A few lines between the quotation that lead to the anger of the muslim world, the pope said:
He obviously means that while Islam was weak, it was peaceful; and that when it became more powerful, it also become more conquerant.

In this respect, it is interesting to consider that Jesus was always persecuted. It could explain his message of "love" and peace.

Later in history, we will see many times that when christianism becomes powerful, it also becomes violent. I am thinking about the uncountable religious wars and forced conversions, the crusades and the persecutions of non-believers.

When did it stop? Approximately when the french revolution began to frontally attack religious power. Religion lost its power in Europe; and quickly, non-religious forces became much stronger. The people became defiant of any earthly power owned by the Church. So the catholic church, being once again in the position of being persecuted (although on a much smaller scale...), once again became peaceful.

On the other hand, Islam still has a lot of power over its believers, and thus is more violent.


I am making this thread because of my limited knowledge of history. Are my observations correct, or am I missing something? What about other religions - the orthodox church, the protestants, hinduism, taoism, whatever else there is?

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Client: In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!
Tailor: But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers.
(Beckett)

Interesting post. It's too early for me to develop an opinion (whenever I start speaking without my first cup of joe I end up with a foot in my mouth ). I am curious to see where this goes.

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"Bring the boys back home!"--Pink Floyd

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Free People/Free Markets

Following the Path of the Beam

I would say it is not when religions become powerful that they become violent, but when they begin to lose power (or perceive themselves to be doing so). The violence is a method to try to hold on to the power.

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Member in good standing: Rednecks for Jesus.

That is a very interesting concept, but I would challenge you to distinguish it from the simple notion that power corrupts, regardless of religion or the lack thereof.
If we accept that when Christianity was in power it was violent and when Islam was weak it was peaceful and that weakened Christianity is now peaceful and strengthened Islam is violent, we should also consider that post-Christian Europe was also not peaceful (indeed, the anti-religious French Revolution was anything but a time of peaceful tolerence) nor was the pre-Islamic Middle East.
I would agree with your thoughts but believe them to be needlessly limited in scope: ideologies that achieve political power tend to be corrupted by it and violence follows. Religions form one subset of ideologies, but hardly the only one.

As far as I'm concerned, Christian bloodshed was at its highest in the 5th century and the 13th (AD). In both cases, 'heretic' Christians were the chosen victims (in the second case, by the million).

The (Middle Eastern) Crusades, so-called Religious Wars, forced conversions and persecutions of non-believers are all small potatoes compared to these two periods.

Likewise with Islam. Their most bloody period seems to be the 8th century and the present one.

Christian Church power peaked with the Investiture Controversy of the 11th/12th century AD. From then on, it was politically down hill. From a Christian religious perspective, the French Revolution was a nail in the coffin, not the beginning of anything.

On the whole, it doesn't appear that this theory of yours holds true, though it does look attractive.

In light of this, I guess it would be more appropriate to explain, quite obviously, non-violence by weakness; while the causes of violence are more elaborate. The catholic church may not be weak, but the main decision center is western europe, where any violent interpretation of religion will be strongly condemned and sanctioned. All the recent popes have been europeans, and they all execute their functions in Roma; things would probably be different if the catholic "government" lived in Sao Paulo.

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Client: In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!
Tailor: But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers.
(Beckett)

I would also (like Diletantte) say: power corrupts. This happens regardless of whether you are a clergyman, an officer of the State, or has any other position of power.

Sure, every human is not corrupted by power, but enough of us are that you can say this is a typical trait in any human civilisation.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

As exposed in my previous post, I don't think that power corrupts. I think that power allows people once restrained by their weakness to reveal their true nature. Of course, the weak do not think of it like that; he prefers to call himself "good" than "evil but powerless".

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Client: In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!
Tailor: But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers.
(Beckett)

Well said and a worthwhile distinction.

True, but I still believe power corrupts. People can change. People who are, by heart and nature, benign and peaceful before they get a position of power, may change with increasing power and become corrupt.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

I tend to think that the good and evil distinction is overly simplistic. I, too, think that power can, and usually does, corrupt. I am not aware of any "religious" wars outside of monotheism.

Has anyone ever heard of a tyranny of the minority?

The rise of liberal democracies coincides with the dismantling of the Church's power over national governments. Not just the French. The Magna Carta and other reforms in England came about when political power became secular and less religious. One can point to the rise of representative government in Switzerland, Parliament in England and, of course, the French Revolution as periods where the power of the church to anoint government by hereditary rulers was on the wane and people began to take political power for their own.

This was at its height during the period of philosophy we call "The Enlightenment." One famous result of these philosophers was the creation of the United States and its Constitution. The US Constitution was the first document that created a national government that never mentioned any god or gods. The US Constitution stated that governments were made by men (meaning all the people) who created all the laws. Lincoln said it best: "Government of the people, by the people, for the people." (Did I get the order wrong?)

We now have a rogue regime in the US that is trying to re-impose religious control over our government. We will lose our freedoms if it succeeds.

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Don't worry about what people think. They don't do it very often.

What would you call the Roman war of extermination against the Celtic Druids?

History supplies countless examples.

Can anyone given an example of the tyranny of the majority?

A tyranny of the majority is when the majority of the Parliament makes any law they think fit, making sure that the Constitution makes it almost impossible for the courts of law to dismiss of a statute because of its unconstitutionality and sweeping away any public complaints of unconstitutionality by saying that it is undemocratic that statutes made by a majority of the Parliament should not be adhered to.

This was the case in Sweden in the first half of the 1970's, after 40 years of Social Democratic rule. When the Social Democrats finally lost a general election in 1976, many high officials of the party said it felt like a coup d'etat.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Works for me.

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Only a liberal would know how hard it is to get a nicotine patch to stick to a monkey.