<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Oct 28 2007, 09:49 PM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Oct 28 2007, 09:49 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Revealing the mistery behinde the 'tolerance' of orthodox christians.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Finally!!! We can now throw away Deschner and Balagangadhara.[right][snapback]74632[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Can you point me to Balagangadhara's writings on this topic, would like to read it.
I've not read Deschner on the <i>Eastern</i> church (only read some of his writings on the old christian church as well as a little catholicism-protestantism stuff). It's very much true that Eastern christianism destroyed Greece and other eastern cultures; and there were also persecutions during medieval times of various 'heretic' cults, with at least one instance where I think I recall the victims to number a hundred thousand or so.
Yes, here - Joseph McCabe writes in Story of Religious Controversy:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One of the most famous heretics of the Greek Church, Paul of Samosata, was the son of a Manichaean mother and his heresy combined the Manichaean principle of two supreme powers with an early form of Protestantism or evangelical Christianity. The Greek Church and Empire -- which, let us remember, had never been tainted by barbarian invasions -- were now, in the eighth century, appallingly corrupt, and this purer religion, as it was, spread widely, especially among the Armenians. Emperor after emperor tried to suppress it. The Empress Theodora put to death no less than <b>one hundred thousand</b> members of the sect; or, in a few years, made fifty times as many martyrs as the pagans had in three centuries. Finally, in the tenth century, no less than two hundred thousand members of the sect were transplanted from Armenia to Thrace, to form a living bulwark against the encroachments of the Bulgars.
But within a short time the worthy Paulicians had spread their gospel peacefully among the Bulgars, and Europe was confronted with a new heresy, the Bogomiles. You have probably never heard of the Bogomiles, but you will surely have heard of those famous heretics of the south of France, the Albigensians, who were drowned by the greatest of the Popes, Innocent III, in their own blood. They (and the Waldensians, the Cathari, the Patarenes, and other obscure bodies of the time) were inspired by the Bogomiles and had the same tincture of Manichaean ideas. The orthodox Catholics of France called them bougres (Bulgars) and it was thus that the innocent name of a people became the worst swear-word of French and English tongues. They were reproached with having a pope in Bulgaria. In short, from the tenth century onward this revolt against orthodox Christianity and its corrupt priests and monks spread over Europe like a prairie fire.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Even taking into account such things, when it comes to the overall track-record of christianity, the eastern church is still miles off from the ever-growing record of horrors that the catholic-protestant church continues to gleefully accrue/commit.
Next to that - and I might be wrong - but I don't think the orthodox church in Europe or Russia is going about missionizing (=terrorising) the <i>rest of the world</i> these days. Whereas the catholic-protestant sheep are still drunk on it.
In that way there is a difference between the two - nowadays. Defensive vs offensive christianity is a somewhat indicative description. With eastern christianity, christianist persecution of others is limited to their own countries (for instance as in how Ancient Greek temples continue to be destroyed in Greece and how people who continue to follow Greek Religion are persecuted). Meanwhile, catholicism-protestantism isn't content with tormenting its own (example: paedophilia); it must bring the rest of the world into its orbit of misery as well (through missonary-terrorism).
You're right: it's all nasty. Just thinking that where it concerns us - or native Americans, or the rest of the world's unconverted (that is, the 'heathen' <i>lands</i>) - we're more directly affected by western christianism.
I've not read Deschner on the <i>Eastern</i> church (only read some of his writings on the old christian church as well as a little catholicism-protestantism stuff). It's very much true that Eastern christianism destroyed Greece and other eastern cultures; and there were also persecutions during medieval times of various 'heretic' cults, with at least one instance where I think I recall the victims to number a hundred thousand or so.
Yes, here - Joseph McCabe writes in Story of Religious Controversy:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One of the most famous heretics of the Greek Church, Paul of Samosata, was the son of a Manichaean mother and his heresy combined the Manichaean principle of two supreme powers with an early form of Protestantism or evangelical Christianity. The Greek Church and Empire -- which, let us remember, had never been tainted by barbarian invasions -- were now, in the eighth century, appallingly corrupt, and this purer religion, as it was, spread widely, especially among the Armenians. Emperor after emperor tried to suppress it. The Empress Theodora put to death no less than <b>one hundred thousand</b> members of the sect; or, in a few years, made fifty times as many martyrs as the pagans had in three centuries. Finally, in the tenth century, no less than two hundred thousand members of the sect were transplanted from Armenia to Thrace, to form a living bulwark against the encroachments of the Bulgars.
But within a short time the worthy Paulicians had spread their gospel peacefully among the Bulgars, and Europe was confronted with a new heresy, the Bogomiles. You have probably never heard of the Bogomiles, but you will surely have heard of those famous heretics of the south of France, the Albigensians, who were drowned by the greatest of the Popes, Innocent III, in their own blood. They (and the Waldensians, the Cathari, the Patarenes, and other obscure bodies of the time) were inspired by the Bogomiles and had the same tincture of Manichaean ideas. The orthodox Catholics of France called them bougres (Bulgars) and it was thus that the innocent name of a people became the worst swear-word of French and English tongues. They were reproached with having a pope in Bulgaria. In short, from the tenth century onward this revolt against orthodox Christianity and its corrupt priests and monks spread over Europe like a prairie fire.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Even taking into account such things, when it comes to the overall track-record of christianity, the eastern church is still miles off from the ever-growing record of horrors that the catholic-protestant church continues to gleefully accrue/commit.
Next to that - and I might be wrong - but I don't think the orthodox church in Europe or Russia is going about missionizing (=terrorising) the <i>rest of the world</i> these days. Whereas the catholic-protestant sheep are still drunk on it.
In that way there is a difference between the two - nowadays. Defensive vs offensive christianity is a somewhat indicative description. With eastern christianity, christianist persecution of others is limited to their own countries (for instance as in how Ancient Greek temples continue to be destroyed in Greece and how people who continue to follow Greek Religion are persecuted). Meanwhile, catholicism-protestantism isn't content with tormenting its own (example: paedophilia); it must bring the rest of the world into its orbit of misery as well (through missonary-terrorism).
You're right: it's all nasty. Just thinking that where it concerns us - or native Americans, or the rest of the world's unconverted (that is, the 'heathen' <i>lands</i>) - we're more directly affected by western christianism.