Ordained by God

In history depots, racists, slaveholders and tyrants have justified their practices by asserting Divine ordination.

• Divine Right of Kings
• Religious Defense of Slavery [Curiously, Sessions, who's no stranger to recriminations about racism, chose Romans 13.]
• Slavery in John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews: A Cultural-Historical Analysis

One need not even be a fine student of history to recall myriad horrors wrought by Christian Kings and Popes. As every one of them was ostensibly emplaced by God, all they decreed and did was thus by Him sanctified, so, sober and scrupulous. Similarly, since the earliest days of Christianity's primacy, the Faith has been suborned to subjugate just about anyone who dissented with potentates seeking to impose their will on others.

Xelor said:

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.
-- Jefferson Beauregard Sessions
​

In history depots, racists, slaveholders and tyrants have justified their practices by asserting Divine ordination.

• Divine Right of Kings
• Religious Defense of Slavery [Curiously, Sessions, who's no stranger to recriminations about racism, chose Romans 13.]
• Slavery in John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews: A Cultural-Historical Analysis

One need not even be a fine student of history to recall myriad horrors wrought by Christian Kings and Popes. As every one of them was ostensibly emplaced by God, all they decreed and did was thus by Him sanctified, so, sober and scrupulous. Similarly, since the earliest days of Christianity's primacy, the Faith has been suborned to subjugate just about anyone who dissented with potentates seeking to impose their will on others.

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The intent of religion is always to control the unruly masses, and yes, it can (and has) wreaked havoc on the world and her inhabitants. Not just Christianity, but also Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. Organized religion has lead us into more wars and been the cause of more deaths than virtually any other single factor.

When someone can claim that God (any god) is on their side in war -- all sorts of atrocities follow.

Religion is dying, but we've still got a ways to go.

Xelor said:

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.
-- Jefferson Beauregard Sessions
​

In history depots, racists, slaveholders and tyrants have justified their practices by asserting Divine ordination.

• Divine Right of Kings
• Religious Defense of Slavery [Curiously, Sessions, who's no stranger to recriminations about racism, chose Romans 13.]
• Slavery in John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews: A Cultural-Historical Analysis

One need not even be a fine student of history to recall myriad horrors wrought by Christian Kings and Popes. As every one of them was ostensibly emplaced by God, all they decreed and did was thus by Him sanctified, so, sober and scrupulous. Similarly, since the earliest days of Christianity's primacy, the Faith has been suborned to subjugate just about anyone who dissented with potentates seeking to impose their will on others.

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Which could be said of other faiths as well. It is religious history. Why is this in general politics?

Xelor said:

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.
-- Jefferson Beauregard Sessions
​

In history depots, racists, slaveholders and tyrants have justified their practices by asserting Divine ordination.

• Divine Right of Kings
• Religious Defense of Slavery [Curiously, Sessions, who's no stranger to recriminations about racism, chose Romans 13.]
• Slavery in John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews: A Cultural-Historical Analysis

One need not even be a fine student of history to recall myriad horrors wrought by Christian Kings and Popes. As every one of them was ostensibly emplaced by God, all they decreed and did was thus by Him sanctified, so, sober and scrupulous. Similarly, since the earliest days of Christianity's primacy, the Faith has been suborned to subjugate just about anyone who dissented with potentates seeking to impose their will on others.

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Your enthusiasm in condemning religion is better directed toward a condemnation of human nature. If the 20th Century proved anything it was that man's inhumanity doesn't need belief in a God or Gods for its expression to the tune of tens of millions of innocent people killed. Not just religion, but ideology and politics, and oft times nothing more than a naked will to power, has been used to justify inhuman atrocities. The common denominator is man. If you want to meet the cause of atrocity and suffering go look in a mirror. None of us are immune. Come to terms with the evil that is in you.

No, you can't get rid of this evil by getting rid of religion. You're fooling yourself. You'd just be letting the demons roam free. Being an atheist didn't make Stalin a humanitarian.

holbritter said:

[/B]


Which could be said of other faiths as well. It is religious history. Why is this in general politics?

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Because the focus of the OP is on the aberration of religion for political purposes and people who do so, not on region itself. Notice the emboldened text below.

HowardBThiname said:

The intent of religion is always to control the unruly masses, and yes, it can (and has) wreaked havoc on the world and her inhabitants. Not just Christianity, but also Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. Organized religion has lead us into more wars and been the cause of more deaths than virtually any other single factor.

When someone can claim that God (any god) is on their side in war -- all sorts of atrocities follow.

Click to expand...

The purpose in supporting religion for some governments has been to promote peace and order in the population. For individual believers the purpose is related but different in important ways.

Religion is dying, but we've still got a ways to go.

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Only in the West is religion dying, and that's because the West is dying in general. The lack of enthusiasm for religion is symptomatic of an overall lack of life, vigor, and confidence. Populations have started to decline all over the Western world. More vigorous, more religions populations are already in the process of replacing us.

Yes, we have a ways to go. Two or three more generations and that will be it. Whatever comes after you can be sure religion will play an important role.

LowDown said:

The purpose in supporting religion for some governments has been to promote peace and order in the population. For individual believers the purpose is related but different in important ways.

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Agreed -- "promoting peace and order" is virtually the same as "controlling the unruly masses." Yes, for the individual, it's different -- they have a different goal, one that supersedes their current circumstances, so they see value in keeping the order.

Only in the West is religion dying, and that's because the West is dying in general. The lack of enthusiasm for religion is symptomatic of an overall lack of life, vigor, and confidence. Populations have started to decline all over the Western world. More vigorous, more religions populations are already in the process of replacing us.

Yes, we have a ways to go. Two or three more generations and that will be it. Whatever comes after you can be sure religion will play an important role.

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True that it's dying in the West more quickly, but other religions are moderating - Judaism began moderating even before Christianity, and Islam is beginning. We're seeing more liberal Islamic attitudes, which is probably what's triggering the extremists who want to hold onto the "old ways."

I don't think the "more vigorous" religions will make a whole lot of headway in the West, despite the progressive attitudes that foolishly support them. The extremists will try, I agree, but the West won't let that go too far. In the US, we've already cracked down on those who would mutilate the genitalia of little girls, no matter that the practice is based on cultural belief. We do have some misguided progressives who are currently supporting things like the wearing of burkas, mostly because they want to piss off fundamental Christians. Those are truly confused folks. But, for the most part, the West will not tolerate the backward culture of those aggressive religions.

Look at what happened when Obama stupidly supported the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egypt election. It worked -- but only for a very short time, and then, more moderate Islamic voices overruled the nuts and kicked them out on their behinds.

HowardBThiname said:

Agreed -- "promoting peace and order" is virtually the same as "controlling the unruly masses." Yes, for the individual, it's different -- they have a different goal, one that supersedes their current circumstances, so they see value in keeping the order.



True that it's dying in the West more quickly, but other religions are moderating - Judaism began moderating even before Christianity, and Islam is beginning. We're seeing more liberal Islamic attitudes, which is probably what's triggering the extremists who want to hold onto the "old ways."

I don't think the "more vigorous" religions will make a whole lot of headway in the West, despite the progressive attitudes that foolishly support them. The extremists will try, I agree, but the West won't let that go too far. In the US, we've already cracked down on those who would mutilate the genitalia of little girls, no matter that the practice is based on cultural belief. We do have some misguided progressives who are currently supporting things like the wearing of burkas, mostly because they want to piss off fundamental Christians. Those are truly confused folks. But, for the most part, the West will not tolerate the backward culture of those aggressive religions.

Look at what happened when Obama stupidly supported the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egypt election. It worked -- but only for a very short time, and then, more moderate Islamic voices overruled the nuts and kicked them out on their behinds.

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As goes political stances and politicking, "supporting" something, "the wearing of burkas," for example, and being indifferent about whether others avail themselves of it are not the same things.

There are myriad things I neither support nor oppose. Of such things, I haven't anything say about another's partaking of them. Wearing a burka in the U.S. most certainly falls into that category. There are things to which I don't cotton even, yet I don't oppose others' cottoning to them or being lawfully permitted to do. Examples of such things range from jumping out of perfectly functioning airplanes, to playing ice hockey, to being a cannibal to practicing Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, to affirmatively aligning with a political party to playing poker.

Extreme political ideology has killed more people than Christianity. Communism, Nazism, has taken more lives in the last 100 yrs. than Christianity ever thought of. Leftists seem to always forget this. Wonder why?

Xelor said:

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.
-- Jefferson Beauregard Sessions
​

In history depots, racists, slaveholders and tyrants have justified their practices by asserting Divine ordination.

• Divine Right of Kings
• Religious Defense of Slavery [Curiously, Sessions, who's no stranger to recriminations about racism, chose Romans 13.]
• Slavery in John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews: A Cultural-Historical Analysis

One need not even be a fine student of history to recall myriad horrors wrought by Christian Kings and Popes. As every one of them was ostensibly emplaced by God, all they decreed and did was thus by Him sanctified, so, sober and scrupulous. Similarly, since the earliest days of Christianity's primacy, the Faith has been suborned to subjugate just about anyone who dissented with potentates seeking to impose their will on others.

Click to expand...

What an incredibly foolish thing for Sessions to say.
This is called 'leading with the chin". Because you KNOW there are Bible passgaes that counter what he said.
And theyve been brought up , even by Felonia von Pantsuit.

KLATTU said:

What an incredibly foolish thing for Sessions to say.
This is called 'leading with the chin". Because you KNOW there are Bible passgaes that counter what he said.
And theyve been brought up , even by Felonia von Pantsuit.

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Anyone who truly is a Christian, baptized or not yet living a life of Christ, regardless of their actual theology, does know so.

DamnYankee said:

Extreme political ideology has killed more people than Christianity. Communism, Nazism, has taken more lives in the last 100 yrs. than Christianity ever thought of. Leftists seem to always forget this. Wonder why?

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Trouble is, Christendom has backed most, if not all of that killing...wonder why?

Elvira said:

Trouble is, Christendom has backed most, if not all of that killing...wonder why?

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Really? Well, perhaps according to the kook left. But then revising history is one of their specialties. Mao killed 10's of millions, Stalin the same, Hitler, Pot, et al. None of which were Christian. And that's just the 20th century. Quite the body count really. And a lot of those were Christian.

Xelor said:

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.
-- Jefferson Beauregard Sessions
​

In history depots, racists, slaveholders and tyrants have justified their practices by asserting Divine ordination.

• Divine Right of Kings
• Religious Defense of Slavery [Curiously, Sessions, who's no stranger to recriminations about racism, chose Romans 13.]
• Slavery in John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews: A Cultural-Historical Analysis

One need not even be a fine student of history to recall myriad horrors wrought by Christian Kings and Popes. As every one of them was ostensibly emplaced by God, all they decreed and did was thus by Him sanctified, so, sober and scrupulous. Similarly, since the earliest days of Christianity's primacy, the Faith has been suborned to subjugate just about anyone who dissented with potentates seeking to impose their will on others.

Click to expand...

Jeff Sessions is Methodist. Funny he used the Bible to justify his stupidity because this just happened to him a couple days ago...


Jeff has traded in Jesus to worship trump instead.

DamnYankee said:

Really? Well, perhaps according to the kook left. But then revising history is one of their specialties. Mao killed 10's of millions, Stalin the same, Hitler, Pot, et al. None of which were Christian. And that's just the 20th century. Quite the body count really. And a lot of those were Christian.

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“In the past local Catholic hierarchies almost always supported the wars of their nations, blessing troops and offering prayers for victory, while another group of [Catholic] bishops on the other side publicly prayed for the opposite outcome.” New York Times

The vast majority of men on both sides were of the same religions.

“My brothers, comrades of the French army and of their glorious allies, the Almighty God is on our side. . . . God is near to our brave soldiers in battle, he gives them strength and fortifies them against the enemy. . . . God will give us the victory.” La Dernière Heure (Belgian Newspaper)

At the same time, on the other side, the Catholic archbishop of Cologne, Germany, said to German soldiers:

“God is with us in this fight for righteousness . . . We command you in the name of God, to fight to the last drop of your blood for the honor and glory of the country. . . . God knows that we are on the side of righteousness and he will give us the victory.”⁠

After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, the Pittsburgh Courier commented:

“The church follows the flag, even though the flag be drenched with the blood of innocent victims of war madness slaughtered in the name of civilization . . .

“And just as the Catholic Church has either approved or seldom disapproved of this international robbery, exploitation and murder, so have the Protestant churches. . . .

“In large part, the spiritual weakness of the Christian Church today is ascribable to its constant compromise with the evils it is supposed to combat.”

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101973063#h=18

Parade Magazine said: “History teaches lessons to those who are willing to learn. One of the most primary lessons is that conflicts based on religious and sectarian differences are almost always the most vicious, most enduring and most difficult to solve.”⁠29 And as the Chicago Tribune stated: “Every major religion preaches peace and brotherhood and mercy, yet some of the cruellest and most intolerant repressions in history have been committed in the name of God.”⁠30 With such historical facts in mind, newspaper editor C. L. Sulzberger appropriately asks: “Disagreeable as the subject may be, should it not be realized that in addition to other causes​—imperialism, racism, militarism—​religion has developed into a persistently greater threat to human life?”⁠31

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101986033

Xelor said:

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.
-- Jefferson Beauregard Sessions
​

In history depots, racists, slaveholders and tyrants have justified their practices by asserting Divine ordination.

• Divine Right of Kings
• Religious Defense of Slavery [Curiously, Sessions, who's no stranger to recriminations about racism, chose Romans 13.]
• Slavery in John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews: A Cultural-Historical Analysis

One need not even be a fine student of history to recall myriad horrors wrought by Christian Kings and Popes. As every one of them was ostensibly emplaced by God, all they decreed and did was thus by Him sanctified, so, sober and scrupulous. Similarly, since the earliest days of Christianity's primacy, the Faith has been suborned to subjugate just about anyone who dissented with potentates seeking to impose their will on others.

Click to expand...

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." —Thomas Jefferson, 1787

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History: A Revolutionary Act | The Jefferson Bible, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

DamnYankee said:

Extreme political ideology has killed more people than Christianity. Communism, Nazism, has taken more lives in the last 100 yrs. than Christianity ever thought of. Leftists seem to always forget this. Wonder why?

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My, what an interesting assertion! Could you please back that up by quantifying it with some numbers?

This should be fun!

DamnYankee said:

Extreme political ideology has killed more people than Christianity. Communism, Nazism, has taken more lives in the last 100 yrs. than Christianity ever thought of. Leftists seem to always forget this. Wonder why?

Click to expand...

Relative privation

HowardBThiname said:

Agreed -- "promoting peace and order" is virtually the same as "controlling the unruly masses." Yes, for the individual, it's different -- they have a different goal, one that supersedes their current circumstances, so they see value in keeping the order.



True that it's dying in the West more quickly, but other religions are moderating - Judaism began moderating even before Christianity, and Islam is beginning. We're seeing more liberal Islamic attitudes, which is probably what's triggering the extremists who want to hold onto the "old ways."

I don't think the "more vigorous" religions will make a whole lot of headway in the West, despite the progressive attitudes that foolishly support them. The extremists will try, I agree, but the West won't let that go too far. In the US, we've already cracked down on those who would mutilate the genitalia of little girls, no matter that the practice is based on cultural belief. We do have some misguided progressives who are currently supporting things like the wearing of burkas, mostly because they want to piss off fundamental Christians. Those are truly confused folks. But, for the most part, the West will not tolerate the backward culture of those aggressive religions.

Look at what happened when Obama stupidly supported the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egypt election. It worked -- but only for a very short time, and then, more moderate Islamic voices overruled the nuts and kicked them out on their behinds.

Click to expand...

I suppose that will be true if there's anyone left in the West to oppose them, which it doesn't look like right now. And then there's the matter of cultural dominance and conversion.

Progressives will be the first to put on burkas and advocate Sharia law, and they will beat their breasts on the virtues of tolerence and multiculturalism in the process.

Tanngrisnir said:

My, what an interesting assertion! Could you please back that up by quantifying it with some numbers?

This should be fun!

Click to expand...

The most the Spanish Inquisition ever killed was about 5,000 people total. Reading accounts of the Inquisition, they would go into an area and after a long and drawn out process they would end up terrorizing many people and confiscating a lot of wealth but actually killing few, if any. The Spanish Inquisition That was the most of any religious pogrom in Europe.

There were spates of witch burning and the like, some by Protestents. Those condemned of being witches were executed, mostly in Europe. The total of witches executed world wide is estimated at 35,000. This had ended by the year 1750, coincidently when the English introduced the concept of genocide for political purposes in Scotland.

The USSR killed between 30 and 100 million of its own citizens for the sin of ideological impurity. There's uncertainty about the total because that's how horrific and chaotic it was. There was no process, they simply roped off an area of land, so to speak, and killed everyone therein. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia killed everyone in the middle class, roughly one third of their population, for the sin of being in an upper class. They were killed by being beaten to death or impaled with crude bamboo weapons. Castro numerically didn't kill as many Cubans, but it turns out that he killed more people on a per capita basis than Stalin did. And then there's Red China, and so on. The Black Book of Communism

LowDown said:

The most the Spanish Inquisition ever killed was about 5,000 people total. Reading accounts of the Inquisition, they would go into an area and after a long and drawn out process they would end up terrorizing many people and confiscating a lot of wealth but actually killing few, if any. The Spanish Inquisition That was the most of any religious pogrom in Europe.

There were spates of witch burning and the like, some by Protestents. Those condemned of being witches were executed, mostly in Europe. The total of witches executed world wide is estimated at 35,000. This had ended by the year 1750, coincidently when the English introduced the concept of genocide for political purposes in Scotland.

The USSR killed between 30 and 100 million of its own citizens for the sin of ideological impurity. There's uncertainty about the total because that's how horrific and chaotic it was. There was no process, they simply roped off an area of land, so to speak, and killed everyone therein. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia killed everyone in the middle class, roughly one third of their population, for the sin of being in an upper class. They were killed by being beaten to death or impaled with crude bamboo weapons. Castro numerically didn't kill as many Cubans, but it turns out that he killed more people on a per capita basis than Stalin did. And then there's Red China, and so on. The Black Book of Communism

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Gosh, I'm sorry, that doesn't even scratch the surface of the multitude of wars between Christians, Crusades, the amount of native Americans killed by conquest and it's various aspects, the slaughter in Aftica by Belgians, forced starvations in India, and on and on.

You'll have to do a LOT better than that.

Tanngrisnir said:

Gosh, I'm sorry, that doesn't even scratch the surface of the multitude of wars between Christians, Crusades, the amount of native Americans killed by conquest and it's various aspects, the slaughter in Aftica by Belgians, forced starvations in India, and on and on.

You'll have to do a LOT better than that.

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As goes the deaths that can be tabulated, I think it's probably so that expressly political discord resulted in more deaths than has religiously moved conflict. One must reconcile some conflicts that were religious and political but still, I think political is more deadly.

That said, one need not descend into a discussion wherein be discussed which is worse for the the quantity of hurt and depravity derived from each is far more than anyone should condone. Both have caused too much harm and ill will; thus attenuating anything and everything that might effect more destruction on account of either is a good thing.

​

I chose to create a thread that focuses on notions of God's ordination of "this and that" because discussions need to have a clear and limited scope. There's no need to cover "everything" in every thread. Pick a topic, discuss it and move on.

Of course, one can every bit as easily create a similar thread wherein a particular political philosophy be the etiological context of the discussion. If you or another member cares to do so, by all means....