[Vision2020] Christ is Our Commander-in-Chief

[Paul Rumelhart]

I agree that this whole debate about the number killed, tortured, or 
inconvenienced by each religion is a waste of time.

As for your point about posts not following the stated objective of 
Vision 2020, you could argue it many ways. Obviously, working on a Plan 
to Solve All Our Local Troubles would be more in line with the stated 
objective, but good luck with that. We do get a lot of good information 
about local events, such as the discussion of the behavior at the last 
council meeting. Have you ever heard the phrase "think globally, act 
locally"? To do that, you have to be aware of what's going on globally. 
We are affected by the price of tea in China, if only indirectly. As for 
Nick's post, religion is a big issue here in Moscow and Latah county.

I do wish that certain posters could let past issues die. I wish we 
could confer a little respect even upon people who haven't given it to 
us. You have to start somewhere. I'm guessing that you'll find that many 
of the lurkers here feel the same way. Unfortunately, we all have our 
hot topics, and our buttons just sitting out there waiting to be pushed. 
I'm sure I'm not the only one that finds himself going over the same 
ground again and again, having my opinions fall into a well-worn rut too 
much of the time. That's why we need more participation here. So, with 
that in mind, welcome to the group.

I'd also recommend just ignoring certain topics. It's not like we're all 
in a room shouting at each other. You can have thousands of 
conversations going on at the same time in this type of forum.

Paul

Latah Lounger wrote:
> Why is it relevant with regard to HOW MANY individuals were killed by 
> such-and-such people of a certain faith. Isn't it the simple act of 
> killing and the reason behind the killing that is of importance? 
> Keeping scorecards of "number killed" by "faith/belief structure" 
> seems a bit sophomoric if the ultimate issue is to address the REASON 
> behind the killing. Is one faith more evil or despicable because it 
> killed 2,000 more than another for the exact same reason?
>
> Furthermore, what does Gier's post really have to do with the stated 
> objective of Vision 2020: "Moscow Vision 2020 is an informal, 
> multi-partisan group of Moscow residents formed in 1993 to encourage 
> more public information and debate about the future of Moscow and 
> Latah County." I fail to comprehend where Gier's post, as well as many 
> other posted here, has any connection with Moscow or Latah County. It 
> appears that several posters use the board as a soapbox to spout off 
> their own partisan or religious beliefs, or, in this case, to develop 
> a thesis, without connecting how their post relates to Moscow's or 
> Latah County's future.
>
> */nickgier at adelphia.net/* wrote:
>
>     Good Morning:
>
>     I would like to thank Gary Crabtree for the inspiration for this
>     week's KRFP radio commentary.
>
>     Nick Gier
>
>     CHRIST IS OUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF:
>     RELATIVE VIOLENCE IN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY
>
>     I'm writing a book on the origins of religious violence and my
>     thesis is that there has been far more religiously motivated
>     violence in the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and
>     Islam—than the Asian religions. Draft chapters can be viewed at
>     www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/orv.htm.
>
>     A person on our local list-serve Vision2020 had this to say about
>     relative violence in Islam and Christianity:
>
>     "Up to the eleventh century Islam had a sizable lead. From 1095 to
>     1291 the Church picked up the pace and nosed ahead. It was neck
>     and neck till 1834 and the end of the Spanish Inquisition. After
>     that Allah's chosen made it no contest."
>
>     There are more than a few problems with this summary history.
>
>     Islam could not possibly have had any sort of lead before the 11th
>     Century because Christianity had a very good head start. Under
>     Theodosius I, being a pagan was a capital crime, and even
>     Christians were arrested if they practiced even the most minor of
>     pagan practices.
>
>     On December 25, 390, Theodosius ordered the slaughter of 7,000
>     pagans in Thessalonica. The British historian Hugh Trevor Roper
>     called Theodosius "the first Spanish Inquisitor," and "the
>     Christian monarch who introduced the world to religious
>     totalitarianism."
>
>     Bishop Ambrose, who baptized St. Augustine, made Theodosius do
>     penance for the atrocities at Thessalonica, but he still
>     proclaimed that "Christ was now at the head of the [Roman] legions."
>
>     This reminds me of the sign outside a fundamentalist church in
>     L.A., right after the invasion of Iraq: "Christ is our
>     Commander-in-Chief." I'm assuming that our born-again president
>     would have to agree with this demotion.
>
>     Under Muslim rule Jews and Christians were generally asked to
>     offer a special tax, not their heads. The slaughter of 4,000 Jews
>     in Muslim Granada in 1066 was the exception rather than the rule,
>     and Jews generally had much better lives in Muslim Spain than
>     anywhere else in Christian Europe.
>
>     In 1099, men, women, and children were slaughtered
>     indiscriminately when Christian forces captured Jerusalem. An
>     eyewitness reported that the Crusaders "rode in blood up to their
>     knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid
>     judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of
>     the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their
>     blasphemies."
>
>     When Saladin retook the city in 1187, Christians were only
>     required to pay a ransom and then free to return home. Some of
>     Saladin's officers paid for those who could not afford it, and
>     about 7,000 others were sold into slavery.
>
>     In Muslim India Buddhist and Hindus were, incredibly enough,
>     declared "People of the Book," and the tax on non-Muslims was only
>     sporadically enforced and even more infrequently collected.
>
>     Most of the ancestors of Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh
>     (especially here), India, Indonesia, and Malaysia freely converted
>     to Islam. Areas in India where forced conversions were attempted
>     are now the places where one finds the fewest Muslims per capita.
>
>     Some Mughal emperors ordered the destruction of Hindu and Buddhist
>     temples, but local resistance and intimidated Mughal functionaries
>     meant that relatively few temples were liquidated. Early Christian
>     emperors were much more successful in destroying pagan temples,
>     including the one in Alexandria that housed the finest library in
>     the ancient world.
>
>     Curiously, the Vision2020 post above ended Christian atrocities in
>     1834, but during the Taiping Rebellion, Chinese Christian armies
>     were responsible for killing 10-20 million people between
>     1852-1864. I would hazard a guess that more Daoist, Buddhist, and
>     Confucian temples were destroyed by the Taipings in 12 years than
>     600 years of Muslim rule in India.
>
>     Some have claimed that the Taipings were not really Christians,
>     but that is simply not the case. They took great pains to
>     eliminate Chinese religious influences; they enforced the 10
>     Commandments at the point of a sword; and they followed the Bible
>     very carefully, including the prophecies in the Book of Revelation.
>
>     Short of Osama bin Laden getting several nukes and using them,
>     militant Muslims have a long way to go to match the historical
>     Christian kill rate.
>
>     Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of
>     Idaho for 31 years. See his columns as the Palouse Pundit at
>     www.NickGier.com.
>
>
>
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