Armstrong often points to the difference between culture and religion - the way in which the same religion can be different in different cultures. For example she often shows how distant Western Christianity is from Jesus' original message and how different Western and Eastern Christianity are. There is an interesting quotation from Umberto Eco's: "Dreaming of the Middle Ages" essay where he says that "all the problems of the Western world emerged in the Middle Ages. In fact I would say Western Culture rose directly from medieval culture - with less influence from Greek civilization than many academics would like to think. Need I remind you people that in the U.K. there are many Laws from the Medieval times by which one can still be sentenced for such 'crimes' as witchcraft."
Armstrong points out the "Western Christians were not going to be able to accommodate different religious communities and ideologies within their own systems as did either the Muslims or the Byzantines". It is therefore not Christianity which is to blame for the Western xenophobia, arrogance and intolerance -it is something cultural, perhaps to do with the fact that so many different races lived in confined Europe that borders had to be drawn. In a similar way Islam can not be blamed for female circumcision which is "an African practice" and has nothing to do with the Quran. Racism is not that common outside the West and even then it is usually only in ex-colonial countries. The Asian communities in Europe should remember what happened to Muslims in Spain after living there for some 500 years and becoming as Spanish as any Spaniard (most in fact were by origin Spanish converts): they were deported en masse and those that did stay "were persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition for another 300 years". In contrast, under the Islamic empire, "the three religions of historical monotheism were able to live together in relative peace and harmony" and "there was even an established tradition of skepticism and freethinking".
In Eastern and Western Christianity Jesus was perceived differently - in the East he is portrayed as an Emperor of the Universe and unlike the vulnerable Christ of the West. Armstrong explains this by saying that in the West "Christianity is supremely a religion of suffering and adversity...it has always been at its best during periods of distress. The idea of rejecting 'the world' has in my mind led to two consequences: Firstly to a lack of real Philosophical thought and thus a failure to satisfy peoples everyday needs, and secondly it has been used to subdue people in the West and also more recently in (for example) South Africa and "Central and South America...Christians have been told that they have a duty to endure oppression and injustice".
Whatever their excuses, it is shocking to see writers such as Dante and Voltaire b
RE:CULTURE AND RELIGION
by Secular Indian on Mar 20, 2007 05:20 AM Permalink
Comparing the crimes of Islam with Christianity are of no relevance to Hindus. Eh hi thaali ke chatte vatte. They both have a discriminatory ideology as their core principly, "you are either with us or agains us", Kafir in Islam and Heathen in Christianity.
RE:CULTURE AND RELIGION
by Secular Indian on Mar 20, 2007 06:25 AM Permalink
Comparing the crimes of Islam with Christianity are of no relevance to Hindus. Eh hi thaali ke chatte vatte. They both have a discriminatory ideology as their core principly, "you are either with us or agains us", Kafir in Islam and Heathen in Christianity.
