THE CHRISTIAN ANTI JIHADIST ….. A STUDY IN HYPOCRISY

NAMO TASSA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASSA

NAMO TASSA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASSA

NAMO TASSA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASSA

Translation: May veneration be presented to the exalted one who is a Buddha and has achieved enlightenment by himself righteously.

 

THE CHRISTIAN ANTI JIHADIST …. A STUDY IN HYPOCRISY

 

 

So here’s the story, the one we’re supposed to believe, that the Jews were Gods special one and only beloved and chosen people who were chosen by God himself to be the special recipients of god’s special chosen spiritual grace. They rejected his savior Jesus and so by default if you will, all now who accept Jesus as their personal savior will reap the heavenly benefits’. I’ve had a Christian once call himself a “new and improved super Jew” and no doubt that this is what it pretty much comes down to for many a Christian. I don’t really care if they believe this, as long as they’re not out hurting people.

That’s the problem though, Christianity is a religious belief that has historically encouraged, condoned, and committed a great deal of violence and murder of many innocent people.   This is what simply astounds me when they seek to critique a religion like Islam.  Christian apologists don’t seem to realize that they enjoy employing the very same types of excuse that they steadfastly refuse to accept from the apologists of Islam.

Before we look at that, we should take a step back first and examine how the Christian apologist first needs to redefine  a word like “Christian” or “Christianity” in order to try and exempt themselves from the majority of their own scripture as the groundwork for this three card monte game of have your cake and eat it too.

If you ask most Christian’s today what a Christian is they will tell you that it is someone who believes in Christianity as their religious belief, and when you ask them what Christianity is they will tell you that it is a religion based on the life and teachings of someone named “Jesus”. This my friends is exactly where a critical card switch comes into play. Have any of us ever asked ourselves that if this were true then just why is the Christian Bible a heck of a lot more than the approximate eight weeks (which would include the forty days and nights spent in a desert) that we know of the life of Jesus according to the Christian Bible?

 

“Fundamentally, Christians are supposed to  follow Jesus not the Bible”.

Christians have been taught that Christianity is a religion based on the life of Jesus (the little that we know of it), instead of a religion derived from the life of Jesus that is based on the Christian Bible both Old and New Testament. The difference becomes tremendous and affords them the luxury of isolating themselves from the rest of their Bible and hopefully for them, the sad history of Christianity that is a direct reflection of that scripture.

Chris·tian·i·ty noun
\ˌkris-chē-ˈa-nə-tē, ˌkrish-, -ˈcha-nə-, ˌkris-tē-ˈa-\

Definition of CHRISTIANITY

1: the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies

2: conformity to the Christian religion

3: the practice of Christianity

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/christianity

Let’s make a note of “based on the Bible as sacred scripture” not just some of the Bible but all of it. Although many a Christian would seem to want to be a spokesperson for all of Christianity, there are also important differences among Christians as to what to make of the Old Testament.

There has been controversy from the very beginning as regards the Old Testament and just what to accept of the Mosaic law (if anything) and what not to.Paul’s heated dispute with other early Christians (Gal.) notably the “Judaizers” over the circumcision issue give testimony to this.

As of today, many traditional Christians have the view that only parts are applicable, and which one’s are or aren’t are left to be disputed by one’s interpretation. Many Protestants have the view that NONE is applicable, dual-covenant theologians have the view that only the seven Noahide Laws apply to Gentiles, and some have the view that ALL of the Old Testament laws are still applicable to believers in Jesus (Jewish or Hebrew Christians).1

In response to being accused of breaking the law of Moses by working on the Sabbath (which Moses killed a man for in the book of Numbers and “Yahweh” didn’t seem to have much of an issue with) Jesus himself said, in Matthew 5:17-18: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

In other words the teaching of Jesus is not to replace the law of Moses ….. unless of course, the heaven and the earth have disappeared and someone hasn’t let us know about that all important news flash yet.

Has anyone ever taken a look lately at some of what the “Law Of Moses” consisted of?

The Christian God commands….. Who they should kill.

Unruly or rebellious child ( regarding  Islam this is referred to as “honor Killing”).

Deut. Chapter 21 (N.I.V.)

¹⁸ If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, ¹⁹ his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” ²¹ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Although it is true that other cultures have practiced “honor killing”, the Christian Bible and Qur’an of Islam are the only two that actually give scriptural justification. Imagine the mental hold and power that a religious scriptural teaching must have for so many that they would kill a member of their own flesh and blood while understanding it as God’s will. Interestingly enough, although Christianity as it is now practiced would consider this a bit outdated after the arrival of Jesus, Islam would not have such a recourse owing to the fact that the Qur’an is a work considered extant to the time of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Something critical to consider here is the fact that this is the same brutal and sadistic God that both consider as  general characteristics worthy of emulation coming from their “holy” and “righteous” vision of a creator God. How can it be that this is  just an example of a perspective of authority, and not something to be condoned as otherwise brutal and sadistic while in the service to their God?  As it is said, the best teacher teaches by example.

 Regarding  Islam this is referred to as “honor Killing” supported in the Qur’an in Surra 18 Vs 60-85 with a story involving Moses or “Musa” as the Muslim would have it. In this story a slave boy is teaching Musa about God (this is itself an interesting concept to explore) and kills a boy by strangling him to death. At the end of it all he dismisses Musa as a pupil of his because Musa is questioning him too much ( again, an interesting concept to explore ) and explains to the prophet who himself has spent time with God personally but needs him to teach him about God that the boy was strangled so that the parents might have a “better” one!  

WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME SOME FRESH AIR! …..

 

 Lev. 20:9 and Ex. 21:15 Worshipers of other Gods (Infidels).

 Deut.13:6-11 Psychics, Witches (Infidels).

 Lev. 20-27, Deut. 13:6-11, Ex.22:18 Those who work on the Sabbath. Ex.35:2 (Moses killed a gentile for this in Num.15:32-and 36. and in the Qur’an (2:65) there’s a spot where the Jew’s are turned into ape’s and pigs for this! What a coincidence!)

  Deut.17:6

 Those who are accused by at least two people for wickedness.

in Num.31:17, Deut 20:13, Psalm 137:9, and Lev.26:29

 The children and babies of enemies are to be killed commands their Christian God of Israel.

Lev.20:10   Adulterers (Islam also).

Lev.20:13

Homosexuals (Islam also).

Deut. 22:13-21

 Let’s not forget that a woman who is not a virgin when married, their God commands her to be killed also.

Let’s see, hmm where could have Muhammad have gotten many such similar idea’s from, hmmm….is it any wonder that Muhammad considered the God of Israel the foundation of the “people of the book”, with himself declared as the final prophet?

 After they get through convincing themselves and anybody who will listen that Christianity is just about the little that we know of the life of Jesus, and that Christianity therefore is just about the loving kindness of “our lord Jesus” it becomes a simple thing to “forget” about all of the atrocity’s of the Old Testament God, as if God was somehow rehabilitated after sending whom we are told was his personal son on a suicide mission.

The best teacher teaches by example… should the Christian be compassionate or a sadistic murderer? Apparently this would depend on which example you feel like choosing from. In the Christian Bible, are there more examples of compassion or wrath and murder?

While the Christian condemns the Islamic governments of the world for cruel and sadistic behavior, let us ask, has there ever been a Christian government that has been all about the virtue and loving kindness of  their ” lord Jesus”? Or has there always been something else shown?

This List is incomplete, as well I have also omitted the entries regarding some forms of twentieth century Christian terrorism of arson, murders,shootings and the like in Jesus’ name which exist practically up to this day.

A list of Christian violence (2)

Killing Ancient Pagans in the name of Christ.

*As soon as Christianity was legal (315 C.E.), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.

*Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.

*Examples of destroyed Temples the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea,the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.

*Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as “temple destroyer.” [DA468] *Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]

*Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed,because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]

According to Christian chroniclers he “followed meticulously all Christian teachings…”

*In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.

*In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]

*The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.

The Murdering Christian Missionaries

*Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]

*Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]

*Battle of Belgrad 1456 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]

*15th century Poland 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]

*16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops “pacified and civilized” Ireland, where only Gaelic “wild Irish”, “unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing.” One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that “the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies… and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie”, which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused “greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde”.

Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99,225]

The Christian Crusades (1095-1291 C.E.)

*First Crusade 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]

*Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]

*9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]

*Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]

*After 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed.[WW32-35]

Here the Christians “did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy’s] tents – save that they ran their lances through their bellies,” according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres.[EC60]

*Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine “the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians” said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]

*Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (Jewish, Muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]

(In the words of one witness “there [in front of Solomon’s temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes”, and after that “happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour’s tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude”)

*The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote “It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies

and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished.” [TG79]

*Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that “even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition”. One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]

*Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered “in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. [WW45]

*Fourth crusade 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]

*Rest of Crusades in less detail until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]

Note All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Killing “Heretics” in the name of Christ.

*Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]

*Manichaean heresy a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]

*Albigensians the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians.

[DO29]

The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]

Begin of violence on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends)

20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]

*Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed.

[WW181]

*subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]

*After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183] *Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]

*Other heresies Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of

persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).

*Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220

burnings. [DO28]

*John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was

burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]

*University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna.

[DO59]

*Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Killing Witches in the name of Christ.

*from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several

thousand.

*in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars

several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or

hanged. [WV]

*incomplete list of documented cases

The Burning of Witches – A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Other Christian Religious Wars

*15th century Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]

*1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]

*1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]

*1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]

*17th century Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, “cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals… and then dumped him into the river […but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [… and] dragged what was left … to the gallows of Montfaulcon, ‘to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows’.” [SH191]

*17th century Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. “In a single church fifty women were found beheaded,” reported poet Friedrich Schiller, “and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers.” [SH191]

*17th century 30 years’ war (Catholic vs. Protestant) at least 40% of

population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Killing Jews in the name of Christ.

*Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.

*In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]

*17. Council of Toledo 694 Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]

*The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities’ Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]

*First Crusade Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]

*Second Crusade 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully,

Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]

*Third Crusade English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]

*Fulda/Germany 1235 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]

*1257, 1267 Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton,

Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]

*1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]

*1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]

*1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]

*1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]

*1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]

*1391 Seville’s Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored “badges of shame” that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.

*1492 In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]

*1648 Chmielnitzki massacres In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick …) this goes on and on, century after century, right

into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Killing Native Peoples in the name of Christ.

*Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity. *Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, “ought to be good servants … [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion.” [SH200]

While Columbus described the Indians as “idolators” and “slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order,” his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as “beasts” because “they eat when they are hungry,”and made love “openly whenever they feel like it.” [SH204-205]

*On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, “making the declarations that are required” – the requerimiento – to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And “nobody objected.” If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding),

the requerimiento continued “I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you … and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church … and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him.” [SH66]

*Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony “justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England … to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, … and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ.” [SH235]

*In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of “the marvelous goodness and providence of God” to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as “for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.” [SH109,238]

*On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]

*The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and Spanish raids.

*As one of the culprits wrote “So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous.” [SH69]

*The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As “they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell.” [SH70]

*What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness “The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties … They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles… then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive.” [SH72]

Or, on another occasion “The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts…Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs.” [SH83]

*The “island’s population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus’s arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out.” Eventually all the island’s natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were “forced” to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus “the Caribbean’s millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century”. [SH72-73] “In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated.” [SH75]

*”And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitlán [Mexico city] was next.” [SH75]

*Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida). *”When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead.” [SH95]

Of course no different were the settlers of what today is the US of 
America.

*Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults

rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers “Their Warres are farre less bloudy…”, so that there usually was “no great slawter of nether side”. Indeed, “they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men.” What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]

*In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the(generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown – “being idell … did runne away unto the Indyans,” – to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem). “Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed ‘Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe’.” [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen “This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia” methods were different “when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community” down. [SH105]

*On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of

the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the “Peqout War”. The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.

*When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief’s pledge they attacked. Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages. The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote “And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished … God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven … Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies” men, women, children. [SH113-114]

*So “the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance”. [SH111].

*Because of his readers’ assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow “Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them…” (Deut 20)

*Mason’s comrade Underhill recalled how “great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers” yet reassured his readers that “sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents”. [SH114]

*Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists’ own words “blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them.”

(This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]

*The surviving handful of Indians “were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for ‘a share’ of the captives, specifically ‘a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good’.” [SH115]

*Other tribes were to follow the same path.

*Comment the Christian exterminators “God’s Will, which will at last give us cause to say How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!”

“Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!” [TA]

*Like today, lying to help further what was perceived as a Christian agenda opposed to the unbelieving heathen was OK to many Christians then. “Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them when the Indians ‘grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie’, advised the Council of State in Virginia, ‘we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne’.” [SH106]

*In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]

*In a single massacre in “King Philip’s War” of 1675 and 1676 some “600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a ‘barbeque’.” [SH115]

*To summarize Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive – a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 – 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 – 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive – 81% destroyed.

[SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.

*All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.

*A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.

*In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Notable Events in US history

*Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England’s most esteemed religious leaders, in “1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs ‘to hunt Indians as they do bears’.” [SH241]

*Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church (“I long to be wading in gore”) had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs’ waving with a white flag 400-500 killed. From an eye-witness account “There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed …” [SH131]

*By the 1860s, “in Hawaii the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands’ native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to ‘the amputation of diseased members of the body’.” [SH244] 3

I have had some try to critique this list by saying as an example…

Alleged ‘fact’: Germany

*1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]

Actual Historical Evidence:

January
– The Jewish population of Basal Switzerland is rounded up and incinerated, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black death febuary 1 – Roughly 2,000 jews are burned to death in Strasburg. March 21 – The bulk of the 900 strong Jewish community of Eurfert Germany is murdered by the rest of the population which accuses the minority to be the underlying cause of the Black Death

…that with this example that this was unsubstantiated as anti-Semitic behavior! They I suppose could have accused the Jews of bringing the Black Plague for reasons other than anti-Semitism, such as…..?

The self denial here is absolutely astounding!  

Or how about this…..

Maybe here we need to define religious war.

Holy wars usually have three elements:

the achievement of a religious goal

authorized by a religious leader

a spiritual reward for those who take part

Francis Bacon said there were five causes for holy war: (he wrote in a Christian context, but the categories would be usable by any faith)

to spread the faith
to retrieve countries that were once Christian, even though there are no Christians left there
to rescue Christians in countries that were once Christian from ‘the servitude of the infidels’
recover and purify consecrated places that are presently being ‘polluted and profaned’
avenge blasphemous acts, or cruelties and killings of Christians (even if these took place long ago) 

Here we see a desperate attempt to define religious war in a way that the Christian can claim that because ALL such conditions aren’t met, well heh, um that’s not really a heh, “religious war”!

This reminds me of  how although Adolf  Hitler was considered “indecisive” on the matter by some, (3) it is no coincidence I believe that he was unable to have himself defined as a Jew with his possible Jewish grandfather in mind, when the dreamed up definition of what a “Jew” was became a part of the Third Reich’s Nuremberg laws.(4)

This again is all quite often where the Christian will want to alter the definition of Christian or Christianity in order to side step this important issue.

The alibis that the Christian will offer are the same as the Muslim apologist that the Christian understandably refuses to accept.

 

“You’re taking all of this history out of context”

Really! And so the proper context would be…..

That’s not “main stream” Christianity….

 

I once had a Christian ask me to name a “mainstream” Christian church that advocated the Christianity that I was discussing. As mentioned, how coincidental that this is the same excuse that the Muslim apologist gives when they tell us that the Islamic terrorist is not “mainstream” Islam. The Christian anti-Jihadist will tell the Muslim apologist the same thing then that we must remind the Christian, that a religion is defined by its scripture as the standard of authority not whatever the “mainstream” is doing or not. This is where one gets their religious inspiration from as a Muslim or Christian who are both taught that such scripture is the divine communication and perfect word of their perfect God.

It gets even more ridiculous.

Many will then wish to claim that most Christians don’t really consider the Christian Bible to be the LITERAL word of their Christian God!

That must be why they’re always looking to quote the Bible to teach themselves or the rest of us a thing or two!

We should not forget that both the Christian and Muslim are taught to worship the same dictator of a sadistic God who will someday either annihilate (Christian annihilationist teaching) us or punish and torture us for all eternity (not just a few billion years to teach us a good lesson) should we die the Christian or Muslim infidel.

“That’s just the old time Old  Testament, not the beloved New Testament where Jesus shows his love.”

 Really?

   Not only does the Christian usually wish to separate the God of the Old Testament from that of the New Testament, but at their convenience it becomes quite fashionable to forget about parts of the New Testament in comparison to the Old Testament as well.

As far as Jesus showing compassion to the adulteress in John 8: 2-11, and breaking the law of Moses to do so as many believe, this is not simply not true. According to the law of Moses, both the adulteress and the one that she was engaging in this activity with would be put to death (Deut.22 22-24 and Lev 20:10 would be two places to look for this), and her co conspirator was not brought with her. As well, by this time it is clear that according to what is indicated by Hosea 2, Isaiah 50 and Jeremiah 3 of the Old Testament divorce was something that had developed as the preferred method for dealing with adultery. Take into consideration also that as a Roman colony the Sanhedrin was not allowed to execute the penalty of capital punishment in the first place. This was the reason why according to the story, they needed to go to Pontius Pilate to secure the authority of Rome before crucifying Jesus. “But if Jesus didn’t come to change things, then why did he come?” I hear often. Unfortunately for those who subscribe to this, this is nothing more really than circular logic. It would be the same sort of reasoning as if someone were to say “But if Muhammad were not the final prophet, then why did Allah send the angel Gabriel to give him the revelations?” Jesus seems more compassionate over all of the little that we know of him through the New Testament than Moses, although that does not mean that he ever broke the law of Moses to be so.

Another example of this would be the Book of Acts Ch.5 where the “holy” spirit of the Christian God of Israel (who according to the Christian is both Jesus and God the father as well!)  murders both a husband and a wife for selling some land and not “coughing it all up” to the apostle Peter with an attempted act of deception! This is we are told, after Jesus has saved a woman accused of adultery of being stoned to death. For the believer of the Trinity, there is not much if any a distinction between the “Father” the “Son” or the “Holy Spirit”.  One moment the giver of compassion, and the next a murdering totalitarian! What nerve! To try and deceive the “holy” spirit! Even if you buy this story they must have been either ignorant enough not to know that this is what they were doing, or believed that this is what they were doing and could get away with it. The punishment of course, is death. Let’s remember that the book of Malachi 3:6 of the Old Testament reminds us that their Christian God of Israel is an unchanging God.

 Sounds pretty sick, right? This is where both the Christian and Muslim are taught to excuse it with talk about fearing the righteous will of God, and therefore should not be questioned regardless of how sadistic, cruel and sick minded it sounds.

This is the moral of the story when we read in the Old Testament of how Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Isaac out of fear for God before the test was ended. (5) 

 The lesson here being taught to humanity is that might makes right, or authority make right, which again, is the same thing that the Christian anti-Jihadist will criticize the Muslim apologist for!

 

The modern day disparity most people see between Christianity and Islam is due to the countries they are comparing. Most of these middle eastern countries are theocracies where the religion has complete control of the state. Here in the Western democracies, we have a secular framework that keeps our crazed religious fundamentalists from running too wild, though it is constantly under assault here in the US. There are plenty of Christian groups here that must in their own special way admire the Taliban. They’d love nothing more than to abolish the constitution, create a theocracy, and start burning and stoning heretics. There are already many Christians who will tell you that America was founded as a Christian country mistaking the settlers of the Mayflower for those who actually wrote and signed off on our constitution. Without our secular institutions, there is no good reason to believe that we wouldn’t  be just as bad. (6)

The point therefore of this article is not to claim that there aren’t any parts of the Christian Bible that show compassion or mercy, loving kindness etc. but to remind us that if any should think that from at least a state authority perspective, Islam’s best replacement is Christianity, that would be a rather reckless misunderstanding that if ever implemented would prove to be a rather endearing mistake for all of us.

 

 References

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_the_old_covenant

(2) http://notachristian.org/christianatrocities.html

http://notachristian.org/christianatrocities.html

[DA]

K.Deschner, Abermals krähte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962.

[DO]

K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987.

[EC]

P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985.

[EJ]

S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977.

[LI]

H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961.

[MM]

M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People.

[MV]

A.Manhattan, The Vatican’s Holocaust, Springfield 1986.

See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo

NY, 1992.

[NC]

J.T.Noonan, Contraception A History of its Treatment by the Catholic

Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992.

[S2]

Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 1200.

[SH]

D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992.

[SP]

German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996.

[TA]

A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Hapned

in the Warre Between the English and the Indians in New England,

London 1676.

[TG]

F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980.

[WW]

H.Wollschläger Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zürich

1973.

(This is in german and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is

the best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of

original medieval Christian chroniclers’ writings).

[WV]

Estimates on the number of executed witches

*N.Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch

Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253.

*R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York

1959, 180.

*J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39.

*H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56.

 

(3) Mommsen, Hans “The Realization of the Unthinkable: The “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” in the Third Reich” pages 217–264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The “Final Solution”: The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 222

(4) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitlerjew.html

(5)Gen 22: 1-13

(6) Christian Violence in AmericaThe ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science July 1998 558:88-100