[orochimaaru]

What rot. Tell that to native Americans who were forcibly converted and enslaved. Tell that to people in the inquisition. Tell that to peoples in India and the east that were forcibly converted so that the pope could fill his coffers. Tell that to all the children murdered in Christian and catholic schools.

Christianity and Catholicism doesn’t fool me. If you’ve ever wanted to see the mythical devil - look to those preaching and they legacy of hate that they carry.

[swatcoder]

There's really no argument against the institutional and historical hypocisy. There's no shortage of people and groups that have done or currently do horrible violence against others, sometimes even in the name of these ideas.

But I don't know if that takes away from the idea itself and what fruitful counterpoint it might play in modern discourse.

[bigstrat2003]

So your argument is that if some people who claim allegiance to an idea do evil things, that renders all who claim such allegiance, and even the idea itself, evil? That is a pretty poor argument. It's also one that I don't think you would actually accept in another context. I bet you anything that I can find some ideal you uphold which was espoused by some vile people at some point, and I also bet that you wouldn't go "ok, I guess I have to give that ideal up now".

[andrepd]

If a group of people claim to be "divinely inspired" but then they do the same evil more or less as other groups, that leads me to conclude that they are not uniquely favoured by a god.

[graemep]

> Tell that to native Americans who were forcibly converted and enslaved.

Tell that to those were were protects by the influence of the Church. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_of_the_Indians

> Tell that to people in the inquisition.

Which inquisition? Do you by any chance mean the Spanish Inquisition? An agency of the Spanish government.

> Tell that to peoples in India and the east that were forcibly converted so that the pope could fill his coffers

Which people. There were Christians in India for 2,000 years. Some of my ancestors probably converted before the English did.

> Tell that to all the children murdered in Christian and catholic schools.

AFAIK these are mostly allegations that have never ben substantiated.

[mamala_mamachan]

> > Tell that to peoples in India and the east that were forcibly converted so that the pope could fill his coffers

> Which people. There were Christians in India for 2,000 years. Some of my ancestors probably converted before the English did.

These Christians in India, who have been there for 2,000 years, are only the syrian christians or st thomas christians or malankara nasranis that follow eastern rite liturgies(syriac rites to be specific), and they all happen to be from the state of kerala or the malabar region only. The state itself has latin rite catholics as well as protestants which all started only since European colonial arrivals, though the syrian christians or st thomas christians or malankara nasranis are the majority of christians from that state. I am not trying to argue that all these people in India from european christianity(latin rite catholic and protestant) are forced converts or anything. Still, anytime this argument comes up, the syrian christians or st thomas christians or malankara nasranis are used as a shield, still, at the same time, in other cases, the community is also ridiculed as wrong christianity and the history of community as fake by the same people who use it as shield (the event of terming as wrong literally happened when portuguese came in the 15th century and force converted all to latin rite through synod of diamper which led to coonan cross oath leading to restoration of syriac litrugy but unfortunately permanently splitting the community into eastern catholics and orthodox denominations; even the british later came and tried to protestantise creating a small protestant faction also out the orthodox ones).