- Topic
Let's start by simplifying the matter into an issue where people with dissenting opinion were killed, and accept this in our discussion. Let's do more than simply attack the Catholic church; let's be diligent and discuss what causes such a thing.
When people are killed en masse in such a way, this is accomplished by Dispensing their Existence.
Other people no longer have certain rights, in this case the right to live.
People generally recognize what a genocide is when they see it in the history books: Nazis/WW2, Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia. What happens that enables a genocide to take place? We see the dispensing of existence in genocides and politicides.
Scroll down to characteristics here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
Us vs Them
The right to treat other people differently, because they are not in our group. It is appropriate to lie to them, because de facto they are bad or not of the enlightened.
Us-side gets gets labels that correlate with being bona-fide while Them-side gets labels that correlate with ability to take rights away, for they are outsiders.
Us-side promotes its agenda, uses propaganda / reinforcement of its ideology.
Us-side is justified in their decision making.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, the template here can be applied to more simpler things such as obtaining people's time and money….additionally Us-side is bona-fide in refusing to listen to Them-side. Information from Them-side to Us-side is de facto not bona-fide and is typically required to be ignored, discarded, or destroyed. Some people call this information control. Some people recognize that information control and dispensing of information now reinforce each other.
Let's suppose we only wanted to obtain people's time and money. Let's suppose that we are religious and we seek to destroy the biggest player on the block, the church that participated in the Crusades…..would we give our people a well-rounded education on the tenets of genocide or leave that out?
Questions? Comments?
I am sorry my history is too weak to argue and I might be wrong. I somehow thought the Crusades were not so much a genocide but a religious war. The war being caused by the fact that the Christians believed, rightly or wrongly, that Islam was being forcibly established in places. It was not really a one-sided slaughter as it would be in a genocide.
However, I don't dispute your Us v/s Them theory.
QinLA, consider this if you like as part of this thread. There were instances during OT times when God ordered the total anihilation of entire populations including animals. From the secular perspective this can be genocide. The bible would then be termed a book of cruelty. In your opinion, do these instances fit into the Us v/s Them paradigm? If it does then we have to also believe that the bible books were manipulated at the time of writing to justify the actions.
Disclaimer – The above is just philosophical thinking and should not be construed as a reflection of my beliefs.
We also have to guard against the error of judging a people from the past by our modern standards. Those were more barbaric times and the standard of cruelty was probably quite extreme.
Coming to think of it, what would happen today if a father goes out to sacrifice his son saying God ordered me to do it? There are many delusional people today who think they hear God giving them instructions. Could we judge Abraham by modern standards?
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