"Blood"Blood"Blood of the Lamb"Blood of God's only begotten Son"Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ"Blood of the Lamb,-- So went the bloody Good Friday service at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, an occasion commemorating the Crucifixion of Yeshua, the Hebrew Rabbi, who, with his eleven Jewish and one non-Jewish (Luke) disciples was forming a new sect within Judaism that would come to be called Christianity. A bloody service commemorating a particular instance of a once widespread savage act among hominids on planet Earth: the sacrifice of a live animal or human being to propitiate a god. Since that Crucifixion the Blood of the Lamb has flowed evermore, from the autos-da-fe' of inquisitions to the streets of local and national persecutions and wars -- currently in the streets and rubble of Iraq, a 20th Century creation where some seven thousand years ago stood ancient Mesopotamia.
I knew when I walked out of that Mass into the broad daylight of bustling Fifth Avenue, New York, 25 years ago, that some day I would have to deal with that problem in addition to those I had been dealing with for so long: Marxism-Leninism, Shinto-Tanakaism, Fascism, and Naziism, in developing a new social science and philosophy to deal explicitly with malignant ideologies in societal, national and international affairs.
I had known that religionism had been a major force in oppressions and wars throughout history. And that in the 20th Century it had been a major component of Reichism II, the ideology of the Second Reich that led inexorably to World War I. And that Nazi ideology had been the major component of Reichism III, the ideology of the Third Reich, the Thousand Year Reich, The Thousand Camps Reich, that drove World War II, and that Naziism in turn had been driven and rooted in Martin Luther's fierce authoritarianism and virulent anti-Jewishism (racism and anti-Semitism hadn't been invented yet). And that Islamic ideology drove and legitimated the Islamic ethnocide of Armenians at the turn of the century. And that Catholic ideology drove and legitimated the Catholic-generated Rwandan ethnocide at the end of the century. And that in that century as well as those before it Christianity had been the consistent generator of hatred, oppression and war. But I dared not tackle that problem head on, for society would quickly crush me and all the valuable work I had built up before it could be brought to fruition. The Christianist reactions would be worse than they had been for America's revolutionary firebrand and ideological founding father, Thomas Paine.
Religionist Violence is like the Hydra of ancient Greek mythology: a giant monster with nine (the count varies) tentacles at the end of each of which there was a big menacing head, with the center head alleged to be immortal. One of the 17 'labors' assigned to Hercules was to kill that monster, which he undertook with the help of Iolaus. But each time they cut off a head two more grew in its place. They therefore fought to reach the center head, and when they reached it and cut it off the monster died. That is what we must do: find the center head of Religionist Violence"and cut it off....
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http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2006/01/bloodshed-trilogy.html
