Posted: Sep 24, 2017 1:40 am
proudfootz wrote:Leucius Charinus wrote:proudfootz wrote:Stein wrote:Apparently, this Holland guy has been praised in certain right-wing circles (as described at the foot of this piece) --
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/cul ... and-review
Isn't that interesting?
Stein
No more interesting than the thugs and sadists who use religious texts as an excuse to oppress, rob, torture, rape, and kill others.
For a religious proponent, the Reverend Spong on the "Terrible Texts of the Bible" covers this aspect very well.
It's so tedious for defenders of orthodoxy to bring out these one-sided 'arguments' as if all the bad guys are among the skeptics.Holland can't be held responsible for the choices other people make.
To what extent have the Christian and Islamic "Book Religions" been fabricated by the warlords who implemented them in antiquity in order to maintain large geographical expanses of conquered territory by means of a centralised monotheistic state cult?
Thinking about the alliance between church and state that has obtained throughout recorded history all over the globe rather gives me the impression that they are twin forms of social control each relying upon the other and each supporting the other.
Who profited from the English Bible?
The English?
Certainly NOT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aikenhead
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
The King James Version (KJV), also known as the King James Bible (KJB) or simply the Authorized Version (AV), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611
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The first had been the Great Bible, commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second had been the Bishops' Bible of 1568.[3] In January 1604, James VI and I convened the Hampton Court Conference, where a new English version was conceived in response to the problems of the earlier translations perceived by the Puritans,[4] a faction of the Church of England.[5] The translation is noted for its "majesty of style", and has been described as one of the most important books in English culture[6] and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world.
I cant help thinking that these book religions are basically just rackets run by racketeers who have managed to convince themselves they are doing something worthwhile for their own monopoly business over the great unwashed. We all know WAR IS A RACKET. If we don't then we should read Smedley Butler' piece. It follows therefore that these centralised monotheistic state religious cults are simply spin-off rackets from the great racket of war.
War and Book religions are twin rackets - "forms of social control each relying upon the other and each supporting the other." A study of history seems to confirm this simple observation.