Today in my history class we were talking about
the Crusades. Our whole class is about looking at how countries perceive each
other and how that made a difference on how they acted towards certain
countries. Well today we talked about Islam and Christianity. And yes, I'm
sorry if I am about to offend or bother a lot of you fellow co-philosophers by
what I believe, but I'm sure you can move past it. The thing is, my teacher
kept talking about how the Christians were kind of in the wrong for taking the
tactic they took and I agree with him, however, the problem is that religion
and politics have tried to be hand in hand for the longest time. Also,
Christianity and Islam claim to both be universal and as you may realize, they
can't both be right. The other thing is, that my teacher kept talking about how
Christians have tried to force their religion on others because we believe it's
universal and to me, that is a sad fact. While, yes, in some cases Christians
take a harsher approach to spreading God's Word, that's not what we are about
now. Plus, take into consideration that Christians aren't currently trying to
murder those who disagree with us. The last time something like that happened
it was the Crusades (some might argue that the Holocaust would also count).
These, political moves however are just that. Political. They may have the
title of a Christian movement, but they are in fact not doing what
Christians intend to do. And tell me this, if Christians or anyone tries to
force a group of people to believe what they believe is it really faith? No.
Anyways, I doubt this made sense to anyone reading, I will try better next time
to really go into detail on what I’m trying to express to you, but until then,
bye.
(H3) In reality religion usually tends towards moderation when left alone. there will always be a small minority who take it to extremes but religions don't usually advocate crusades or jihad, that is until you introduce politics to the mix. Religion on it's own is not often a good enough reason to start a war, but its the best reason in the world if you put it on top of resources, or land, or power. Which if you look at the modern conflicts that involve Islamic extremists, or the medieval crusades that's just it. You mix love of power with religion, one corrupts the other, the other adds fervor tot he one, and you have something to fight about.
ReplyDeleteHmm...I wonder if we are thinking of the same teacher...
ReplyDeleteRemember his relationship with Christianity with respect to his family. I can empathize and see how one may not view Christianity's role in history in a positive light when it is the result of his own family's scrutiny and damnation.
I think that weather we realize it or not religion and politics are so closely intertwined that we cannot separate them take America for example the great free nation the simple fact is that American laws are based on Christianity they are impossible to separate.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Christian. While I believe that separating religion and politics is immensely needed, I do not believe it is possible in any shape form or fashion. For example, in my communications class. One of the possible topics discussed was removing 'In God We Trust' from government type things, like the pledge or the dollar bill. Almost the entire class said that was not allowable, even those who were not religious. They claimed that it was a part of America and what it was founded on. This simple statement rings so true. As much as I would have loved for this nation to have been founded on the freedom to practice any religion, it was more along the lines of the freedom to practice their religion.
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