In the argument against Christianity there is often reference to "all the wars that have been fought in the name of religion." Occasionally it will be noted that this is applied unfairly, as the argument is seldom used against the proponents of other religions - not to their faces, anyway - but seems reserved for kicking Christians. Conservatives, even those with no particular affinity for Christianity, will sometimes point out that Communism and Fascism, those secular gods of the 20th C killed incomparably more people.
But the base fact is not often challenged. I challenge it. Christians go in for persecution much more than war. As in my previous post, that is not spiritually very different for the individual. As a consequence, the distinction has been largely unmade even by the church. For the purposes of our souls there is equal danger, or more. Also, Christians have had some specifically religious wars, fighting over which religion or denomination would hold sway in an area - even whole nations. It looks shoddy and evasive for Christians to try and worm out at that point for three reasons:
1. We have done it sometimes.
2. Persecution is also evil, so there is no spiritual difference.
3. We have used Christianity to justify our non-religious wars.
The three reasons taken together give a strong impression that Christian participation in all those "wars of religion" which have killed so many is pretty much the same thing as Moslems, or Zoroastrians, or Hindus and their wars or religion.
Yet when we take them one at a time, we find that there is a considerable practical difference. To have done something evil sometimes is less damaging than doing it a lot. On this score, looking over the last two thousand years we don't find Christians invading somewhere specifically in order to convert them or displace their religion happening very often. The Crusades come quickly to mind, but those wars were sharply limited in purpose and destruction caused. Our Moslem opponents in that series of wars were far more the Crusaders than the Christians.
Next, persecution is an evil thing, but it is not the same thing. Sometimes it is worse, as when Communists tried to not only conquer kulaks, but eliminate them, or Nazis not merely force Jews out but exterminate them. But it is usually a far lesser evil. Oppression is bad, but it is not genocide. To the Huguenot merchant killed with all his family there is no practical difference between persecution and war. But to the Huguenot merchant who flees with his family, there is enormous difference.
The third reason gives the most surprises, however. As long as it was associated with the other two clearly evil reasons it seemed evil itself. Yet once we pull it out and make it stand on its own, we see that this is quite varied. Some Christian justifications of non-religious wars are clearly hypocritical and evil. We want something, we kill the people who have got it, and we say God gives his blessing. Pretty shoddy morality.
But what of wars of defense? They may not be religious at all - the people invading may have entirely mercenary motives, so that the Christian going to war is "only" defending his family, or his property, or his culture. There are Christians who would forbid even these, but most Christians ant most times have understood that God might allow such defenses.
What of the wars of rescue? Is it a mere rationalization of our faith to prevent the slaughter of innocents? Is it lawful to go to war to enforce justice? If not, what does "caring" about injustice mean?
I have made sharp divisions, though the events of the real world are more mixed. Wars can be part justice, part defense, part rationalization, and part thievery all at once. I don't mean to overlook complexity or give sanction to any battle a Christian might fight if he can but find a small actual justice in it somewhere.
It seems clear that the conquest and eradication of thousands of tribes of Native Americans just isn't appearing on your scorecard. It's heartbreaking that the genocide of Native Americans is so complete that people can forget they ever existed.
ReplyDeleteI'll bear witness again that you do not have the right to start wars and kill people in order to build a better, more just world. That belief is not moral reasoning.
-- Copithorne
Bear witness all you want, Copithorne. No one has said anything about starting wars and killing people in order to build a more just world. As that is more than clear from my post, I don't know whether to accuse you of misunderstanding or dishonesty. Most likely the former, as you remain unable to state the premises you purport to refute.
ReplyDeleteAs to the native Americans, 90-95% of those killed were wiped out by the diseases the Europeans brought. About half of the rest were killed by each other for adopting European ways or trying to monopolize the attractive trade with the new settlers.
Disease is a terrible way to die, and you get just as dead. Europeans were indeed the proximate cause of those deaths. But that is not at all the same thing.
For the remaining Indians killed, the behavior of Christians, especially Spanish and Portuguese Christians was indeed abominable and I make no attempt to justify it. It was not any more abominable that what Native Americans were doing to each other however.
I did like the part about the genocide being so complete that people forget they existed. Exactly. None of us has ever heard of Native Americans before.
An overview of history makes it abundantly clear that barbarity is the natural state of societies. Not of individuals, mind you, but that societies, from tribal family groups up to nation states, have spent most of history creating inter-societal conflict.
ReplyDeleteA fact that is very often lost in these types of discussions (either your original post or of the comments) is that we get to judge all of this in the comfortable hindsight of our safe and secure living rooms.
We have the luxury to debate these things because we are safe. That safety was bought at a price by the people who risked and gave their lives to begin this country, and to those that defend it today. Sometimes this meant beginning a war against sovereign nations that had not attacked this continent directly, as in the war against the Barbary Pirates.
Yes, it can sometimes be a moral thing to start wars and kill people in order to build a better, more just world. Against slavery or dictatorship it may be the only way available.
We live in a society, rare in human history, that has predominantly involved itself in war only after we, or our allies, have been attacked. No matter the rhetoric that gets loosely thrown about, there are no Bonapartes here.
In your original post you say "On this score, looking over the last two thousand years we don't find Christians invading somewhere specifically in order to convert them or displace their religion happening very often."
ReplyDeleteNow, when I press you you acknowledge "the behavior of Christians, especially Spanish and Portuguese Christians was indeed abominable and I make no attempt to justify it."
Conquering three continents (+ Australia) and eradicating the native population there would seem to me to be "pretty often." No other religion has a score like that. It doesn't seem like you have arrived at a coherent point of view in this post.
I am glad to hear you disavow your perogative to start wars and kill people in order to build a more just world. That has seemed to me to be your default justification for starting a war in Iraq and I look forward to you presenting an alternate justification.
I encourage you to dissuade jerub-baal from his conviction that "Yes, it can sometimes be a moral thing to start wars and kill people in order to build a better, more just world."
I hear you saying the same thing and it would help both of you if you could have a conversation and work out how jerub-ball is mistaken
I can certainly do it. But he may learn more from you than from me.
Copithorne - see my newer post on the subject.
ReplyDeleteAs to your comments on "3 continents" making it pretty often - no. It's still unusual. And you have not answered my other objections. As you ignore what you don't want to respond to, I have to suspect that dishonesty is rising as a likely explanation rather than simple misunderstanding.
There's the challenge. Fisk my comment. Take it point by point instead of picking and choosing (and still misrepresenting). Anything else at this point is simply dishonest.
"Bear witness all you want, Copithorne."
ReplyDeleteThat's all I can do. I see people talking themselves into hell and I can just give voice from the wisdom of the Christian tradition that they are headed the wrong way.
"No one has said anything about starting wars and killing people in order to build a more just world."
This statement is now false. jerub-baal represented that he believes it can be moral to start wars to build a more just world.
"As that is more than clear from my post, I don't know whether to accuse you of misunderstanding or dishonesty. Most likely the former, as you remain unable to state the premises you purport to refute."
As I have said many times, it is not clear from your post that your construction "wars of rescuing" is different from how I have characterized it. I have invited you countless times to clarify how it is different, but you have not. Will you do so now?
"As to the native Americans, 90-95% of those killed were wiped out by the diseases the Europeans brought. About half of the rest were killed by each other for adopting European ways or trying to monopolize the attractive trade with the new settlers."
I hardly understand your point. Are you aware that millions of native americans were killed by European settlers? From the way you write, I can't tell if you are aware of this or not. And a good deal of the death from disease was the result of deliberate biological warfare, such as it was at the time.
"For the remaining Indians killed, the behavior of Christians, especially Spanish and Portuguese Christians was indeed abominable and I make no attempt to justify it. It was not any more abominable that what Native Americans were doing to each other however."
I am glad that you identify as being less cruel than the conquistadores. To my mind, you don't seem aware of the violence and cruelty involved in the destruction of North American tribes. You say that you don't try to justify it, but then claim that it's the same as what all the other kids do and their parents don't complain.
"I did like the part about the genocide being so complete that people forget they existed. Exactly. None of us has ever heard of Native Americans before. "
Yes, you wrote a post about wars of Christians in which the conversion of people to other religions was at stake. You minimized this as something that didn't happen often. You minimized this by ignoring, or not including, or forgetting wars involving tens of millions of victims and your own land. It still seems like you forgot about it and are now too embarassed to admit it rather than display intellectual integrity by correcting your mistake forthrightly.
Will you answer now, why did you not include the conquest of the Americas in your review of the history of Christian wars?
Excellent. Still wrong, but at least an attempt. You answered at least part of what I have brought forward.
ReplyDeleteI will not attempt to speak for jerub-baal, who wrote after you made you accusation, though I think he might assent to my distinction. Going to war in response to oppression or injustice is different than starting a war with the idea that you are going to make some other country act more the way we would like. You used the phrasing "start wars and kill people in order to build a better, more just world." I think that trivializes wars of defense and rescue. As to wars of justice, that will be a mixed bag. A war to end slavery in your own country would seem to be justifiable, for example. If you wish to hold that defense, rescue, and justice are never sufficient, then you part company with most Christian thinkers over the last 2000 years.
Thus, I think you have mischaracterised what I wrote. I see an enormous difference between starting and responding. If you call them the same thing, then you are either unable to see important distinctions, or choosing not to for rhetorical purposes.
In simplest form: is a Christian going to war ever justified? You may be logically consistent if you say no, but you will, as I have said, part company with most Christian thinkers. As an aside, under Just War doctrine, when the conditions are met, it is considered a sin not to go to war.
Don't use words like "countless" for small finite numbers, BTW.
Of the estimated 50-100 million natives killed in the Americas, 90% of them were not intentional on the part of the Europeans. That is not a number I pull out of the air, but from Charles C. Mann's recent 1491. Disease warfare was used, but not common. We know of perhaps a dozen incidents, compared to the thousands of more traditional armed conflicts. You seem determined to interpret that if I do not call something screamingly bad, I am justifying it. That strikes me as rather Asperger-y.
I most certainly did not forget the Americas in my calculations. I am simply also aware of a large number of other wars in other places and times. I was making a general statement about Christians and warfare. The wars of the 20th C dwarf other eras in terms of sheer numbers, the wars of tribal movements in Asia were continuous for millenia. That doesn't mean that 1492 never happened. That I did not specifically mention it seems an odd complaint. I also did not mention the Mongol invasions, the Muslim assault on Vienna, Shaka's conquest of southern Africa, or Inca intertribal warfare. Go figure.
Most people came to North America in settlement, because they thought it was mostly empty. It was, place by place, because European diseases had preceeded just before. Because of this depopulation, the settlers believed they might be as entitled to the land as anyone else. However, even by their own lights, not knowing the whole story, they did things they knew were evil, and these increased to a terrible pitch in the 19th C.
As to guessing my state of mind, please don't. You haven't been close.
The final paragraph about minimizing evil seems to sum up your view well. It seems that if I do not simply say "bad, Bad, BAD!" about some evil, but weigh whether some things are worse than others, or whether there are mitigating circumstances, then I am accused of justifying evil. Are all evils alike, copithorne? Is none worse than another? By what lights do we make those determinations?
"On this score, looking over the last two thousand years we don't find Christians invading somewhere specifically in order to convert them or displace their religion happening very often. The Crusades come quickly to mind, but those wars were sharply limited in purpose and destruction caused."
ReplyDeleteIt's your post. Your "argument" appears to be that, by ignoring many continents and many centuries of history you can suggest that the scope of Christian violence is "sharply limited." It seems more like an assertion of the power of denial than an argument.
This is in the spirit of faithless apologetices. I think genuine Christian faith displays more confidence in the radical possibilities of atonement and forgiveness.
Can you tell me of a nation in history that started a war and was applauded for it? I can't think of any circumstance in it would be ethical to start a war.
If you start wars and lose them, as the contemporary Republican party has done, you end your days in shame, ignominy and disgrace. This has been the way of all history.
My own perception is that Christians can fight to end wars but they do not begin them.
You evaded the my points.
ReplyDelete