XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: toomuchspam@spammer.org   
      
   "Dan Drake" wrote:   
      
   >> I'd be interested to know whether you think the Church would have   
   >> behaved worse or better had it won the ascendency in Japan its   
   >> martyrs were seeking.   
   >   
   > What does my opinion matter here?   
      
   It matters to the extent that I'm interested to see if it's the same as I   
   guessed it would be. But if you don't want to give it, that's up to you.   
      
   > My verifiable-falsifiable assertion   
   > is that a whole lot of people were murdered by the native   
   > Buddhist-Shintoist mut mainly Buddhist Japanese society for the crime   
   > of being of the wrong religion.  What matter if they were Catholics,   
   > Muslims, or Quakers?   
      
   And what matter if they were Satanists, Nazis or Moloch-worshippers? No   
   matter, to the extent that they never had the chance to put their beliefs   
   into operation by winning the ascendency they were seeking.   
      
   > But I may want to take umbrage at the last phrase.  The victims were   
   > not just a bunch of crazy missionaries going in and declaring   
   > "Convert, or die, or kill me!"  There were lots of Japanese people who   
   > had decided to adopt this dangerous foreign religion. If I'm wrong   
   > about this, and the ones killed had sought martyrdom by making public   
   > disturbances that gave the authorities no alternative to killing them,   
   > please let me know, with citations.   
      
   Japanese Catholics, unless they were heretical, believed that Catholicism   
   was the one true religion and that everyone should convert to it. If   
   enough people had agreed with them, Catholicism would have had the   
   ascendency in Japan. Based on what it did elsewhere when it had the   
   ascendency, I think it would then have behaved worse than Japanese   
   Buddhism. I don't know what you and Steve Hayes think, because neither of   
   you will say.   
      
   >> > That's a period when Buddhism was strong   
   >> > enough that immediately upon the Meiji restoration (Thank you, USA   
   >> > -- but actually it was on the whole a good thing for Japan) the   
   >> > Shinto (not montheists!)   
   >>   
   >> Which would be worthy of an exclamation mark only if I'd claimed   
   >> monotheism alone was aggressive. I didn't.   
   >   
   > My mistake. I thought Christianity was being singled out as especially   
   > conducive to making war on theological enemies,   
      
   But I said "monotheism", not "Christianity", and I said "more   
   aggressive", not "hugely more aggressive".   
      
   > and certainly we can't   
   > single it out by contrast with other famous monotheisms   
      
   I haven't tried to single it out. I actually think Islam and Judaism are   
   more dangerous, and less fruitful of the goods Christianity has overseen.   
      
   > (or the   
   > Amalekite Liberation Front will get us); whereas some conspicuously   
   > non-monotheistic belief systems have been examples of what might   
   > arguably be better.  But I'll withdraw the exclamation point if that   
   > makes it easier to keep to the point.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)