Would you kill Jesus?

[Darth Wong]

Or Constantine (IIRC), for making Christianity into the official religion of Rome.

[data_link]

Let me ask you this, data; if you had just carried a little child in you for nine months and brought him/her into the world, and then some asshole with no evidence came along claiming that your child would be unintentionally responsible for a series of horrible atrocities and demanded you kill him/her, could you do it?

Some asshole who actually managed to convince me that it was all true? I'd smash his head in, and then I'd burn the body for good measure (my son, not the asshole). There is no one in this world I wouldn't kill given the opportunity and a good enough reason (and the future murder of millions, stagnation of science for a thousand years, and the general hoplessness invoked by Christianity constitute a good enough reason). If it turns out that he's my son, I would be greatly saddened, but I'd still kill him.

Besides, logically if I were Mary, I'd be a jew, and knowing that my son was going to decieve so many into a heretical line of thinking, and knowing what God comands you to do to heretics in the Old Testament, I would be morally obligated to kill him, even if I wasn't the sane, rational atheist I am today.

[beyond hope]

Again, I'm drawing on hazy twelve-year-old memories from Confirmation class, but it seems that the prostitute Mary who washed Jesus' feet and Mary of Magdala are not the same person. That rumor was started by Peter's faction to discredit the church she'd started. By all accounts her denomination was a more tolerant and accepting one... one wonders what the result would have been if they'd been allowed to flourish.

[Darth Yoshi]

Besides, logically if I were Mary, I'd be a jew, and knowing that my son was going to decieve so many into a heretical line of thinking, and knowing what God comands you to do to heretics in the Old Testament, I would be morally obligated to kill him, even if I wasn't the sane, rational atheist I am today.

I hadn't thought of it like that.

[Joe]

You don't have an ethical duty to kill your child; you never have an ethical duty to kill unless in self-defense. You do have an ethical duty to try and alter the person the child grows up to become.

[Darth Wong]

You don't have an ethical duty to kill your child; you never have an ethical duty to kill unless in self-defense. You do have an ethical duty to try and alter the person the child grows up to become.

Don't pull a James T. Kirk and try to cheat your way out of a no-win scenario. The point is to choose, not try to rewrite the parameters of the question to allow a win.

[data_link]

You don't have an ethical duty to kill your child; you never have an ethical duty to kill unless in self-defense. You do have an ethical duty to try and alter the person the child grows up to become.

Perhaps you didn't read my initial post?

Any other actions you will take will only result in Jesus becoming even more delusional, and history will not be substantially affected. For the purposes of this debate, assume that he is absolutely right about this.

That throws the "third option" right out the window.

[data_link]

You don't have an ethical duty to kill your child; you never have an ethical duty to kill unless in self-defense. You do have an ethical duty to try and alter the person the child grows up to become.

Don't pull a James T. Kirk and try to cheat your way out of a no-win scenario. The point is to choose, not try to rewrite the parameters of the question to allow a win.

LOL.

Once again Wong says it so much better than I ever could have.

[Joe]

I did choose. I'm just giving my reasoning behind it.

[MKSheppard]

If Christianity were supplanted by Buddhism, we would not have had Crusades or Inquisitions. Not all religions are created equal.

Except Buddhism is all the way OVER THERE (points at map at Asia), however,
Mithraism is RIGHT HERE (points at map of ancient rome)...

[data_link]

If Christianity were supplanted by Buddhism, we would not have had Crusades or Inquisitions. Not all religions are created equal.

Except Buddhism is all the way OVER THERE (points at map at Asia), however,
Mithraism is RIGHT HERE (points at map of ancient rome)...

And your point is...

[Darth Wong]

If Christianity were supplanted by Buddhism, we would not have had Crusades or Inquisitions. Not all religions are created equal.

Except Buddhism is all the way OVER THERE (points at map at Asia), however, Mithraism is RIGHT HERE (points at map of ancient rome)...

So? The point was simply that not all religions should be assumed equally destructive. Crystal-ball gazing about what particular religion would have cropped up is pointless and impossible.

[MKSheppard]

Don't pull a James T. Kirk and try to cheat your way out of a no-win scenario. The point is to choose, not try to rewrite the parameters of the question to allow a win.

Kirk won and got a commendation for it. I'm like that....I try to weasel my
way out of shit like the German Army under Versailles and Seeckt...

[MKSheppard]

Crystal-ball gazing about what particular religion would have cropped up is pointless and impossible.

Take a fucking look at all the religions that popped up in the Roman
Empire. Most of them IIRC, were bloodily violent too.

[Durandal]

Mithraism didn't have a holy book that told its followers to run around killing unbelievers. If we were to extrapolate the actions of religious figureheads based on their holy books, the world would be served better if Buddhism or Mithraism replaced Christianity.

To be honest, I think it'd be better to whack Constantine before he turned Christianity into the official religion of the Roman Empire. It was he more than Jesus who influenced the current state of affairs. It wasn't really Jesus that corrupted Christianity (although he certainly didn't help the situation by claiming that religion is more important than even your own family and how only those who believe in him would be saved), it was more than the Christians got the power necessary to force their beliefs on others, which their religion demands they do.

[MKSheppard]

If we were to extrapolate the actions of religious figureheads based on their holy books, the world would be served better if Buddhism or Mithraism replaced Christianity.

Isn't Shintoism an offshoot of Buddhism?

Those japs were really sadistic Mofos...

[Coyote]

If Christianity were supplanted by Buddhism, we would not have had Crusades or Inquisitions. Not all religions are created equal.

Yeah, but the chances of Buddhism sweeping throught the MidEast and Europe are slim. Maybe one of the Pagan gods would have risen to prominence (ie, Sol) or Mithraism. Perhaps Islam would have still come along, since Mohammed's impetus (a reform of the original religion) would still be around albeit in a diluted form.

Given human nature, it is very likely another religion would have risen to prominence to justify being mean to each other.

What Adolf needed was a girlfriend in his youth. I think people greatly underestimate the social problems that have resulted from guys who couldn't get laid.

If only Adolph had a nice Jewish girfriend who been very good to him, and he remembered dearly... with a kindly homosexual brother, her best friend a Gypsy... we'd cover all the bases...

So you're saying that the UN/US is going about this all wrong-- instead of a multi billion dollar military strike, we should just send some strippers and whiskey to Osama and Saddam for, say, $5,000.00 (plus plane fare)?

[The Dark]

If we were to extrapolate the actions of religious figureheads based on their holy books, the world would be served better if Buddhism or Mithraism replaced Christianity.

Isn't Shintoism an offshoot of Buddhism?

Those japs were really sadistic Mofos...

No, Shinto existed in Japan before Buddhism reached them. We don't know when Shinto was started, but there are records of it from before Siddharta Gautama's birth.

I would have to say don't whack Jesus. Don't even go after Peter, Paul, or Constantine. Get the later Popes, since it was really the early Middle Ages when the church truly turned xenophobic. I've read papers saying that while Christianity hastened the fall of Rome, it also shortened the Dark Ages slightly because it preserved much of the knowledge in monasteries; while they were not publicly accessible for some time, the knowledge was available to be reclaimed, whereas most of the libraries (particularly Middle Eastern and Eastern European) were destroyed by invaders. While the First Crusade served a justifiable purpose (defending Europe against invasion), whacking the Pope after the First Crusade would seem perfectly justifiable to me, since the others did nothing major to preserve European culture, and led to a dislike of Europe and Christianity that survives in the Middle East to this day.

[Coyote]

But Dark, the Catholic Church (or just 'the Church' back then) was the only organization dedicated to the preservation of not just Christian but a lot of late Roman knowledge.

Doing the Don Corleone number on the Popes probably would have collapsed that institution (the collective body of believers would have survived in a decentralized-- and ignorant-- state). Would that be worth it?

To an extent I agree with it, but would we be throwing the baby out with the bath water?

[InnerBrat]

OK, don't blame Jesus for Christianity. He went around being relaxed and groovy and trying to get some real morals into his society.

The people who founded Christianity could have chosen any Christ they wanted to - the was no shortage of Messiahs then (see my Life of Brian history coming out here). We could have a John (the baptist) Christ or a some-bloke-I -met-down-the-pub Christ.

Now that fuckwit Paul - he's a different matter.

But I wouldn't change any part of history if I could. Even preventing Hitler's rise to power would prevent my birth, for one, and that's a terrible thing.

[The Dark]

But Dark, the Catholic Church (or just 'the Church' back then) was the only organization dedicated to the preservation of not just Christian but a lot of late Roman knowledge.

Doing the Don Corleone number on the Popes probably would have collapsed that institution (the collective body of believers would have survived in a decentralized-- and ignorant-- state). Would that be worth it?

To an extent I agree with it, but would we be throwing the baby out with the bath water?

Hrm. That leads to the question of whether the Church could survive without the Pope. Since the Pope was merely the Bishop of Rome (it comes from the Italian word for father, used for all Bishops...the Bishop of Alexandria was called Papa), I would believe that eliminating the more hard-line Bishops could indeed have allowed for the preservation of knowledge without the extremism of the Middle Ages. Of course, since it's all theoretical, we really can't be 100% certain.

[Yogi]

What gaurentee does one have that killing a baby child would save even ONE life in the long run?

The answer: None at all!

Congratulations, you have just re-set all of history. No we have no idea what will happen with anything! Round and round the wheel of fortune goes, where it stops no one will know. Will it stop at some place better, or some place worse? Did Christianty doom the world, or did it save it from an even more horrid religion that it maneged to supress? No one knows, no one CAN know. Therefore, we should leave history alone.

Like many science fiction authors have pointed out, don't screw with history. There's a 50% chance things will get worse.

[Ghost Rider]

Following that, a time traveler fron the year 2002 tells you the entire history of Christianity. Further, he informs you that you can stop this, but only by killing your own son. Any other actions you will take will only result in Jesus becoming even more delusional, and history will not be substantially affected. For the purposes of this debate, assume that he is absolutely right about this.

But as pointed out...killing if you as Mary were to kill Jesus none of these events would occur.

The point is whether or not a mother could for any reason concievably kill her child.

[NecronLord]

Crystal-ball gazing about what particular religion would have cropped up is pointless and impossible.

Take a fucking look at all the religions that popped up in the Roman
Empire. Most of them IIRC, were bloodily violent too.

Actually no most of them were a hellov a lot more passive. Few people ever subscribed to the death cults. However a few emperor's ended up in them. Hence their infamy. Interestingly enough all of the idiot emperors were inheritors of their predecessors (Nero, Caligula, Commodus, Valens,)

As for killing Constantine, I would say it would be a better Idea to Kill Octavian and usurp the job, then you could ensure that the empire survived, (without some of the later excesses) and history would go a hellov a lot better. Just give them a bit more scientific slant. Also in the time of Augustus you can arrange for Jesus to die anyway. Win - Win. A few guns and a lot of gold should do the trick for the usurping

[Durandal]

OK, don't blame Jesus for Christianity. He went around being relaxed and groovy and trying to get some real morals into his society.

Especially when he said that everyone who didn't buy into his crackpot ideas about being the son of God would suffer for all eternity. And when he told people to forsake their families for him. And when he told slaves to obey their masters. And when he told slaves with Chrisian masters to work twice as hard. "Real morals" indeed.

The people who founded Christianity could have chosen any Christ they wanted to - the was no shortage of Messiahs then (see my Life of Brian history coming out here). We could have a John (the baptist) Christ or a some-bloke-I -met-down-the-pub Christ.

They chose Jesus because he was the most fanatical and megalomaniacal, given that he said he was the son of God, not just the Messiah. By extension of his ludicrous claims and publicity stunts, er ... miracles, he got the most attention.

Now that fuckwit Paul - he's a different matter.

Yes, Paul was a bit more extreme than Jesus. However, let's remember that Jesus also subscribed to the "women are property" ideas of the age. All it takes is embracing that idea to become a sexist asshole like Paul, and you can justify doing anything you want.

I would have to say don't whack Jesus. Don't even go after Peter, Paul, or Constantine. Get the later Popes, since it was really the early Middle Ages when the church truly turned xenophobic. I've read papers saying that while Christianity hastened the fall of Rome, it also shortened the Dark Ages slightly because it preserved much of the knowledge in monasteries; while they were not publicly accessible for some time, the knowledge was available to be reclaimed, whereas most of the libraries (particularly Middle Eastern and Eastern European) were destroyed by invaders. While the First Crusade served a justifiable purpose (defending Europe against invasion), whacking the Pope after the First Crusade would seem perfectly justifiable to me, since the others did nothing major to preserve European culture, and led to a dislike of Europe and Christianity that survives in the Middle East to this day.

The Church was xenophobic from the moment it seized enough power to exert its beliefs forcibly on others. And, where do all those beliefs come from? I'll give you a hint: the popes didn't pull them out of their asses. They got them from Scripture. If Jesus has explicitly said, "Oh, and if he doesn't want to follow me, that's cool to. All that matters is how you treat others," then you'd have justification for laying blame purely on the popes. Seeing as how Jesus repeatedly condemned those who did not follow him, that is not the case. At the very least, you can blame the Gospel writers instead of Jesus, since they are the ones who wrote about him; Jesus himself didn't write a thing in the Bible. We're left to trust Matthew, Mark, Luke and John's conflicting accounts of what happened.