Dear Joe,

Fascism was a form of national organisation in the first part of the twentieth century. Among its characteristics were reverence for a charismatic leader like Mussolini or Hitler, spectacle like elaborate, staged party meetings, a one party state, militarism including showy uniforms, extreme nationalism, glorification of the mechanical and extreme male chauvinism.

Unless all or most of those elements are present I don’t think it’s legitimate to call a movement fascist. Calling a movement fascist where these elements are largely absent merely becomes name-calling. Both ISIS and the Japanese army are quite different from the German and Italian Fascists. About the only Fascists around now are those who revere the memory of Mussolini and Hitler and would restore their system.

Japanese are generally not exclusively devoted to one religion the way we are. Japanese may practice both Shinto and Buddhism and come to Australia on a honeymoon including a Christian wedding ceremony. The Japanese officer corps during WW2 were primarily influenced by Zen Buddhism.

The Enlightenment and separation of church and state stemmed not from Christianity but from opposition to Christianity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

“The Enlightenment, known in French as the Siècle des Lumières (Century of Enlightenment) and in German as the Aufklärung, was a philosophical movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. The principal goals of Enlightenment thinkers were liberty, progress, reason, tolerance, fraternity and ending the abuses of the church and state. In France, the central doctrines of the Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to the principle of absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church.[3] The Enlightenment was marked by increasing empiricism, scientific rigor, and reductionism, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy.

The leaders of the Reformation were intolerant men who wanted neither freedom of religion nor independent thought.

Martin Luther’s diatribes against Jews were printed verbatim in the Nazi newspapers to support the Nazi Program.

John Calvin had Servetus who doubted the Trinity burned at the stake in 1553.

http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10725 points to my article on that subject.

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As the Reformation swept through Europe there was no room for freedom of religion except for the rulers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuius_regio,_eius_religio

Cuius regio, eius religio is a Latin phrase which literally means "Whose realm, his religion", meaning that the religion of the ruler was to dictate the religion of those ruled. At the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, which ended a period of armed conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant forces within the Holy Roman Empire, the rulers of the German-speaking states and Charles V, the Emperor, agreed to accept this principle. It was to apply to all the territories of the Empire except for the Ecclesiastical principalities, and some of the cities in those ecclesiastical states, where the question of religion was addressed under the separate principles of Reservatum ecclesiasticum and Declaratio Ferdinandei.

The United States was the first nation whose basic law embodied freedom of religion.

http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10790 points to my article on that subject.

Religion in general is characterised by opposition to people thinking for themselves. The secular state has tamed the inherent intolerance of Christianity. Those who questioned the doctrines of Christianity fostered the growth of the secular state. A similar development in the Islamic world will come if enough Muslims question Islam.

“Nature’s God” by Matthew Stuart tells of the philosophy motivating the founders of the United States. The chief influences were Lucretius and Spinoza. Lucretius was a pagan Roman poet and Spinoza was a Jew who rejected Judaism, Christianity and all ‘historical religions.’

Hi David,

I don't disagree necessarily with anything you have written here, except that you seem to have taken what I wrote over-literally. But I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that ISIS does fit roughly into your limited definition: 'elaborate, staged party meetings, a one party state, militarism including showy uniforms, extreme nationalism, glorification of the mechanical and extreme male chauvinism.'

I would have thought that the more salient features of fascism are the adherence to a pseudo-Utopian doctrine, and extreme repression of out-groups (those two going closely together). How does ISIS not fit into your definition, if you add those two ?

And of course, I'm not saying that the Enlightenment sprang directly from Christianity - much more as a reaction to it, and multiple strands of scientific, social and economic developments which serendipitously exploited the inconsistencies and weaknesses in Christian doctrine, and the inescapable fact that any such religion casting its net over all of Europe was bound to be fractured, schismatic, with local derivations and versions which - inadvertently but eventually - gave rise to that exploitation. Christianity as a foil, if you like.

As well, by proclaiming the existence of 'free will', that heaven was the reward for good works and good behaviour, the Church - at least in the west - provided the small opportunity, unintentionally of course, for people to interpret what 'good works' were, even against the advice of their priests. Hence, once Rome was defied and priests were bypassed, the huge spate of local sects and movements across north-west Europe in particular, along with the chance not to believe at all, or at least not to practise so fervently. Of course, Protestantism had its al Qa'idas too, Calvin etc.

So I'm still posing an Enlightenment-oriented West, the bastard child of Christianity, against a fascist-oriented ISIS, the Frankenstein's monster of Islam.

All the best for the holiday season, David.

Joe

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Dear Jayb,

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Thank you for those interesting details. I admire your science but it would be helpful if you would kindly indicate your sources. I am no expert which is why I try to indicate my own sources wherever possible.

Unfortunately, I omitted to precise how I learned that Jesus was a very common name at the time he is said to have lived. That was from a BBC televised report during which an underground tomb chamber that had been discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem and sealed-up was opened and filmed as it had been suggested it might contain the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.

They found several tombs in the chamber, one of which bore the name of Jesus but one of the experts interviewed indicated that Jesus was a very popular Jewish name at the time.

Professor Andrey Feuerverger, a mathematician and statistician at the University of Toronto estimated that about 4% of the male population of Jerusalem bore the name of Jesus 2,000 years ago.

Here are a couple of links substantiating this :

« It was just an ordinary Jewish name, about as common in Judea as John is common to us » :

http://www.jesus.org/is-jesus-god/names-of-jesus/jesus-an-ordinary-name.html
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« Professor Kloner told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the name Jesus had been found 71 times in burial caves at around that time » :

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/27/religion.israel
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You exclaimed :

« Woops! Islam wouldn’t be around for another 350 odd years »

True, but its objection to the concept of the Trinity was the same as that of Judaism.
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You indicated :

« The name Jesus is a combination of Zeus, Hesus & it was spelt Yesus as there is no J equivalent in Greek or Latin. Zeus being the head Greek God & Hesus being the Sun God from Britain where Constantine was born & grew up »

Here is a Jewish denial of that :

https://askdrbrown.org/portfolio/what-is-the-original-hebrew-name-for-jesus-and-is-it-true-that-the-name-jesus-is-really-a-pagan-corruption-of-the-name-zeus/

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Christianity started as just one of many small sects. Saul of Tarsus picked it up and ran with it sometime around AD 33-36, writing about 50% of the New Testament with the help of his assistant Luke (http://apologika.blogspot.fr/2014/05/who-wrote-most-of-new-testament.html).

But the decisive boost came from Constantine in the year 312 at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge when he converted to Christianity and became the sole ruler of the immense Roman Empire. He paved the way for the emergence of Christianity as a Christian State.

Without his personal contribution Christianity would probably have remained divided into different factions, constantly squabbling with each other and gradually whittling away until they finally disappeared like so many other sects at the time.

Though it is reported that Constantine assessed his own role as that of the 13th Apostle (cf. the last line of the Encyclopaedia Britannica article for which I provided the link in my previous post), his conversion to Christianity is generally considered to have been “politically motivated”.

Christianity would certainly not be what it is today if it were not for Constantine. It may not have even existed.

Also, there can be no doubt that Constantine played the determinant role in the adoption of the doctrine of the Trinity at the first ecumenical council of “the Church” at Nicaea over which he presided in the year 325. Peter/Sells makes no mention of this.

As I indicated in my previous post, the concept of the Trinity was adopted on purely political grounds, not just on its theological merits as he indicates in his article.

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Oops, I forgot to take the "s" off the "https" address in my first post above. Here it is again :

http://askdrbrown.org/portfolio/what-is-the-original-hebrew-name-for-jesus-and-is-it-true-that-the-name-jesus-is-really-a-pagan-corruption-of-the-name-zeus/

Sorry about that.

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