Religions are ideologies and as ideologies are subject to many interpretations as societies change--the jihadi psychopaths and the lethal apparatchiks of the Inquisition were, and are religious by their own standards. So claims that some religiots 'misunderstand' the 'true' nature of their religion are irrelevant, their religion is just what they choose it to be.

Many atrocities were committed in the name of Marxism, however, like Christianity, it was originally conceived as a humane doctrine and also like Christianity is was used to establish a totalitarian regime.

Hi Stephen,

I’ve stood back from your article because it is on the one hand difficult to translate, it is most certainly mixed up thinking. That said, it is so close to the historical reality of the methodology being implemented to “induce” compliance by true believers, it does require some consideration.

I think you have mixed up the direct threat of totalitarianism with the implied threat of socialism.

Many lost their lives through directly opposing totalitarian regimes however, socialism has not directly imposed the death penalty upon those who do not support its values or ideology, rather it seeks to impose “implied threats” as a consequence of non-compliance.

The Edict of Worms was a decree issued on 25 May 1521 by Emperor Charles V, with a little assistance from the Papal wordsmiths, declaring:

<< For this reason we forbid anyone from this time forward to dare, either by words or by deeds, to receive, defend, sustain, or favor the said Martin Luther. On the contrary, we want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic, as he deserves.>>

Today we see the very same religious mantra manifest in the multiple socialist “causes” without any direct threat to life or limb. Just the implied threat to future well being.

The religious connotations to which you refer are more to do with the “implied” threat of, peak oil, peak food production, peak population, peak big business, peak USA, peak big banks and more recently, peak CO2.

The model is the same, the same people in our society fall for it and the reality, or lack of it, is present for all those who accept through gullibility, ignorance, laziness or adopted “intellect”, over and over again.

There is nothing general society can offer these incompetents, they are a lost cause. They are destined to be angry, confrontational, bitter, offensive, divisive and dysfunctional. This is because they have no reality upon which to rely. Rather they have “adopted” the opinion of others because they lack the intellectual capacity to develop there own.

strange how its the self righteous god deniers who see nothing wrong with slaughtering thousands of unborn babies in the womb. Oh that's right like the nazis did to the Jews they redefine the name for the unborn. NOw with Mao and Stalin it must make them feel very superior in their godless beliefs. Funny how all of a sudden they insist on absolutes even know they deny any such thing. Some of the above posters demonstrate it so well.

Psychologists will tell you that human being comprise a number of different personality types. One personality type is the "absolutist personality." A person with this sort of personality is unable to distinguish shades of grey. Morality can only be right or wrong. Moral perspectives and moral quandaries can not exist. Such people take good ideas to their most extreme because they do not have the wit to see things in perspective.

Religion, environmentalism, philosophy, diet, refugees, racism, physical fitness, you name it, Absolutists will take it to the most extreme position and think that they are so superior to the rest of us because they do take every good idea to extremes. Such people are great moral puritans and a pain in the butt.

There is nothing wrong with trying to solve disputes without violence, but Pacifism represents the extreme edge of this noble philosophy. And it is an absolutely idiotic position. All forms of government require rules, and those rules are enforced, either with violence or the threat of violence. Totally pacific societies can not exist outside of the protection of a tolerant society which does not believe in pacifism.

The original Christians were pacifists and they suffered terribly because of it. The Emprorer Constantine realised that the only hope of holding the multicultural Roman Empire together, with its multiplicity of religions and races, was to unite them with a common religion. But he wasn't having a bar of Pacifism. He was a general himself who worshipped Sol Invictus, Christianity was merely a social tool for him. His rejection of Pacifism was just as well. Because from 400-1600 AD Europe was a continent under seige. It was being attacked by barabarians from the North, East and South, and had it remained a pacific religion, Europe would have been over run by Vikings, Muslims, Goths, Visigoths, Alans, Mongols and Huns.

It is soon going to be over run by Muslims anyway, because people like Stephen Liggens have forgotten that an organism which stops fighting to survive will be eventually be destroyed.

So the Christians in the 4th century did exactly what the Lefty Roxon with support of her Cabinet leaders Gillard and Swan tried to do last year, destroy free speech. In the 4th century they did what Warmists wanted to do now to Sceptics (Ralionalists), threaten, kill and oppress.

Where is the greater sin?

Dan
“Can give me some examples where non-religion was the inspiration for the widespread violence and murder that religion has been (or much more as you claim)? “

You appear to be defining the state as “non-religion”. My point is that being motivated by statism is indistinguishable from being motivated by religion.

“If one assumes that there exists above and beyond the individual’s actions an imperishable entity aiming at its own ends, different from those of mortal men, one has already constructed the concept of a superhuman being.”
Ludwig von Mises

Statists believe that the state is a superbeing, morally superior, presumptively stands for the greater good, is charged with leading fallible man the way to salvation, capable of miraculously suspending nature’s limitations in our favour (e.g. printing money creates physical wealth), it can cure the sick, make the rivers flow, fine-tune the weather in 500 years time. They have their own revered emblems, often centred on weaponry e.g. coats of arms. Their own revered rituals, often mindlessly worshipping authority and violence (e.g. Anzac Day – worship of aggressive violence) and irrational revered sacraments (voting – the will of the majority defines what is good, magically optimises scarce resources) etc. etc. etc.

We are surrounded by the statists' religious violence: their price and wage controls, statist broadcasting, government indoctrination of children, endless wars for "defence", monetary policy, endless violent restrictions of freedom.

Just as the ancient Romans fed people to the lions for the public entertainment, and didn't notice it was immoral, so the statists don't notice that everything they do and think is based on their idea that violence is the basis of the good society. And they don't see it because they don't count force and threats as violence when done by the State.