Mia McDavid wrote: > > Scott wrote: > > > > If it's not accountable for the misery commited in it's name, then it can't > take credit for the good things commited in it's name. > > > > Irritatingly, it can. That is, if I believe that God is the source of > all that is good, and that he/she loves us, then I believe that nothing > that is hateful or evil originates with God, but with the sinful desires > of people. > > Everything that is good, comes from God. Everything that is evil, comes > from our wills opposing God. > > You want to blame "religion" for bad things done in the name of God. > No, I blame *people* for bad things done in the name of God, and I give > to God the credit for all the good things done in God's name. > >From a slightly different point of view, religion has often been made an excuse for things which had other, radically different motives behind them. This applies, notably, to the Cathar crusades (where a major driving force was expansion by the Kings of France against the south); the wars of religion in the Seventeenth Century (temporal ambitions of rulers, both inside and outside the Holy Roman Empire); the English Civil War (in part), where a large chunk of the religious debate covered economic struggles between the urban and the rural parts of England; the Spanish Inquisition (consolidation of power by the Spanish Crown); and many other situations. It's fair enough, to a degree, to point out that Simon de Montfort is not a shining example of Christian virtue, despite his ecclesiastical rank; but to put his motivation down simply to "religion" is to oversimplify the situation grossly. At least Christianity recognizes the problem; the issue regarding whether the Church should be (as far as humanly possible) a society of saints or a "corpus mixtum" in this life was an early one (see the Montanist heresy) and settled on the side of allowing the bulk of humanity entrance without obvious supernatural virtue on the basis that only God could really determine the appropriate sorting out. One of the problems with blaming a particular religion, or variant of religion (Or indeed many other factors) is that history provides no controls: this isn't a scientific experiment. To assess whether the effect of a belief like Christianity is, in total, good or bad would require the ability to know, reasonably precisely and over the long term, what would have been the situation _without_ Christianity -- a type and level of knowledge that we just don't have. (This, of course more generally true of many other historical issues; it isn't restricted to religious issues.) -- James Burbidge jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca