels 20 or 40 years later? Should we reject the teaching authority that gives us the Bible, but not the Bible? The Bible is part of the broader teaching of the Church, and has to be interpreted in that light.

This approach clearly gets to the question of denomination that you brought up. The LCMS and ELCA are both nice enough denominations, but what sort of claim do they have to authoritative scriptural interpretation? Martin Luther himself wasn't very coherent on the matter of authority and interpretation, both encouraging each reader to read and interpret for himself, and then execrating those who interpreted it differently than he had.

The Catholic Church has at least been coherent on the matter. Her outlook has always been that:

1) The scriptures are inerrant. In Thomas Aquinas' words, "The scriptures are always right; where we see them to be wrong, it is only that we have wrongly understood their intent."

2) The Bible is a book of the Church, and authoritative interpretation comes from the Church.

3) Because the Bible is only right in its intended meaning, it cannot conflict with other sources of knowledge, like science. If it seems to, then something has been misunderstood. For instance, the Genesis (and Exodus) creation accounts aren't intended to be scientific texts on evolution or cosmology. They are theologically directed - to tell us the "why" of creation, and not the "how". Science tells us the mechanics, the "how" and not the reason wherefore.

4) Individuals are free to interpret different parts as they like, as long as their interpretations do not conflict with authoritative teaching, and build up faith, hope, and charity.

I cannot defend Protestant understanding of the Scriptures and their interpretation. In fact, in my mind, those things are fairly indefensible. But the Catholic approach has a long tradition of accepting and dealing with historical-critical research, integration with science, and academic debate that has kept there from being anything like a Catholic fundamentalism that rejects evolution, etc.

Ryan Haber:

Perhaps this might convince you that Christianity did spread violently:

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

And this is perhaps one instance. I wonder what happened in the holocaust of the Native Indians by their "colonisers".

Gerry,

I do not approve of burning at the stake, nor of church-state mingling, nor of punishment for "wrong beliefs."

That's why I wrote:
"Granting burning at the stake is never good"

My point was only to show that Bruno was not executed for scientific teaching, as Duckphup had asserted. That's all.

"Will you really deny the death of Hypatia, the destruction of the Alexandria library and countless other "heathen" shrines and monuments by the Christian zealots?"

No, I don't deny that, nor did I deny it in my post. I didn't address it. I said that 50% of what Duckphup cut-and-pasted was fabrication. That's a different question, isn't it.

"This is all documented, a lot more than all the "original" stories about Jesus."

Not likely. You evidently know very little about classical historiography. You would be amazed how much of what we "know" is actually reconstructed hypotheses strung together from an amazingly few fragments of papyrus and clay pots in ditches.

The comparison of an angry mob burning a library (which happened to the Royal Library at Alexandria, for instance, a number of times before Christians every came on the scene) to the Holocaust, the systematic slaughter of 6,000,000+ people - that is horrifying.

People throw around comparisons to the Holocaust much too readily.

Ryan Haber approves of Giordano Bruno's being burned at the stake. Luther strongly favored witch burning, by the way, and he was very outspoken about the necessity to annihilate all Jews (just google the "Tischreden" of Luther).

Will you really deny the death of Hypatia, the destruction of the Alexandria library and countless other "heathen" shrines and monuments by the Christian zealots? This is all documented, a lot more than all the "original" stories about Jesus.

Of course you can just say "I don't believe it" and stick your faithful head into the sand. That does not change the Christian atrocities, which amount to a figuratively spoken "holocaust" (Greek: "burn all"), both against other religions and against "heretics", which, according to your justification of Bruno's death, you will certainly find a way to defend. Religion, in the 30 years' war, reduced the population of Germany by two thirds.

I am glad I don't have to defend myself for heresy with Ryan Haber as Christian judge in the year 430 or 1640, (roughly). There would not be much to laugh about.

Ryan Haber,

Yes, I did about 10 years as Missouri Synod Lutheran. The 10 years after have been spent trying to poke holes in my deconversion.

First: "The story is firstly an attempt at a historical account of the actual events by the author, though time had elapsed from the orally-related events to his own time, and facts had become somewhat garbled. His interpretation of motives, God's will, etc., are freely incorporated into the account he tells, but we Christians need not believe that the author understood these things inerrantly - only that the text inerrantly contains what God wants us to read."

Your claim varies with denomination. There is wild variance even between the LCMS and the ELCA. Defend your claim of an absolute 'correct' reading the bible in light of this fact or withdraw the claim.

Second: I tend to agree with you here.

Third: Ok, sure.

Fourth: "Fourthly, Christians recognize the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit not only in the writing of these texts, but in their interpretation given new contexts. We see that Christ himself has become the sacrificial lamb, and that by putting his blood on the doors to our hearts, we are incorporated into the covenant made between God and the Israelites as Rahab herself was. This is done not because we deserve it, any more than Rahab the harlot deserved to be incorporated into the community. Rather, her joining her fate to that of the Jews is like our joining our fate to that of Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth. What must be annihilated from our lives, then? Sin - anything that opposes God must be expelled from our hearts, stamped out, destroyed, as the citizens of Jericho were slaughtered. But whatever in us is good and helpful to living a devout life, as Rahab helped the Jews, is to be spared and incorporated into the new creation that God is working in us."

Now you're out in fantasy land. What you're doing, although I doubt you realize it, and what the NT authors did, and I'm certain they realized it, is known as 'retroactive shoehorning'.

You aren't teaching me anything. You're only reminding me of why I left in the first place.

Duckphup,

Just because you provide a timeline of events doesn't mean that they happened. We'll try it:

1985 Santa Claus brought Ryan a real rocketship
1986 Ryan assembled the rocketship and flew to the moon.

Nope. Didn't happen. Coincidentally, that timeline seems to have been cut and paste intact from one of a number of websites. I started searching around because though I took my undergraduate degree in Classical History, and much of what was included seemed like it could have been an interpretation of real events, I could not remember any mention of Skythopolis anywhere for any reason. I started googling around and still can't find reference either to it, or to its highly unlikely "death camps".

Just because you find something on the web that helps you to articulate an emotional animus against Christians doesn't make it so. I wonder for how many of those events you mentioned you can find independent citation in a published (thus juried by professional historians with reputations on the line) book (not webpage - any crank can write anything they like, as these blogs themselves too often prove).

"Christianity was spread at the point of a sword... convert or die."

Who, pray tell, did the swording? I mean, for the first 300 years or so, Christianity was always a minority. It persisted in being a minority (though rapidly grew) under Constantine (because of the privileged position he gave it). Honorius did order the confiscation of churches and property from dissident Christians in the Edict of Unity, 405, but Theodosius wasn't emperor until 379 - I wonder in particular where you (or whomever) found the reference to something he supposedly said in 373. That point is immaterial to your argument, really, except to show that you argument by timelining is really at least 50% fabrication. Another example, it claims that Christians introducted the word "pagan" as a derogative. Not so at all. In Latin for centuries before Christ, "pagus" meant an outlying country district, something like what we might call a township or county. "Paganus" was an inhabitant thereof well before Christians came around, and far from being intended by Christians to dehumanize pagans, the people of the "pagi" had always been considered to be idiots. Just think of what most Eastcoasters think of concerning West Virginians or east Kentuckians - are those urban-vs.-rural prejudices also Christian concoctions? You don't honestly expect me to believe that all my friends growing up in Montgomery Co., Maryland were planning to annihilate our neighbors in Frederick, and that calling them Frednecks was the first part of the plan, do you?

"The Christian hierarchy passed laws that made all 'pagan' belief punishable by torture and execution."

You wrote that, rather than your timeline, so I'll challenge you pointblank to provide a (published) citation. Even if you cannot find a written citation for this particular act or set of acts, if you can find a citation for any evidence that Christian hierarchy in that time period EVER had legal right to "pass laws", I'll accept that as a good faith showing.

"All 'pagan' knowledge was ordered to be destroyed."

By whom? When? By St. Augustine and St. Jerome, or by St. John Chrysostom, or by Pope St. Damasus, or by St. Ambrose - all those most influential leaders of that time period were absolutely immersed in this "pagan knowledge". Even if she had wanted to, the Church didn't have to destroy it - the barbarians (both Arian, i.e., nonconforming Christians, and entirely pagan) were very happily stealing or burning everything they got their hands on.

"This was the beginning of a 1,400 year 'Reign of Terror'... 'holocaust'... whatever you want to call it."

I have family who died in the holocaust. The analogy is abusive at best, and it shows you have no grasp of the historical nature of the Reign of Terror, the Holocaust, or the terminal period of the Roman Empire.

"For example, it was not until around the time of World War I that medical technology again equaled what it was near the end of the Roman Empire."

You very stupidly pose the idea that ancient Christians somehow had the organizational and technological means to organize a 1400 year long annihilation-and-suppression campaign, but hadn't the means to cure syphillis because they had destroyed it out of sheer hatred? Do you really think that the ancients had a vaccine for the plague, used nitrous oxide as an anesthetic, developed germ theory, or invented something like the electrocardiograph? And that Christians destroyed those things (any one of them) out of hatred of "pagan learning"?

Yet, these same people were able to coordinate the vast array of human-beaurocratic and technological means needed to effect either the Reign of Terror or the Holocaust? How?! Could you organize such a thing, even with modern technology? How were they supposed to, without even a reliable postal system to communicate their plans to each other?

Come on! Would you please think before you make up stupid lies? I mean stupid in the fullest sense of the word: speaking on that about which you simply have no coherent ideas or facts, but only anger and a prideful disregard for truth.

"It was just 400 years ago that Giordanno Bruno was burned at the stake for daring to suggest that all them little tiny lights up thar in the sky were actually suns... very much like our own... except very far away."

Granting burning at the stake is never good, Bruno was not executed for holding by-then well-accepted ideas. Copernicus had received awards for those same ideas by his Catholic university. Bruno was burnt for a number of theological positions he taught (why was an astronomer teaching theological positions?) which at least clears the Catholic Church of the charge of burning people for science, in this case. Even a glance at Wikipedia's page on the man reveals as much.

Duckphup, please... I don't know. Learn something from someplace other than the web. I try to avoid any sort of rancor, but this time I am really exasperated by the wildness of the entire email. Also, it's bad form to cut-and-paste a 2 or 3 page "article" from a webpage. If you are going to be as longwinded as I am, you could at least give us your own words. Good grief.

TJ,

I hadn't realized that you were an apostate (your own word) from Christianity. You may very well have made serious and scholarly attempts to make sense of the Bible, and even have received some guidance in doing so. My conclusion that you don't understand the Bible correctly wasn't drawn because you haven't reached my conclusions about it; this isn't a matter of me making absolute what should be a subjective preference or opinion.

Reading the Bible is a *bit* more like chemistry or physics than that (or, really, more like literary criticism or historical research). That is, I wrote that you haven't understood the Bible correctly because there IS a correct understanding of how it ought to be read, and because you haven't read it in that way. That's all.

For example take Joshua 6, which recounts the divine mandate for the complete destruction of Jericho, including all its inhabitants but Rahab and her household.

The story is firstly an attempt at a historical account of the actual events by the author, though time had elapsed from the orally-related events to his own time, and facts had become somewhat garbled. His interpretation of motives, God's will, etc., are freely incorporated into the account he tells, but we Christians need not believe that the author understood these things inerrantly - only that the text inerrantly contains what God wants us to read.

Secondly, the author has a purpose for recounting the story: to remind the Israelite people of their own particular relationship with God as elect and special children, of his providence, and of His power. This reminder was intended to strengthen their faith in Him and His good plan for them.

Thirdly, the Jewish rabbis who included the passage in their canon were well aware that its full scope is broader than just a war story of their warrior-god beating the warrior-god of Jericho. They did likely not believe that Jericho's warrior god was even real (let alone threatening). They noted in their reflections on the story aspects perhaps unnoticed even by its writer: Rahab, a gentile (and presumably an idolater), is to be spared because of her hospitality to and protection of the Jewish scouting party that had come to investigate Jericho's fortifications. The sign to mark out her house for protection is hanging a red cord from her window, recalling how the Israelites were protected from the angel of death in Egypt by smearing on their door posts the (red) blood from the sacrificed passover lamb. The rabbis thus saw that even gentiles can be included into Jewish covenant with God by helping the Jews. (This tradition is respected today, even, in Yad Vashem, the Israeli garden in honor of 'righteous gentiles' who helped them during the Holocaust, rather than surrendering them to murderers).

Fourthly, Christians recognize the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit not only in the writing of these texts, but in their interpretation given new contexts. We see that Christ himself has become the sacrificial lamb, and that by putting his blood on the doors to our hearts, we are incorporated into the covenant made between God and the Israelites as Rahab herself was. This is done not because we deserve it, any more than Rahab the harlot deserved to be incorporated into the community. Rather, her joining her fate to that of the Jews is like our joining our fate to that of Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth. What must be annihilated from our lives, then? Sin - anything that opposes God must be expelled from our hearts, stamped out, destroyed, as the citizens of Jericho were slaughtered. But whatever in us is good and helpful to living a devout life, as Rahab helped the Jews, is to be spared and incorporated into the new creation that God is working in us.

It is for this fourth level of interpretation in particular that such a passage was included in the Christian canon. It builds on the first three layers, but does not necessarily take them uncritically. The original author seems very much to have thought that God hates the babies of Jericho together with their nursing mothers and warrior dads. That doesn't mean that God actually did hate them, and it doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit actually intends the text for that reason.

This I take to be the authentic interpretation of the text as we have it because it is the interpretation given by the same people who chose to include it in the Christian canon for whatever purposes they had.

Do you see how nuanced understanding the Scriptures can be?

If you would care to discuss general methodology for understanding the Scriptures, or for understanding particular passages, you can email me at withouthavingseen at gmail.

Cal Thomas writes: "Conversion by coercion does not change hearts or minds."

OK... I'm gonna puke now.

Christians are generally taught... and Cal Thomas apparently believes... that their religion was spread at the hands of gentle missionaries, traipsing through the countryside, sharing the 'good news' with welcoming, eager and enthusiastic pagans, who were grateful to be receiving the 'truth'. What a load of crap. Christianity was spread at the point of a sword... convert or die. Mr. Thomas... THIS is how your religion was spread. The Christian hierarchy passed laws that made all 'pagan' belief punishable by torture and execution. All 'pagan' knowledge was ordered to be destroyed. Of course, this included over 1,000 years worth of the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of mankind... Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc., knowledge and lore... astronomy... science... literature... engineering... medicine... all the good stuff. This was the beginning of a 1,400 year 'Reign of Terror'... 'holocaust'... whatever you want to call it. For example, it was not until around the time of World War I that medical technology again equaled what it was near the end of the Roman Empire.

Up until the 'Enlightenment', christianity retained the political power to boil you in oil if THEY thought that YOUR thoughts were 'heretical'... i.e., non-biblical. It was just 400 years ago that Giordanno Bruno was burned at the stake for daring to suggest that all them little tiny lights up thar in the sky were actually suns... very much like our own... except very far away. After the ideals of secular humanism (human rights, etc.) emerged from the 'Age of Reason' though... barely 300 years ago... christianity was deprived of the political power that had previously allowed them to do things like that.

324 The emperor Constantine sacks the Oracle of the god Apollo and tortures the pagan priests to death. He also evicts all non-Christian peoples from Mount Athos and destroys all the local Hellenic temples.

335 Constantine sacks many pagan temples in Asia Minor and Palestine and orders the execution by crucifixion of “all magicians and soothsayers.” Martyrdom of the neoplatonist philosopher Sopatrus.

341 Constantius II (Flavius Julius Constantius) persecutes “all the soothsayers and the Hellenists.” Many gentile Hellenes are either imprisoned or executed.

354 A new edict of Constantius orders the destruction of the pagan temples and the execution of all “idolaters”. First burning of libraries in various cities of the empire.

359 In Skythopolis, Syria, the Christians organise the first death camps for the torture and executions of the arrested non-Christians from all around the empire.

364 Emperor Jovian orders the burning of the Library of Antioch. An Imperial edict (11th September) orders the death penalty for all those that worship their ancestral gods or practice divination. Three different edicts (4th February, 9th September, 23rd December) order the confiscation of all properties of the pagan temples and the death penalty for participation in pagan rituals, even private ones.

370 Valens orders a tremendous persecution of non-Christian peoples in all the Eastern Empire. In Antioch, among many other non-Christians, the ex-governor Fidustius and the priests Hilarius and Patricius are executed. The philosopher Simonides is burned alive and the philosopher Maximus is decapitated. Tons of books are burnt in the squares of the cities of the Eastern Empire.

372 Valens orders the governor of Minor Asia to exterminate all the Hellenes and all documents of their wisdom.

373 The term “pagan” (pagani, villagers, equivalent to the modern insult, “peasants”) is introduced by the Christians to demean non-believers. The non-Christians are called “loathsome, heretics, stupid and blind”. In another edict, Theodosius calls “insane” those that do not believe to the Christian God. The Christian priests lead the angry mob against the temple of goddess Demeter in Eleusis and try to lynch the hierophants Nestorius and Priskus.

381 At the Council of Constantinople the 'Holy Spirit' is declared 'Divine' (thus sanctioning a triune god). On 2nd May, Theodosius deprives of all their rights any Christians who return to the pagan religion. Throughout the Eastern Empire the pagan temples and libraries are looted or burned down.

385 to 388 Thousands of innocent pagans from all sides of the empire suffer martyrdom in the notorious death camps of Skythopolis.

389 to 390 Hordes of fanatic Christian hermits from the desert flood the cities of the Middle East and Egypt and destroy statues, altars, libraries and pagan temples, and lynch the pagans. Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, starts heavy persecutions against non-Christian peoples, turning the temple of Dionysius into a Christian church, burning down the Mithraeum of the city, destroying the temple of Zeus and burlesques the pagan priests before they are killed by stoning. The Christian mob profanes the cult images.

392 On 8th November, Theodosius outlaws all the non-Christian rituals and names them “superstitions of the gentiles” (gentilicia superstitio). New full scale persecutions are ordered against pagans. The Mysteries of Samothrace are ended and the priests slaughtered. In Cyprus the local bishop “Saint” Epiphanius and “Saint” Tychon destroy almost all the temples of the island and exterminate thousands of non-Christians.

395 Two new edicts (22nd July and 7th August) cause new persecutions against pagans. Rufinus, the eunuch Prime Minister of Emperor Flavius Arcadius directs the hordes of baptised Goths (led by Alaric) to the country of the Hellenes. Encouraged by Christian monks the barbarians sack and burn many cities (Dion, Delphi, Megara, Corinth, Pheneos, Argos, Nemea, Lycosoura, Sparta, Messene, Phigaleia, Olympia, etc.), slaughter or enslave innumerable gentile Hellenes and burn down all the temples. Among others, they burn down the Eleusinian Sanctuary and burn alive all its priests (including the hierophant of Mithras Hilarius).

399 With a new edict (13th July) Flavius Arcadius orders all remaining pagan temples, mainly in the countryside, be immediately demolished.

401 The Christian mob of Carthage lynches non-Christians and destroys temples and “idols”. In Gaza too, the local bishop “Saint” Porphyrius sends his followers to lynch pagans and to demolish the remaining nine still active temples of the city.

405 John Chrysostom sends hordes of grey-dressed monks armed with clubs and iron bars to destroy the “idols” in all the cities of Palestine.

408 The local bishops lead new heavy persecutions against the pagans and new book burning. The judges that have pity for the pagans are also persecuted. “Saint” Augustine massacres hundreds of protesting pagans in Calama, Algeria.

409 Another edict orders all methods of divination including astrology to be punished by death.

415 In Alexandria, the Christian mob, urged by the bishop Cyril, attacks a few days before the Judeo-Christian Pascha (Easter) and cuts to pieces the famous and beautiful philosopher Hypatia. The pieces of her body, carried around by the Christian mob through the streets of Alexandria, are finally burned together with her books in a place called Cynaron.

416 The inquisitor Hypatius, alias “The Sword of God”, exterminates the last pagans of Bithynia. In Constantinople (7th December) all non-Christian army officers, public employees and judges are dismissed.

423 Emperor Theodosius II declares (8th June) that the religion of the pagans is nothing more than “demon worship” and orders all those who persist in practicing it to be punished by imprisonment and torture.

435 On 14th November, a new edict by Theodosius II orders the death penalty for all “heretics” and pagans of the empire. Only Judaism is considered a legal non-Christian religion.

448 Theodosius II orders all non-Christian books to be burned.

450 All the temples of Aphrodisias (the City of the Goddess Aphrodite) are demolished and all its libraries burned down. The city is renamed Stavroupolis (City of the Cross).

482 to 488 The majority of the pagans of Minor Asia are exterminated after a desperate revolt against the emperor and the Church.

515 The emperor of Constantinople, Anastasius, orders the massacre of the pagans in the Arabian city Zoara and the demolition of the temple of local god Theandrites.

546 Hundreds of pagans are put to death in Constantinople by the inquisitor Ioannis Asiacus.

556 Justinian orders the notorious inquisitor Amantius to go to Antioch, to find, arrest, torture and exterminate the last non-Christians of the city and burn all the private libraries down.

578 to 582 The Christians torture and crucify Hellenes all around the Eastern Empire, and exterminate the last non-Christians of Heliopolis (Baalbek).

And THAT, Mr. Thomas, is a greatly abbreviated and redacted account of just the BEGINNING of the 1,400 year Christian 'Reign of Terror'... 'Holocaust'... whatever you want to call it. Here is a more complete and extensive list... http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_060.htm
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Silence Dogood opines: "In these passages, we are given the answer why we all need a Savior/Redeemer."

The need is already laid out in the OT. A fact the NT writers, whoever they may have been, were obviously aware of. Convenient eh? Can we have a diatribe about OT prophecy ever so conveniently fulfilled by NT writers next? Pretty please?

Ryan Haber,

When you assume that apostates haven't made serious and scholarly attempts to make some sense of the bible, both with and without guidance, and haven't made serious attempts to implement it in their own lives, and you make those assumptions for no other reason than they haven't reached the same conclusions that you have about it, then you are indeed firmly stuck on the path of foolishness.

I see Cal, "Let God Be God." That's awfully good advice.

Devil will be Devil too you know. http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul

It was the Devil Allah that made them do that, 9-11. What has the Devil Jehovah got you into lately? The Trinity Devil you say?

Fate,

What you present as an "aha!" moment for uninitiated Bible Readers,

Jesus makes very clear, immediately following John 3:16, when He says:

John 3: 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

19And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

The proclamation in 3:18, "but he that believeth not is condemned already," tends to have Jesus lumping all of mankind together, in one "boat" except for the children he described at Matthew 19:14.

In these passages, we are given the answer why we all need a Savior/Redeemer.

This is Cal at his absolute worst, showing he knows nothing, and especially nothing of the bible's old testament:

-In Deuteronomy 3 God orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value.

-In Joshua 6 God orders an attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses”.

-In Judges 21, God orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife!

-In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church!

-In total God orders 1,862,265 people murdered.

should have read...Cal did not remind his readers...

Glad to hear Cal Thomas doesn't encourage conversion upon pain of death. Though of course he could, if he wanted, quote his inerrant Bible to argue either side of this point.

I would feel better if Mr. Thomas cited the First Amendment, which has protected people from religious persecution a bit more effectively than the Bible or the Koran.

Mr. Thomas is part of a Republican Christian movement that unabashedly seeks to use the levers of goverment to promote a particular religion, right down to forcing Genesis into high school biology labs.

Reading Mr. Thomas opine on the evils of religious coercion is like listening to Bill Clinton give a lecture on sexual harrassment.

For more than 150 years, at daily Guard Mount, the OD (Officer of the Day) at VMI enters into a "fiction" whereby he is "Certified" for the next twelve hours. If this Cadet sees or hears an infraction of the Blue Book (Regulations) he is required to place the offender on report. His being "certified" removes all discretion from him and he is required to place best friend or roommate on report, even if their shoes are not shined properly.

Cal Thomas knows that the Bible (both Testaments) describe a God that is a "consuming fire," who will refine everything and burn all chaff/iniquity.

Yes, Cal did remind his readers of the uncompromising purity of God - and the results of any impurity that even approaches getting near Him.

While everyone knows that the OD at VMI was a "fiction" that some Cadets found to be real, very real when they received demerits, penalty tours and confinement to barracks; too many of Cal's respondents/critics believe that the refining purity of a Consuming Fire God is fictional, too.

For their sake, Cal is sounding the alarm and hoping that all mortals avoid that future, consuming, fire of the Refiner!

TJ, Russell D.,

I have never heard even a halfway decently educated Christian call Christianity a religion of peace. In fact, Our Lord himself expressly repudiated the idea that he came to bring peace in the way commonly understood by the world: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid," (Jn 14:27).

On another note, one of the chief difficulties with Today's Common English type translations of the Bible that are so common is they give the impression that anyone can understand the Bible, or that the common understanding is what was intended by the authors.

In fact, we are separated by 1900-2900 years from the writing of the various texts of the Bible (73 different books, in fact, and many of them composed in parts over time by various authors). What the human authors put in the books ("God told me to smite so-and-so", for example) and what God and/or the compilers of the texts intended to be understood from the texts ("So-and-so thought God told him to smite so-and-so" and maybe "but there's actually a different meaning here.") are different things.

Picking up Shakespeare is difficult without instruction, and that is written in modern English in a geo-political and socio-cultural context fairly like ours with vocabulary that means much the same that it meant then...

Even translating the words into English does not nearly fully bridge the vast cultural gap between us and Palestine ca. 800 BC. Moreover, if Christians are right, that the Bible is inspired by God, and that he is smarter than us, then wouldn't it stand to reason that it maybe the Bible is difficult to understand?

The choice then is among three options, as far as I can see:

1) Humbly admit that I might not understand everything (in general, but here specifically about the Bible) and humbly seek guidance;

2) Proudly insist or assume that I must know as much as all those people who have made entire careers studying the text, or lifetimes implementing in their own lives, and that I understand it better than they who claim it has a different meaning;

3) Toss it aside and say "Who cares?"

#3 doesn't seem likely - y'all brought up the topic, so you obviously care to some extent for some reason. Moreover, about 1.5 billion other people care about the Bible very much.

#2 seems undesirable once spelled out clearly.

#1 is hard though, isn't it?

Cal,

Your response is one of the very few posted concerning the question of September 11 that begins from an authentic position of faith.

Thank you.

Say, Cal... You know that book you're always thumping? Ever try READING it?

O Lord God of hosts, you stretch out the heavens like a curtain. Watch over and protect, I pray, the airmen of our country as they fly on their appointed tasks. Give them courage as they face the enemy, and skill in the performance of their duties. Sustain them with Your everlasting arms. May Your right hand lead them. And may your right hand hold them up.

Amen

I agree Steve. But that isn't the book(s) we have, it's only the believers we have. The believers put up such a fuss about how it's externally true, and that the book is their authority, that the whole situation is little more than sad and laughable.

If religious people would just say "I believe in super-cool-loving-wonder-god because it makes me feel good even though I mostly made it all up myself", I'd never make a peep about it.

Whoa... Has Mr. Thomas had a change of heart?

Or just fed a topic the other side of his double-standard?

*crossing fingers.*

Hey, you never know.

Yea, I often wonder why a religion of peace has a book that is full of violence and sex and incest. WTF???

I don't know, TJ. I think I'd have a lot of respect for a religion whose book was 1000 pages of "Love thy neighbour" and none of the "So God killed the whole city for being sinners."

The contradiction of a perfect and supremely-loving God (as is often claimed) vs. the one described in the various books is something I genuinely don't understand. Is it not insulting to such a God that the book used to symbolise and describe Him contains so much violence? I never got that.

Russell D,

I couldn't agree more. To their credit, it seems that most of the Christians here have created a wonderful and loving god for themselves (except Canyon Shearer and others of his ilk of course). Whatever the case, the god that they create is nothing more than a reflection of themselves and their own hopes and wishes. On the one hand, kudos to them for such a beautiful, if naive, fabrication. On the other, they would be nothing but foolish if they ever think for a second that a rational person would accept their spiel as some kind of universal truth.

TJ:

Provides an excellent argument for the fact that God was made by man. Not Man was made by God, don't you think?

Cal,

"Conversion by coercion does not change hearts or minds."

You're absolutely right.

How about telling that to the Christians?

This post by Cal Thomas serves to demonstrate how Christians don't worship the god described in the bible, they worship the god that they create for themselves.

Pamela the Muslim did the same thing with the last question.

They have something in common with the terrorists that committed the attack we're discussing: a fundamentally narcissistic faith in a god of their own devising.

>>"What kind of God commands humans to exact violence in His name against others?"

Er... the Old Testament God. Repeatedly. (He turned his back on Saul for not being murderous enough, Moses chastised his general for sparing women and children, He commanded humans to kill others "in his name" many times... it's a long list.)

Also, Allah in the Koran. Repeatedly.

What's your point? That these books shouldn't be considered "holy" because they are not perfect, or not totally true? That the passages everyone agrees are violent or possibly due to imperfect men should be taken out of a book that is supposed to be venerated as the word of God? I agree.

>>"Any actual or perceived injustice is best left to God, who has the perfect perspective and not sinful man who frequently gets it wrong."

I actually like part of this quite a lot. It’s refreshing to see the idea that men may be fallible, or that our judgement may be subjective and our vision incomplete. It’s got a humility that we don’t see from other posters who are more concerned with immediately looking to the Bible or the Church’s teachings for the only answer.

On the other hand, I personally can’t abdicate responsibility that easily. If I perceive an injustice, I have a duty to act on it to protect others and work for good. Bearing in mind at all times that I could be wrong and have no right to use violence, I’ll still find ways to act. “It’s bad now but God will sort it out in the afterlife” was never enough for me.