Hate Speech In Religious Texts

[pErvinalia]

INever read it before.

Of course not. No Christian cleric ever uses it as the topic of his sermon these days, and Christians don't generally bother actually reading their own religious texts on their own. So while that piece of what you might term hate speech (more accurately it's a command to commit murder on a massive scale) does actually exist in the Bible, no Christian makes anything of it at all. The same verse was very effective to drive Christians into participating in massive massacres as well as systematic and lethal persecution of individuals. That's my point.

This perhaps highlights a critical difference between Christianity and Islam? Islam has no central religious authority. That is, any whackjob can call himself a sheik and say pretty much what he wants.

Not really. While there is no Islamic equivalent of a Pope, Christianity consists of a multitude of denominations, each of which have their particular leaders. Then there are uncounted factions within those denominations. Have a look at the change of policy between the Polish and the German fascists and the lovey dovey Argentinean Pope in the RCC, for instance. A different faction has become dominant for now. More importantly those Popes' pontifications are circumscribed by the Zeitgeist within which they officiate, and that Zeitgeist keeps changing.

Yebbut the two dominant forms of Christianity have authoritative organisation. Islam doesn't.

[JimC]

Hermit wrote:

Seems to me that you may be getting the message now, namely that what adherents of any particular religions do depends more on social conditions they are enveloped in than what is written in their holy texts.

Not a single "message" at all. There is almost certainly a multitude of reasons why, of all extant religions, Islam is the one that is consistently producing both sadistic violence and barbarism towards women. The usual proviso exists, that the majority of muslims are both not involved, but that does not change the fact that it is the religion which, by their own emphatic words, is the inspiration for the evil the jihadists commit.

The lack of a gradual emasculation via secularisation, the violence towards non-believers inherent in their holy writing, the warlord beginnings of their prophet, and the current social upheaval and geopolitical position in the muslim homelands are all potential factors. The exact influence of each is a matter for academic concern; the fact remains that currently, Islam is the only religion producing significant amounts of violent acts in the world.

[Svartalf]

Just remember the kind of atrocities chretinity inspired during the Spanish reconquista, during the conquest of the new world, and during the wars between catholics and protestants

[JimC]

Just remember the kind of atrocities chretinity inspired during the Spanish reconquista, during the conquest of the new world, and during the wars between catholics and protestants

Absolutely - all the monotheistic religions with a god modelled on a tyrannical, male tribal leader are prone to violence, and will engage in it when social conditions allow. But my main point is that the secularisation of Europe during the Enlightenment was the key to christianity having its worldly power curtailed, a process Islam has not truly gone through.

[cronus]

I'd say the distributed nature of Islam means it is impossible for it to go through a true 'moderation' like Christianity. It can go dormant but it is always one 'prick' away from mass murder mode. What should happen is to treat this particular religion as a loosely knit criminal organisation, similar to mafia, and write up laws accordingly. Over centuries expunge it from the modern world back into the gutter where it came from. Won't begin to happen until after the coming global economic collapse....

[piscator]

Just remember the kind of atrocities chretinity inspired during the Spanish reconquista...

Ethnic cleansing of Muslims, mostly. The same thing rational atheists here seem to favor.

Speaking of rational atheists...judging by how they run their websites, there's a 9 out of 10 chance we absolutely do not want them running our world under any circumstances.

[cronus]

Just remember the kind of atrocities chretinity inspired during the Spanish reconquista...

Ethnic cleansing of Muslims, mostly. The same thing rational atheists here seem to favor.

Speaking of rational atheists...judging by how they run their websites, there's a 9 out of 10 chance we absolutely do not want them running our world under any circumstances.

I don't advocate it. Social conditions indicate it is likely. The demographic is eerily similar to Germany before the depression/war here in the UK for instance. With 2.5 million Muslims in self made enclaves near large numbers of the urban poor, under the right conditions of a sudden economic downturn & with a few fire-brands...it'll turn ugly really quickly here. Less likely in France where the Muslims are mixed with the poor. Much more likely that France will fall completely to Islam in time though.

[JimC]

Just remember the kind of atrocities chretinity inspired during the Spanish reconquista...

Ethnic cleansing of Muslims, mostly. The same thing rational atheists here seem to favor.

Speaking of rational atheists...judging by how they run their websites, there's a 9 out of 10 chance we absolutely do not want them running our world under any circumstances.

What a lot of utter crap. Show me where anyone on this site was advocating the mass murder of muslims. What we are doing is criticising islam in a variety of ways, and debating the extent to which the religion itself has a greater tendency than other religions to instigate violence from its most brain-washed adherents. Most posts on the issue provide the usual proviso about the majority of muslims not deserving the sort of racist attacks from red-necks they seem to get.

[klr]

Firstly, hate speech in religious texts does not emanate from any god. Secondly, the harm depends on what people make of it. These days Christians ignore Luke 19:27 entirely, for instance. This was not always the case. The verse was used to justify and motivate people to participate in the crusades and countless internecine religious wars as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

In case you need reminding, Luke 19:27 reports Jesus as saying "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Don't forget Psalm 137. Boney M neatly avoided the last couple of verses. I wonder why?

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=KJV

[piscator]

Just remember the kind of atrocities chretinity inspired during the Spanish reconquista...

Ethnic cleansing of Muslims, mostly. The same thing rational atheists here seem to favor.

Speaking of rational atheists...judging by how they run their websites, there's a 9 out of 10 chance we absolutely do not want them running our world under any circumstances.

What a lot of utter crap. Show me where anyone on this site was advocating the mass murder of muslims. What we are doing is criticising islam in a variety of ways, and debating the extent to which the religion itself has a greater tendency than other religions to instigate violence from its most brain-washed adherents. Most posts on the issue provide the usual proviso about the majority of muslims not deserving the sort of racist attacks from red-necks they seem to get.

There's always an undercurrent of an eventual Big Fight with Islam. By implication, or by more Scumplesque terms.
Maybe it's that we're mostly Postchristians?


You do have to agree with the 9/10 remark though.

[JimC]

Just remember the kind of atrocities chretinity inspired during the Spanish reconquista...

Ethnic cleansing of Muslims, mostly. The same thing rational atheists here seem to favor.

Speaking of rational atheists...judging by how they run their websites, there's a 9 out of 10 chance we absolutely do not want them running our world under any circumstances.

What a lot of utter crap. Show me where anyone on this site was advocating the mass murder of muslims. What we are doing is criticising islam in a variety of ways, and debating the extent to which the religion itself has a greater tendency than other religions to instigate violence from its most brain-washed adherents. Most posts on the issue provide the usual proviso about the majority of muslims not deserving the sort of racist attacks from red-necks they seem to get.

There's always an undercurrent of an eventual Big Fight with Islam. By implication, or by more Scumplesque terms.
Maybe it's that we're mostly Postchristians?

You can't count Scumple posts - they can be interpreted in more ways than there are atoms in the Universe...

[pErvinalia]

Scumple's posts are like random bubbles in the quantum foam. There is no rhyme and reason to explain them.

[piscator]

Firstly, hate speech in religious texts does not emanate from any god. Secondly, the harm depends on what people make of it. These days Christians ignore Luke 19:27 entirely, for instance. This was not always the case. The verse was used to justify and motivate people to participate in the crusades and countless internecine religious wars as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

In case you need reminding, Luke 19:27 reports Jesus as saying "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Don't forget Psalm 137. Boney M neatly avoided the last couple of verses. I wonder why?

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=KJV

Because in 1978 Boney M ripped off the Melodians from 1970:

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Firstly, hate speech in religious texts does not emanate from any god. Secondly, the harm depends on what people make of it. These days Christians ignore Luke 19:27 entirely, for instance. This was not always the case. The verse was used to justify and motivate people to participate in the crusades and countless internecine religious wars as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

In case you need reminding, Luke 19:27 reports Jesus as saying "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Don't forget Psalm 137. Boney M neatly avoided the last couple of verses. I wonder why?

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=KJV

Because in 1978 Boney M ripped off the Melodians from 1970:

Actually, Frank Farian ripped of the Melodians and then credited Boney M with the song...

And some of the words (in both versions) came from Psalm 19.


I would LOVE to hear a version with infants heads being dashed against rocks though. That would complete the song for me...

[Hermit]

Firstly, hate speech in religious texts does not emanate from any god. Secondly, the harm depends on what people make of it. These days Christians ignore Luke 19:27 entirely, for instance. This was not always the case. The verse was used to justify and motivate people to participate in the crusades and countless internecine religious wars as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

In case you need reminding, Luke 19:27 reports Jesus as saying "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Don't forget Psalm 137. Boney M neatly avoided the last couple of verses. I wonder why?

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=KJV

Heh.

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Another one of the many biblical bits that get completely ignored because they don't fit the zeitgeist any more.

Piscator is right: The lines don't appear in Boney M's rendition because it's a cover recording of a couple of Rastafarian musicians who left them out too. In fact, the original was not even meant to be just a psalm. It is a political protest song that include excerpts, which themselves were adapted, from two psalms, and it was promptly banned by the Jamaican government.

Since then it has been covered, often with even more changes, dozens of times. I like Don Maclean's version best. Of course his recording does not mention the dashing of babies against rocks either, let alone how happy doing so makes one.