The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> St Francis Xavier

Posted by pancho (Guest) - Monday, April 2 2007, 21:03:34 (CEST)
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A good example of the outlandish claims made by the Church, all churches, is the following excerpted from Durant’s “The Reformation”:

“In 1541 St Francis Xavier left Lisbon on a Portuguese vessel, and after a year of travel and travail reached Goa. There he walked up and down the streets ringing a hand bell to gather an audience; this accomplished, he expounded the Christian creed with such sincerity and eloquence, and illustrated the Christian ethic with such cheerful sharing of his poorest listeners’ life, that he made a thousand converts among Hindus and Moslems, and even convinced some hardship-hardened expatriated Portuguese Christians.”

Who wrote these things? In that time who went around reporting for what newspapers or magazines? In an age when you could be jailed for life, have your thumbs torn off, beheaded and burned alive for asking the wrong question, who would dare to question a “saint”? How many medals could be won if all it took was the recital, with no eyewitnesses, of a soldier’s own deeds?

People haven’t changed all that much in their basic psychological make up. Ask yourself how you’d react if, out shopping one day, you heard a bell being rung by some stranger of a type you’d never seen before. How do people respond to the Salvation Army Santas….do they lower their heads and hurry by or stop to hear a sermon? How likely is it that a crowd, the people in it all hurrying here and there, would stop and gather round at so strange a sight?

What language did Xavier address these people in? Did he land on shore speaking their language? Did he really…could he really…is it at all likely that he really made a “thousand converts” among both Hindus and Moslems? Xavier was one of the first converts to what would become the Jesuit order when he befriended St Ignatius Loyola, it’s founder, at college. These first few Jesuits were distrusted by their own bishop and yet they managed to attract Moslems and Hindus by ringing a goddamned bell and telling the story of Jesus? What devout Muslim didn’t know the story of Jesus already? Know enough of it to respect the man as a prophet but reject him as a son of god? How did this hand wringing, bell ringing recent arrival from Europe change any of that by his “cheerful sharing of his poorest listeners’ life”?

The Church has gotten a pass all these years because of it’s supposed connection to a god of the universe. Even today when confronted by the likes of Tammy Faye and her dotty husband, or any of the legion of Christian charlatans and one ex-Nazi pope, we’re too “respectful” to throw the bums out and call them exactly what they are. And they depend on it…depend on our basic sense of decency and respect for “religion”…and so they continue diddling us and now lead us into world-wide wars…just like they’ve done all along.

St Xavier was a liar…plain and simple. But, like all religious liars, he was doing “God’s work”…which means that if after your first attempt to win converts fails…lie about it…for who will dare call you on it?

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