tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post5992516157021899571..comments2023-10-08T12:11:52.993+13:00Comments on New Zealand Conservative: The story of the attack on the Baghdad ChurchLucia Mariahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10485990994973953860noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-26500223285742180222010-12-13T13:22:43.829+13:002010-12-13T13:22:43.829+13:00All comments to do with the argument over Peter be...All comments to do with the argument over Peter being the Rock have been moved to <a href="http://nzconservative.blogspot.com/2010/12/argument-peter-is-rock-upon-which.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />Any more comments of that nature will be deleted from this thread, as they are highly inappropriate for a post about a <b>MASSACRE</b> in a <b>CHURCH</b> of <b>CATHOLICS</b>.Lucia Mariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10485990994973953860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-88744734759521162672010-12-12T18:39:31.730+13:002010-12-12T18:39:31.730+13:00Lucia Maria 9:38 AM, December 12,
Kris:
In fact t...Lucia Maria 9:38 AM, December 12,<br /><br />Kris:<br />In fact the Roman Catholic Crusades persecuted and murdered not only Muslims and Jews, but Bible-believing Christians as well.<br /><br />Lucia:<br /><i>The Crusades were, in the main, defensive wars fought against an enemy that had been systematically invading, looting and pillaging Christian lands for centuries. Bad things happen in wars, and people get killed. But to say that the Crusades "persecuted and murdered Muslims and Jews Bible-believing Christians" is like saying the allied attacks on the Nazis "persecuted" Muslims and Jews and Bible-believing Christians.</i><br /><br />I hope you're not forgetting the following, Lucia:<br /><br />THE CATHARS<br />At first the Cathars or Albigensians in Southern France were protected by powerful anti-clerical nobles. However in 1208 Pope Innocent III called for a crusade against them. Crusaders from Northern France rushed to obey and they fought a bloodthirsty crusade. The Albigensians were finally defeated with the fall of their stronghold at Montsegur in 1244.<br /><br />THE WALDENSIANS<br />In 1179 Pope Alexander III forbade them to preach without the permission of the bishops. Waldo replied that he must obey God rather than man So he was excommunicated by Pope Lucius III in 1184. The Waldensians came to be seen as heretics by the Catholic Church.<br /><br />Waldensians denied the doctine of purgatory (the idea that people are 'purified' of their sins after death before they enter Heaven) and prayers for the dead. They also forbade taking oaths and capital punishment. They also denied the authority of the Catholic Church.<br /><br />In the 13th century the Waldensians spread to Italy, Germany, Austria, Bohemia (Czech Republic) Poland and Hungary. (In Bohemia they merged with the Hussites in the 14th century). They soon became a sect with its own clergy of bishops and priests.<br /><br />Not surprisingly the Catholic Church responded with persecution but they failed to destroy the Waldensians. In 1488 a crusade was launched against the Waldensians but it failed to destroy them.<br /><br />THE LOLLARDS<br />John Wycliffe was one of the great Christians of the Middle Ages. He was born in the North of England but we do not know the exact year (it was around 1328). John Wycliffe was educated at Oxford University and he soon became famous there for his learning and his skill in debate.<br /><br />In the Middle Ages the Church was immensely wealthy and powerful. John Wycliffe was concerned by the situation and he taught that the state had the right to confiscate the property of corrupt clergymen. Not surprisingly many in the Church did not welcome his views! In 1377 the Pope condemned Wycliffe but he was never arrested or tried for heresy. (He was protected by powerful friends).<br /><br />At first Lollards were left alone but when Henry IV became king the situation changed. From 1401 Lollards could be burned to death for heresy. However the Lollards continued and even increased in number and in the 16th century they merged with the Protestants.<br /><br />THE HUSSITES<br />Jan Hus was one of the great Christians of the Middle Ages. He was also a martyr. Hus was born in Bohemia (what is now the Czech Republic) in about 1374 and he was educated at the university of Prague. In 1401 he was ordained a priest.<br /><br />Hus was heavily influenced by the English reformer John Wycliffe and he soon proved to be a popular preacher. Hus preached against forged miracles and avarice in the church. He also emphasised the importance of the Bible. However his strong preaching against abuses in the church alienated some of the clergy.<br /><br />In 1414 Hus was ordered to attend the Council of Constance to defend his beliefs. As a result he was sentenced to death and burned in 1415.<br /><br />However in 1620 the Austrians conquered Bohemia (Czech Republic) and reimposed the Roman Catholic Church.<br /><br />Link:<br />http://www.localhistories.org/heresy.htmlKris Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13889412233031967180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-14384137997706543742010-12-12T15:41:08.498+13:002010-12-12T15:41:08.498+13:00LRO, your statement is appalling. Let's break...LRO, your statement is appalling. Let's break it down:<br /><br /><em>I find it very sad that religious believers only shed a tear when fellow religionists are victims of religious violence. </em><br /><br />What ignorance. By this statement you infer no religious believers shed a tear or are moved by other situations, which is patently false. The Pike River Mining Disaster, for example, and countless situations where sympathy and dismay have been expressed towards people have been harmed or injured by the evil actions of others, irrespective of the reason.<br /><br />Which leads me to the second part of your statement, which strikes me as arrogant:<br /><br /><em>As a rational humanist, I shed a tear for all the victims of all the wars, pogroms, crusades, the death and destruction in the name of a belief!</em><br /><br />You set yourself up as morally superior, then blow it by qualifying it with your selectivity of people being killed in the name of a belief.<br /><br />And perhaps you are also a little hypocritical, because you would probably refuse to admit that abortion is conducted in the name of a belief that a foetus isn't deserving of being included in the "universal right to life" statements most agree are important foundation to human rights.<br /><br />The biggest flaw though in your assertions is the belief that, as rational humanism solidifies into a distinct political movement, should it gain political power, that people will not abuse that and do what they will "in its name".<br /><br />Until such time, we have plenty examples of humans rationalising evil, and they will abuse any name to do it. As Fletch rightly points out, societies that treat religion as a threat have perpetrated some of the biggest evils in history.ZenTigerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07888629207437612884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-16923395431563033092010-12-12T13:42:27.573+13:002010-12-12T13:42:27.573+13:00LRO, it should also be noted that the biggest mass...LRO, it should also be noted that the biggest mass murders in history where by regimes that had nothing to do with religion - and that is even taking into account the Crusades, The Inqusition, witch trials etc<br /><br />Gregory Koukl writes - <br /><br /><i>My point is not that Christians or religious people aren't vulnerable to committing terrible crimes. Certainly they are. But it is not religion that produces these things; it is the denial of Biblical religion that generally leads to these kinds of things. The statistics that are the result of irreligious genocide stagger the imagination.<br /><br />My source is The Guinness Book of World Records . Look up the category "Judicial" and under the subject of "Crimes: Mass Killings," the greatest massacre ever imputed by the government of one sovereign against the government of another is 26.3 million Chinese during the regime of Mao Tse Tung between the years of 1949 and May 1965. The Walker Report published by the U.S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary in July 1971 placed the parameters of the total death toll in China since 1949 between 32 and 61.7 million people. An estimate of 63.7 million was published by Figaro magazine on November 5, 1978.<br /><br />In the U.S.S.R. the Nobel Prize winner, Alexander Solzhenitsyn estimates the loss of life from state repression and terrorism from October 1917 to December 1959 under Lenin and Stalin and Khrushchev at 66.7 million.<br /><br />Finally, in Cambodia (and this was close to me because I lived in Thailand in 1982 working with the broken pieces of the Cambodian holocaust from 1975 to 1979) "as a percentage of a nation's total population, the worst genocide appears to be that in Cambodia, formerly Kampuchea. According to the Khmer Rouge foreign minister, more than one third of the eight million Khmer were killed between April 17, 1975 and January 1979. One third of the entire country was put to death under the rule of Pol Pot, the founder of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. During that time towns, money and property were abolished. Economic execution by bayonet and club was introduced for such offenses as falling asleep during the day, asking too many questions, playing non-communist music, being old and feeble, being the offspring of an undesirable, or being too well educated. In fact, deaths in the Tuol Sleng interrogation center in Phnom Penh, which is the capitol of Kampuchea, reached 582 in a day."<br /><br />Then in Chinese history of the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries there were three periods of wholesale massacre. The numbers of victims attributed to these events are assertions rather than reliable estimates. The figures put on the Mongolian invasion of northern China form 1210 to 1219 and from 1311 to 1340 are both on the order of 35 million people. While the number of victims of bandit leader Chang Hsien-Chung, known as the Yellow Tiger, from 1643 to 1647 in the Szechwan province has been put at 40 million people.<br /><br />China under Mao Tse Tung, 26.3 million Chinese. According the Walker Report, 63.7 million over the whole period of time of the Communist revolution in China. Solzhenitsyn says the Soviet Union put to death 66.7 million people. Kampuchea destroyed one third of their entire population of eight million Cambodians. The Chinese at two different times in medieval history, somewhere in the vicinity of 35 million and 40 million people. Ladies and gentlemen, make note that these deaths were the result of organizations or points of view or ideologies that had left God out of the equation. None of these involve religion. And all but the very last actually assert atheism. <br /><br /></i>I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-19027406158580237732010-12-12T13:36:23.498+13:002010-12-12T13:36:23.498+13:00Part II
There was a time when children were told ...Part II<br /><br /><i>There was a time when children were told not to lie, cheat, swear, fornicate and steal because such things were against God’s moral law (the Ten Commandments). People were told that such activities offended a holy, righteous God. They were told that good was good because God said so in His Word, and likewise bad was bad because God said so. People were warned that a day was coming in which God would judge all men according to their deeds.<br /><br />Ethical absolutes are transcendent; they come from outside the universe and are revealed to man by an unchanging, all-powerful God. These ethical commands are objective and unchanging; they are backed up by a morally perfect God who will punish every wicked act committed by man. In a personalistic universe where an absolute, infinite, perfect, moral God (who is the creator of meaning, the revealer and enforcer of ethical absolutes and the judge of wickedness) stands behind all created reality, people have a very real reason for self-government and personal responsibility.<br /><br />In the area of ethics (as in the area of meaning itself) the Christian worldview is coherent, rational and self-consistent, while the supposedly "scientific" secular-humanistic worldview is irrational, arbitrary and absurd. When the secular humanist speaks of compassion, humility, virtue, helping the poor, the evil of murder, and so on, he is stealing concepts from the Christian worldview. It is one thing to assert that murder is wrong and quite another to explain why it is wrong. Anyone can assert that something is good or evil, but only the Christian can consistently say why. In the secular-humanistic worldview, chance not God is ultimate; therefore "it is meaningless to speak of imposing the formalizing activity of the universal mind of man, itself a product of chance, on a bottomless and shoreless ocean of chance. The only possible foundation for science and philosophy as well as for theology is the presupposition that God as all-controlling and Christ as actually redeeming does actually exist and is actually known by man. But to hold this position requires us to give up the idea that man himself is the source of unity in human experience. In seeking such unity as only God can have, apostate man cuts himself loose from the possibility of having any unity in experience at all."<br /><br />The secular humanist, if honest and consistent, would simply assert that "in the end we’re all dead"; the injustice and evils of life are never resolved. Hitler, Stalin and Mother Teresa all turn to dust. The universe expands to an icy death. In such a system your life and supposed good deeds have no real meaning or lasting significance at all. "What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die!" (1 Cor. 15:32).</i>I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-38516202483868750922010-12-12T13:35:09.754+13:002010-12-12T13:35:09.754+13:00Here's what author Brian Schwertley says about...Here's what author Brian Schwertley says about Secular Humanism Part I- <br /><br /><i>Do you believe that murder is wrong? Do you believe that child molestation and bestiality are wrong? Most people do. The question that must be answered, then, is "Why?" The secular-humanistic worldview presupposes that nothing can exist above and beyond the universe. The idea of an infinite, personal God who is transcendent, who reveals ethical absolutes to man (e.g., "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal," etc.) is anathema to an atheistic naturalist. With no higher power, the secular humanist must derive an ethical system from this world alone.<br /><br />But what is the modern view of the universe, of reality? The universe is evolving. It is a product of chance. It is impersonal. It is in a state of flux. Man himself is a product of chance and is in a state of flux. Thus, the secular humanist teaches that ethics are evolving, arbitrary, subjective, relative and changing. There is no "out-thereness" to ethics; there is no absolute right or wrong.<br /><br />For the secular humanist, the source of ethics, morality and law is not God but man. The secular humanist says that ethics are whatever man happens to say they are at a given point in time. In such a system moral law is merely opinion, custom, "community standards," what the state says (or the supreme court, or an intellectual elite like hospital ethics boards). Man determines what is right and wrong<br /><br />for himself, and if man changes his mind, then what used to be wrong is now permissible—even virtuous.<br /><br />The secular humanist who seeks to establish ethical norms apart from the triune God of the Bible actually perverts and destroys moral imperatives. Ethics cannot exist and operate in a void. If the universe is a product of chance and impersonal, then people have no real reason not to lie, cheat, murder and steal, other than the coercive power of the state (e.g., the police, prisons, etc.).<br /><br />Young people are not stupid. Do you really think that young people are going to be honest, chaste and moral because their parents or some celebrity or the state says it’s a good idea? All talk of virtue is utter nonsense. To the Nazi, exterminating Jews was virtuous. Stalin and the communists murdered 20 million farmers for humanity. To the radical feminist, murdering unborn babies is a virtue. To the gang member, torturing and murdering one’s opponent are virtuous. If morality is constantly changing, evolving, and if it is only what man happens to believe at any given moment, then the modern ethical maxim is, "Do whatever you want—just don’t get caught. And if you do get caught, blame it on someone else."</i>I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-42896947160853268662010-12-12T12:21:26.318+13:002010-12-12T12:21:26.318+13:00Abortion - no, doesn't fit the criteria I outl...Abortion - no, doesn't fit the criteria I outlined.<br /><br />Lucia, I stand by my remarks above. Your appeal to ethnicity as the cause is demonstrably false.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-18888960338448012562010-12-12T09:38:44.363+13:002010-12-12T09:38:44.363+13:00Name me [...] a massacre, at any place, in any tim...<i>Name me [...] a massacre, at any place, in any time, perpetrated by rational humanists in the name of humanism</i><br /><br />Abortion.I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-25805751289627578822010-12-12T09:38:19.252+13:002010-12-12T09:38:19.252+13:00Kris,
In fact the Roman Catholic Crusades persecu...Kris,<br /><br /><i>In fact the Roman Catholic Crusades persecuted and murdered not only Muslims and Jews, but Bible-believing Christians as well.</i><br /><br />The Crusades were, in the main, defensive wars fought against an enemy that had been systematically invading, looting and pillaging Christian lands for centuries. Bad things happen in wars, and people get killed. But to say that the Crusades "persecuted and murdered Muslims and Jews Bible-believing Christians" is like saying the allied attacks on the Nazis "persecuted" Muslims and Jews and Bible-believing Christians. The Crusades' prime aim, like the allied attacks on the Nazis, were not persecution and murder, they were attacks against a very strong enemy at the request of Eastern Christendom. Which did fall eventually, maybe because not enough help was given. Western powers were far more interested in fighting amongst themselves than their ever growing enemy called Islam.Lucia Mariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10485990994973953860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-73531449516142384842010-12-12T09:26:49.142+13:002010-12-12T09:26:49.142+13:00LRO,
Thought so.LRO,<br /><br />Thought so.Lucia Mariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10485990994973953860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-32441289485564845732010-12-12T08:04:41.159+13:002010-12-12T08:04:41.159+13:00Lucia, I neither know nor care if prayers were sai...Lucia, I neither know nor care if prayers were said before, during or after the massacres of Mslims in Bosnia.<br /><br />I stand by my original comment that in both Bosnia nd the case you describe, religion was the prime motivator. Not ethnicity. Religion.<br /><br />I find it very sad that religious believers only shed a tear when fellow religionists are victims of religious violence. As a rational humanist, I shed a tear for all the victims of all the wars, pogroms, crusades, the death and destruction in the name of a belief!<br /><br />A challenge to you -<br /><br />Name me a single war, or even a massacre, at any place, in any time, perpetrated by rational humanists in the name of humanism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-7039945554494511292010-12-11T21:07:20.337+13:002010-12-11T21:07:20.337+13:00Except, you won't be able to. You rely on a s...Except, you won't be able to. You rely on a scatter-gun approach to cast your aspersions, relying on blogger fatigue to get away with the false accusations. Knowing that most people are so ignorant, they will believe the worst.Lucia Mariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10485990994973953860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-58050803468489597792010-12-11T20:26:13.159+13:002010-12-11T20:26:13.159+13:00This comment has been removed by the author.I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-63184381153401240742010-12-11T19:19:24.694+13:002010-12-11T19:19:24.694+13:00Oh wow, things have been busy here. Will come bac...Oh wow, things have been busy here. Will come back later tonight.Lucia Mariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10485990994973953860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-44532934699472019372010-12-11T16:11:46.443+13:002010-12-11T16:11:46.443+13:00You can read more answers to popular Crusade myths...You can read more answers to popular Crusade myths <a href="http://www.ewtn.com/library/CHISTORY/ZCRSADES.HTM" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-40026956543257507242010-12-11T16:07:02.325+13:002010-12-11T16:07:02.325+13:00ps, Kris, I really can't believe you bringing ...ps, Kris, I really can't believe you bringing up that old canard about 'The Crusades'. Yes, some bad things were done on both sides, but if not for them, Islam would have conquered the whole world centuries ago.<br /><br />As one writer puts it - <br /><br /><i>"But there is a question we must ask ourselves. In the context of more than a thousand years of Christian-Islamic relations, who has been the victim and who the aggressor?" asked the journalist who interviewed the Pope in "Crossing the Threshold of Hope." When Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem in 638, the city had been Christian for over three centuries. Soon after, the Prophet's disciples invaded and destroyed the glorious churches of Egypt, first, and then of North Africa, causing the extinction of Christianity in places that had had Bishops like St. Augustine. Later it was the turn of Spain, Sicily and Greece, and the land that would eventually become Turkey, where the communities founded by St. Paul himself were turned into ruins. In 1453, after seven centuries of siege, Constantinople, the second Rome, capitulated and became Islamic. The Islamic threat reached the Balkans but, miraculously, the onslaught was stopped and forced to turn back at Vienna's walls. If the Jerusalem massacre of 1099 is execrated, Mohammed II's action in Otranto [Italy] in 1480 must not be forgotten, a raw example of a bloody funeral procession of sufferings," Messori stated.<br /><br />Messori concluded by asking a number of questions: "At present, what Moslem country respects the civil rights and freedom of worship of any other than their own? Who is angered by the genocide of Armenians in the past, and of Sudanese Christians at present? According to the devotees of the Koran, is the world not divided between the 'Islamic territory' and the 'war territory' -- all those areas that must be converted to Islam, whether they like it or not?"<br /><br />The Italian journalist provided his answers to these questions in his final remarks. "A simple review of history, along very general lines, confirms an obvious truth: Christianity is constantly on the defensive when it comes to Moslem aggression; this has been the case from the beginning until now</i>I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-84122989811222778102010-12-11T15:47:45.176+13:002010-12-11T15:47:45.176+13:00Kris, I've been wanting to ask...
What denomi...Kris, I've been wanting to ask...<br /><br />What denomination of church do you go to? And do you consider yours is the church Jesus mentions when he says, "upon this rock I will build my church". And, if so, why? How do you connect the church you go to today with the first church of the Apostles and disciples of Jesus' time?I.M Fletcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221772173209860714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-51084712706137086922010-12-11T15:37:16.842+13:002010-12-11T15:37:16.842+13:00"If you mean the Christian faith as espoused ..."If you mean the Christian faith as espoused by St. Peter then the Roman Catholic Church would be such a faith and you are mistaken."<br /><br />Are you Roman Catholic, William?<br /><br />And do you accept that the Roman Catholic crusades and inquisition (which persecuted Muslims, Jews, and Bible-believing Christians) had absolutely no New Testament mandate? And on that basis the RC church & papacy could not claim to represent biblical Christianity, and certainly not the Christ of the New Testament?Kris Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13889412233031967180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-89881424786096080992010-12-11T14:23:39.536+13:002010-12-11T14:23:39.536+13:00"Followers of Biblical Christianity have NEVE..."Followers of Biblical Christianity have NEVER held a blade to anyones throat to force conversion, or for ANY reason."<br /><br />I am afraid that you will have to define the term "Biblical Christianity" before I can either affirm or deny your assertion. If you mean the Christian faith as espoused by St. Peter then the Roman Catholic Church would be such a faith and you are mistaken. If not, then I am unsure what you mean.William Stouthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15481469340558843146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-26018572815354706252010-12-11T13:09:20.612+13:002010-12-11T13:09:20.612+13:00William Stout 8:46 AM,
"Where the commenter ...William Stout 8:46 AM,<br /><br /><i>"Where the commenter also errs is in his assertion of Islam and Christianity being equal faiths. They are not. Christianity does not advocate the wanton slaughter of the innocent, Islam does. <b>Christianity no longer holds a blade to your throat and forces you to become a Christian</b>, not true for Islam. Christianity does not advocate death for apostates, Islam does. Christianity does not approve of women being second class citizens and chattel to their husbands, Islam does. In fact, Islam has never and will never be a religion of peace unless it is fundamentally changed. That is because Islam is a tool of conquest and for maintaining power.<br /><br /><b>So while Catholics may have taken matters into their own hands</b>, God does not and would not sanction the murder of people because they profess a different faith from yourself."</i><br /><br />In fact the Roman Catholic Crusades persecuted and murdered not only Muslims and Jews, but Bible-believing Christians as well. Followers of Biblical Christianity have NEVER held a blade to anyones throat to force conversion, or for ANY reason.<br /><br />The Bible is clear that we are to <i>"love [y]our enemies ... and pray for them"</i>. And while we are to share the gospel with non-believers, it is the Holy Spirit who brings conviction, and the individual who MUST come to their own point of free-will choice as to whether they will receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour. The greatest "compulsion" a Christian is to place upon a non-believer is that of sharing God's word with conviction, and the reality of God working in our lives since our own conversion and receiving of Christ. That's it; their is NO SENSE in God's word of any kind of "forcing the issue", let alone physical intimidation or worse.<br /><br /><i>Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.<br />Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.<br />Joh 3:18 He 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.</i>Kris Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13889412233031967180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-61270667443135658712010-12-11T08:46:07.673+13:002010-12-11T08:46:07.673+13:00One of the things that never ceases to amaze me ar...One of the things that never ceases to amaze me are the people who blame religion for the evil of men. Regardless of whether you are speaking of the Crusades, the horrors inflicted by Islam, or as the commenter put it the poor Muslims murdered by the Catholics, and then goes on to say imagine a world without religion. <br /><br />Such a world may appeal to the writer, but it would be a desolate and dark place indeed. A world without hope of redemption and without hope for the future. We have seen this world in fact. The U.S.S.R. was such a world and no religion was permitted because the State was supreme and man would have no master before the State. Churches fell into ruin. Those caught in prayer were liable to find themselves sent to a gulag to die at hard labor. Those who actually preached the word of God were liable to be executed forthwith. The result of this world? Millions dead due to State sponsored terrorism. Oh yes, what a wonderful world man had created without religion. I am sure that the twenty-seven million who starved to death in the Ukraine were at least happy about not having to listen to a sermon while they perished secondary to the cruelty of man. The truth of the matter is that atheism gives poor succor.<br /><br />Where the commenter also errs is in his assertion of Islam and Christianity being equal faiths. They are not. Christianity does not advocate the wanton slaughter of the innocent, Islam does. Christianity no longer holds a blade to your throat and forces you to become a Christian, not true for Islam. Christianity does not advocate death for apostates, Islam does. Christianity does not approve of women being second class citizens and chattel to their husbands, Islam does. In fact, Islam has never and will never be a religion of peace unless it is fundamentally changed. That is because Islam is a tool of conquest and for maintaining power.<br /><br />So while Catholics may have taken matters into their own hands, God does not and would not sanction the murder of people because they profess a different faith from yourself. Those of the Muslim faith cannot say the same. You do not see the Presbyterians murdering the Baptists as infidels do you? How about the Copts butchering the Unitarians as infidels? That is not true of Islam. Each sect of Islam will gladly murder any other sect as an infidel because they do not adhere to the strict tenets of their brand of Islam. They are infidels. Islam even despises free thought and liberty.<br /><br />So the next time that you wish to join John Lennon in his dream of a world without religion, I suggest that you recall what happened to the nations that did just that. When man is freed from all moral inhibitions he releases the darkness that resides in his soul and the world bleeds. This is a lesson that history has taught again and again.William Stouthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15481469340558843146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38893560.post-65316174243352849262010-12-11T07:54:39.515+13:002010-12-11T07:54:39.515+13:00Indeed a terrible story, but for this to have happ...Indeed a terrible story, but for this to have happened, religion was an essential component.<br /><br />In reality, no different at all to the violence inflicted by catholics and orthodox against muslims in Bosnia.<br /><br />Again,something that required religion as a pre-requisite.<br /><br />Imagine a world with no religion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com