What Century Are We Living In?

http://news.yahoo.com/accused-witch-burned-alive-papua-guinea-012307648.html

Quote :

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) — A mob stripped, tortured and bound a woman accused of witchcraft, then burned her alive in front of hundreds of horrified witnesses in a Papua New Guinea town, police said Friday. It was the latest sorcery-related killing in this South Pacific island nation.

That's very insular of you Moto. All cultures are different but EQUAL. DO NOT JUDGE. / Sarcasm

Definitely crazy stuff...
Africa has a few cases of perverted christianity as well. I mean burning withes and the whole bit. Not new news.

The fact that it is news again is relieving/shocking...take it as you will.

Inditing a person based on anothers say so, suspicions, or fears, has been among of the worlds most long running symptoms of hate crime. Charging a woman with witch craft is as near a guaranteed death sentence as any when it happens in a back country or third world locations where women are still compared to livestock or possessions. Regardless of the persons religion pursuing such allegations they are still wrong.
Some insight here ... fear being the biggest of the motivators that is used against people to control and manipulate. Religion has perpetrated more crime using fear than any other entity while professing to be the purveyor of peace and love. Fear is used as a tool to manipulate and a weapon to control or direct the masses. After all you don't want to make your god/God/goddess('s) angry to the point of being vengeful. Anyhow, while I find the process distasteful those under its spell are still willing to accept the strange relationship and clash of terms ... Either out of ignorance or of choice to remain blind to the issue.
People in this world are so willing to see the dark or unknown as evil are not seeing the point that without dark light neither has purpose nor contrast. One defines the other and therefore the other enhances its own existence. Without the other it ceases to exist. The fear or hatred of the other or belief of a battle between forces sad. Life exists as a co-operative. Fear is a human trait.
Do I believe there is a God out there? Ya, I have seen too much to say there isn't such an entity larger and more complex than myself. Who am I to say these gods don't transcend our understanding. I will not presume to speak in their place. What I do know is that if this world was formed and nurtured
into exsitence, the force doing so was love, agape love.
John

IndigoWolf wrote:

Inditing a person based on anothers say so, suspicions, or fears, has been among of the worlds most long running symptoms of hate crime. Charging a woman with witch craft is as near a guaranteed death sentence as any when it happens in a back country or third world locations where women are still compared to livestock or possessions. Regardless of the persons religion pursuing such allegations they are still wrong.
Some insight here ... fear being the biggest of the motivators that is used against people to control and manipulate. Religion has perpetrated more crime using fear than any other entity while professing to be the purveyor of peace and love. Fear is used as a tool to manipulate and a weapon to control or direct the masses. After all you don't want to make your god/God/goddess('s) angry to the point of being vengeful. Anyhow, while I find the process distasteful those under its spell are still willing to accept the strange relationship and clash of terms ... Either out of ignorance or of choice to remain blind to the issue.
People in this world are so willing to see the dark or unknown as evil are not seeing the point that without dark light neither has purpose nor contrast. One defines the other and therefore the other enhances its own existence. Without the other it ceases to exist. The fear or hatred of the other or belief of a battle between forces sad. Life exists as a co-operative. Fear is a human trait.
Do I believe there is a God out there? Ya, I have seen too much to say there isn't such an entity larger and more complex than myself. Who am I to say these gods don't transcend our understanding. I will not presume to speak in their place. What I do know is that if this world was formed and nurtured
into exsitence, the force doing so was love, agape love.
John

Funny thing is about love...is that nothing else turns to hate quicker or more deeply.
As you stated, one cannot exist without the other.
I guess then, what becomes the more important questions are...what do you love and what do you hate?
Where does the argument of right and wrong begin?...end?...

For most, their argument begins with a god...but not all.

Right and wrong are defined by where the boundaries are set. I would say the biggest question is who do you allow to set your boundaries? Are they fixed or are they arbitrary. Remember the yard stick you measure others with will be the stick you use to measure your own life with.
It has been said love knows no boundaries but it is a circle with no end . How does one define where it begins and ends. Hate is also a circle but it has a broken spot offset similar to a lock washer. It has a defining beginning and end. Only once pressed into service and under pressure will it appear vicious.

IndigoWolf wrote:

Right and wrong are defined by where the boundaries are set. I would say the biggest question is who do you allow to set your boundaries? Are they fixed or are they arbitrary. Remember the yard stick you measure others with will be the stick you use to measure your own life with.
It has been said love knows no boundaries but it is a circle with no end . How does one define where it begins and ends. Hate is also a circle but it has a broken spot offset similar to a lock washer. It has a defining beginning and end. Only once pressed into service and under pressure will it appear vicious.

Ones' boundries and understanding is only limited by their mind, and nothing else.

I will defer to The Orange Theory...whiich goes something like...

...What do you get when you squeeze an orange?......orange juice obviously...Why?, because that is what is inside.
Well, I believe the same principle applies to people...when they feel squeezed, what's really inside starts to come out...that's just how it works.

Anyone can fake it for a while...but when truly tested, who they actually are will be revealed.

And to follow that bit of wisdom ...
"To be worth making at all, a journey has to be made in the mind as much as in the world of objects and dimensions. What value can there be in seeing or experiencing anything for the first time unless it comes as a revelation? And for that to happen, some previously held thought or belief must be confounded, or enhanced, or even transcended. What difference can it make otherwise to see a redwood tree, a tiger, or a humming bird? " -Ted Simon
John

IndigoWolf wrote:

And to follow that bit of wisdom ...
"To be worth making at all, a journey has to be made in the mind as much as in the world of objects and dimensions. What value can there be in seeing or experiencing anything for the first time unless it comes as a revelation? And for that to happen, some previously held thought or belief must be confounded, or enhanced, or even transcended. What difference can it make otherwise to see a redwood tree, a tiger, or a humming bird? " -Ted Simon
John

]

Yes but, thoughts on this topic are rarely ones' first...at least on this forum.
Justifying why others could think that way...while ignoring lighter versions of their truth.../is what horrifies some.
If it was a one off thought, maybe.
But these thoughts are directly related to religious history.
North American christianity isnt that far off...considering facts and superstition and all.
If you believe in a false truth...who knows where that could lead?...

mucker wrote:

Yes but, thoughts on this topic are rarely ones' first...at least on this forum.
Justifying why others could think that way...while ignoring lighter versions of their truth.../is what horrifies some.
If it was a one off thought, maybe.
But these thoughts are directly related to religious history.
North American christianity isnt that far off...considering facts and superstition and all.
If you believe in a false truth...who knows where that could lead?...

It would seem near obvious that you have not lived in the Bible belt. The back biting that go's on between groups of christians is astounding.
As a retired pastor in the christian faith I can agree with you that there is for the most part a thick blend of beliefs from other groups ((religious or otherwise)ie. occult,pagan,etc.) that has found its way into christianity. What a better way to perpetrate your control over people than to incorporate their faiths celebrations into your worship and calender. The purity of the story and message of the man called Jesus was corrupt long before Constantine set about the canonizing of scripture. I realize this is not going to be a popular statement because of the claimed infallibility of Gods word.
How far off the path can one go by altering your direction by one degree? Then figure it out over a life time ... or a couple thousand years. Yet there are millions who follow without questioning one iota.
What really was the purpose of the Crusades...? Controlling the people, amassing wealth, and maintaining position in society. The message was only a tool to flog the masses into submission.
More later...

mucker wrote:

Definitely crazy stuff...
Africa has a few cases of perverted christianity as well. I mean burning withes and the whole bit. Not new news.

The fact that it is news again is relieving/shocking...take it as you will.

That's interesting...

I read the article to find even a single reference that those who murdered the victim were Christians of any sort of denomination. Or, for that matter, members of any other deist faith.

I found nothing making any reference like that. I thought those who were the leaders in this murder could well have been animists. Or a sorcery-based sect.

Certainly, when one reads "Sorcery has traditionally been countered by sorcery, but responses to allegations of witchcraft have become increasingly violent in recent years", it does not sound like Christianity to normal people - Christians usually aren't associated with indulging in sorcery. And then there was the reference to the cannibal cult making soup out of the penises of their victims and whatnot - not exactly something that makes normal people think "Damned Christianity, anyways...".

And yet, somewhere other you apparently found a reference in the article that these crimes were the acts of some sort of Christian religion.

Care to point that out to the rest of us?

In the absence of any such reference, I'd be inclined to think you're expressing the views of perverted atheists who are prejudiced specifically against Christians.

IndigoWolf wrote:

Religion has perpetrated more crime using fear than any other entity while professing to be the purveyor of peace and love.

The fact that an entity must be involved to contest that statement makes it a bit problematic at best.

However, when one considers the murder, violence, and fear directed and used by non-religious people like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao etc in just the past century - not to mention countless and innumerable atheist violent criminals spanning the ages - I don't see religion as being any worse. We just make a big deal of it when religion may be involved, while skipping over the issue when it isn't.

Being what I suppose is an agnostic, I don't accept religion as either an explanation for crime nor it's absence an explanation for why crime occurred in the first place.