Anyway, for what started out as “trolling”…

Quotes for facetiousness.

Sorry, I’m bitter. :P

Anyway, for what started out as trolling, this is actually one of the more interesting debates I’ve read in a while, even if it Godwined a long time back.

It’s almost as if you wanted to overreach and put the “big three” twentieth century totalitarian monsters in the “anti-Christian camp” to paint a picture of Christianity as our savior from tyranny. But, while calling Christainity the principle cause of slaughter is inaccurate, so is an attempt to call Christianity a historical bulwark between humanity and inhumanity. In fact, Christians have been on both sides of history since Constantine.

That is not an illogical thing to say, but I think it is an inaccurate assumption to carry through to the end. I cannot speak for Dan, but many Christians feel that their religion is constantly painted as filled with “dumb rednecks”, “murderous “Crusading” butchers”, and other such ill will. It is a charge oft-repeated by so many self-important students and atheist chic types that the logical Christians are often very touchy about such things and eager to leap to smack down such goons. Anti-Christianity propaganda begets pro-Christianity propaganda. The latter statement is not entirely accurate though, because every one of Christianity’s ills is taken under a microscope by the former type, so the latter is devoid of mentioning said ills because the former already covered them all. :P

Again, not speaking for Dan here, just offering what I hope is helpful contextualization.

If it helps, I’ve always seen it as the atheist chic types see Christianity as the “popular norm of the masses” and thus must be opposed with “the TRUTH” whereas the Christians see it kinda the opposite and feel they must defend their religion et al.

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

Replace the word “Jews” with terrorists and it might sound like GWB

Now, one could make an awfully good case that Lutheran theology was irreconsilable with Naziism, but one cannot say that the majority of German Protestants rejected the Nazis. Nor can one say that about German Catholics.

Dan, you started by pointing out that Christianity is not to blame for the worst mass-killings the world has known. You pointed to Stalin and Mao as actively hostile to religion (any religion) — and I was with you there. Religious ideologies have no monopoly on bloodshed as against other ideologies. Adding Hitler weakened your point — he was willing to accomodate and use religion as long as it didn’t get in his way. It’s almost as if you wanted to overreach and put the “big three” twentieth century totalitarian monsters in the “anti-Christian camp” to paint a picture of Christianity as our savior from tyranny. But, while calling Christainity the principle cause of slaughter is inaccurate, so is an attempt to call Christianity a historical bulwark between humanity and inhumanity. In fact, Christians have been on both sides of history since Constantine.

Anyway, thanks for starting off the discussion with a mention of my site!