Who saw Genesis? Weren't most of the earliest Christians Jews? (no seeing Genesis at the Summit jokes either)
evil white chrisitianity was used to preach slavery and convince blacks the bible wants ethnic purity and segregation and inferiority to white people christianity has the bloodiest history in history of mankind. its a fact too cause we saw how white chrisitians from europe murdered and enslaved all the browner people when they had the power to while muslims claimed lands but didnt force its people to convert or be killed
i didn't say Genesis. i said the Gospels. a literal interpretation of the Genesis isn't necessity to being one who follows Christ.
and what kind of Christianity was preached that fueled the Abolitionist movement? was William Wilberforce a real or fake Christian? what kind of Christianity was preached that saved exposed babies from death in the Roman Empire? or convinced followers to not desert the cities and villages overrun with plague so that the sick could be cared for? at its heart, Christianity has to be twisted and turned to justify anything remotely close to slavery. i call that something other than Christianity.
You have a very romantic and idealized view of the idea of tolerance in the Cordoba Caliphate. Jews weren't forced to convert or die in Germany between 1920 and roughly 1936, but that doesn't make it a nice place for people with divergent religious backgrounds to live. And while the Inquisition was going on, Jews weren't fleeing to North Africa. Some fled to the Levant, but many more were fleeing to places like Holland, where they were comparatively very well treated.
Gotta agree with this. Christianity's name may have been used in certain situations, but that doesn't mean Christianity is to blame.
But a belief in the Jewish God and the story of man's fall from grace is. Without it the idea of a messiah is futile. It is all mythical rather than "scientific" in origin.
It's my understanding that the majority of the Jews who fled the Inquisition settled in the Balkans, Turkey and the Levant, most of which was land under direct Ottoman rule. Some also settled in Holland and Eastern Europe. Ottoman Sultan Beyazit II was rumored to have said, "How can anyone call Ferdinand wise when he impoverishes his own kingdom to enrich mine?" in reference to the Jewish expulsion.
and that story...the fall from grace with distance between man and God...predates the Genesis account. it's not important to me if it's literal truth. and again...i'm not sure what conversation you think we're having. i started off talking about the Gospels. if I had nothing but Matthew to go by it wouldn't change it for me.
The books that I have indicate that most of the Sephardic Jews became Marranos or moved to Portugal and became Marranos. They later immigrated to Protestant Europe or Poland-Lithuania. The books I have do indicate that most that left right away rather than feign conversion went to the Levant, Savoy or Dalmatia. So I guess I would agree that most who fled rather than convert went to the Ottoman Empire, but most didn't flee, at least right away. They pretended to convert and later on moved away. Again, the books that I have say that they were definitely actively welcomed in the Ottoman Empire, but more for their skills and money than for themselves. They were legally second-class everywhere they went. They were maybe viewed the way that foreign imported scientists are in the USA by the jingoist crowd, but with nothing to restrain the expression of that opinion. If you were a respected Jew it was in spite of the fact that you were a Jew. It was undoubtedly better to be a Jew in Dubrovnik than a Jew in Valencia (i.e. you weren't killed) but it still wasn't nearly as good as good as being a Croat in Dubrovnik. The same thing, of course, was true for Marranos who reverted to Judaism in Flanders or Hamburg. The enlightened view of equal multiculturalism is a modern phenomenon.
Yes, I am aware of that. The Inquisition didn't spare those who 'pretended' to convert. Of course, no one is comparing it to modern standards, we're talking Middle Ages here.
It's not important to you if there was a fall? It doesn't matter to you exactly why and how you have a sinful nature? I think you just proved my point. The religion is not based on reason, direct observation and the understanding of natural order.
Regardless of the why and how, it's obvious that people are sinful in nature, so it's not all that important whether Genesis is taken literally.
It may be obvious to you, but it certainly isn't obvious to me. By the way, enlightened Christians like Max don't necessarily take everything said in the Bible literally, but some of it as a parable, or a way for the people of the time to describe something they didn't fully understand, using the best way they had at the time, or as stories handed down for generations, from time out of mind, but of meaning to those back then who heard them, and used in parts of the Bible. The Bible being a combination of things from many different sources. I think it is as wrong for people to attack enlightened Christians for what is in the Bible by saying they take all of it literally as it is for unenlightened Christians (and, of course, this is all my own opinion) to attack others by using the Bible literally. D&D. Please Impeach Dildo and His Battery.
you're arguing to argue. you set up a strawman Christian in your mind and you project it on believers. we've been through this over and over again.
nothing is more trouble than its worth, until it is misused. People have always needed a law to govern them and religion is the only law that you can not argue with its creator, becasue he does not have a physical address to go to, so people must take it for what it is worth. No matter how societies evolve and how laws change, it will always revolve around religion's main idea, do not kill, do not lie, .......
