sapphi_snake said:
The Middle Ages is the most 'moral' (as in the stressing of morality) time in the last 2000 years. In the Middle ages if you didn't live up to the expected moral rules you'd be tortured. The body was considered vile in the Middle Ages, and torture was seen as a good thing, treating the 'sinful' and 'immoral' body as it deserved. The closest thing to that is Communism (e.g. if you cheated on your wife, you'd be thrown out of the Communist party, lose your job and go to jail). They were pretty big on morality. And Catholics make up the majority of Christians, both back then and now. The ideea is that Christianity having political power = disaster, which is my point. You can use terms like 'Atheism China' all you want, but what you should be saying is 'Communist China', as Communism is the ideology which says religion should be eliminated, not Atheism (which holds no ideology). All these examples do is stress the importance of secularism. BTW, Communism and Christianity are quite similar in their principles. And no laws hold christianity or the Bible as their basis (if they did, they'd eventually lose their legitimity, as they'd have no rational basis). |
Umm yah Sapphi in which way is torturing anyone moral? Its also not Biblical Jesus did not preach torture the shit out of all those that sin. He did not say kick an adulterer out of town or punish her. This further proves my point that Christianity was not actually the basis for the Middle Ages Governments.
The actual Bible preaches against almost every single thing that the Catholic Church and Crusader armies did during the Middle Ages.
You also separate Atheism from China saying it isn't Atheist China but Communist China. Well it wasn't Christian Europe either sure the population largely considered themselves Christian. But the Government was not Christian anymore then the US Government is today. The Government was always politically motivated they used Christianity and the fact most citizens couldn't read their Bibles to manipulate the populous. The same way Communist Governments use Atheism to manipulate theirs.
The Crusades were completely politically motivated, On all sides. The Muslim armies were advancing into countries that were seen as Christian and the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire. The countries Governments realized that if they did not join together and fight off the invading countries they would fall one by one.
The Seljuq Turks were taking over the world. They were an unstoppable force and no single other country on earth could take down them down .The Muslim armies posed a big threat to all the countries that did not share their beliefs. So the Catholic Church and the Governments of the European countries banded together and responded with an alliance. They used Christianity to mobalize their people to defend Europe from the Muslim armies that were advancing. They put up a united front and counter attacked to ensure the Muslim armies stopped.
In fact the real reason the war started was because the Byzantine Empire's Emperor Alexios I Komnenos called for help from the Catholic Church and European countries as the Muslim armies started to threaten his country. Its the exact same as when Germany started taking over Europe. The Governments called on Britain and other countries to come to their aid. That has nothing to do with religion at all its completely militarily motivated and politically motivated.
The second Crusade was also prompted from Muslim Armies threatening countries that did not share their ideologies.
Fact is Christianity was used to find common ground and unite countries that were other wise enemies. Much like democracy is today, if Communist countries began taking out Democracy after democracy and threatened to take down Europe the worlds democracies would unite to defend Europe and fight back.
Again it was entirely politically motivated. Religion was simply used to mobilize the populous. It was also abused and not followed. The Bible does not condone much if anything that the Crusaders did if you actually had a basic knowledge of the New Testament the basis of Christianity you would know that the Crusades were highly non-biblical.
Fact is the Middle Ages are known partly as the Dark Ages for a reason. The morality was virtually non-existant. Kings had their wives killed because divorce wasn't allowed by the Catholic Church. Funny thing is murder isn't allowed by the Catholic Church either so it was a little hypocritical. The torture you mention is totally immoral in every sense of the word both Biblical and otherwise. The slaughtering of Protestants and everyone who disagreed with you also was immoral.
Their was no sense of morality during the Middle Ages. Governments and people used religion to meet their own selfish needs, the exact same way China and the Soviet Union used Atheism. The same way Hitler used Darwin's theory of Natural selection to purify the German race and better humanity by wiping out the weaker human beings to strengthen the race.
As for no laws holding Christianity as their basis. The whole legal system is built upon the New Testiment and Old Testiment. Even if the Government is trying to remove all references to Christianity the inspiration the foundation of our legal systems came from the Bible. The whole idea of human lives having value and such was based on the Bible. Fact is up until a few years ago you even had to swear on the Bible before you gave testimony in court. The whole North American legal system finds its roots in the Bible the basic principals that make up International law come from religion.
What about Human Rights if you take religion out of the picture they wouldn't exist. In fact murder would have no actual basis for being legal I mean obviously the stronger human killed the weaker human to survive. If all humans are animals as is a given if all religion were thrown out of law then theft and murder and such would be perfectly justifiable.
The whole moral fiber of all countries is found in religion.
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
