You could conceivably write a history several hundred years in the future where God commanded the invasion of Iraq. The great christian leader Bush said so.
You don't have to wait that long.
Atrocities in the name of god
by lilyflor 21 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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BurnTheShips
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Rapunzel
I think that all kinds of problems and evil arise when charity [from the Latin caritas = the Greek, philia, i.e. "love for one's fellow man"] is exceded, or superceded, by idoltry, which is the fanatical and blind glorification of intolerance and cruelty.
If you google "Brownowski at Auschwitz," you will find a very powerful video clip from Bronowski's Ascent of Man. In the clip, Bronowski is standing beside a pond located at the concentration camp/crematorium at Auschwitz. Into this pond were dumped the ashes of four million people, including the ashes of many of Bronowski's family members. In the video clip, Bronowski emphatically states that the atrocity of genocide committed at Aushwitz "was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance." Pointing at the infamous pond at Aushwitz, Bronowski says: "When people believe they have absolute knowledge, this how they behave."
I believe that the most important segment of the video is when Bronowski quotes Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you - in the bowels of Christ - think it possible that you may be mistaken."
The clip ends by Brownowski stating that "we must cure ourselves of the 'itch' for absolute knowledge and power." In my opinion, idolatry could be defined as the "itch," the proclivity, for absolute knowledge, absolute power, and absolute certainty that one's own beliefs are the only true beliefs possible. From idolatry result the most heinous and atrocious evils imaginable.