Gee, I was wondering if you would post that first person account post. It would have been easier for you to simply post the Catholic versions of her life's work.
You know, I respect the right to think ones own thoughts and to have ones own beliefs. At the same time, it must be admitted that beliefs have consequences, and that consequences may be judged to some objective degree by those not locked into the belief system.
I don't know all the details of what kind of behaviour obtains from particular beliefs. For instance, what if a person believes that the afterlife is the Holy, the Good, and the Desired? What if a person believes that suffering, and poverty, and ultimately DEATH--recommends one to Jesus and to GOD? If these are heart-felt beliefs--then they would obviously inspire motive. Furthermore, this would include the inducements and incentives that are inherent in the belief. How would such a person act toward others, I wonder? Would they spend money (evil) to alleviate death and suffering (the GOOD)??
I don't know the answers. I do know that beliefs have consequences, so in no way do they have equal effects, or produce the same balance of good and evil--pleasure and pain.
It is interesting to look at how the Christian beliefs allowed 56,000,000 people to be tortured and murdered in order (in part) to provide the leaders with the gifts of sexual pleasure. Of course, I do not condemn this. Christianity is well recognized as the true path to God. I simply admit that the ways of GOd are magnificent in their mystery, and that the servants of God are mysterious in their magnificence.
Mother Tersa did far less than the more spiritual and Godly leaders of the past; Nevertheless, who can fault her for her tireless efforts to fulfil the word?
infidels.org
THE FRUITS OF CHRISTIANISM
To do no injustice to Christianism, it shall be judged by its own law, and on its own principles. The Bible says (Matt. xii, 17): "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit ... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." Now, let us see what has been the fruit of Christianism. This system of religious belief may be said to have had its birth in Alexandria, in Egypt. How did it establish itself there? By the so-much-preached-about virtues of love and charity? No, but by the carrying out of another Christian principle to be found in Matt. x. 34, and again in Luke xii. 51: "Not peace, but a sword ... father against son, and son against father;" by the destruction of the magnificent library collected by the Ptolemies, and containing over 600,000 volumes, by Theophilus, Christian bishop of that place; also by the cruel and inhuman murder of Hypatia, the popular lecturer, at Alexandria, in the next bishop's (Saint Cyril's) time. "Each day, before her academy, stood a long train of chariots; her lecture-room was crowded with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria. They came to listen to her discourses on those questions which man in all ages has asked, but which never yet have been answered: 'What am I? Where am I? What can I know? ... As Hypatia repaired to her academy, she was assaulted by Cyril's mob, a mob of many monks; stripped naked in the streets, she was dragged into a church, and there killed by the club of Peter 'the Reader.' The corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh was scraped from the bones with shells, and the remnants cast into a fire. For this frightful crime Cyril was never called to account. It seemed to be admitted that the end sanctified the means." [Dr. Draper, "Conflict between Religion and Science."]
We now come to a later date -- the "Dark Ages" -- when the Christian Inquisition flourished, but a great deal of the details of which are little known, for so much secrecy was observed; but it may give some idea of the horrors of this institution if we state that, when the French took the city of Arragon, the Inquisition was broken into, and "no fewer than 400 prisoners were set at liberty, among whom were 60 young girls, who composed the Seraglio of the three principal Inquisitors." [Saladin, "Women," vol. II]
The account of how a young girl, to whom one of the Inquisitors had taken a fancy, was taken from her home in the dead of the night and handed over to the Inquisitors' officers by the terror-stricken father, is also graphically given in the same book.
"Let us look for a moment at the number of victims sacrificed on the altars of the Christian Moloch: -- 1,000,000 perished during the early Arian schism; 1,000,000 during the Carthaginian struggle; 7,000,000 during the Saracen slaughters. In Spain 5,000,000 perished during the eight Crusades; 2,000,000 of Saxons and Scandinavians lost their lives in opposing the introduction of the blessings of Christianity. 1,000,000 were destroyed in the Holy(?) Wars against the Netherlands, Albigenses, Waldenses, and Huguenots. 30,000,000 Mexicans and Peruvians were slaughtered ere they could be convinced of the beauties(?) of the Christian creed. 9,000,000 were burned for witchcraft. Total, 56,000,000.
"Or let us look at the matter in another light. Let us contemplate how the 'Holy Inquisition' treated their victims Men and women burned alive under the rule of the 45 Inquisitor- Generals, 35,534; burned in effigy, 18,637; condemned to other punishments, 293,533. Total sacrificed to maintain the blessings of Christianity, 347,704.
In other words, these worthy followers of 'the Lamb,' the zealous imitators of him who 'came not to send peace, but a sword;' to 'send fire on the earth' and 'not peace, but rather division,' burned no less than 35,534 men and women ... Rapidly the Christian priesthood converted the convents into brothels; and, not content with debauching the 'brides of Christ,' they converted into harlots the wives of men; and, by means of the machinery of the confessional, they destroyed the chastity of the wives of the laity, and rendered all marriage simply poly-androus ... The priests had harlots, concubines, and mistresses in every town; and the Church, recognizing these illicit connections, allowed the bishops to extract money from the priests in the shape of a tax on their concubines." [H. Middleton.] Even the mild Erasmus declared that the licentiousness of the "clergy has debauched and turned into poor profligates 100,000 women in England ... Yet who is he, though he be never so much aggrieved, who dare lay to their charge, by any action at law, even the leading astray of a wife or a daughter? ... If he do, he is by-and-bye accused of heresy." [Saladin's citation of Erasmus in "The Confessional."]
During this period also occurred the crusades against the Albigenses for heresy, wherein some hundreds of thousands were killed on both sides; the crusades against the Waldenses for rejecting the Papal claims and denouncing the ignorance and corruption of the clergy, wherein an enormous number were tortured and massacred; the eight wars against the Huguenots, and the well- known massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, in which 30,000 were slaughtered -- a 'Te Deum' being afterwards sung at St. Peter's, Rome, and a year of jubilee proclaimed in honor of it. This period of history, when the Church of Jesus was enjoying its triumphant ascendancy, has been described by a writer as being "one of the most terrible periods in human history ... and the soil of Europe was sodden with human gore, and that chiefly by the Western or Roman Catholic Church. [W. Oxley.]
To come to a later period. Under the Catholic Mary Tudor, 277 persons were burned as heretics, among whom were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eight lay gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, servants, and laborers; fifty-five women, and four children; besides many who were punished by imprisonment, fines, and confiscations. Under Protestant Elizabeth -- the "bright and occidental star" of the translators of King James's Bible [Vide "Dedicatory Epistle."] -- more than 200 persons were destroyed, either by burning or hanging, drawing (disembowelling), and quartering; and a great number suffered from the penal laws against Catholics in this and the following reigns.
All this slaughter for the "greater glory of God"! Here, then, we have a record of the fruits of Christianism! Under the influence of this religion, through nineteen centuries, do we find that man is more honest and straight towards his fellow man; that truth is preferred to falsehood; that men love one another, and act unselfishly in their lives? Or do we find that they are hypocrites, adulterators of food, scampers of work and deceivers, worshippers of imaginary deities, instead of lovers of each other; preachers, but not doers? |
