As it waited in the wings of pagan Rome, the Catholic Church was already marked by 8. The fanatics of Christ proved useful to an ambitious prince who set his sights on absolute and undivided power.
The Church expropriated the resources – both human and material – which might have defended Roman civilization. While an indolent army of clerics lived on the state, the impoverished legions degenerated into a peasant militia. Once a particular Christianity – hierarchical and authoritarian – became wedded to the Roman state, it became a force of brutal repression. The "Church Fathers" transformed Romano-Hellenic culture by bigotry, anti-Semitism, censorship and intolerance. This so-called 'orthodoxy' suppressed and persecuted its 'heretical' opposition. The barbarian tribes that overran the weakened Roman Empire were, for the most part, Christianised; the forces that opposed them, pagan.
The priestly "protection racket" required the criminalizing of the whole of humanity through the doctrine of Sin. In a world run by clerical gangsters, the writ of Holy Mother Church was enforced by sadism and torture. For more than a thousand years, the henchmen of Christ inflicted a cruel barbarism on every community they encountered. Law was replaced by Divine Right, scientific method criminalized, ancient medical knowledge lost for a millennium. Women, fortunate to be domestic slaves, might find themselves in enforced celibacy, joyless marriage or burnt as a witch. Roasting heretics became popular entertainment and a religious duty.
Isn't this an appaling criminal history of the christian church..?
You know it makes sense.
The Church expropriated the resources – both human and material – which might have defended Roman civilization. While an indolent army of clerics lived on the state, the impoverished legions degenerated into a peasant militia. Once a particular Christianity – hierarchical and authoritarian – became wedded to the Roman state, it became a force of brutal repression. The "Church Fathers" transformed Romano-Hellenic culture by bigotry, anti-Semitism, censorship and intolerance. This so-called 'orthodoxy' suppressed and persecuted its 'heretical' opposition. The barbarian tribes that overran the weakened Roman Empire were, for the most part, Christianised; the forces that opposed them, pagan.
The priestly "protection racket" required the criminalizing of the whole of humanity through the doctrine of Sin. In a world run by clerical gangsters, the writ of Holy Mother Church was enforced by sadism and torture. For more than a thousand years, the henchmen of Christ inflicted a cruel barbarism on every community they encountered. Law was replaced by Divine Right, scientific method criminalized, ancient medical knowledge lost for a millennium. Women, fortunate to be domestic slaves, might find themselves in enforced celibacy, joyless marriage or burnt as a witch. Roasting heretics became popular entertainment and a religious duty.
Isn't this an appaling criminal history of the christian church..?
You know it makes sense.