> What am I supposed to say here? "Good thing I'm not Stalin"? Just because he's against religion, too, does not mean I want to use his methods.
Maybe you should then extend the same courtesy to us who have religions too then? After all most of us aren't Spanish inquisitors.
> Mentally substitute the monks for hypothetical missionaries adhering to Voltaire/Smith/Kant &c., we could imagine the result is similar, just without the gods-and-religion business.
Yeah and if cats were dogs they would bark.
Mentally substitute Nelson Mandela with Hitler and South Africa wouldn't have a Nobel prize winner.
> I didn't say
No, but you said:
> Just because we managed to declaw and tame one (values of Enlightenment supplanting values of Christianity)
I'm pointing out that the peace
came with Christianity.
Maybe you should then extend the same courtesy to us who have religions too then? After all most of us aren't Spanish inquisitors.
> Mentally substitute the monks for hypothetical missionaries adhering to Voltaire/Smith/Kant &c., we could imagine the result is similar, just without the gods-and-religion business.
Yeah and if cats were dogs they would bark.
Mentally substitute Nelson Mandela with Hitler and South Africa wouldn't have a Nobel prize winner.
> I didn't say
No, but you said:
> Just because we managed to declaw and tame one (values of Enlightenment supplanting values of Christianity)
I'm pointing out that the peace came with Christianity.
There was no need to "declaw" Christianity.