well the root of all evil is religion

Post #175,419 by boxley 9/21/04 12:33:10 PM Reply	well the root of all evil is religion because evil must have a form and followers to create great death in the world. Ordinary people wont go out and do evil for fun or profit, they must believe in their hearts that evil is nescesary. This requires form and pomp, much public display and ritual. Religion, either creating or Hijacking one is the easiest and fastest way to get there. thanx, bill These miserable swine, having nothing but illusions to live on, marshmallows for the soul in place of good meat, will now stoop to any disgusting level to prevent even those miserable morsels from vanishing into thin air. The country is being destroyed by these stupid, vicious right-wing fanatics, the spiritual brothers of the brownshirts and redstars, collectivists and authoritarians all, who would not know freedom if it bit them on the ass, who spend all their time trying to stamp, bludgeon, and eviscerate the very idea of the individual's right to his own private world. DRL questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #175,421 by Nightowl 9/21/04 12:34:25 PM Reply	PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTT Nightowl >8# "It's not where a person stands in time of comfort and security, but rather where they stand in times of strife and controversy that determine true friends." (Quote sent to me by a true friend, author unknown).
Post #175,439 by pwhysall 9/21/04 1:51:03 PM Reply	Good comeback. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #175,513 by danreck 9/21/04 6:16:13 PM Reply	Re: Good comeback. You like that one, eh? Fwaaaap... :-O Just a few thoughts, Danno
Post #175,424 by deSitter 9/21/04 12:48:43 PM Reply	Deep -drl
Post #175,430 by FuManChu 9/21/04 1:17:56 PM Reply	That's not a Hebraic idea The use of the word "evil" in the OT is extremely problematic. The same root gets used for every connotation from "bad" to "harmful" to "unfortunate" to "wicked" (disobedient). Regardless: Ge 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Ge 8:21 The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. No pomp or ritual is necessary. By the way, evil is not the same thing as sin. Lev 4 makes it pretty clear that sin is something which is unintentional, and only realized by the actor after the fact. Both the Old and New Covenants address sin, not evil.
Post #175,437 by boxley 9/21/04 1:47:35 PM Reply	no hebrew required :-) just looking at the historical record of evil as defined by me. Easiest and fastest way to kill,enslave and wreak havoc on a neigbor was wrap it up in a religious banner. thanx, bill These miserable swine, having nothing but illusions to live on, marshmallows for the soul in place of good meat, will now stoop to any disgusting level to prevent even those miserable morsels from vanishing into thin air. The country is being destroyed by these stupid, vicious right-wing fanatics, the spiritual brothers of the brownshirts and redstars, collectivists and authoritarians all, who would not know freedom if it bit them on the ass, who spend all their time trying to stamp, bludgeon, and eviscerate the very idea of the individual's right to his own private world. DRL questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #175,519 by Arkadiy 9/21/04 6:50:33 PM Reply	Say "ideology" and I'll agree. Non-monotheistic religions are mostly not strong enough ideologies to use for evil. The statement "I believe in Zeus" is just not serious enough, because it has to be followed with "... and Poseidon, and Athena, and Hercules, and Hermafrodit, and Narciss" - it gets ridiculous. To be powerful enough for evil, the ideology has to be able to de-humanise a portion of humanity. Before the advent of Christianity, world made do with non-religious ideologies for atrocities. Ellinistic culture and Roman Empire are two that we all know about. I have no idea what Genghis had for ideology, but there must have been some. The idea of Big Three religions - there is _nothing_ except God, free will is a paradox - introduced a new ideology, plenty powerful enough to be used for evil. I don't know if Hinduism was powerful enough from the beginning or "learned" from the Big Three. Also, please note that the development of ideologies did not stop on religion. Marxism produced a newer powerful ideology that was used for evil. The basic idea that those who have are all robbers and not quite people is powerful enough. Faschism, OTOH, is not new, just recycled Roman Empire, or Egyptian Empire or whatever else. The interesting thing about monotheistic religion is that, when applied properly, to its logical extent, it dehumanises entire humanity, not a part of it. In the end, a saint, a sinner and an unbeliever are equal before the infinity of God. That's more than can be said about the other ideologies I saw so far. That makes religion less suited to use for evil, and less responsible for the evils that are commited in its name in my eyes. -- ... a reference to Presidente Arbusto. -- [link\|http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001417.html\|Geoffrey K. Pullum]
Post #175,537 by a6l6e6x 9/21/04 8:32:43 PM Reply	But you're forgetting Mars, the God of War. [link\|http://www.meridiangraphics.net/mars.htm\|Mars]. Mars, the Roman God of War, was one of the most worshipped and revered gods throughout ancient Rome. He was the son of Jupiter and Juno and according to legend, fathered Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, with the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia. Because of this mythological lineage, the Roman people felt as though they were also the children of Mars and he was regarded as their protector. Mars held a special place in the Roman Pantheon not only for his patronly influence, but because of the importance of military achievement in the republic and the Roman Empire, conquering Northern Africa and much of Europe and the Middle East. Alex "If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -- Philip K. Dick, US science fiction writer
Post #175,586 by FuManChu 9/22/04 1:27:24 AM Reply	Intriguing concept But IMO there have been far too many polytheistic societies with "evil" behavior bound to one god or another. The most persistent in the Middle East for centuries was probably Moloch: [link\|http://www.fact-index.com/m/mo/moloch.html\|http://www.fact-inde.../m/mo/moloch.html] [link\|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch\|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch] ...the most famous atrocity done in his name being the regular sacrifice of human babies. Although the original MLK deity may have sprung from a monotheistic culture (and even that's doubtful), he continued to appear well into the Babylonian period and beyond, each wave of conquest incorporating him into Yet Another Pantheon. One might also easily mention the Aztecs' god of war, Huitzilopochtli, and the ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism performed in his name (among others in the same pantheon). Before the advent of Christianity, world made do with non-religious ideologies for atrocities. Ellinistic culture and Roman Empire are two that we all know about. I would put that more at the feet of a general atheistic trend which always accompanies large people-movements. Both the Greeks and Romans brought about and therefore experienced a large number of cultural upheavals. An increase in the pantheon followed each such shuffling, to the point of unsustainability which you mention. So I think you're right to say "there's a point at which polytheism loses its potency as a ideological basis for behavior." But I don't think you can then say _all_ polytheistic systems have been impotent. There's a critical mass which has only occurred (to my knowledge) a few times in history.
Post #175,606 by Arkadiy 9/22/04 8:53:59 AM Reply	I have to agree that polytheistic civilization commited attrocities. But I am not sure if they indeed used religion as the excuse for real industrial-grade evil - killing off entire cities or nations, like Crusaders did to Constantinople, Nazies to Jews and Stalin to Chechens. Aztec gods and Moloch required human sacrifices, which is a horrible deed, but, when their followers set out to subjugate neighbors, did they do it because Moloch told them he needs more victims? I do not know enough about Aztecs, but Carthage's commercial expansion brought it in conflict with Rome, not religion. Mars is another good example. Are Romans favored by Mars because the conquer, or are they conquering to please Mars? I thing former is closer to Romans' feelings. -- ... a reference to Presidente Arbusto. -- [link\|http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001417.html\|Geoffrey K. Pullum]
Post #175,757 by FuManChu 9/22/04 2:30:24 PM Reply	In the Aztec case, yes The impetus for conquest was directly tied to the bloodthirstiness of the war god. They only killed and cannibalized their own when they ran out of nearby enemies. All I'm saying is that Rome, and to a lesser extent Greece, had atheistic "industrial-grade evil" because they had acheived a critical mass of polytheism after numerous waves of conquest. Early Rome was much more bound to its pantheon as a sincere justification for behavior than later Rome was. So it's not polytheism per se which diffuses religious justification, IMO--instead, there's a watershed point when enough cultures have collided and mixed their pantheons. The Aztecs never had the opportunity to attain that watershed point, for example; their one chance came with European contact, and they didn't survive that long enough to see the polytheistic results. One might argue that Europe, itself, has reached that point, and that Hitler and Stalin are outcomes. I would guess that Chang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung (and other atheistic communist revolutionaries) functioned equivalently; they all were attempting cultural consolidation in the face of cultural uncertainty (with an economic factor, to be sure). The fact that they were able to do so atheistically was dependent upon the number and frequency of those same cultural collisions which forced the revolutions themselves. IMO. I'm not going to make a doctoral thesis out of all this. ;)

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