Re: Canadian revolution

[Drsolly <drsollyp () drsolly com>]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006, Daniel H. Renner wrote:

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> If you're going to gripe about religion, you have to look at what
> religions CAN, and HAVE done - look to the Buddhists and the age of
> enlightenment and civilization that followed, or look to the Muslims and
> their age of civilization, look to the Christians during the Renaissance
> period, or the Incas and Mayans and the fantastic cities that evolved
> there, or the American Indians and the peace and love they had for their
> people, lands and the animals that lived around them and in your own
> neck of the woods, look to the Druids and the order that evolved during
> their rule.

Indeed. And just think how much better all these would have been without 
being held back by religion!

And now think about the Thirty Years War (Catholics/Protestants) that
turned Germany into a desert, about the Crusades (especially the
Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in the South of France), the Holy
Inquisition, the witchburnings, the shootings, bombings and genocides all
done in the name of religion. And what do we get in return? Some great
buildings, some great art and some great music (but without religion, we
would still have had the buildings, art and music, just with different
decorations, subjects and lyrics). Think about the persecution of Galileo,
and how an apology 300 years later isn't really useful. The negative 
effect of the Spanish Inquisition was still there hundreds of years 
later, because of the way it killed science there. 

> Modern day Christians however, are not anything to hold up to a candle
> with their current use of psychology perverting their own beliefs, not
> that they have been doing any good for most of the time they have been
> on this planet...  Holy wars, take over South America by killing
> everyone there, etc. - also a perversion of their beliefs, just as some
> Muslims are doing now.

I'm not convinced that genocide is a perversion of religious beliefs. Read
your Holy Book, you'll see genocides again and again, and they're held up
as Good Things! Starting with the Flood, where God commits genocide
against the entire human race, and even today, Christians that I talk to 
tell me that this was not an evil deed! So, if the Holy Book approves of 
genocide, surely you can't say that this is a perversion of beliefs?

> Religion has done amazing things, but then someone screwed them up, they
> changed and perverted and things generally got worse.

That's about the size of it, yes.
 
> Maybe it was someone who decided they couldn't believe in Santa Claus or
> the Easter Bunny...?
 
Santa and the Bunny are an important part of every child's education. They 
teach the child that adults invent imaginary friends, and you should be 
sceptical about anything you can't actually see.

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