Aside from being true, Christianity is basically the only way to inoculate yourself against mimetic violence spirals. Which is missed here.
And I think this is tangential to your point, but it has to be said that there are many different approaches to Christianity, many of which have lead (and are actively leading) to terrible violence.
Because I can think of at least a few (Jainism, various Chinese schools of thought, etc) that capture the spirit if not the exact message of "love your enemy".
To me, “Love your enemies”, feels abusive -- or being groomed for abuse. Love those who hurt you. I agree that is more emotionally demanding, mostly in a personally harmful way. I'll take Buddha's approach to Devadatta over the Jesus "love your enemy". I can have compassion and understanding for an enemy, I would even say it's vital to preventing further harm -- understanding them, their motives and having compassion with that understanding. But loving them? That feels more like inviting violence while pleading with them to stop while handing them a stick. Of course there is a fine line of overlap and in the end both can be taken the same way. I simply believe compassion and understanding is more meaningful and less likely to be used to keep one in an abusive situation.
The amount of emotional/psychological abuse coming from the women in charge of those bible study groups was absolutely maddening. I have many horror stories. Now, I can understand why they say and do the thing they do; and I can definitely be compassionate about their shortcomings that makes them behave that way. I could almost forgive them. But I definitely cannot "love" them under any circumstance. As far as I'm concerned, they are an illegitimate dominant force and need to be fighten for good.
I think the ideology of "love your enemies" is pushed hard precisely for case like this. They intuitively know they are pushing a lie to enslave others to their bullshit and if people ever figure out what's going on, they need to have a "failsafe" to avoid retaliation.
I dumbfounded when people push Christianity as something worthwhile and even good. They are responsible for a lot of suffering, obscurantism and unjustifiable domination and a whole lot of warmongerings. It still happens today and is still a way to brainwash a lot of people and forbid them from thinking for themselves. It is an utterly destructive ideology and the only reason the world is what it is today, is because some people got wiser in France a few centuries ago and said that they have enough of the bullshit.
I think the modern tentative of presenting Christianism as something good is because they have lost the war and have fully migrated to deceptive "argumentation", wolf in sheep clothing style.
I suggest a look at the Esoterica channel on Youtube for a perspective on Jesus as a historical figure in the context of Judaism at the time[0]
See my other response on eastern thought. “Babylonian Councils of Wisdom” is vague
Turn the other cheek, love thy neighbour, etc, etc, are not something they are keen on.
This undermines your thesis, because it's not the mystic woo about virgin birth and transubstantiation and resurrection (which they all profess to believe in) that's important - it's the canon - adherence to which is entirely orthogonal to faith.
It can't in large parts of the US because it's a fringe minority, but doesn't it behave in the exact same way in an area where it is the dominant social affiliation?
Its rituals are just as odd and esoteric as the practices of the stranger evangelical churches.
Because this is the case, and because of the hierarchy in place for interpreting scripture and handing down sacred tradition, it becomes less likely that there will be problematic theological dilution or drift.
Biden was closest to a traditional Catholic and they *loathed* him.
Christianity may have inspired the Enlightenment, but the Enlightenment succeeded because it was able to separate philosophy, ethics, law and science (such as it was, "natural philosophy") from Biblical dogma and the Church.
>pagans" [...] were routinely harassed and killed
Christianity incorporated a lot of paganism in the medieval era and still maintains it today. You can see it in the old architecture, iconography, and the holidays.
>kings ruled by divine right
Paradoxically, "The Church" was against this idea and it only came about after the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing Thirty Years War.
>slavery was ubiquitous
The history of Christian abolitionists is well documented.
>women were essentially the property of men
Are you talking about Catholic/Orthodox church doctrine, state-run churches like the church of England, the streak of puritanism in the United States, or something else? Are you referring to the teachings in Leviticus/Deuteronomy? The gospel contains multiple instances where Jesus refused to condemn women accused of adultery.
Yes, Christianity employed syncretism to more easily convert pagans, but then killed or forcibly converted those who refused. Please don't pretend Christianity had some kind of equitable relationship with non-Christian religions, there are entire cultures laid waste by the Church with little remaining but what revisionist versions of their history and culture they chose to write down.
>Paradoxically, "The Church" was against this idea and it only came about after the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing Thirty Years War.
The belief that kings ruled through divine blessing and were given authority over people by God comes directly from the Bible. It certainly existed prior to Protestantism, even if it wasn't explicitly codified as such. And the Church disagreed because they believed the authority claimed by kings belonged to the Pope, not because they believed in separation of church and state.
>The history of Christian abolitionists is well documented.
And yet slavery was ubiquitous and firmly justified by Biblical principles. Both are true, but the principle that freedom and dignity were universal and inherent to all human beings, and should not be explicitly tied to or contingent upon religious belief, is a secular ideal. When Paul wrote that "in Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free," he was talking about equality among Christians, not a universal principle that applied to all people.
>The gospel contains multiple instances where Jesus refused to condemn women accused of adultery.
I would argue that Christianity is more influenced by Paul than Jesus. I understand that's controversial but the history of womens' rights and law (based on Christian principles) around marriage, property rights, sex and womens' sufferage seems to bear it out. You can argue certain things shouldn't have been Christian values, but I would argue that Christianity is what Christians do more so than what they say.
No. Search for "Alby's crusade", directly from the Romain church, spain crusades, and Bleda's Expulsion of moriscos (it's clearly a catholic priest idea, but it's not the church as an institution here).
In its first few centuries Christianity was community-centered, until about the 4th century when it started getting institutionalized in Rome.
I've long thought that Christianity held back human advancement for a good thousand years and now we have evil people pushing Christo-fascism and yet the church leaders seem very quiet.
As for your first statement, this is the correct explanation, that is supported by every historian that isn't a bible pusher.
Christianity is just the bullshit theory/moral code that took over when the roman empire started to fall under its own weight (and morals became bad enough that some counterbalance was necessary).
It is no coincidence that Hitler was a vegetarian. The roots are extremely similar: a deep hatred for humans, to the point that animals are declared not only equals but even better than humans. Hitler loved his dog more than any human; it just reveals a deep truth about his motivations and behavior.
You may not have researched or thought about it a lot but I can assure you this is a very valid observation.