Maggie's World: A Vision of Hell

[bounty]

So many claim to worship the Prince of Peace. Ironically, it is an incontrovertible fact that more people have been killed in his name than for any other reason in human history.

its that sort of blind animus that caused me to leave the Dostoevsky thread.

there is no such "incontrovertible" fact. that bulldookie aside for a moment, the greatest cause of death throughout history has been godless dictatorships in general, and in particular, communism in the 20th century.

by contrast, the greatest contibutions to humanity have occurred through the works of the church, and capitalism.

[hellsapoppin]

its that sort of blind animus that caused me to leave the Dostoevsky thread.

there is no such "incontrovertible" fact. that bulldookie aside for a moment, the greatest cause of death throughout history has been godless dictatorships in general, and in particular, communism in the 20th century.

by contrast, the greatest contibutions to humanity have occurred through the works of the church, and capitalism.

My knowledge of history is every bit as good as my knowledge of literature but I am not going to get much into this subject as that is not the scope of this forum or of the thread. Sad that you resort to mischaracterizations and projections. But despite it all, it does remain incontrovertibly true, as Alan Watts* wrote many years ago, that the Christian Bible is the greatest source of death in human history. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of history knows the Cocoliztli epidemic and others were brought by the Spanish Conquistadors into Mexico where close to 80% of the Indigenous population was exterminated (Hernán Cortés's actions were blessed by the Church). We had similar history in North America (a subject matter disclosed in the book The Vanishing American) and in other parts of the world.

Danik raised a good point about how church doctrine was misapplied. My reply was to the proven genocidal history of the church (a subject known to and discussed by Zane Grey among many others). Interestingly, much of the Bolshevik Revolution was in response to the abuses of the Orthodox Church which so firmly supported Tsarist tyranny and depredations upon millions of people, including Jews and other minorities. Had it not been for Tsarist infamy and its church support, the Bolshevik Revolution would never have taken place with Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov {Lenin} receding into the most obscure depths of history.










* http://www.katinkahesselink.net/othe...tts-bible.html

[Danik 2016]

Hi, bounty
It was indeed me that raised the point about the sterness of the church. Poppins just answered me. It is not so clear to me what you meant with "blind animus" but it is clear that you disliked the criticism. No harm was meant. I just wanted to explore better an aspect that interests me as it appears in several works of fiction. But I didn't want to interfere with your or anyone 's beliefs or positions. In a forum where people from different places with different backgrounds meet different opinions and beliefs are natural.

[Sancho]

Yup, people have strong opinions about religion and faith. (And Sancho has a knack for stating the obvious.)

I’ve been reading Twilight Territory, which is set in the 1940s in Vietnam. I’m taking my time and enjoying the ride. Religion of course figures heavily into southeast asian cultures as well. There’s a huge statue of The Lady Buddha in modern Da Nang:

https://hoiannow.com/things-to-do-in...ha-in-da-nang/

At one point in the book one of the main characters, Tuyet, is abducted and essentially enslaved in a French garrison. Tuyet’s aunt, Coi, goes to an old Buddhist nun seeking a solution to her niece’s incarceration. She goes to the Rose Shrine of the Lady Buddha:

She mounted the three steps up to the sanctuary and stood outside the front room, which opened to the garden via three sets of removable wooden panel doors. The floor of the chamber was of blue ceramic tiles. It served as the prayer hall. The main altar, with a life-sized statue of the Lady Buddha, stood at the rear. Smaller statues representing ten deities lined the walls.

The old nun who’d built the shrine is described here:

Mother Nam had been a wealthy widow who had renounced the world after she had lost her entire family in a tragic road accident. After giving away her possessions and selling all her assets save two houses, she had donned the white robes of a Buddhist nun at the ripe old age of sixty. The abbots of the town’s two competing sects, the Brown Order and the Saffron Order, had personally invited her to their temples, but she wisely had declined. Instead, she had made equal donations to both, reasoning that it was better to have two allies than one adversary.

Smart lady.

Also, good book: Twilight Territory, by Andrew X. Pham

[Danik 2016]

Smart lady indeed.
I never knew that their was a female Buddha .

"The Lady Buddha statue in Da Nang is a symbol of peace, joy and prosperity. It is thought to bring good luck to those who visit it. The statue represents Avalokitesvara or Guanyin, a female bodhisattva from Buddhist mythology who is believed to help all living beings with her compassion and mercy.

Lady Buddha’s left hand holds a water vase, containing the nectar of life and right hand sprinkles the nectar on those praying below. For fishermen, she also is a patron saint who bestows good fortune and saves them at sea."
https://hoiannow.com/things-to-do-in...ha-in-da-nang/