A 29-year-old passenger was arrested after allegedly refusing to sit beside a woman, citing Sharia law, before assaulting a flight attendant on a flight to Düsseldorf.
I hate the “those extremists are not REAL members of my religion” rhetoric. We shouldn’t forget that christianity also tells us to stone gay men to death, that slavery is good if the victims are from other nations, and that women should subject themselves to their husbands. The European slavers of the past were some of the most horrible people in history, and they were very christian too as they followed these rules to a tee. They did break the laws about respecting your fellow man, sure, but the inverse can be said of the christians who are decent people. They adhere the love thy neighbour rules, but break the rules that say that they should stone gay men. This means that the decent christians are much better people, but not necessarily more or less christian than the slavers of the past.
So if you are a christian and you feel bad by this association, I suggest that, instead of defending your relegion, you re-evaluate it.
I agree with the main argument of what you’re saying. I’m sharing that I’d flag these ones as fascist-forward, not religion-to-the-extreme.
At the end of the day, people are people and you’ll get the worst of us rising to the top in any power structure. In the case of Christianity, moving from a Jewish sect to a formal empire-backing religion of its own may be the worst thing that ever happened to it. Slavery, the crusades, the inquisition, imperial colonialism, they’re all up there too.
Stoning gay men? That’s not Jesus-based, although it is definitely supported by some Christian sects even today. But that supports fundamentalist Judaism, and isn’t what Jesus taught (“whoever is without sin, cast the first stone”).
So the problem then comes down to: what do you do when you share an identity with people who proudly do vile things in the name of that identity?
The teachings of Jesus actually are useful in exploring the answer to that question. He wasn’t Christian, he was Jewish. And he never renounced Judaism, even though he denounced the actions of the contemporary leaders of the Jewish faith.
I hate the “those extremists are not REAL members of my religion” rhetoric. We shouldn’t forget that christianity also tells us to stone gay men to death, that slavery is good if the victims are from other nations, and that women should subject themselves to their husbands. The European slavers of the past were some of the most horrible people in history, and they were very christian too as they followed these rules to a tee. They did break the laws about respecting your fellow man, sure, but the inverse can be said of the christians who are decent people. They adhere the love thy neighbour rules, but break the rules that say that they should stone gay men. This means that the decent christians are much better people, but not necessarily more or less christian than the slavers of the past.
So if you are a christian and you feel bad by this association, I suggest that, instead of defending your relegion, you re-evaluate it.
I agree with the main argument of what you’re saying. I’m sharing that I’d flag these ones as fascist-forward, not religion-to-the-extreme.
At the end of the day, people are people and you’ll get the worst of us rising to the top in any power structure. In the case of Christianity, moving from a Jewish sect to a formal empire-backing religion of its own may be the worst thing that ever happened to it. Slavery, the crusades, the inquisition, imperial colonialism, they’re all up there too.
Stoning gay men? That’s not Jesus-based, although it is definitely supported by some Christian sects even today. But that supports fundamentalist Judaism, and isn’t what Jesus taught (“whoever is without sin, cast the first stone”).
So the problem then comes down to: what do you do when you share an identity with people who proudly do vile things in the name of that identity?
The teachings of Jesus actually are useful in exploring the answer to that question. He wasn’t Christian, he was Jewish. And he never renounced Judaism, even though he denounced the actions of the contemporary leaders of the Jewish faith.