Thanks, Tanveer,

Another sane article of yours in an insane world.

The way things are headed, it won't be long before various 'fruitcakes' start advocating that we nuke all Muslim countries.

This monstrous idea follows on from the simplistic, bizarre concept floated by the Yanks that blowing into small pieces all those who don't follow and embrace the Christian-Capitalist ideology is the way to go.

Of course, Christians are just as misguided as Muslims. They too believe psychotic fairy-tales about life after death, Christian exceptionalism, being born to rule, etc. Yet humans claim to be INTELLIGENT! Fat chance.

So we have two groups of people who, armed to the teeth and in conflict all over the world, are deranged by beliefs that are supported by no evidence. None whatsoever!

Clerics and Capitalists need to be got rid of before they take us all to hell!

DavidG - please do not muddle Clerics and Capitalism. Clerics of all brands need to revisit their science and mathematics classes. Before they promote anything they need to find some proof of the existence of their particular fantasy in the real world.
Capitalism on the other hand is the basic means of progress that humanity has made ever since the Stone Age. If you managed to kill a Mammoth it would pay you handsomely to invite all and sundry to the feast. You hope and expect to get repaid. This is the basis of Capitalism. Straying from Capitalism into the realms of fantasy is one of the reasons we are all having problems now.
To return to the article, the Silent Majority do not approve of excesses, whether it is of the sexual variety on the part of some Christians or even more now of the murderous inclinations of some brands of Islam. We should not just mutter about it. What should we do about it ?

God Only Knows.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqLTe8h0-jo

If the article is accurate, and that's not conceded here Tanveer, maybe we just need to invite our "inherently violent" Muslim population to, go back to where you came from?
And work on eliminating one another, with the claimed inherent violence; until the situation rights itself, with just a few old toothless blind beggars around to tell us, this problem, founded on a completely false interpretation of the qoran, (Koran) one or te most reworked, revised and reinterpreted "holy books" in existence, is ended.

DG is right, inasmuch, as there is no actual evidence for any faith based belief system, and just because an ordinary man, centuries ago, allegedly said God spoke to him, just doesn't make it any more so, than a compelled belief in a flat earth!

Those fruitcakes have been around since the Fifties DG, and that scenario you've painted, is alive and well in war rooms around the world.

Cleric and Capitalists must be got rid of DG?
Just how do we do that DG?
Another french revolution perhaps, where these items of interest become the new aristocrats?
And as the Queen of hearts ordered in Alice in wonderland, "off with their heads?"
Or should we wait until some frothing at the mouth nut job, decides we should explode a fusion bomb; (get that into yer Isil) [and yes we know how to make them,]
and turn our small planet into a new small star, somewhere near the rim of the milky way?
Since the dawn of time,it has been fundamental fanatics at the centre or helm of all human conflict!

And absolutely impossible to reason with, given they can't or won't ever answer legitimate questions, but just keep on with the motor mouth hate preaching; and call to arms and sacrifice! Others!

Completely denied Air time and or a platform to preach from, is the best way to limit their harm to like minded nut jobs!
Rhrosty.

abortion has nothing to do with murdering the unborn is the mantra of secularist. No wonder many of them turn a blind eye to the death cult. To much in common.

More Muslim negatively, I mean we are talking about helping these people?

Tally

Exactly Tully exactly!
Rhrosty.

The article sorely needed a link to the Open Letter. This is very probably the Open Letter (English Version) Tanveer Ahmed is referring to http://lettertobaghdadi.com/14/english-v14.pdf

On the first page is an "Executive Summary" summarising the Letter - with the Letter starting on second page. Note that 126 Islamic scholars have signed it.

No two Muslims have the same view of Islam. Like all religions you cherry pick the bits that you need to cope with your life and you reject the rest. One person will say that a certain behaviour is fundamental to being a Muslim whilst another will dismiss it as being peripheral.

You cannot dialogue with Muslims. Dialogue is a function of reason and logic. Muslims appropriate the behaviours that they think will help them deal with the secular world in which they find themselves. When they are afraid they reach for the Koran or fondle their beads. When they are angry they comfort themselves by convincing themselves that all injustice will be squared up by a God who may or may not exist. When they feel guilty because they have done wrong they convince themselves that they only need God’s forgiveness. This is how they deal with their own feelings.

What threatens them more now than ever before in the global village is that they see others who do not need to respond to reality in this way. People who fight for justice and peace and acknowledge their guilt, in ways that nature intended us to, make them question their own behaviour. When they were not confronted by alternative ways they had less need to become aggressive but now there is no denying that Islam has opposition. The west is not perfect but it has developed beyond the need to respond to reality without resorting to such primitive ways.

It is futile to enter into arguments with people who respond to life in this way. You can never convince them by reason since their behaviour is not based on reason. The more exposed to reason and logic they are the more they will be forced to find better ways. Already the next generation is rejecting such religions and in time they will die out in the east as they have in the west. We need to just keep asserting who we are and trust in that.

Well what do you know, David G has come up with a good idea.

Then add Rhrosty's ideas of repatriation, to lets call it to country of heritage, so it covers those born here, who seem to be the worst.

Yep provided this is done before the nuking we get the whole problem fixed in one go. Good thinking there boys, you've done well.

I don't know if, "Clerics and Capitalists need to be got rid of before they take us all to hell" as David says, but we sure need to get rid of the ratbag greenie do gooders, before they destroy us all.

Careful there David, I think your halo is slipping.

Hasbeen...your a joy in any sense:)

I guess that's why your here and not in government:)

Tally

Phanto, a most interesting and thoughtful post, I will cogitation on that one for a while. I would hesitate to parallel your "You cannot dialogue with Muslims." with the same problem encountered with Hasbeens' "ratbag greenie do gooders" or it would take us waaaaay off topic. Tanveer, it would be good to hear your thoughts on an Idependant Kurdish state, your article makes an awfull lot of sense to me.
Tally, I fully concurr with your post.

Here's another perspective for anyone interested:

http://www.newmatilda.com/2014/10/09/pol-pot-isis-anything-flies-everything-moves

It's always good to broaden our outlooks and view things
from various perspectives. To look critically at
motivations, circumstances, context, or any other
such considerations, of course this makes the product unacceptable
for one or another camp of readers.

But it's worth a shot to try and broaden the discussion.

I must say Tanveer's previous OLO article of a few months back - the one about road rage being a feminist issue - at least showed some imagination.

Now he's telling us that Islam has ... ahem ... aspects to it that make it ... (gasp!) ... dangerous! Now, Tanveer. That's is a very dog-eared hymnbook you're singing from and you should put some Dettol on those gravel-rashed knees of yours.

You see ... it goes like this. You have a bunch of countries that share a certain religion, and over a couple of decades, that bunch of countries keeps getting the crap bombed out of it by another bunch of countries that share another certain religion. So, the former bunch of countries is going to develop some pretty dangerous and angry thoughts about the latter bunch of countries.

So, the latter bunch of countries will smugly nod and say that all that dangerous and angry stuff coming from the former bunch of countries is all because they've got a dangerous and angry religion.

And of course, the latter bunch of countries CAN say that because they've got thousands more bombs to drop on the former bunch of countries. In fact, the latter bunch of countries have so got so many thousands of bombs to drop, they can SAY and DO whatever they like.

I would not expect the truth to suit your narrative Killarney. Easy to see you coming to wrong conclusions.

runner

Well, if you've got plenty of bombs to drop, the truth doesn't really matter, does it?

Tanveer ,extreme Islam has been promoted by our Western Oligarchs to subjugate us. They demonise extreme Islam on one hand and finance it on the other.

Tanveer Ahmad wants to defend his murderous and misogynist religion, and he is really clever about it. He knows that to many people now know that the holy scriptures of Islam are the problem. He knows that the scriptures order Muslims to kill non believers, homosexuals, apostates, and blasphemers, and to use military force to conquer the world for Islam. He is smart enough not to deny it because he knows the texts exist and that the "hate mongers, racist and bigots" who oppose his evil religion can prove it..

Tanveer's tactic is to claim that "millions" of Muslims reject the violence sanctified in the Koran and the Hadiths towards Islam's critics and competitors, although he does not suggest what proportions of Muslims agree with Sharia Law and violent Jihad to conquer the world, compared to those who do not. His implication, not supported by any figures, is that most Muslims do not agree with their own religions stated aims.

That this may be a bit hard to believe, is supported by Tanveers own report that the most revered Muslim Jurists have come right out and said that ISIS should only kill those who oppose Islam. Yeah, right. Thank you for that one, Tanveer.

OK, if your own most revered Islamic jurists now stand revealed as violent nut cases who support the idea of killing infidels, then here is a great way for the "millions" of "moderate" Muslims in the west who are "not violent" to criticise their own religious leaders. But you and I know that they will never do that. Because they either do not exist, or if they do exist, they are terrified of being killed by their own co religionists for "opposing" Islam. Muslim who criticise Islam or Islamic religious leaders are "blasphemers", and the penalty for blasphemy in Islam is death. Ask Salmon Rushdie about that.

It just goes to show that the supposedly evil "Islamophobes, hate mongers, racists and bigots" who are NOT walking down George street, Sydney, waving "behead those who defend Islam" were right all along

Dear LEGO,

With all due respect Muslims are speaking out and
have done so for some time. All you have to do is
Google the question - "Why aren't Muslims speaking
out?" and there are plenty of websites that will
show you that they in fact are speaking out.

"Well, if you've got plenty of bombs to drop, the truth doesn't really matter, does it?"

Killarney said this to Runner. It contains a truth that says a great deal about the human monsters!

Unfortunately, this is the mindset of billions of people in the world. As you read this, the U.S., surrounded by its Killer Allies, is bombing people in the Middle East. The U.S. has plenty of bombs. And the world's biggest army. And, since WW2, it has killed millions.

Yes, bombs and guided missiles are hitting their targets in Kobane and bits of humans: men, women, kids, achieve great heights then fall back to Earth. They shudder for a short time then they become still and their blood, still warm, sinks beneath the desert sands.

And in lounge-rooms across the world people cheer, sick people, people who think that killing is great, people who make money from war, people who love seeing brutal military power tearing apart defenseless, so-called 'enemies'.

Yeah, Australian military personnel are involved as they have been many times before, whenever the U.S. clicks its fingers in fact.

But people have become so inured to killing, that they can't see that such behavior in a nuclear-armed world can have only one conclusion: HUMAN EXTINCTION.

p.s. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work that out. Just open your eyes occasionally!

The following link may help:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/muslims-are-speaking-out-but-no-one-is-listening-20140930-10nktr.html

Quoted from Foxy’s link –
‘The irony is that the real antidote to Islamic State's poison is Islam itself.’

The real antidote to Islamic State’s poison is not Islam because Islam can never be an antidote to any poison. No religion helps fix anything. It just drugs people into avoiding the truth that life can be tough. You have to find appropriate ways that help deal with it and these ways are the ways that are inherent in our human nature.

We should not listen to anyone who thinks that religion is the answer to any problem. People who think this way are in fact part of the problem because they refuse to play their part in making a better society. Resorting to primitive behaviour to deal with any problem only compounds the problem. If some people are trying to solve problems using reason and logic and others are trying to hang on to their primitive ways of solving problems then it is inevitable that you will have conflict. That conflict can lead to violence and violence leads to self-defence.

Anyone who suggests that Islam can solve Islam’s problems is desperately trying to put a square peg in a round hole. You can be an apologist for Islam until you are blue in the face but religious behaviour will never be rational behaviour. Until we reach that starting point where reason is the only accepted method for problem solving then we will get nowhere. We should challenge everyone who says that Islam is a peaceful religion – there is no such thing as a peaceful religion. Every act of religious behaviour is a drain on society and civilisation is weakened by it. The more we challenge that the better off we will be.

Religion has absolutely no redeeming features so let’s not listen to anyone who would try and paint it as something ‘beautiful’ that happens to have a few bad apples.

the following link might also give a few insights to those who remain deliberately ignorant. not light reading

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2014/10/08/muslim-man-in-manhattan-performs-female-genital-mutilation-on-his-young-wife-after-anally-raping-her/

of course nothing to do with Islam

Dear runner,

You are a self-proclaimed Christian and yet
you choose to judge and blame Islam for the
actions of extremists within that group.
As you well know any religion can be mis-used
for a variety of purposes. The brutality of
Christianity is also there as part of our global
history. So before pointing fingers - how about cleaning
up your own backyard first.

Dear Foxy.

I can only shake my head in pitying wonder that a woman like yourself can defend Islam and it's adherents.

Everything that you support as a left liberal is haram in Islam. Everything which you oppose as a left liberal is advocated by Islam. You should be a natural enemy towards Islam, but you just can't get your head around the idea that an ethnic minority can be wrong about anything. You feel compelled to indulge in the most amazing mental gymnastics to defend a religion you should be opposing with all your might. You just read Tanveer Ahmad, he says that the most revered Muslim jurists think that Muslims killing Muslims is very bad. But killing the "enemies" of Islam is perfectly OK. Islam own scriptures and Islam's own leaders think that killing for Islam is Ok and you defend it? Ama-a-a-a-zing.

When you are next on one of these "Muslim" sites where they are supposedly attacking their own religious scriptures, ask them if apostates and homosexuals should be murdered? Ask them if it is OK to criticise Islam? Ask the male Muslims if it is OK to beat their wives with a rod "no thicker than a thumb?" Ask the male Muslims if they believe in female equality?

For more than 60 years, leftist apologists made every excuse for Stalin's terror in which millions were executed or internally deported. People like you made every excuse while Mao tse Tung killed 50 million of his own people through starvation and sociaolist incompetence. Here we are in 2014 and your ilk are still running around making excuses for any enemy of the western democracies. The western democracies you choose to live in.

What gives with you people? Are you psychologically conditioned to think that people who oppose their own people's values, attitudes and behaviours are rooly, rooly smart? Beause if you do, you are not thinking very smart at all.

Lego, you mention Stalin and Mao. These two evil men killed their own people. Can you get your tiny mind around that fact?

The U.S. is killing people from many nations around the world and has been doing so for centuries. It started with the Native Indians then moved out into the rest of the world.

Some of the people that America has killed don't like America. They don't like what America stands for which is endless plundering and killing. They are fighting back.

Can't say I blame them.

LEGO

Christians and Muslims are free to criticise Christianity and Islam all they like. Both religions have plenty in them to criticise.

What you and others here are doing is using Islam's defects to justify the West's relentless bombing, invading, destabilising, regime-changing and propagandist demonising of Muslim countries.

When looked at from a broader perspective, and over several decades, the West is clearly practising a slow genocide on the Arab and semi-Arab nations, not the other way round.

And just a couple of corrections to some myths being toted around on this thread:

1. Yes, millions starved in a major famine during Mao's tenure, but that particular famine was one of many that have afflicted China over the last 200 years - all with comparable loss of life. Singling out the famine under Mao as being caused by communism is simplistic in the extreme. In fact, the last 50 years under communism in China has been the longest period over the past two centuries in which China has NOT been afflicted by famine.

2. FGM is NOT contained anywhere in the Koran and, in fact, predates Islam. It's culturally based and was probably imported into the ME from Africa, where it's been practised for millennia.

Dear LEGO,

With all due respect.

I can only do what my logic dictates.
I'm not into making personal judgements about
Islam (I'm not qualified to) and I don't like
tarring everyone of any religion with the same
brush as those who -
mis-use that religion (fundamentalists and
extremists) for their own political gains.
All I can do is try to present
different perspectives from different sources
and let people make up their own minds on the subject.

As far as ISIS is concerned - it is quite difficult
to imagine a strategy that would be effective
against individuals so depraved.

What I would like to see on the forum is a thoughtful,
lively, sometimes provocative but always productive
debate on these issues. Not just finger-pointing and
accusations. This is one of the most complex regions
in the world, with the instability of Iraq and the
dark consequences of Syria's civil war. We need to argue
this stuff out and I am at a loss to understand where
our Australian instinct to argue has gone.

Killarney,

You might find these interesting:
http://islamqa.info/en/45528
http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=29989&Page=3

Well, at least one Muslim understands the problem.

Mohammed, the inventor of Islam was a bandit leader and a terrorist and the religion was spread by violence from its creation in the 7th century, so the members of ISIS are faithful followers of their prophet. Of course Western, particular US interference, has destabilised the ME, however Islam's violent ideology is far older than Western imperialism.

Foxy represents everything irrational with the 'progressive' mindset.

Is mise

Neither of your links establish that FGM is in the Koran, only 'circumcision' - and the quote given in the link clearly relates to men, e.g. trimming the moustache.

Also, the spokesperson (the same person in both links) talks about 'female circumcision', which is a misnomer. There is no such thing as female circumcision - only female mutilation. There is no female equivalent of male circumcision. FGM is a catastrophic mutilation, equal to cutting off at least half a man's penis.

mac

'however Islam's violent ideology is far older than Western imperialism'

Had a good look at the Talmud and the Old Testament lately? They take 'violent ideology' to the level of an art form.

And what kind of religion has as its central icon a half-naked man nailed to a cross, with spikes sticking into his head, and writing in agony as he is being slowly tortured to death?

Eeew! That would have to be some kind of torture-porn death cult!

Killarney
But you think violence is fine as long as government's doing it, remember?

JKJ

No, I don't 'remember'. What on earth are you talking about?

To Killarney.

Every now and then, somebody on OLO makes a statement that is so stupid that it is breathtaking.

Muslims believe that Islam is perfect and must not be criticised. To criticise Islam is "blasphemy", and the penalty for blasphemy is death. How is it that your memory is so bad that you have already forgotten what happened with Salmon Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, and the furores over the Danish cartoons and the movie "The Life of Mohammad"? How you as a supposedly intelligent person can defend a religion which considers itself above criticism, and will kill anybody who points out it's too obvious flaws, is beyond me. Read Tanveer Ahmad's article again and read in black and white how a couple of the world's most "respected" Muslim jurists think it is OK to kill the "enemies" of Islam.

Socialism was a social and economic catastrophe in every country it was tried in, and the USA was absolutely right in doing whatever it needed to do to prevent it's spread. Islam is even more backward than Socialism, and the cause of most of the serious strife, poverty, ignorance, and terrorism around the world. The more Islamic a country is, the more of a social and economic basket case it is. But who do you criticise? The USA of course. Islam gets a free pass, in the same way that Socialist mass murderers like Stalin and Mao got a free pass from people who think like you.

The most stupid thing the west has ever done was to listen to "humanitarians" like yourself and commit social suicide by importing Muslims into our own countries. Take a look at the chaos in the middle east and extrapolate forward a hundred years and that is what will happen in our own western countries. The portents are already here, and already people like yourself already are blaming your own civilisation for the coming problem. It is odd that the USA who is so adept at fighting the enemies without, are totally myopic about importing Muslims who will one day be the enemy within.

Killarney
So you're opposed to the enforcement of all the policies you advocate?

Kilarney,

"Had a good look at the Talmud and the Old Testament lately? They take 'violent ideology' to the level of an art form."

Agreed, however, I wasn't defending Christianity or Judaism, Christianity which takes its inspiration from the New Testament, wasn't a violent religion initially, unlike Islam.
So, my comment still stands, 'Islam's violent ideology is far older than Western imperialism' and it's older than the Crusades.

I'm not a Christian BTW.

Killarney,

"JKJ

No, I don't 'remember'. What on earth are you talking about?"

Some explanation required here:

JKJ employs that particular accusation in every second post he makes to posters in general who he thinks support "government"...ie "democracy".

The thread doesn't have to be about "government"...JKJ just identifies you as a "progressive" and then proceeds to paste you with the accusation that you support govt instituted violence to make you pay your taxes, etc....

So then he just merrily goes about accusing anyone he pleases of supporting government violence against citizens.

He does that because he is bereft of any real debating skills and relies on a hackneyed and (by now) motley collection of "zingers" to ingratiate himself into the conversation - while simultaneously impugning the target of his "zing" (and their intelligence)

Hope that explains things, Killarney : )

Both Christians and Muslims have done horrendous things and they can and should be compared, the big difference is that Christians who do such violence are going against the teachings of their Founder whereas Muslims who do such violence are following the teachings of their founder.

'the big difference is that Christians who do such violence are going against the teachings of their Founder whereas Muslims who do such violence are following the teachings of their founder. '

yes Mise its obvious the regressives always ignore that simple fact. It is also obvious that secularist have done great evil in accordance to their moral relativism dogmas which allow them to commit every perversion and violence under the sun. That is why they justify Islam and continue to be Christophobic to the maz.

"...That is why they justify Islam and continue to be Christophobic to the maz."

Surely, runner, you're not indicating that your regular hate-filled rants and derision on OLO represent in any way the ethics of Christ?

When people identify themselves as "Christian" and go about trumpeting the antithesis of his message - then it's all a bit of a furphy.

They then invent terms like "Christophobic" seeking to attach their venom as a defence of Christianity - which they employ like some impenetrable shield from behind which they can fire their nasty little darts with impunity.

No-one's fooled, runner.....

Your "Christianity" should have acted as an antidote to your natural propensity to malign and disparage those who don't share your faith.

Fail.

"When .... then it's all a bit of a furphy"

Come, Poirot, a 'furphy' is only a rumour, one must defend our Australianisms!!

Great article, well written. If we had more of that kind of clarity of thought within the community, we might well make some progress in resolving these issues, sadly that is lacking.

Yep Poirot you are pathetic at identifying Islam so why should I take any notice of your 'view ' of Christianity. Fail!

I thought that the problem was that Muslims [do] engage with Islamic ideas that give rise to terrorism

The problem for anyone wanting to challenge Islamists is that in Islam the Koran is held to be incontrovertible, the radicals have just as much a right to their views as the so called "moderates".
Challenging the literal, Sunni interpretation is no mean feat, it's akin to attacking Marxism by offering an alternative theory of surplus value based on Marx' own writings.

OK Mise, let's compare Islam and Christianity, and see why they are so different.

Christianity was began by a Jewish pacifist, who's teachings were peace, love, and tolerance. His sayings include "blessed are the peacemakers", "love thine enemy", "if a man strikes thee, turn the other cheek." Then there was the parable of the Good Samaritan, who's message was that people of other faiths can also be good people.

This pacifist and tolerant message was concealed from Christians by a self serving Christian clergy for over 1000 very violent years, because the clergy would not allow Christians to read the Bible. Christianity became a very violent religion, which was the opposite intent of it's founder. The Christians then had a Reformation, where Christians were encouraged to read the Bible and rediscover it's pacifist ideals.

Islam was created by a warlord, an ethnic cleanser, a beheader, and a paedophile, who encouraged his soldiers to rape female captives. He was a criminal among his own tribe. His intent was to create a religion that would justify the expansion of his kingdom through military conquest, and which would create suicidally brave soldiers who had no fear of death. Mohammad's sayings (hadiths) include "Kill the pagans wherever ye find them." "Fight the unbelievers who are near to you, lay ambushes for them, strike terror into their hearts." "....and fight them until there is no disbelief in Allah."

Unlike Christians, Muslims have always been encouraged to learn to read the Koran so that they can read these intolerant and violence endorsing scriptural messages themselves. The Muslims today are having their own Reformation because they are a civilisation which has lost it's way. It is a poverty stricken civilisation which compares badly with every other. The stupid sods think that Allah had abandoned them because they are not religious enough. So they too are going back to the original scriptures of the Koran, and that message is, kill anybody who will not covert to Islam, and take over the world.

Then Allah will smile on you again and give the Believers his blessings.

Of course, We could stop sending as much money as humanly possible to islamic nations.

Not one single detractor of islam has *ever* suggested that.

rusty

I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to calculate the percentage of Arabs, Indonesians, Pakistanis etc who are devoutly religious and compared it to the 20% or so of White Europeans who claim to be observant Christians?
True, there's no comparison between Christianity and Islam but the reality is that in 2014 the 20% of the population who are Christians are supporters and enablers of Islam in general and apologists for even it's more radical and violent elements.

LEGO,

"This pacifist and tolerant message was concealed from Christians by a self serving Christian clergy for over 1000 very violent years, because the clergy would not allow Christians to read the Bible"

That is entirely wrong, there was no restriction on who could read the Bible other than the fact that most people couldn't read.
The Bible was not hidden but was in short supply because copies had to be hand written.
Over 250 sheep skins are needed to make the vellum for the pages of a Bible and years of work to copy the text, the usual illuminations were so time consuming that some of them were never finished; as can be seen in some extant copies of the Gospels.
See:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/LindisfarneChiRiho.jpg
where some words/letters appear to be unfinished, going by the intricate and ornate rest of the page.

Poirot
According to you there's nothing wrong with the government bombing whoever it wants, as much as it wants, because it's "democracy", remember?

Had you forgotten your own principle for deciding whether or not the use of power was justified?

Killarney
Do you oppose the enforcement of all the polices you advocate, or not?

Look ... a lot of people have thrown stuff at me about what I'm supposed to have said that I'm supposed to be 'justifying'.

Just go away. The lot of you.

I have no interest whatsoever in 'defending Islam' or any other pathologically patriarchal Abrahamic belief system.

I do, however, completely reject the Western obsession with turning Islamic countries into 'failed states' by means of all the usual Western bully tactics, like sanctions, destabilisation, regime change, training and funding militias, creating and then siding with one side in civil wars, bombing and lots more bombing (for no other reason than that the West seems to believe that bombing 'works'), and promoting irrational fear campaigns that Islam wants to take over the world (when all the indications are that Christianity has been doing just that for centuries).

I've often said on OLO that I believe the Europe-based West would have been much more spiritually better off if they had never been forced by Rome to adopt such a patriarchal/dominator-based Abrahamic religion from the desert cultures of the Middle East, one that was so at odds with the pantheistic, egalitarian mysticism of the forest cultures of Old Europe (but that's a topic for another discussion).

No Mise, you are entirely wrong. You obviously have no knowledge of the history of the Christian (or Muslim) church, and you are making an assumption that is only partly correct.

For most of the history of Christianity, almost all Christian people were illiterate in their own language (including the aristocracy), and only the clergy knew Latin which was the language of the Bible. Medieval church services in Europe would seem odd today. It was compulsory for everybody to attend church, but the entire service was conducted in Latin. There was no Book of Common Prayer in the language of the parishioners, nor any non Latin Hymns either. The priest would simply read the Holy Bible silently, and he would indicate to a flunky when he was reading an important bit. A bell would then be rung to let the congregation know.

In 14th Century Europe, people began to demand that the Bible be written in the languages of the national congregations. This was considered by the Catholic Church as seditious and blasphemous, and hundreds of thousands of Christians were killed by their own church for either owning a translated Bible, or being involved in the translation of the Bible. The Reformation began when protesting rebel priests defied the church and spread the scriptures far and wide in the common languages of their respective people.

The advent of printing in Europe ensured that Bibles in the languages of the different national congregations could be mass produced, and the church was kept busy burning both translated Bibles and the protestant people who printed, distributed, and owned them. This was one of the main reasons for the schism in the catholic church which saw the church split into two. Protestants believed that the holy scriptures and the word of God should be read by everybody. Such a position was vehemently opposed by the Catholic church as it undermined Roman Catholic authority and the church's pre eminence on doctrinal interpretations. Church leaders like England's Sir Thomas Moore were outraged that the scriptures could be read by mere "ploughboys" and interpreted individually.

Killarney.

"I've often said on OLO that I believe the Europe-based West would have been much more spiritually better off if they had never been forced by Rome to adopt such a patriarchal/dominator-based Abrahamic religion"

Yes, indeed, or even if a monotheistic religion had emerged in Europe from the Greco-Roman philosophical/religious traditions, then the West would have possibly been spared 1000 years of totalitarian, sterile theocracy. Whether or not a pagan, more tolerant Europe, would have been able to resist Islam is also a topic for another discussion.

Lego,

"No Mise, you are entirely wrong. You obviously have no knowledge of the history of the Christian (or Muslim) church, and you are making an assumption that is only partly correct."

You make erroneous assumptions yourself, the first of which is the lack of knowledge on my part; when I studied Arts I majored in Religious Studies, which included Islam and Christianity.

However your statement, above, is also demonstrably wrong for you say "....you are entirely wrong. ..." then you say "....you are making an assumption that is only partly correct."
If I am making such an assumption then I cannot be entirely wrong.

Latin was used worldwide for the Mass in the Roman Rite of Catholicism until the 1960s and in the early church Saint Jerome's translated the Bible into vulgar [or common] Latin, hence this Bible is known as the Vulgate Bible, one would suppose that it used vulgar Latin so that the less well educated could read it.
The Eastern Rite of Catholicism did not use Latin to any extent but rather Syriac and later Greek, so your assertions that Latin was used to exclude the common people is wrong, and demonstrably so.

Stained glass windows in the larger churches told the Bible stories for all to see and Caedmon's Hymn (C 670) was in English, so not everything was restricted to Latin, which incidentally was also the language of the Law and educated people knew it well.

I suggest that you read a little more widely.

interesting list of fake Islamic hate crimes. It does not just happen here.
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Fake_Anti-Muslim_Hate_Crimes_and_Other_Lies

Unlike Christianity both Islam and Judaism are "law-giving" religions that dictate aspects of day-to-day living but they all share the same origin.

Much has been said about the darker side of Islam by using quotes, not from the Koran but from the Haddith.

Likewise the Jewish version - the Torah - also has a more sinister side, classifying all non-believers as "goyim" (human cattle) who are sub-humans meant to be exploited until they are ultimately ruled and whose killing is not considered a mortal sin.

Only one type of hate-text is ever mentioned but both exist. One is the source for current extremist fundamentalism and the other is one of the reasons for centuries of victimisation.

Christianity - in it's thousands of versions - also has extremists and an equally bloody history of conquest and torture that has become sanitised over time. It is the one true Apocalyptic Death Cult that is actually looking forward to Armageddon as the big pay-off.

Adherents of all three are examples of the Tribal Mind which has not advanced much since cave-man days.

How much longer can the modern world support such irrationally conflicted thinking?

Great comment, Wobbles! We need to get religion out of our world before it brings us to a boots and all conflict where there will be no winners.

Wobbles,
So which parts of the non European world were conquered by Christian armies?
Simple answer, none of them.
Christians have a pretty good track record of butchering each other in the name of religion but not one non European country was ever subjugated in the way that Islam conquers nations.
Why is it so hard for people to accept that from the seventh to the sixteenth century Muslims destroyed almost all of the Christian world simply by exterminating Christians wherever they found them.
Before Islam all of Europe, Russia, North Africa, the Caucasus and Asia minor were Christian and European, by the 16th century Vienna was under siege and the Russians were fighting for their lives.
All of the Anglo Saxon interventions since then have been about balance of power, that's why the British and French fought on the side of the Turks against Russia in the 1850's then on the side of the Russians against the Turks in 1915.
Britain didn't really lose her empire in the 1940's and she still plays these power games to maintain supremacy.

To Mise.

If you have completed a bum Artz degree majoring in religious studies, how is it that you are so ignorant of Christianity and Islam? I presume that "religious studies" is similar to today's politically correct university degrees on "political science"? All you have to do is write a thesis brickbatting capitalism and Christianity, and finding excuses for socialism and Islam, and your professor gives you a "distinction"?

The point that you implied, was that both Islam and Christianity are violent religions. That is not entirely correct. Whereas Christianity has had a history of appalling violence, it's holy scriptures are based upon the philosophies of a Jewish pacifist. The fact that the clergy ignored the teachings of their own founder and concealed his pacifist message from their own congregations for their own self aggrandisement, does not detract from the fact that the new testament scriptures of Christianity primarily teach pacifism and tolerance. It is this widely appreciated cultural value of pacifism and tolerance which has greatly influenced modern western culture. This is the opposite of Islam, which is an inherently violent religion because it's founder was a psychopathic warlord who preached war to expand Islam, and violence towards non believers.

I was fair to you by conceding your point, that a lack of bibles was one reason why ordinary pre reformation Christians were unaware of the pacific nature of their own religion. But it would not have mattered if the Christian world was flooded with bibles. Most Christians could not read anyway, regardless of whether the language was English, Flemish, French, Greek of Syriac. Catholic bibles were written in Latin and almost nobody except the clergy could read them. And even if they could read them, they were not allowed to read them unless they were clergy members,

Gee, you probably spent $30,000 dollars on an Artz degree that could not teach you how to think. You should have saved your money and just went to the library like I did. If you need any help understanding religious studies, feel free to ask me.

Jay of Melbourne

'So which parts of the non European world were conquered by Christian armies? /Simple answer, none of them.'

ExUSE me??

There is hardly a single country anywhere on earth that has NOT been invaded by a Christian army!

I tried to think of some the other day ... and it wasn't easy. Bhutan, maybe?? Thailand??

Can anyone help me here? There must be another one or two somewhere.

mac

I'm afraid I don't share your suggestion that a religion based on Greco-Roman philosophical traditions might have been a good idea for Europe. The chief god of the Greeks spent most of his time running around raping everything that moved.

Killarney
Stop trying to squirm out of it.

Do you oppose the enforcement of all the polices you advocate, or not?

Killarney,
Name a Christian general of the stature of Muslim commanders like Tamerlane or Zheng He?

LEGO,

I studied for my first degree long before the advent of political correctness.

As for the lack of education among the masses, the many schools must have turned out some literate people,

Here's some schools in Britain before the reformation in England, i.e. pre the 1534 Act of Supremacy.

England
Former (non-extant) schools
Lincoln School (1090)
Derby School (1160)
Ludlow Grammar School (1200, Palmer's Guild) - now Ludlow College
Hull Grammar School (c.1330, endowed 1479) – closed in 2005
Cirencester Grammar School (1461) – closed in 1966
Crewkerne Grammar School (1499) – closed in 1904
Taunton Grammar School (1522) – closed in 1870

Extant schools
Sixth century
The King's School, Canterbury (abbey founded 597, Royal charter 1541)

Seventh century
King's School, Rochester (604, Royal charter 1541)
The Minster School, York (song school founded 627, refounded 1903)
St Peter's School, York (627)
Thetford Grammar School (631, mentioned 1114, refounded 1566)
Hereford Cathedral School (676, mentioned 1384)
Royal Grammar School Worcester (685, first conclusive evidence 1291, Royal charter 1561)
Carlisle Grammer School 685 founded by St Cuthbert in the grounds of what became the Cathedral It was managed by the Cathedral and became Carlisle Grammar School in 1883 and Trinity School ,_Carlisle in 1968.)

Eighth century
Beverley Grammar School (c.700)

Tenth century
The Pilgrims' School (c.900)
Warwick School (10th century, refounded 1545)
Wells Cathedral School (909)
St Albans School (c.948, refounded 1549)
Southwell Minster School (minster founded 956,
The King's School, Ely (970)

(continued)

(continuation)

Eleventh century
Bedford School (1086, refounded 1552)
Salisbury Cathedral School (1091)
Norwich School (1096, refounded 1547)
Twelfth century[edit]
Abingdon School (possibly as old as 1100, endowed 1256, refounded 1563)
St Paul's Cathedral School (founded 1123)
Reading School (abbey founded 1125, refounded 1486, Royal charter 1541)
The King's School, Pontefract (1139, refounded 1548)
Bristol Cathedral School (abbey founded 1140, refounded 1542)
Derby School (1160, refounded 1554)
Westminster School (1179, Royal charter 1540)

Thirteenth century
Colchester Royal Grammar School (1206, Royal charter 1585)
Lancaster Royal Grammar School (mention of master 1235, endowed 1472)
King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth (earliest reference 1276, refounded 1551)

Fourteenth century
Stamford School (1309, re-endowed 1532)
Northallerton College (1323)
Hanley Castle High School (chantry school 1326, charter 1544)
The King's School, Grantham (1329, refounded 1528)
Bourne Grammar School (earliest record of existence 1330, endowed 1636)
The King's School, Ottery St Mary (1335, refounded 1545)
Bablake School (1344)
Doncaster Grammar School / Hall Cross School (first record of existence 1350)
Prince Henry's High School (c. 1376, refounded 1605)
New College School (1379)
Wisbech Grammar School (1379, Royal charter 1549)
Winchester College (1382)
Katharine Lady Berkeley's School (1384)
Penistone Grammar School (1392)
Ipswich School (1399, Royal Charter 1566)

(continues)

(continues)

Fifteenth century
Oswestry School (1407)
Durham School (1414, refounded 1541)
Chorister School (1416)
Royal Latin School (first mention 1423, Royal charter 1548)
Sponne School (chantry founded 1430)
Sevenoaks School (1432)
Chipping Campden School (c1440)
Eton College (1440)
City of London School (1442)
St Dunstan's College (earlier than 1446)
Hartismere School (founded 1451)
St. Bartholomew's School, Newbury (1466)
Bromsgrove School (record of a chantry school 1476, re-founded 1553)
Magdalen College School, Oxford (1480)
Thomas Rotherham College (1483)
Stockport Grammar School (1487)
Pott Shrigley (1492)
Ermysted's Grammar School (record of a chantry school 1492, re-founded 1548)
King Edward VI School, Lichfield (1495)
Loughborough Grammar School (1495)
The Prebendal School (1497)
Queen Elizabeth's School, Wimborne Minster (1497)
Giggleswick School (1499, Royal charter 1553)
Sixteenth century[edit]
The King's School in Macclesfield (1502)
Bridgnorth Endowed School (1503)
St Paul's School (London) (1509)
Royal Grammar School, Guildford (1509)
Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn (1509)
Wolverhampton Grammar School (1512)
Lewes Old Grammar School Lewes, East Sussex (1512)
Giggleswick School, North Yorkshire (1512)
Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School, Cuckfield, West Sussex (1512)
Nottingham High School (1513)
Pocklington School (1514)
Manchester Grammar School (1515)
Gillingham School (1516)
Bolton School (1516)
Cranbrook School, Kent (1518)
King's School, Bruton (1519)
Coleshill School (1520)
Kendal Grammar School (1525)
Royal Grammar School, Newcastle (1525)
Sedbergh School (1525)
Boteler Grammar School (1526)
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School (1527)
Bingley Grammar School (1529)
Magnus C of E School (1531)
Bristol Grammar School (1532)
Stamford School (1532)
The College of Richard Collyer (1532)

and that's only the English schools, Latin would have been one of the subjects taught, fancy all those students over 700 years or so and most able to read Latin Bibles not to mention the Gospels in English.
It is well to remember that Henry VIII was a Catholic when born and a Catholic when he died, although ex-communicated.

'Killarney / 'Stop trying to squirm out of it./ Do you oppose the enforcement of all the polices you advocate, or not?'

I've no idea what I'm supposed to be squirming out of. And I'm not sure what policies I'm supposed to be advocating.

I'm opposed to policies that advocate invading, sanctioning and bombing the crap out of 'non-cooperative' Muslim countries, and any countries that do not conform to the USNATO consensus. I also advocate sceptical analysis of what passes for Western mainstream media.

So, on that basis, I suppose I must advocate the enforcement of policies that agree with the above. However, I'm not holding my breath, as USNATO does not exactly pursue these outcomes. They have deep pockets, lots of brainwashed village idiots who will facilitate their American Century vision and plenty of bombs to drop.

mac

'Name a Christian general of the stature of Muslim commanders like Tamerlane or Zheng He?'

I've no idea. I'm not into fawning all over great dudes of history. And I don't understand what the meaning is behind the question.

I don't know anything much about Tamerlane, except that he seems to have been one of those psychotic, genocidal dudes that patriarchal historians typically wet their pants over.

Zhen He, on the other hand, was pretty cool. It's a pity the Ming dynasty pulled the plug on his extraordinary voyages.

Well, Mise, it is obvious that you were never in the armed forces. Soldiers have a saying "baffle them with bullshiit", and that is exactly what your last post was.

Most people in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages could not read. They could not read in their own languages, much less in Latin. I stand by my premise that the Christian clergy deliberately concealed from their congregations the essential pacifism and tolerance preached by the founder of Christianity. The advent of printing coincided with the desire by church reformers to spread the direct teachings of the man called "Jesus Christ". It was the start of the "information age" and the Reformation.

Your own previous writings agree with me that Christianity and Islam are fundamentally different religions. Why you want to take issue on some point of order just to show off your ignorance of history is beyond me.

But if you do think that the church has always quoted the bible to their congregations and preached peace, love and mung beans, please write 700 words explaining how literacy (which included Latin) was widespread among all classes in the Christian world during the Dark and Middle Ages, and everybody who could get hold of a Bible read it. Don't just say "you are wrong" and let it hang. Don't just list schools were literacy was taught to the clergy and the merchant class. Explain to us why the church was so against non clergy reading the bible, if not to conceal the scriptures essential truth? Explain why priests in churches would not even recite the bible verses to their own congregations. Explain why the church bothered to burn printed bibles in the languages of the national congregations, as well as the people who printed, disseminated, and possessed such bibles, if not to keep a monopoly on how the sacred texts should be interpreted.

But most of all Mise, explain why Christians ignored the pacifist and tolerant message of their prophet and were so violent and intolerant, if not because they were totally ignorant of the teachings of their own founder.

LEGO,

"Well, Mise, it is obvious that you were never in the armed forces. Soldiers have a saying "baffle them with bullshiit", and that is exactly what your last post was."

If soldiers have such a saying and that was what my last post was, then would it not follow that I was in the armed forces?

You are getting confused.

Let us clarify something, there was no such period as the "Dark Ages"

"....schools were literacy was taught to the clergy and the merchant class."

We are getting somewhere, previously you said that not even the nobility could read.

Explain, if you will, why the Vulgate Bible was written in vulgar Latin if it was not intended for the common people; Latin is much like Japanese in that it has common and very educated levels.

I studied Latin but was not of a sufficiently high standard to gain entry to Sydney Uni. when I left school so had to wait till Latin was dropped as a prerequisite.

"But most of all Mise, explain why Christians ignored the pacifist and tolerant message of their prophet and were so violent and intolerant, if not because they were totally ignorant of the teachings of their own founder"

In feudal times the commoners did what they were told by their masters and their masters, the Aristocracy, who ignored the teachings of Christ for political reasons when His teachings were inconvenient and followed them when it suited, just like today.

I know that is a load of crap but I can hardly remember the name every book I have read in the last forty years about the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages and the Reformation. But the internet is a wonderful tool, and all I had to do was type "papal bans on bible" in Google and 1,220,000 websites claim that you are wrong.

Here are some quotes you may find interesting.

http://www.vatileaks.com/_blog/Vati_Leaks/post/Why_Popes_banned_the_Bible/

(Pope) Damasus recorded that ‘bad use of difficult passages by the simple and poor gives rise to hear-say’ and the general populace was denied access to the compilations. The word ‘hear-say’ developed into ‘heresy’ and people who opposed Church opinions were subsequently called ‘heretics’.

In 860, Pope Nicholas I, sitting high on a throne built specially for the occasion in the town square, pronounced against all people who expressed interest in reading the Bible, and reaffirmed its banned public use (Papal Decree). In 1073, Pope Gregory supported and confirmed the ban, and in 1198, Pope Innocent III declared that anybody caught reading the Bible would be stoned to death by ‘soldiers of the Church military’

COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE - 1229 A.D. http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/banned.htm

Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament;

Pope Innocent III stated in 1199:

... to be reproved are those who translate into French the Gospels, the letters of Paul, the psalter, etc. They are moved by a certain love of Scripture in order to explain them clandestinely and to preach them to one another. The mysteries of the faith are not to explained rashly to anyone. Usually in fact, they cannot be understood by everyone but only by those who are qualified to understand them with informed intelligence. The depth of the divine Scriptures is such that not only the illiterate and uninitiated have difficulty understanding them, but also the educated and the gifted.

The ball is now in your side of the court.

LEGO,

Firstly my congratulations on finally giving some references.

Of course the Church banned the reading of the Bible because the poorly educated tended to see what they wanted to see in it, hence the thousands of sects that are now part of Christianity.

Just one small question, if no one could read, apart from the clergy (as you claimed) what was the point in forbidding people to read the Bible?

You have not offered one shred of evidence that the teachings of Christ were not passed on by the Church to the people.

Serve, sil vous plait.

But Mise, you said quite plainly said on page 7 of this article, that there was "no restriction on reading the bible." But now you are saying that "Of course the Church banned the reading of the bible...."

That is a clear contradiction. Either the church allowed the laity to read the bible, or it did not. Could you please explain this cognitive dissonance? I get the feeling you have been backed into a corner and you may have to admit that you were w-w-w-wrong. Food for thought. Bon apetite'.

I did not provide any references previously, because I was under the mistaken impression that anybody who had even high school level passes in History could appreciate the validity of what I had written. Most people who's reasoning powers have not been debilitated by the onerous task of studying for an Artz degree, can understand that most people during the Dark and Middle ages could not even read in their own language, much less Latin.

To answer some of your questions, the Vulgate Bible was written in Latin so it was not on any best seller list among the hoi polloi.

The point I made about the church banning the reading or keeping of the Bible, was because by around 1200 -1400 AD people began translating the Bible into the common languages of national states, and educated people from the merchant class could access the scriptures themselves and make up their own minds about what the Christian message was. And some of these people, who were educated only in their own language (called "Lollards" in England) took it upon themselves to bypass the clergy and preach the literal words of the scriptures directly to the common people.

This was because there was a clear contradiction between what the church said the scriptures were, and what was really in the scriptures. This coincided with the advent of printing, so the church had its hands full trying to prevent bibles from being printed and disseminated. Printers were considered by the State and clergy to be subversives, and were universally licensed throughout Europe.

LEGO,

There is no contradiction at all, we are talking about a thousand year period of history over all of which you claim that the Church suppressed the gentle teachings of Christ for their own violent ends.
Where is your evidence for suppression when the Vulgate was written?
You sidestep the notion that it was in vulgar Latin so that those not educated in the higher Latin could read it.

Your whole point that the suppression of Christ's teachings led to war and wholesale slaughter falls down when one considers that such slaughter continued when the Bible became available to the common man under Protestantism, in fact Protestants began persecuting Protestants. Warfare among Christians continued for the same reasons that it continued down the centuries since the ready availability of the Bible, power and politics.

The USA still celebrates the results of some of this persecution; the "Mayflower" sailed with the blessing of the Established Church and the King because it was taking religiously troublesome people well away from England.

As for giving references, this is not a private conversation, someone else may be reading it, even if it is only ASIO, and they are due a little help.

Is Mise,
The bloodiest period of internecine Christian warfare was in the 17th and 18th centuries, the wars of religion wiped out about half the male population in some parts of Europe.
As I pointed out before, Christians are pretty good at killing each other in the name of religion but they don't go about exterminating whole cities or whole nations because they're worshipping the wrong god the way Muslims do.

Mise, on page 9, I wrote that that the church concealed the essential pacifist message of the man Jesus Christ because the church would not allow it's laity to read the bible. And this was because the it suited the churches interests and the church's ambitions. You claimed that this was "entirely wrong" and that the only reason that people did not read the bible was because bibles were in very short supply.

Catholic Christians mass murdered, tortured and burned at the stake, Protestants who wanted to accept the direct and pacific teachings of the man Jesus Christ. But the Protestants did not become instant Ghandi like pacifists, because they were smart enough to know that in the very violent age they lived in, such tactics would see them quickly wiped out. It may seem odd to use violence to fight against a very violent regime who refuses to allow people to worship a God who's essential message is pacifism, but when a regime is seen as totally corrupt, intrinsically violent, and only concerned with it's own interests, even people who respect pacifism will fight for their own survival.

Only fundamentalist Christians like Mennonites, Amish and Quakers totally accept pacifism. Most Christians do not accept pacifism on practical grounds, but the idea that violence should be a last resort, and that tolerance is a virtue, underlies the thinking of most Christians. People born Christians who are completely intolerant and extremely violent can be called "unchristian."

My premise stands, that the Church concealed the essential pacifism in the teachings of their prophet by forbidding the laity to read the bible. Your premise is a contradiction, because you claimed that the only reason the laity did not read the bible because it was in short supply, then you contradicted yourself when you wrote "of course the catholic church prevented people from reading the bible."

LEGO,

You completely ignore the fact that Protestants persecuted Protestants after the Bible was available to all.
Here's a couple of instances,

"“At the council of Geneva, 1632, Nicholas Anthoine was condemned to be first hanged and then burned for opposing the doctrine of the Trinity; and at Basil and Zurich, since the Reformation, heresy was a crime punishable with death, as the fate of David George and Felix abundantly prove” (J.J. Stockdale, The History of the Inquisitions, 1810, p. xxviii)."

"As late as 1671, seven hundred persons, homeless and destitute, were driven out of Berne. Great was the suffering of old and young (Richard Cook, The Story of the Baptists, 1888, p. 65)".

Can you give one reference that shews that the Christian Church, before (or after) the Reformation suppressed Christ's teachings in any form?

To Mise.

I have never claimed that Protestants are pacifists, and I have stated that clearly in a previous post to you. What I have written (heads up!), is that the inventor of the Christian religion was a pacifist who preached love, forgiveness, peace, and tolerance. This message was concealed from the laity for a thousand years because almost nobody outside of the clergy had read the scriptures. This was because bibles were in short supply, bibles were written in high or low Latin, few people were literate in their own language (much less high or low Latin), the catholic church prohibited bible translations into national languages, and prohibited the printing, ownership, or reading of the bible by laity.

The church suppressed the literal teachings of the man who was titled "Jesus Christ" by the simple expedient of prohibiting anybody who was not clergy to read or own a bible in any language the laity might understand. Christ's teachings could only be "interpreted" by the clergy, and they not unsurprisingly, "interpreted" them in a way that reinforced the primacy of the clergy. Since absolute power corrupts absolutely, the clergy become absolutely corrupt. That the church was seen by the laity to be absolutely corrupt and in dire need of reform was the reason for the Reformation.

Europeans could not depend upon the catholic church for spiritual guidance when Popes were selling indulgences, claiming that he could side step God and personally condemn people to purgatory, indulging in clear insanity by having dead Popes exhumed and put on trial for heresy, and indulging in every kind of sexual misconduct. Any book on the Reformation can tell you that.

North European Protestant people have created the most desirable countries on Earth to live in. Our societies are generally peaceful and law abiding. We are tolerant, believe in forgiveness towards people who transgress and feel remorse, have low crime rates, have a cultural ideal to only use violence only as a last resort, and are the least corrupt societies on the planet. All of these cultural values resulted from our Protestant Christian heritage.

LEGO,

Do you include Northern Ireland in your Protestant utopia?

You haven't yet given a reference to your main theme that the Christian Church suppressed Christ's peaceful teachings.

LEGO,

You haven't yet given a reference to your main theme that the Christian Church suppressed Christ's peaceful teachings.

C'mon don't be shy.