Banjo,
I'm not going to bother arguing with you. It's an entirely pointless pursuit. If you don't want to engage with Peter on Peter's terms, that's up to you.

The persecutions you mention were not as a result of "Christianity", but were the result of insecure secular power-mongers doing their best to preserve their own status. Since the state of the art in knowledge production was not particularly advanced, it was easy to justify a stance in which "my knowledge is as good as yours, and I'm in charge, so you can shut up".

This was also a period in history in which "might makes right" was the dominant paradigm and the "divine right of Kings" was derived from the King's force of arms and willingness to be brutal.

The fact that Christianity was the dominant religion in Europe at the time is not causal of the brutality, it probably helped to ameliorate it at least a little. As Hobbes put it, life for most people was "nasty, brutish and short".

The same thing applied in every other part of the world, except, for a few hundred years, under the Islamic Caliphate during the Abbasid period.

The time of the Enlightenment was also a time in which the secular power structures were under threat thanks to new technologies of warfare and of trade. The great universities had been in existence for some time and there was a sense that knowledge could be regularised and mastered, rather than merely being known. The Christian church was also greatly influenced and it was unfortunate that the fear of Protestantism and of losing secular control was to lead to a period of conservativism and rigid enforcement of church doctrine.

We live in a very unusual period in history and in trying to understand others, it is important to recognise that we have perceptual and cognitive biases as a result of that.

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Dear Craig,

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You wrote :

« If you don't want to engage with Peter on Peter's terms, that's up to you. »

“Peter’s terms”, as he expressed them himself are as follows :

« I am very happy to contribute to the comments on my posting if there is some degree of overlap in understanding. I do not think it worthwhile trying to answer comments that are simply knee jerk reactions to the fact that I am a Christian. Too many comments are simply prejudice and betray no or a shallow reading of my ideas. You can imagine what it is like to labor away at these pieces and get superficial and abusive comments that show no engagement with the topic at all. I will engage with you if you engage with me! » :

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17351#306885

I have no problem “engaging with Peter on Peter’s terms” as I indicated to him :

« Yes, Peter, I can “imagine what it is like”. As you may know, I have written a few pieces myself that have been published on OLO. I sympathise with you.

I also “labour away” on my comments to other people’s articles such as yours. I do not practise “knee jerking”. If I go to the trouble of commenting on something it is because (rightly or wrongly) I feel that I have something to contribute. I am sure I am not alone in that. »

I do not know why you persist in thinking that I “don’t want to engage with Peter on Peter’s terms”. I am quite happy to do so, Craig.

As everyone here can see, I have since attempted to “engage” with Peter but am still waiting for his reply :

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17412#307639
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You also wrote :

« The persecutions you mention were not as a result of "Christianity", but were the result of insecure secular power-mongers doing their best to preserve their own status. »

That is a very personal interpretation of the historical facts, Craig. The “insecure secular power-mongers” were Christian leaders. Church and State acted in symbiosis :

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gca_symbiosis.htm

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And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
…


And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”



[ Excerpt from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot]

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Banjo,
Bye mate.

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“There's no lack of void.”

“Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful.”

“Let's go." "We can't." "Why not?" "We're waiting for Godot.”

“ESTRAGON: Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!
VLADIMIR: Did I ever leave you?
ESTRAGON: You let me go.”

“POZZO:
I am blind.
(Silence.)
ESTRAGON:
Perhaps he can see into the future.”

“To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.”

“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors.”

“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ”

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(Samuel Beckett, “Waiting for Godot”)

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All alone am I :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJHvYU_y6xQ

My happiness :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3lj8i6sFZE

Who’s sorry now ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ws60MDF7OY

.

Banjo, have you thought of a career as a disc jockey?

I was never a big fan of Beckett though, altogether too fatalistically miserabilist for my taste. When it comes to existentialism I'm much more strongly drawn to the muscular variety of Sartre in his full power.

To take charge of the perennially personal project of making the most of what you are is to be fully human.