The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Deconstructing Minime

Deconstructing Minime
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Tuesday, July 29 2008, 20:09:23 (CEST)
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Calling him stupid doesn’t explain anything. That’s just a label and ultimately meaningless. Whatever his opinions, what counts is what lies behind them. For instance, Jumblat. His opinion that Muslims massacred Christians just for their religion, wouldn’t be stupid or wrong or the product of a lying hate-monger, if it could be proven to be true. If there was actual proof that Muslims had done such things then all his comments about Islam would be factual and merely the truth...rather than the product of his own hatred and prejudice.

In order to be fair to Jumblat, and not be guilty of the same thing, we asked him for evidence. After all, it COULD be true...since we know humans are capable of anything, no matter how terrible...as we see from what Christians did to Jews only a few years ago...it’s possible that Islam did exactly what Jumblat claimed. It isn’t “stupid” to tell the truth...at least not in this context. In fact telling the truth and backing it up would be the smart thing to do...would be the way for Jumblat to not only make a solid case against Islam but shut us up in the process.

But what happened? Jumblat disappeared. No proof...no references from history, nothing. If there’s no such evidence, and there isn’t because it never happened, then it was best, even smart, for Jumblat to sneak away. It wasn’t necessarily stupid of him to have ever made such claims...it was the usual attempt to smear Islam by accusing it of doing what Christianity has done and, if it served the religio-nationalist purpose and actually worked, power to them...but it didn’t work. To have remained and kept on insisting that it happened and that no proof was necessary would have been STUPID. Jumblat is lot’s of things, mostly sneaky and underhanded and clumsy, but he isn’t stupid.

I guess “stupid”, in this context, means not knowing when to quit after you’ve been exposed as either a liar or just plain ignorant. Oddly enough it means quite the opposite to Minime. In his book a person is stupid who tells the truth, when that truth exposes Christianity. Conversely lying to cover up Christianity is “smart” or honorable.

Which brings us back to the Eucharist. It’s understandable that Minime is embarrassed and unwilling to admit that his religion teaches its children to eat human flesh and drink human blood and actually means it...and all of this as part of a religion of “love”. You’d have to be stupid to defend or be proud of such a thing. Minime says Christians who believe this are “wrong”. On this we agree...it is indeed wrong, in every sense of the word, to teach such things. But that doesn’t stop them from doing it, or believing it. And, since they still do it and have been for 1,500 years, the negative impact of such teachings persists. I may be “wrong” for beating Minime with a lead pipe...but if I don’t stop doing it what’s the good of proving I’m wrong? What good does it do Minime to “prove” that I am mistaken in beating him, if I persist? Of COURSE teaching cannibalism to children is “wrong”!

It’s the harm that comes with the beating, the welts and bruises and psychological damage, that we’re decrying, not the “morality” or “correctness” of such beatings...that’s what Minime would be yelping about, not the morality of beating him but the PAIN of it. Just to say, “Pancho, you are WRONG for beating me”....doesn’t get to the heart of the matter...it’s a diversion, meaningless, and doesn’t get me to STOP. If the beating PERSISTS what difference does it make whether I’m wrong or right?. Of course beating someone with a lead pipe is WRONG...so is teaching cannibalism to children...but nothing changes if you just point out that it’s wrong...you have to STOP doing it too.

Minime can’t be as stupid as he lets on. Surely he understands that we aren’t interested in whether ultimately, or as matter of morality or even accuracy, the Eucharist is “wrong or right”. That’s for Christians to debate among themselves. We’re interested in facts here...and the fact is that billions of Christians teach this thing and believe it. To insist that they’re wrong doesn’t change the fact that they DO it. If Minime had evidence that Christians DON’T teach this..or that the Eucharist does NOT entail the eating of actual human flesh, he would have put it here long ago...much as Jumblat would have if there’d been any evidence for his claims.

To date no one has produced any documented evidence which shows that the very Christians believing and practicing cannibalism know it is WRONG...or from any Christians proving, I said proving, that it’s meant to be taken symbolically or metaphorically. Dissenting Christians SAY that it’s meant to be metaphorical etc., but that isn’t evidence that it was meant to be taken that way...not when you read the Gospels themselves and listen to church officials. Besides which, the issue isn’t the right or wrong of it, but that it HAPPENS and therefore its effects are something real and tangible that must be dealt with. After all we’re not talking about something innocuous or even pleasant like planting flowers or lighting incense...we’re talking about the most heinous crimes on earth....as religious beliefs.

Cannibalism is nothing to teach to children...I don’t care how “symbolic” it is. Symbolic of WHAT? You can be “one” with a dead prophet by reciting his words...or following his precepts...but eat him? Drink his blood?

Is Minime stupid for thinking the Eucharist got it “wrong”? Of course not. I agree that it’s wrong. But I also see that it’s TAUGHT and BELIEVED by billions. Where Minime becomes stupid, even though it’s in the service of his religion, is when he refuses to admit the obvious; that billions of Christians DO it. That can be safely and accurately and without any disparagement against Minime, said to be stupid of him. It doesn’t disparage him because he brings it on himself. It isn’t stupid to say the Eucharist is wrong...but it’s very stupid to insist that because YOU say it’s wrong, it doesn’t exist and needn’t be examined..

You’d think a religion could best be served by its adherents being the smartest they can be...and not make themselves willfully stupid in order to “defend” it. Maybe that’s the problem....maybe you have to be stupid to be Minime’s kind of Christian? Just wondering.



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