From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue 12 Nov 2002 - 15:24:46 GMT
>From: Vincent Campbell <VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: RE: The terrorism meme
>Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 14:34:01 -0000
>
>I realise this is a bit behind the list, and risking the wrath of the
>moderator, but I can't let this go.
>
> <I'm going to be brief Lawry, it's late and I have a long drive in
>the morning.
> > Christ is the prince of peace. All of his teachings, as reported in the
> > four Gospels, were focussed on forgiveness, tolerance, peace and
> > non-violence (I'll send some references next week). The Old Testament
> > however, as Wade pointed out, is full of violence, revenge, genocide,
> > ethnic cleansing, prostitution, murder and war. We must be careful not
>to
> > conflate the two main books.
> > There is another section of the received texts, which are known in
> > Christendom as the Bible. Amongst these 'apocryphal' texts are the
> > 'Revelations of St John The Divine'. These 'Revelations' are a set of
> > so-called prophecies which have induced some Christian-fundamentalists,
> > those who believe every word of the bible is the true word of God, to
>hope
> > for the 'end of the world' in their own lifetimes. These people, IMHO,
>are
> > the most terrifying terrorists of all. The fundamentalist's Cannon is a
> > WMD. They are willing to foment death and misery so that they can
> > personally see God coming in his glory.>
> >
> >
>Jesus was a freedom fighter, rebelling against roman rule and the Judean
>elites pandering to the Romans. Believing what's in the gospels to be in
>any way accurate in terms of actions or intent around what actually
>happened
>200 years ago would be like believing a biography of Hitler written by
>Joseph Goebbels.
>
Are we leaning over the cliff of Godwin's law or its corollaries here?
Yipes! Bad comparison!
>
>It's also as selective as the decisions about which books
>of the Bible are "true" and which are dubbed "apocryphal".
>
>Since so many of the contributors to this regard religions, in some way, or
>other, as amongst the most pervasive and dangerous of memes I'd be wary of
>making comments the second line of your point here.
>
Joe had contributed the one line by Christ, 'I bring not peace, but a sword'
which could be taken quite literally. The Old Testament contains things such
as 'little ones' and 'rocks' which are unnerving.
If we are to look at the way ideas can influence behavior, then we should
start by comparing the ideas of the New Testament and Koran and the
messengers (as Zoroastrian Saoshyants?) Christ and Muhammad, the latter
clearly being a warrior and then look at the subsequent behaviors of their
various respective adherents as recorded by history.
It would be interesting to look at how other religions may have influenced
the triad of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Wasn't Gilgamesh a
Mesopotamian epic that had a reference to a great flood? Whither Noah?
I've already asked about the belief system of the pre-Islamic Arabians and
what importance pilgrimage and the Kaaba meteorite may have held for them.
I'm also interested in the Zoroastrian concept of Saoshyant here.
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