A crusade is an act of compassion?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by water, Mar 31, 2005.

  1. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    This has been said here:




    A crusade is an act of compassion?
     
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  3. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    Is a crusade against slavery compassionate?
     
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  5. ellion Magician & Exorcist (93) Registered Senior Member

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    it would depend a lot on how the crusade was carried out.
    attacking christians for their beliefs is not showing them compassion, it is showing them intolerance.
    a real attempt to rescue people from the clutches of the church would be a direct assault on the elect, the elite and those organisations that propitiate the abuse of power.

    i'm guilty of harrassing christians myself but i don't do it to save them from themselves
    i do it cause i enjoy it.
     
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  7. Silvertusk Registered Senior Member

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    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    Fair play. At least you are honest LOL.

    Agreed with all you said. Though I am not quite ready to be rescued yet

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  8. Silvertusk Registered Senior Member

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    A crusade can be personal thing and so is open to interpretation. An Anti-Christian one may all be well, but if it is fuelled from hate and intolerance then it is hard to make it compassionate. Some people actually enjoy being Christians so trying to take that enjoyment from them is hardly nice is it?

    The same with the Christians on the other side in the actual "Crusades". They were fuelled by them forcing their will and so IMO this can hardly be seen as an act of compassion. There are much better and peaceful ways of spreading the Gospel than that.

    I think a crusade should be judged on its motives.
     
  9. ellion Magician & Exorcist (93) Registered Senior Member

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    i should add, i am not prejudice either, i will harrass athiests too.
     
  10. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    The basis of crusades is : I am much nicer, wiser and more intelligent than you. I know what is good for you and what you ought to do and believe. The fact that you resist shows how wicked and stupid you are so I am perfectly justified in doing whatever is necessary to make you do and believe what is good. If I kill you it serves you right and it's all your fault.
     
  11. ellion Magician & Exorcist (93) Registered Senior Member

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    actually sounds like the basis of all political systems, not just the religious ones.
     
  12. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    Religious ones carry it further- it's not just me, but god [who agrees with me of course].
     
  13. Silvertusk Registered Senior Member

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    That is an unfair generalisation. But I agree some examples of crusades do come out that way. But you get people all round the world crusading to cure diseases, help poverty stricken people, etc.. Could not most Charities in general be seen as a good crusade with the correct motives?
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I think MW was just respecting the terms you set, Water.

    And yes, a crusade can be an act of compassion. Just because Christians don't get it doesn't mean other people don't.

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    (See Sun, Sky, Stone for lyrics. I would have used the actual song, "Medicine Woman", but it doesn't quite apply, despite the cool lyrics.)
     
  15. Silvertusk Registered Senior Member

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    I am a christian and I understand it. What is your point?
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, I'm sure you do.

    In the meantime, could you fill in the rest of your Christian neighbors, then? Maybe convince them to trust in God on occasion?

    The word "crusade" carries a dubious reputation. Certainly, there was a Christian school out in Federal Way when I was in seventh grade whose mascot was a Crusader, and sure enough there was a sword-bearing knight painted on the gymnasium wall, but in general, people treat the word crusade much as the sensitivities surrounding President Bush's use of the word suggest. And Water has repeated that sensitivity here.

    While I recognize both the prevalence of that sensitivity and the reasons for it, there is no law binding the word to that context. Dictionaries still offer definitions such as "A vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against an abuse" (American Heritage), or as a verb, "exert oneself continuously, vigorously, or obtrusively to gain an end or engage in a crusade for a certain cause or person; be an advocate for" (WordNet), and "Any enterprise undertaken with zeal and enthusiasm; as, a crusade against intemperance" (Webster's 1913).

    These definitions are still appropriate. I know, I know: it's all in how you say it.
    ____________________

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  17. audible un de plusieurs autres Registered Senior Member

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    xians in all of their history, have been and are still on a crusade, to indoctrinate every poor slob to there way of thinking, " though I whip you, it's for you own good we must purge you of your heathen ways", now days they do it a little more Subtly. but there foe is no longer the sheep, now they have to do battle with the educated person, the more this educated person questions, the more superstitious religions will be a thing of the past.
    if M*W feel it's her right to crusade against the evils of xianity, all power to her.
     
  18. Silvertusk Registered Senior Member

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    Wish I could...

    Agreed.
     
  19. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    I thought the crusade was more geared towards killing muslims than converting them.
    There used to be that unwritten agreement that neither side would convert no matter what. So really is was more about christians and muslims trying to abolish one another.
    As you do when you're a homo-sapien, the religion was merely what they used to make it more dramatic. It's what we need as animals to behave, it needs to make sense to us in some way.
    Now bush comes up with liberation or whatever, but really western europeans just want to kill middle easterners, that has always been the driving force. It's natural.
    We also want to kill far easterners but we're slightly scared of them, and they are slightly scared of us.
    We don't attack africans because they are not competition, they technically are in the category of domesticated animals, thats how our instincts see them so we simply don't posess that same hostility we show towards competitors.

    The sad thing is "christians" (or "whites") are missing their opportunity to take the victory sitting in front of them because they don't like resembling the stereotypical villain envisioned by their culture so while the western europeans are sitting on their hands mongols and arabs are growing in strength and will eventually defeat them and take over the world. I have my money on mongols because arabs couldn't organise a fuck in a brothel.
    Whites were lacking in a lack of compassion and will suffer the consequences.
    It's funny how it has been people criticising them for their "lack" of compassion which has been their downfall.
     
  20. zyncod Registered Senior Member

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    Even crusades that have ostensibly "good" motives; ie, charities like the Red Cross or UNICEF are still based on the precept that the people running and donating to these charities are better, wiser, and smarter than those who receive their largesse. The poor who these charities are supposed to "help" are not consulted about what form the help should take because the charities believe that they themselves, rather than the poor, know better about how to help the poor than the poor themselves. It's a standard thing with a global capitalist society: if you're poor, you've already failed so it's up to the richer (better) people to decide how to help you or whether or not to help you at all.

    That's why there will always be a large gap between the rich and the poor in the US. Instead of the welfare "reform" we had in the mid-90s, where we kicked off people who were not finding jobs quickly enough, we should asked the poor themselves what would be the best way to help them get off welfare. And the resounding response, as reported by informal surveys in newspapers, would seem to be "job training" and "state-run daycare centers." But because welfare, in its current form, is a crusade against poverty, the poor were not consulted and are thus doomed to continue their current path. All crusades, whatever their motives, suffer an excess of superiority, and are thus NEVER the best solution to a problem.
     
  21. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    And it is this logic that I find disturbing in the case of Anti-Christian crusades (" "):

    If you're Christian, you've already failed so it's up to the atheist / member of other religion to decide how to help you or whether or not to help you at all.


    Some Anti-Christians constantly call Christians mentally ill and such, that they are lost cases -- is this compassionate?

    Is it compassionate to call the person whom you are trying to help, stupid?
     
  22. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    Atheists have no reason to be compassionate.
    That's christian policy, not ours.
    We are allowed to be complete assholes, it's really great.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Yes: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
     

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