Christian Atrocities: Humanity's "Sin" or God's?

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By Ben Dench (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Ben Dench - Writer

Originally posted:
http://bendench.blogspot.com/2009/07/christian-atrocities-humanitys-sin-or.html

It seems like I hear a lot that when horrible things happen in the name
of Christianity it's because human beings are imperfect vessels and
they are corrupting God's message. This assertion allows most
Christians to continue in their beliefs while at the same time
reinforcing their ideas about humanity's imperfection and wretched
state. I'm well aware that Christianity is not the only religion, or
group, that does this. But I'm focusing on Christianity because I don't
necessarily think that every religion must have the same problems. Some
I think at least promote life-affirming values uncorrupted by the ideas
of sin, Satan, or hell. I'm also aware that not all Christians believe
in these things, but they have traditionally been a defining part of
Christian doctrine, and many Christians still do.

Some
individuals claim that it was in spite of Christian doctrine that
corrupt churches performed great horrors such as the Inquisition. This
seems plainly false. While corruption did (and does) abound in
Christian churches, it was the doctrine itself that gave rise to such
horrors. Our primary problem is not with "evil" men but with an "evil"
God (As Nietzsche said, God's only excuse
is that he doesn't exist!). It wasn't in spite of traditional Christian
doctrine that corrupt churches and individuals caused
suffering/stagnation/destruction but directly because of this corrupt
doctrine that "good" men were persuaded and "evil" men were empowered
to commit horrors.

Taking the Inquisition as one example, the
church fathers reasoned thusly: it is better to torture them now if it
has the potential to get them to confess their sins and return to
Christ than to let them die in their sin and go to a place of eternal
torment. And even if they themselves cannot be saved, it is better to
sacrifice them than to let them lead others astray to such a fate.

And, I must say, they were right. It is better to be tortured now than to be tortured for eternity. It is
better to prevent one from leading others into eternal torment and
death. It was the belief that was corrupt and sick, not the decisions
made based upon that belief, per se. It was not the men that formed
this policy to deal with reality that were necessarily corrupt but
rather the "God" that formed the policy of hell for reality-not the
institution that was corrupt as much as the doctrine itself.

One
may argue that the doctrine of hell was itself the product of a corrupt
institution seeking to increase its own power and influence, and this
is likely. But the point is that what caused these horrors-namely the
beliefs of those ordering them-is for most Christians the same today as
it was then. Christians haven't changed, the world has. Fundamentalist
Christians still believe that without Jesus one will go to hell.
They've just found that their opposition has grown too strong for them
to freely commit physical assaults-most of the time. Christians are
restrained by secular society. That, and no other reason, is why they
behave themselves. And many of them really
resent secular society and secular values-values such as freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, democracy-stuff like
that.

"It's not their love of mankind but the impotence of that love that keeps the present day Christians from burning us."

Thanks
Nietzsche. But in any event, this climate of rationality-in which ideas
such as the existence of hell are not endorsed by the state because
they are speculations about a world which we have little, if any,
direct experience of and thus no practical understanding for-makes
torture of nonbelievers the crime rather than nonbelief. To put it
another way, if traditional Christianity has changed it has changed in
method only. These Christians have found that the old methods have
grown ineffective in that they breed opposition to the church. And in
that this opposition has grown stronger than the church, the old
methods are especially ineffective. So the style has changed. Instead
of torturing people physically they focus on torturing them
psychologically and emotionally. On top of that (or maybe as a form of
it), they get them to listen to terrible Christian Rock music. Which is
an oxymoron, by the way. There's no such thing as Christian Rock,
because Rock is about revolution (the individual against the state's
tyranny / see School of Rock) and Christianity is about oppression (the state against the individual's freedom).

In
short, I want to say that religion is not the problem. Institutions are
not the problem. People are not the problem. The problem lies in
certain fundamental teachings of Christianity. You can strip away
everything else, if they are still there, there will still be problems.
Necessarily. On the other hand, if you were to actively remove and
oppose them, you could have your institutions and your religion and all
the "bad" people in the world wouldn't make that much of a difference.

If
you identify with the message of this article, please email it to
people, tell your friends, even print out copies to pass around.
Together we can raise awareness. Thank you.

http://bendench.blogspot.com/

Ben Dench graduated valedictorian of his class from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in the Spring Semester of 2007 with a B.A. in philosophy (his graduation speech, which received high praise, is available on YouTube). He is currently (more...)

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