According to Amazon, I purchased this book on July 5, 2017.
My two cents: Christianity is the most disgusting cult ever invented. I never met a Christian who wasn't a stupid fucking asshole.
A customer review:
Christianity – An Ongoing Crime Against Humanity
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2020
Verified Purchase
The authentic history of butchery that just is Christianity is terrifying to read and contemplate. It is a history of grim human catastrophe. The book is a rehearsal of the social, cultural, and political damage done by Christianity, a malicious death cult, at enormous human cost in terms of life lost, knowledge destroyed and advancement prevented. Humanism, classical culture, tolerance, and cosmopolitan ideals were attacked and destroyed throughout the late classical world by religious fanaticism combined with cultural provincialism, willful ignorance and paranoid authoritarianism. Christian history is the history of violence and the wanton destruction of anything not in line with what the power of the established Catholic Church and later ‘reform’ Protestantism. An unshakable belief in absurdities brought about the wanton destruction of art, science and literature. Intellectual curiosity became a sin and willful ignorance a virtue. The only thing the Church created is what has been referred to as ‘The Dark Ages’. This is a Church strengthened by tragedy, fear and ignorance with the tools of violence, rape, murder and suppression. In fairness though, this is history came about through mixing of two separate but equally pernicious toxins, barbarian hoards and Christianity. But with this history, Christianity, to say nothing of Islam and Judaism, the three impostors, remain faiths fit for fools.
What would be comical if it was no so tragic was the way in which reform minded Protestants with their puritanical self-righteous authoritarianism, a police-state theocracy, set about to destroy the traditions and symbols of the Catholic Church in much the same manner in which the fourth century Christians set about to destroy the traditions and symbols of the pre-Christian world. These people are still with us today in the form of the Bible thumbing Christian Fundamentalist that one has the unfortunate experience of meeting from time to time. I was ounce accosted by one of these lunatics at a gas station – ugh! He was trying to tell me about the good news of the Bible.
To this day, I still see people rationalize barbarism to maintain a literal interpretation of scripture stories. I understand that the following example is a trivial, but it illustrates a mindset. I recall once seeing the scene in the Cecil B. DeMille’s movie of 1956, ‘The Ten Commandments’ with the killing of the first born of Egypt. As an observer, I mentioned to my spouse “that it is unethical to kill children under any circumstance and especially for the purpose of making a point to a group of adults, the Pharaoh and his court.”
Aside: I will even grant that if one insists on believing in God, that this story makes God unethical; given that a believer in the monotheistic God will accept that God is all-good, it follows that He cannot act in an unethical manner. Therefore, the story must not be literally true. (Of course, I think the entire Old Testament is nothing but ancient mythology and New Testament nothing more than literally fiction. I also understand the if God is also all-powerful He can overcome the provision of being all-good, but then the entire idea of God collapses into a rotten sticking pile of logical contradictions).
Back to the movie: Following my comment, I was roundly criticized and told that God had to act in such a way at that time to deal with those kind of people (the Egyptians) after all, I was told “you saw how they were acting”. I said, “yes but it is just a movie.” My spouse’s logic is that of submission and unquestioning obedience to gain security and comfort, worthy only of a fearful mental slave to unquestioned authority and supremacy of the type described by Helen Ellerbe rather than a human being with the ethical obligation to think. This twisted and tortured logic of rationalization is needed to maintain the literal truth of the fairy tale as told in Exodus even at the price of condoning child murder while maintaining that God is all-good. This shows how religion can grotesquely distort the thinking of an otherwise intelligent rational human being. Staying with the Book of Exodus, I asked “Do you believe in witches?” I quoted Exodus 22:18 “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. (I thought that I had better be careful here because it will soon be seen that I am the witch that cannot be suffered). In any case, I proceeded, “this Bible verse presupposes the existence of witches and you have told me that the Bible is the literal word of God.” In response, I was told “of course there are no witches” (to my great relief, I was off the hook at least) but that "I was taking this verse out of context, the word ‘witch’ was not to be taken literally, that it just means evil in this context." I said, “SERIOUSLY!!! So the Bible is literal where you want it to be and needs context and interpretation where you happen not like the literal words? Isn’t this the case of having your cake and eating too?” (pardon the cliché). I further said, “yours is just one faith or belief tradition, the literal tradition.” I was told no, that “it just was faith, there is only one true faith, not many traditions” - it just so happens that my spouse has this one true ‘faith’. After this I was admonished, I was firmly told in a raised voice “I am not going to discuss with YOU!” OK I thought, these are best signs of a defeated interlocutor: engage in an ad hominem attack and summarily end the discussion. I left the room to do find refuge in a book.
Maybe I should not say this but I am glad that Helen Ellerbe, as a women, is exposing the crimes of Christianity against humanity since it was women who were made to suffer the most from this grim death cult. Along these lines, I would also like to recommend the book, ‘The Darkening Age’ by Catherine Nixey, published in 2019. Another book that I can recommend in the same genre as ‘The Dark Side of Christian History’ is ‘Holy Horrors’ by James A. Haught, 1990.
Minor Disagreements:
Modernity and Christianity
The author describes the great extent to which early modern thinking in science, medicine, law, government and commerce mirrored Christian thinking in terms of the hierarchy of life, the dichotomy of mind and body, the division in nature based on race or sex as well as the distinction of superiority and inferiority, weaker or stronger. My humble disagreement is that modern thinking did not emerge independent from, but still similar to, orthodox or reform Christianity with the same principles - just without the theological patina. Modern thinking did not “corroborate the orthodox Christian belief in the necessity for struggle and domination” as the author puts it, p. 184. Rather, this was the unfortunate influence of Christianity, both orthodox and reform, on modern thinking as it emerged from the nightmare Christendom. I believe that the development of early modern thinking was not independent of Christianity. Modern thought and Christianity are not two different occurrences. It is not the case that Christian ideology found validation in modern thinking; it is the case that modern thinking did not shake the shackles of Christian ideology. Modern thought emerged plagued and polluted and under the unbroken continuing pernicious influence of Christianity. Hence, the ongoing crime against humanity that Christianity still is! Unlike the author (p. 187.), I believe that the history of Christian should lead to its full, complete and outright rejection.
Indeterminism and Spirituality
The indeterminism posited by quantum mechanics is not reason enough to smuggle in a form of new age spiritualism, e.g., Gaia Theory as discussed by the author. There is the risk that a reduction to the probabilistic indeterminant environment found at the quantum level will be falsely elevated to our everyday world of ‘medium sized dry goods” so to speak. We do not live our lives or navigate our experience of existence at the subatomic level. This is known as false ontological reductionism, the idea that subatomic indeterminacy can be a guide to an existence filled with tables and chairs, the solidity and presence of which we ignore at our own risk. The interrelatedness of the components of the material world is not the basis of a new spiritual phenomenon.
Verified Purchase
The authentic history of butchery that just is Christianity is terrifying to read and contemplate. It is a history of grim human catastrophe. The book is a rehearsal of the social, cultural, and political damage done by Christianity, a malicious death cult, at enormous human cost in terms of life lost, knowledge destroyed and advancement prevented. Humanism, classical culture, tolerance, and cosmopolitan ideals were attacked and destroyed throughout the late classical world by religious fanaticism combined with cultural provincialism, willful ignorance and paranoid authoritarianism. Christian history is the history of violence and the wanton destruction of anything not in line with what the power of the established Catholic Church and later ‘reform’ Protestantism. An unshakable belief in absurdities brought about the wanton destruction of art, science and literature. Intellectual curiosity became a sin and willful ignorance a virtue. The only thing the Church created is what has been referred to as ‘The Dark Ages’. This is a Church strengthened by tragedy, fear and ignorance with the tools of violence, rape, murder and suppression. In fairness though, this is history came about through mixing of two separate but equally pernicious toxins, barbarian hoards and Christianity. But with this history, Christianity, to say nothing of Islam and Judaism, the three impostors, remain faiths fit for fools.
What would be comical if it was no so tragic was the way in which reform minded Protestants with their puritanical self-righteous authoritarianism, a police-state theocracy, set about to destroy the traditions and symbols of the Catholic Church in much the same manner in which the fourth century Christians set about to destroy the traditions and symbols of the pre-Christian world. These people are still with us today in the form of the Bible thumbing Christian Fundamentalist that one has the unfortunate experience of meeting from time to time. I was ounce accosted by one of these lunatics at a gas station – ugh! He was trying to tell me about the good news of the Bible.
To this day, I still see people rationalize barbarism to maintain a literal interpretation of scripture stories. I understand that the following example is a trivial, but it illustrates a mindset. I recall once seeing the scene in the Cecil B. DeMille’s movie of 1956, ‘The Ten Commandments’ with the killing of the first born of Egypt. As an observer, I mentioned to my spouse “that it is unethical to kill children under any circumstance and especially for the purpose of making a point to a group of adults, the Pharaoh and his court.”
Aside: I will even grant that if one insists on believing in God, that this story makes God unethical; given that a believer in the monotheistic God will accept that God is all-good, it follows that He cannot act in an unethical manner. Therefore, the story must not be literally true. (Of course, I think the entire Old Testament is nothing but ancient mythology and New Testament nothing more than literally fiction. I also understand the if God is also all-powerful He can overcome the provision of being all-good, but then the entire idea of God collapses into a rotten sticking pile of logical contradictions).
Back to the movie: Following my comment, I was roundly criticized and told that God had to act in such a way at that time to deal with those kind of people (the Egyptians) after all, I was told “you saw how they were acting”. I said, “yes but it is just a movie.” My spouse’s logic is that of submission and unquestioning obedience to gain security and comfort, worthy only of a fearful mental slave to unquestioned authority and supremacy of the type described by Helen Ellerbe rather than a human being with the ethical obligation to think. This twisted and tortured logic of rationalization is needed to maintain the literal truth of the fairy tale as told in Exodus even at the price of condoning child murder while maintaining that God is all-good. This shows how religion can grotesquely distort the thinking of an otherwise intelligent rational human being. Staying with the Book of Exodus, I asked “Do you believe in witches?” I quoted Exodus 22:18 “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. (I thought that I had better be careful here because it will soon be seen that I am the witch that cannot be suffered). In any case, I proceeded, “this Bible verse presupposes the existence of witches and you have told me that the Bible is the literal word of God.” In response, I was told “of course there are no witches” (to my great relief, I was off the hook at least) but that "I was taking this verse out of context, the word ‘witch’ was not to be taken literally, that it just means evil in this context." I said, “SERIOUSLY!!! So the Bible is literal where you want it to be and needs context and interpretation where you happen not like the literal words? Isn’t this the case of having your cake and eating too?” (pardon the cliché). I further said, “yours is just one faith or belief tradition, the literal tradition.” I was told no, that “it just was faith, there is only one true faith, not many traditions” - it just so happens that my spouse has this one true ‘faith’. After this I was admonished, I was firmly told in a raised voice “I am not going to discuss with YOU!” OK I thought, these are best signs of a defeated interlocutor: engage in an ad hominem attack and summarily end the discussion. I left the room to do find refuge in a book.
Maybe I should not say this but I am glad that Helen Ellerbe, as a women, is exposing the crimes of Christianity against humanity since it was women who were made to suffer the most from this grim death cult. Along these lines, I would also like to recommend the book, ‘The Darkening Age’ by Catherine Nixey, published in 2019. Another book that I can recommend in the same genre as ‘The Dark Side of Christian History’ is ‘Holy Horrors’ by James A. Haught, 1990.
Minor Disagreements:
Modernity and Christianity
The author describes the great extent to which early modern thinking in science, medicine, law, government and commerce mirrored Christian thinking in terms of the hierarchy of life, the dichotomy of mind and body, the division in nature based on race or sex as well as the distinction of superiority and inferiority, weaker or stronger. My humble disagreement is that modern thinking did not emerge independent from, but still similar to, orthodox or reform Christianity with the same principles - just without the theological patina. Modern thinking did not “corroborate the orthodox Christian belief in the necessity for struggle and domination” as the author puts it, p. 184. Rather, this was the unfortunate influence of Christianity, both orthodox and reform, on modern thinking as it emerged from the nightmare Christendom. I believe that the development of early modern thinking was not independent of Christianity. Modern thought and Christianity are not two different occurrences. It is not the case that Christian ideology found validation in modern thinking; it is the case that modern thinking did not shake the shackles of Christian ideology. Modern thought emerged plagued and polluted and under the unbroken continuing pernicious influence of Christianity. Hence, the ongoing crime against humanity that Christianity still is! Unlike the author (p. 187.), I believe that the history of Christian should lead to its full, complete and outright rejection.
Indeterminism and Spirituality
The indeterminism posited by quantum mechanics is not reason enough to smuggle in a form of new age spiritualism, e.g., Gaia Theory as discussed by the author. There is the risk that a reduction to the probabilistic indeterminant environment found at the quantum level will be falsely elevated to our everyday world of ‘medium sized dry goods” so to speak. We do not live our lives or navigate our experience of existence at the subatomic level. This is known as false ontological reductionism, the idea that subatomic indeterminacy can be a guide to an existence filled with tables and chairs, the solidity and presence of which we ignore at our own risk. The interrelatedness of the components of the material world is not the basis of a new spiritual phenomenon.
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