Patrice Ayme’: The angry, cruel, somewhat demented, child murdering, jealous, holocaust-prone god of Judaism-Christianism-Islamism justifies bloody despots. (So does Literal Islam, and even much more so, but that’s besides the point here. What is interrogated here is the origin of Christianism’s, and thus Islamism’s, hyper-violence)
Chris Snuggs: “Christianism does not belong in the same basket as Islam. Disregard how men have perverted both; just compare what they ARE, what their fundamental message is.”
PA: Agreed… If one forget that they are not at the same stage of development, and if one uses a stochastic filter. Stochastic comes from the word for “aim” in Greek. It’s used to mean “probability theory”. So the idea is to look at the New Testament, and take, so to speak, the average statement, ignoring those where (the mythical) “Christ” speaks about swords and all that… Sword, as an instrument to foster faith. Force, the Sword, is what made Christianism seductive to Constantine. He was a forceful man. He steamed his wife, alive, killed his nephew, and had his meritorious, accomplished, most famous general and admiral of a son, executed.
Force & the Sword, Justified & Practiced by God, Is The Christian Mood Which Seduced Constantine, Because So Was His Calling
[Roman Emperor Constantine’s statue at York Minster, Britannia, his birth place.]
Here is a sample I have often used:
Luke 19:27: “But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.”
Some will play it down: ‘Oh, it’s just one sentence!’ Others turn this around, and sneer, when one criticizes Islam’s violence:’Oh, there are also violent statements in Christianism!’. Both COUNTER-IDEAS miss the point: just as one horrible scream can create a terrible mood, so can a horrible statement. PPP Torture Is Intrinsic To Christ’s Business Model [Final Judgment.]
And, by the way, there are actually multiple statements of the greatest of horror, and an insistence that horror was prescribed, ordered, glorified, organized, instituted by god himself. It’s not by accident that the very symbol of Christianism is the worse torture known to man. Even Christ could not figure it out. Well, my child, lonely nailed on your cross, I did: “VIOLENCE IS THE PRICE OF LOVE’. And it was fun to figure it out.
Judaism, its child, Christianism, and its grandchild, Islamism were all war religions. Judaism appears shortly before King David, the enlightened founder of the Greater Israel. (At least so says the Bible written by captives in Babylon, more than half a millennium later.) Christianism, or more exactly what he called “Orthodox Catholicism” (= “Orthodox Universalism”) was imposed by Roman emperor Constantine, who was one of the greatest warriors in history, second to none. As a teenager, the special force like, privileged youth Constantine already terrified the imperial court. Emperor Galerius, the “animalistic, semi-barbarian” persecutor of Christians, tried to get rid of Constantine with a number of dangerous challenges, including suicidal cavalry charge, and fighting a lion in single combat.
Constantine became the single emperor of the entire empire, after many decades of multiple emperors governing in a more or less collegial manner (there were up to 6 emperors at a time, mostly because of the problem of distance in the far-flung empire!).
Christianism is a system of thoughts. But it’s also a system of moods. Systems of thought can be subtle: Islam, for example comes equipped with two meta-principles: Taquiyah (lying to unbelievers as religious principle) and the Abrogation Principle.
Christianism did not have Taquiyah: early Christians obstinately refused to lie, and diminish their god, or their faith, in any way, to the bafflement and anger of other Romans. But Christianism definitively has the Abrogation Principle; when god feels it is good medicine to torture to death his own son, who did nothing wrong, definitively the message that it is good to torture to death people who have done nothing much.
Systems of moods are even more subtle than systems of ideas, because they do not say things directly and explicitly. The mood in Christianism is, basically, that it’s OK to kill, horribly, for no good reason: after all, man is created in the image of god.
Now is there anything more significant to torture to death the innocent? Should we call torturing to death the innocent the most prominent, the most significant, the most particular, the most peculiar, and marking art of the Christian god?
As I insisted, most human beings have known and practiced love. Human beings don’t need lessons on love, as if it were an alien planet never seen before.
But human beings have not known, and, or, practiced, nor justified, excused and become familiar with, torture to death. Christianism not only justified torture to death of the innocent, but made it the crux of its entire system of mood. Torture to death is the clé de voûte, the keystone, the part without which the entire edifice of Christianism collapses.
Judgment And Torture Constitute Christ’s Business Model
And indeed, the last executions and torture to death of Christianism in Western Europe happened during the Nineteenth Century. In the preceding century, Voltaire had railed against the execution by “slow fire” of quite a few people, from a senile Jesuit to an eighteen year old a Jewish girl. The People was upset because of the Lisbon quake cum tsunami, which caused massive, irreparable damage. The girl was burned slowly just because she was Jewish.
Literal Christianism set up the mood which Literal Islamism inherited. Both originated with the guy who steamed his wife (and is a saint of the Orthodox branch of Christianism. Yes, this had deep consequences, including economic.
In the preceding, torture to death was vilified as Christianism’s ugliest mood. However, it does not stop there. The mythical Jesus, a rabbi, approved of the entire Old Testament. And that includes the mood of being willing to kill one’s own child to please one’s boss (“god”).
Yet, it does not stop there. Just as the cross is an add-on not found in old Judaism, Christianism is full of would-be cannibalism (“drink, because this is my blood”, “eat, because this is my flesh”). Would be cannibalism? Well, no wonder the Crusaders roasted children when they got hungry. History is not just an exacting teacher. Like the Christian god, history has no qualms, it just is.
And history is not just about facts and ideas. It is also about moods. Christianism went hand in hand with plutocracy, because it was all the excuse plutocracy needed to reign by the sword. And love was the screen behind which it hid its vicious rule.
How and why Christianism became supreme, as Constantine’s Catholicism, goes a long way to explain, and excuse, Literal Islam. This is the main reason to consider this agonizing corpse.
Patrice Ayme’
Tags: Cannibalism, Christ, Christianism, Islamism, Mood, System Of Mood, Torture
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 
January 25, 2016 at 12:28 am |
Your business model is to be more pertinent, more clever, and much more offensive than Nietzsche. I agree withe whole thing, of course… Although you left out the misogyny of Catholic faith
LikeLike
January 25, 2016 at 5:28 am |
As a secular humanist my observation is that all religions seek to create disunity; at best!
LikeLike
January 25, 2016 at 5:56 am |
Secular humanism is a religion we behold in common! ;-)!
Seriously. Re-ligare means to tie up together. At the extreme, Learning From Dogs, your site, is a religion, so is this site (and we have an electronic cathedral!).
In particular, the Republic, Res-Publica, is a religion. If well done (French Salafists will disagree, and that’s the crux of the matter). Anglican Religion was Catholicism… With Henry VIII as pope! (Ann Boleyn would fall in pieces about that!) Anglican religion was pretty good at keeping England together.
I distinguish between superstitious and non-superstitious religion. There are actually graduations of superstition: there can be very superstitious, or not very superstitious Christianism or Islamism… Same with Buddhism: Tibetan is very superstitious, Zen, barely so.
Both Christianism and Islamism can be made 100% compatible with (what should be) the dominant religion, Republican Direct Democracy. But, to do that, they have to be dramatically re-interpreted. Tariq Ramadan (prof at Oxford, grandson founder Muslim Brotherhood, and probably the most famous Muslim specializing in the study of Islam) has completely changed and is trying to do just that!
PA
LikeLike
January 25, 2016 at 9:56 pm |
I think that most important point to realize (and teach) is that ethics are independent of the religion… morality of any given religion is an expression of age and society it was created in, and thus typically not appropriate for current conditions.
And removing religion, as some want, is not realistic. People can’t seem to live without a religion, or at least a quasi-religious set of beliefs: Nazism, Communism, Neoliberalism, even some expressions of atheism (Communist one most famously) can easily take on properties typically attributed only to religious fanaticism. Neoliberalism itself is a typical religion – except that instead of a Judeo-Christian God, it has “an invisible hand of the Market”, and is far more extreme than modern, humanism-tempered Christianity.
(Note that Nazis were mostly Paganists, albeit there was a share of atheists and Christians as well).
P.S. If you want to know, I am a Deist:
http://www.deism.com/deism_vs.htm
And a Deism of the type that I have come to believe in (and I danced across spectrums of Catholicism, deism and agnisticism) would be quite problematic for the plutocracy. You see, I believe that God is in everything; therefore, everything should be given proper respect, including the nature. But capitalism/plutocracy is based on exploitation of humans and nature, which is the exact antithesis to this belief. And religions, which came to teach obedience to the society even if they did not do so originally (Christianity definetly did not), are used to help perpetuate it. Adopting this set of beliefs also helped me finally become a vegetarian (up until now, it was quite an on-off affair), albeit I am still not ready to make a move to a full vegan, if I ever do that move. Apparently, health and environmental concerns by themselves were not enough.
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 12:38 am |
A religion is any ideology which re-ties people together.
In particular, the ideology of obeying the state, no matter what (as Islam orders… As long as the state is Islamist!)
“YOU WHO BELIEVE, OBEY THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE IN POWER”. (QUR’AN; Surah IV; verse 59).
http://patriceayme.com/ltr_023_quaranist.html
As far as eating vegetables, well, thanks to progress in the last 12,000 years, it can be done to a great extent… Soy, in particular (although GMO…) is most helpful. I claim loudly that I am no vegan, but I eat an alarming quantity of vegetables, potatoes, salad, etc… I have had people giving me sanctimonious lessons on vegetarianism… Although they are arguably less so than me, overall. In other words, I avoid of making it into a loud religion…
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 5:51 am
I would prefer to differentiate between a religion, a philosophy and a way of life. It is impossible to scientifically prove that one religion is more valid than another. But benefits of vegetarianism are provable (and I have felt them myself – better concentration, memory, and then there are ecological concerns as well).
And yes, both Christianity and Islam require people to obey those in power (Jesus’ “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”).
LikeLike
January 25, 2016 at 1:20 pm |
Tariq Ramadan has changed? Could you document that surprising turn of events? He is the grand master of Taqiyah.
Another factor which made the Religions of the Book a hotbed of invasion, tyranny and torture is IMHO their deep roots in nomadic pastoralist societies. The old war between peasant and pastoralist (thing Cain and Abel) can endure without the help of religion (Rwanda was a recent occurrence, and Mali) but brutal religious conquests and reconquests were often initiated by herding tribes – especially in Africa, with the Hausa and the Fulani, but also in Islamic Spain with the successive waves of fundamentalist tribesmen from the Maghreb whenever Europeab Islam grew too civilized.
LikeLike
January 25, 2016 at 4:42 pm |
Yes Dominique, yes, I was astounded. Nothing I read, but I listened long interviews of him on Swiss TV and on French TV. He was, interestingly, much more offensive on French TV, where he ludicrously said blatant lies about Charlie Hebdo (“Charlie attacked Islam, they did not attack authority”. Weirdly, and inexcusably, the French well-known interviewer did not contradict Tariq on that BS!!!!!).
Basically Tariq has completely REDEFINED Islam. Exactly along the lines I advocate. That becomes clear as he explains. I don’t know what happened. Either he saw the wind turn, and decided that LITERAL Islam (which he long defended, and promoted with industrial strength Taquiyah) was NOT the future.
Or… Someone got really smart, just as smartly dressed, obviously backed up by a state, had tea with him in a plush hotel, and told him quietly, with a smile, that he, and some members of his family, or others dear to him, would have a very short lifespan if he did not change his music… Or it was hinted that somebody would have such a conversation with him, soon…
In any case… His grandfather founded the Muslim Brotherhood when fascism, and its attending plutocracy, was on the way up in all ways, all the way to Washington (FDR administration), not just Rome, Berlin and Moscow… So Muslim Brotherhood was fascist too, and nothing suits better fascism than Islam, thanks to (what I call) its fascist principle.
However, now representative “democracy” is fighting back, using, just a bit, the fascist method. Pure fascism and the little game of the West with Literal Islam, insisting that “Islamophobia” is racism, is getting passe’. In France, as D’Ormesson observed the other day, the left wing pocket-philosophers (Onfray, Finkielkraut, BHL, etc.) are now less tolerant of Literal Islam than he is (they went to “the right” of D’Ormesson). Now these guys have influence on the literary class, which in turn has influence on the media, and from there the herd…
Anyway, Tariq is going Sufi… As if it were obvious that’s what he meant, all along…
PA
LikeLike
January 25, 2016 at 5:01 pm |
True, the nomadic raiders and pastoralist war against sedentary cities with intensive agriculture explains the nature of Judeo-Christiano-Islamism. Muhammad said it explicitly. Explaining the Greco-Romano-Persian empires were at their weakest, militarily, in more than a millennium (a correct analysis), from having fought each other (fault of the rabid Christiano-fascists).
However, the success of Christiano-Islamism was in providing a metaphysical justification for fascism (Christianism), or total, suicidary war (Islam). As the history of the Turks illustrates well… (as soon as they turn to Islamism, they conquered, in a generation, a giant empire, repeating the initial Muslim empire building…).
The re-invasion of Spain by West Saharan “Muslim” hard core literalists is indeed a case in point. I made an essay on that, long ago, where I mentioned the Almoravides:
The indirect result was the “Christian” counter-reaction was terminally fascist, and Muslims were kicked out, or, more exactly, kicking out the Muslims became feasible, “ethically”, thus allowing great plunder and an excuse for a much more fascist regime one basic tool of which, created for the occasion, was the Spanish “Inquisition”… (Inquisition against Toulouse/Cathars/Albigeois had been created three centuries earlier, as a magnificent prototype of total holocaust…)
PA
LikeLike
January 25, 2016 at 10:04 pm |
“from having fought each other (fault of the rabid Christiano-fascists).”
I have to disagree with this. During most history, religion helped cause crap, but did not cause the crap itself. Roman-Persian wars were no exception. Main reason of dispute was control over the trade across the Middle East tradeways, same reason was behind initiation of the Crusades (that, and few others). Religion was simply used to encite people into doing what plutocrates wanted them to, just as “War on Terror” was used to push attack on Iraq.
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 12:27 am |
The historical record is that, related to Justinian’s long reign and extensive wars of reconquest, and partially caused by him, the repression against intellectuals in the Roman empire augmented considerably. It was not a question of waning riches: very recent excavations have shown the “Oriental Part” (“Pars Orientalis”) of the Roman empire was richer than ever. In any case, intellectuals and their books fled to Persia. One thing led to another, and huge war between Roma and Persia ensued. Rome lost, the Persians reached the Mediterranean. A peace treaty was signed, according to which the Roman intellectuals could come back to Rome (= Constantinople). That was done, but, in quick order, the Romans under emperor Heraclius defeated the Persians, and retook their part of the Orient. Muhammad saw all this, and wrote, and talked about it… As an opportunity.
The first Crusade was six centuries later.
That the Qur’an did not cause “crap” was not Aisha’s (6 year old child bride of Muhammad, who came to love him sincerely, and he gave her total freedom), nor Ali’s (cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad; gave rise to the “party”… Shia) opinion. Just an example. Although plutocrats do create the religion they need (see Constantine), the religion then has a life of its own. Attackers in Paris, or for 9/11, sincerely believe that “martyrs” like them directly go to paradise as the Qur’an and Hadith say, and repeat many times. So they are all not killing themselves, they are getting to live for ever, better than ever.
In May 1940, Nazi engineers, fanaticized by the Nazi RELIGION, charged French fortifications with high explosives strapped on their backs, and exploded themselves in classic Jihadist style. That means that religion itself is hitchhiking on even deeper instinct (as Nazis did not believe in paradise).
Convinced?
PA
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 5:47 am
Not exactly… as I see it, typical religion is a tool that plutocrats can use to control the masses. Just as the mainstream media. As it is said, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Guns just make it easier. Same with religion.
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 5:55 am
My interpretation of what happened to the Roman empire in the Sixth Century was another bout of madness against philosophers (and all intellectuals). Institutions of learning in Athens,which emperor Julian had attended as a student, opened for a millennium were forced shut. The end result is that all the learning and the books ended in Persia (!).
As far as using the weakness, it was explicitly mentioned by Muhammad. Otherwise, you and me, we agree. But. at the limit, the point is specious. Nazism does not kill people, Nazis kill people? Right. And what’s a Nazi? Someone programmed by Nazism. In the end, we all have to use language, and language is abstraction, and contraction.
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 6:05 am
“But. at the limit, the point is specious. Nazism does not kill people, Nazis kill people? Right. And what’s a Nazi? Someone programmed by Nazism. In the end, we all have to use language, and language is abstraction, and contraction.”
Indeed, but thing is, if people are ethically developed enough not to kill each other, no ideology is going to make them do so (which is why we don’t have Crusades anymore, but there is still Jihad). If they are not, then it is easy to use *any* ideology or concept to have people kill each other – including otherwise positive concepts such as democracy, freedom etc. As I said, religion is a tool, and only one of many.
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 8:01 pm
…”if people are ethically developed enough not to kill each other, no ideology is going to make them do so…”
OK, please consider the incoming attack in Libya (which France is preparing, with USA collaboration). It’s not like the French want to go kill people in Libya, just because. It’s because the Islamist State there is expanding quickly, and the Libyans can’t control it.
The Islamist State claims the French are the “filthiest”, “worst” people on Earth.
Yet, Love without force to defend and nurture it, is, at best, utter despair. At worst: masochism.
Because love and violence are entangled:
[That essay was tagged on Quora as “self-promotional” and “insincere”, and I was informed it will therefore “not be disseminated”… As usual…]
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 9:26 pm
“It’s not like the French want to go kill people in Libya, just because. It’s because the Islamist State there is expanding quickly, and the Libyans can’t control it.”
That is correct. I don’t think anybody would argue that killing somebody who is trying to kill you is ethically wrong (assuming, of course, that no other option of stopping him/them is not avaliable). However, if nobody, or at least majority, of people were ethically educated enough to not try and kill somebody for some stupid reason, then killing in self-defense or defense of others would become (mostly) unnecessary. But humans are nowhere close to that level, especially in the Third World.
Conversely, if people are willing to kill other people, any idea or ideology can be used to incite them into doing so. Only question is finding and exploiting ones which resonate most strongly with the target audience. For Americans, it is freedom and democracy. For Europeans, it is freedom and human rights. For Muslims, it is Allah and Mohammed. Only counter to that is critical thinking and healthy scepticism.
“Because love and violence are entangled:”
I would like to add few points:
1) Herbivores are often even more violent and dangerous than carnivores. Because they are afraid. For that reason, as well as typically higher intelligence (especially social intelligence, developed by the need for pack hunting) many carnivores are easier to handle.
2) Large sea-dwelling species that are likely safest to approach? Orcas, or “killer whales”. There are only a few recorded attacks on humans in the wild (as in, single digit number), all of them a consequence of confusion (low visibility, noise). And the name “killer whales”? It is a corruption of the term “killers or whales” or “whale killers” – much like the wolves in the past, orcas would team up with human hunters (whalers) to bring down the prey. Once the whale was dead, Orcas would eat the tongue and fins of the whale (which humans had no use for anyway) while whalers would take the oil and the meat. Any leftovers from processing the whale would also be given to the Orcas. So a win-win. And if you watch the “Blackfish” documentary, you will see how Orcas are capable of strategizing in attempt to save themselves – they know that hunters would try to take the calfs for water parks, so they split into two groups; males go to draw off the hunters while females with calfs go into another direction to hopefully escape. But it typically doesn’t work due to human technological advantage (and the fact that hunters are aware of this tactic).
Any living being that has the capacity to feel love also has the capacity to feel anger. And anger causes violence. Not to mention that even in animals, anger can easily turn into a simmering and long-standing hatred (I don’t know about other countries, but in Croatia there is a term “elephant(ine) memory”).
“[That essay was tagged on Quora as “self-promotional” and “insincere”, and I was informed it will therefore “not be disseminated”… As usual…]”
That is typical human behavior, unfortunately. I have experienced a lot of it myself. I often read comments on other sites about my blog, in the case that somebody has noticed a mistake in one of my articles. But what I all too often see is emotionally-charged rejection, mostly combined with ridicule. Interestingly, there are also cases where somebody unquestioningly accepts what I write. Only rarely do I see an argumented response.
Just check some of the responses here (and also take note of the tendency to heavily downvote responses that majority disagrees with, even though some of these responses are among the most detailed and argumented I have read there):
Or this:
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/air-force-aviation/f-35-program-general-discussion-12487-35/#post303872
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 10:16 pm
Herbivores can indeed be seriously crazed (as I pointed out in Love and violence). I am reposting your answer, because it’s too nestled for reading… Will comment more later…
LikeLike
January 26, 2016 at 10:17 pm |
“It’s not like the French want to go kill people in Libya, just because. It’s because the Islamist State there is expanding quickly, and the Libyans can’t control it.”
That is correct. I don’t think anybody would argue that killing somebody who is trying to kill you is ethically wrong (assuming, of course, that no other option of stopping him/them is not avaliable). However, if nobody, or at least majority, of people were ethically educated enough to not try and kill somebody for some stupid reason, then killing in self-defense or defense of others would become (mostly) unnecessary. But humans are nowhere close to that level, especially in the Third World.
Conversely, if people are willing to kill other people, any idea or ideology can be used to incite them into doing so. Only question is finding and exploiting ones which resonate most strongly with the target audience. For Americans, it is freedom and democracy. For Europeans, it is freedom and human rights. For Muslims, it is Allah and Mohammed. Only counter to that is critical thinking and healthy scepticism.
“Because love and violence are entangled:”
I would like to add few points:
1) Herbivores are often even more violent and dangerous than carnivores. Because they are afraid. For that reason, as well as typically higher intelligence (especially social intelligence, developed by the need for pack hunting) many carnivores are easier to handle.
2) Large sea-dwelling species that are likely safest to approach? Orcas, or “killer whales”. There are only a few recorded attacks on humans in the wild (as in, single digit number), all of them a consequence of confusion (low visibility, noise). And the name “killer whales”? It is a corruption of the term “killers or whales” or “whale killers” – much like the wolves in the past, orcas would team up with human hunters (whalers) to bring down the prey. Once the whale was dead, Orcas would eat the tongue and fins of the whale (which humans had no use for anyway) while whalers would take the oil and the meat. Any leftovers from processing the whale would also be given to the Orcas. So a win-win. And if you watch the “Blackfish” documentary, you will see how Orcas are capable of strategizing in attempt to save themselves – they know that hunters would try to take the calfs for water parks, so they split into two groups; males go to draw off the hunters while females with calfs go into another direction to hopefully escape. But it typically doesn’t work due to human technological advantage (and the fact that hunters are aware of this tactic).
Any living being that has the capacity to feel love also has the capacity to feel anger. And anger causes violence. Not to mention that even in animals, anger can easily turn into a simmering and long-standing hatred (I don’t know about other countries, but in Croatia there is a term “elephant(ine) memory”).
“[That essay was tagged on Quora as “self-promotional” and “insincere”, and I was informed it will therefore “not be disseminated”… As usual…]”
That is typical human behavior, unfortunately. I have experienced a lot of it myself. I often read comments on other sites about my blog, in the case that somebody has noticed a mistake in one of my articles. But what I all too often see is emotionally-charged rejection, mostly combined with ridicule. Interestingly, there are also cases where somebody unquestioningly accepts what I write. Only rarely do I see an argumented response.
Just check some of the responses here (and also take note of the tendency to heavily downvote responses that majority disagrees with, even though some of these responses are among the most detailed and argumented I have read there):
Or this:
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/air-force-aviation/f-35-program-general-discussion-12487-35/#post303872http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/air-force-aviation/f-35-program-general-discussion-12487-35/#post303872
LikeLike