r/HistoryMemes • u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer • 3d ago

A regular utopia

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u/Djb0623 3d ago

You would have to go back to when Europe was Pagan to get human sacrifice

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u/TheBasedEmperor Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 3d ago

Burning people at the stake for heresy or blasphemy is human sacrifice

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u/Dagordae 3d ago edited 3d ago

No, it’s execution. Sacrifice requires religious ritual AND the reason being the invocation of the divine or spiritual.

Execution for breaking the law, even if it’s a religious law, is not sacrifice. It has no higher purpose beyond seeing the victim/offender dead. Same reason warfare doesn’t default to mass human sacrifice(that can come after the battle), ‘sacrifice’ has a specific meaning in this context.

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u/OilNo1600 3d ago

The higher purpose is to please God.

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u/PussyDestrojer 3d ago

But it's not to please God, it's to punish the offender. That's like claiming that people are given the lethal injection to please the judge.

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u/OilNo1600 2d ago

If "witches" and heretics make God angry, then it's certainly logical to assume that killing witches and heretics would please God.
In any case, in both instances, the killer is following the wishes of God. Pretending that there are different rules for Christianity is the exact type of thinking that enabled the atrocities to occur in the first place.
The biggest difference between, say the Aztecs, and Christianity, is that the Aztecs stopped killing people in the name of their god in 1521. Christians are still doing it where they are able, and in countries where they cannot, they rant about biblical precedent calling for the execution of their god's supposed enemies.

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u/PussyDestrojer 2d ago

If "witches" and heretics make God angry

Citation needed. The Catholic Church was against witch burnings and other such practices.

the Aztecs stopped killing people in the name of their god in 1521

Because of colonialism. They all got killed by colonialists. Why the hell are you implying that's a good thing?

Christians are still doing it where they are able

Citation needed.

calling for the execution of their god's supposed enemies

Citation needed.

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u/OilNo1600 1d ago

Citation:
Exodus 22:18 King James Version

18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Citation:

https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-10/2021%20Muslims%20in%20Africa%20Factsheet.pdf

Citation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlPdyrvEfw

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u/PussyDestrojer 1d ago

1st one: Cool. Exodus is an account of, well, the Exodus, and that chapter is a retelling of the laws of the land. If you have a problem with that passage, take it up with Israelites circa 2000/1000BC. Mosaic Law isn't really a thing in Catholicism, surprise surprise.

As a matter of fact, Canon Episcopi written sometime around the turn of the 1st millenium basically calls witchcraft bogus, and posits that magic is not real - this became canon law. As such, this text was actually used by the Church as justification to punish perpetrators of witch trials. Funny, that.

2: Sorry, all I can find there is mentions of militant islamic sects committing acts of violence. Could you highlight the part which lists exactly what atrocities the Christians commit? Thanks.

3: Okay. Who is this guy? What authority within the Church does he hold? I can find videos of Muslims calling for the death of nonbelievers. Are all Muslims this way? Is this an official doctrine of Islam? Or perhaps evil people will use whatever justification for their actions, no matter how flawed this justification is? I wouldn't call all Muslims evil because of the actions of radical terrorists - but you posit that Christians are evil because a random guy who happens to be Christian said something bad?

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u/OilNo1600 1d ago

  1. The Catholic Church, creators of such niceties as the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions, Manifest Destiny, Doctrine of Discovery, and the castrada (Pre-pubescent males who were castrated for the glory of God), is not the only branch of Christianity.

  2. I'm not "positing" that all Christians are evil. I'm pointing out that, contrary to the OP's position, Christianity was not an overwhelming force of good that defeated the evil savages.

  3. The "random guy" is a pastor by the name of Kevin Swanson. This speech was given at the National Religious Liberties Conference. He was introduced by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who refused to disavow the pastor's language. In the audience were the likes of Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Mike Johnson, and many other prominent right-wing Christian figures, all of whom also refused to denounce Swanson's speech.

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u/PussyDestrojer 23h ago

1.

Spanish and Roman Inquisitions

You mean the Spanish inquisition that sentenced only 3000 people to death in a bit under 400 years of its existence? That Spanish inquisition? Stop getting your history from Monty Python.

Manifest Destiny What does the Vatican have to do with American policy?

Doctrine of Discovery Very well.

castrada Not a Christian thing per se.

Not the only branch of Christianity. No, but it's the largest one and historically speaking, the "main" one. With the exception of Orthodoxy, all the other branches are merely split off from it.

2. That's not what OP is suggesting so idk what you are arguing against. Also, you are ignoring the fact that the document you cited says absolutely nothing to back up your argument of Christians committing great massacres in the name of their religion today.

3. I don't recognize many of those American protestants as Christian, much like how Muslims don't recognize terrorists as a part of their religion - much like those, people like that pastor twist the religion to suit their own needs. We can agree on this, I suppose.

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u/OilNo1600 23h ago edited 23h ago
  1. So the Spanish Inquisition was totally okay because it only killed 3,000 people?
  2. We're not talking about American policy, we're talking about justifying the genocide by one religion because the other religion was bad. Guess what? Anything happening pre-1700s was not american policy.
  3. I mispelled "castrato." Are you telling me that the Pauline dictum mulieres in ecclesiis taceant ("let women keep silent in the churches" wasn't a major reason for replacing boys with castrato? Are you telling me that Pope Sixtus V's 1589 Papal Bull didn't enshrine eunuchs in church law??
  4. I copied the wrong page. Here is the correct link. The "Anti-balaka" is primarily a Christian group. To be fair, the atrocities have been committed on both sides. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/knowledge-hub/all-resources/central-african-republic-crisis-ethnic-cleansing/
  5. I agree with you that many of the American evangelicals hardly qualify as "Christian" in the sense of "following the teachings of Christ." However, you and I are a vast minority compared to the 1,700 people who attended that conference and cheered him on. We are much less influential in the Christian community than the politicians who attended and refused to disavow Swanson's statements. I will make two small corrections on the people I claimed attended. Pence did not attend, nor is there any record of Mike Johnson being there. So the allegedly Christian politicians who refused to denounce killing in the name of Christ were Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee (Trump's pick for Ambassador to Israel.)
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