Saturday, 26 March 2011

Christian terrorists all around us?

One aspect of terrorism has been defined as "use of threats of violence for the purpose of creating fear in order to achieve a religious goal".

This sounds like Christianity - "Believe this or burn for eternity!"

On this opinion I do agree with the great Hitch!

7 comments:

Cindy said...

Wow, a terrorist, really? A bit harsh even for you.

Hilary said...

Actually, as you well know, Jesus was a bringer of good news, a friend to the sinner, a healer of those who were diseased, on the side of the poor etc etc...and if a person chooses to reject a life with Him in it, then that's a choice that has been made, which will then be granted! Despite the fact that you have called christians terrorists, and therefore of course Jesus as well, He still loves you :)

Plasma Engineer said...

That's a nice 'straw man' argument but I didn't say that christians are terrorists. I actually reported that Christopher Hitchens had made a comparison that the definition of terrorism could be used to describe christian doctrine and that I agreed with it. Is the difference terribly subtle? Usually you are the one who says that the thinking of Dawkins et al. is not up to scratch, whereas I think they manage to avoid all the obfuscation and cut to the chase.

Hilary said...

Hi, first of all I don't see that I used a straw man argument especially concerning this particular doctrine as Jesus Himself warned the self righteous of Hell. Second there is a significant difference in a threat, from a truth declared. A threat implies clearly a threatening motive,with a bullying strongly implied, whereas a truth declared to warn others does not have a motive of 'threat' behind it, or certainly should not, but rather a motive to warn of disaster if action is not taken. Is it an act of terrorism to evacuate New York by declaring a hurricane is on the way?

I agree there have certainly been a number of those who have professed to be christians throughout history who have unfortunately not been good examples of followers of Christ and may not have even been followers of Christ, but then Jesus said that not everyone who says Lord Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We will all stand before the Judgement of Christ one day, and I am equally sure there will be many surprises.

Anonymous said...

For everyone who thinks that the claiming that this is terrorism is a bit much/harsh/unacceptable... Do me one favor. Go to South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, or any other state in the "Bible Belt" and simply state that you are not a Christian. Good luck with the death threats.

Derby Sceptic said...

Hilary - Comparing the Christian 'Believe this or burn for eternity' with a warning of a hurricane is interesting.

In the former, Christianity is warning of what God will do if you don't believe, the messenger and the threat maker are closely connected. In the hurricane example there is no such connection.

I was drawn to an interesting example of threats from the bible by an excellent blog post from Rosa Rubicondior at the link below.

http://rosarubicondior.blogspot.com/2012/01/talk-about-bitter-and-twisted.html

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