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ElephantSack · 04-07-2009, 12:24 AM

My reply to the initial question of this thread would probably go something like this:

Christianity, on the personal level, is only as real as you want it be. If you had never heard of Christianity and discovered The Bible as an adult, you probably wouldn't be basing your life-system off of it. It's a big reason why adults who grew up in religious-tolerant homes, but still remained Christian as a matter of tradition, create their own version of Christianity. However, for some it has enough of that "faith-healing" factor to trigger the initial human tenacity in us all that helps people to kick drug addictions and recover from serious illnesses.

On a family level, it acts quite strongly as an invisible nanny if the parents decide to enforce the religion on their childrens' minds. It convinces the kids that being bad never goes unnoticed. "If the parents never know about it, God surely did, and you better believe that you'll answer for what you did eventually." It's this kind of mental parasitism that promotes the notion that being different (i.e. gay, of a different faith or faithless) is wrong - and in fanatical circumstances - punishable by death. Therefore, the kids' minds will keep themselves in check.

On a national level, you might get something similar to what we have going on today between the US and the Middle East. That old notion of the different peoples of the world being wrong and "evil" triggers mass hysteria and hate-mongering. "And if we destroy the world while we're at it? That's Okay, because our God will understand that it was what we had to do to get rid of all the heathens. And then we can all go live with Jesus in fluffy clouds." Although technically the United States is not a Christian nation, it's far from completely secular (i.e. national holidays, Manifest Destiny). And there are plenty of mentally feeble dupes to convince to go to strange places, learn strange, new customs, and meet strange, new people only to kill them. All because their reverend, pastor, priest, father, parishioner, president, general, TV said it was the right thing to do.

So depending on what level we refer to it, Christianity is real in a completely harmless way, and on another level it could wield the power to destroy most of the life on the planet.

I think the question is, "Should we allow it to exist as a harmless idea when it has genocidal potential?"

04-07-2009, 12:24 AM	#149 (permalink)
ElephantSack Man vs. Wild Turkey Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: ATX Posts: 948	My reply to the initial question of this thread would probably go something like this: Christianity, on the personal level, is only as real as you want it be. If you had never heard of Christianity and discovered The Bible as an adult, you probably wouldn't be basing your life-system off of it. It's a big reason why adults who grew up in religious-tolerant homes, but still remained Christian as a matter of tradition, create their own version of Christianity. However, for some it has enough of that "faith-healing" factor to trigger the initial human tenacity in us all that helps people to kick drug addictions and recover from serious illnesses. On a family level, it acts quite strongly as an invisible nanny if the parents decide to enforce the religion on their childrens' minds. It convinces the kids that being bad never goes unnoticed. "If the parents never know about it, God surely did, and you better believe that you'll answer for what you did eventually." It's this kind of mental parasitism that promotes the notion that being different (i.e. gay, of a different faith or faithless) is wrong - and in fanatical circumstances - punishable by death. Therefore, the kids' minds will keep themselves in check. On a national level, you might get something similar to what we have going on today between the US and the Middle East. That old notion of the different peoples of the world being wrong and "evil" triggers mass hysteria and hate-mongering. "And if we destroy the world while we're at it? That's Okay, because our God will understand that it was what we had to do to get rid of all the heathens. And then we can all go live with Jesus in fluffy clouds." Although technically the United States is not a Christian nation, it's far from completely secular (i.e. national holidays, Manifest Destiny). And there are plenty of mentally feeble dupes to convince to go to strange places, learn strange, new customs, and meet strange, new people only to kill them. All because their reverend, pastor, priest, father, parishioner, president, general, TV said it was the right thing to do. So depending on what level we refer to it, Christianity is real in a completely harmless way, and on another level it could wield the power to destroy most of the life on the planet. I think the question is, "Should we allow it to exist as a harmless idea when it has genocidal potential?"